From Options to Action: A Roadmap for City Leaders to Connect Formerly Incarcerated Individuals to Work

On February 28, 2008, P/PV, along with The United States Conference of Mayors, the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU and the City of New York, convened the Mayors Summit on Reentry and Employment, where 150 city leaders, policymakers, practitioners and academics came together from more than 20 cities to share strategies for connecting formerly incarcerated people to the labor market. From Options to Action was inspired and informed by discussions that took place at the Summit, as well as P/PV's experience in the field and a review of pertinent literature. It is meant to provide a framework for reentry efforts, with guidance for cities in early planning phases as well as those implementing more advanced strategies. The report presents practical steps for achieving a more coordinated, comprehensive approach to reentry at the city level, including identifying and convening relevant stakeholders, addressing city-level barriers to employment, engaging the business community and working with county, state and federal leaders to implement collaborative approaches and produce needed policy change.Because mayors and other municipal leaders are confronted with the day-to-day reality of prison and jail reentry and see its detrimental effects in their cities, many have already begun to seek out, test and refine lasting solutions. We hope this publication will support their efforts, as they work to interrupt the revolving door of recidivism -- and offer hope to returning prisoners, their families and communities

Advanced composite aileron for L-1011 transport aircraft: Aileron manufacture

The fabrication activities of the Advanced Composite Aileron (ACA) program are discussed. These activities included detail fabrication, manufacturing development, assembly, repair and quality assurance. Five ship sets of ailerons were manufactured. The detail fabrication effort of ribs, spar and covers was accomplished on male tools to a common cure cycle. Graphite epoxy tape and fabric and syntactic epoxy materials were utilized in the fabrication. The ribs and spar were net cured and required no post cure trim. Material inconsistencies resulted in manufacturing development of the front spar during the production effort. The assembly effort was accomplished in subassembly and assembly fixtures. The manual drilling system utilized a dagger type drill in a hydraulic feed control hand drill. Coupon testing for each detail was done

Evaluating weight gain with the initiation of antiretroviral therapy: A comparison of integrase strand transfer inhibitors to other antiretrovirals

Background: Existing research has observed a potential association between antiretroviral therapy (ART) exposed individuals and a high prevalence of weight gain and obesity. However, the impact of these metabolic changes imparted by integrase strand transfer inhibitor based regimens in particular remains unclear. The objective of this study is to evaluate weight change in treatment-naive patients with newly initiated ART in a Ryan White Clinic.Methods: This IRB-approved, retrospective chart review study utilized EMR records to identify patients aged 18 years or older with a diagnosis of HIV-1, who are treatment-naive or have been without ART for >6 months, initiated on ART between January 1, 2013 and January 1, 2018, maintained therapy for ≥24 months, had weight values recorded at least twice during the study period, and were initiated on any three-drug NNRTI, INSTI, or PI-based regimen. The following data was collected, recorded without patient identifiers, and maintained confidentially: patient regimen, age, gender, ethnicity, AIDS status, plasma HIV-1 RNA (viral load), CD4+ T-cell count, weight, BMI, and BMI categories. Patient weight, BMI, and BMI categories were evaluated at baseline, 6 months, and 18 months on ART.Results: Of the 3,054 patients identified, a total of 200 patients were included in the final analysis. The patient population consisted primarily of Caucasian (55.0%) males (81.0%) with an average age of 38.3 years. At initiation of treatment, the median CD4+ T-cell count = 356.2 cells/uL, HIV-1 RNA viral load = 481,801 copies/mL, weight = 80.8 kg, and BMI = 26.2 kg/m2. For all classes evaluated, the highest percentage of patients at baseline fell within BMI category indicating normal weight (18.5-24.9 kg/m2). A total of 42 (21.0%), 50 (25.0%), and 113 (56.5%) patients were initiated on NNRTI, PI, and INSTI-based regimens, respectively. Of the 113 patients who were initiated on an INSTI-based regimen, 82 (72.5%) patients began regimens containing doultegravir, 25 (22.1%) patients began regimens containing elvitegravir, and 6 (5.3%) patients began regimens containing raltegravir. All 6 patients who were initiated on raltegravir were also on concomitant darunavir. At 18 months of therapy, a median increase in weight of 2.2 kg and BMI of 0.5 kg/m2 was associated with NNRTI-based regimens, compared to a 3.9 kg and 1.3 kg/m2 increase associated with PI-based regimens. Of the INSTI-based regimens, use of dolutegravir was associated with a 4.3 kg and 1.7 kg/m2 increase, elvitegravir a 1.1 kg and 0.4 kg/m2 increase, and raltegravir a 7.7 kg and 2.5 kg/m2 increase in weight and BMI, respectively. At 18-months, 37.8% and 50.0% of patients initiated on dolutegravir and raltegravir-based therapy, respectively, were considered obese with an associated BMI of ≥ 30 kg/m2.Conclusions: Treatment naive patients with HIV-1 initiating therapy with dolutegravir-based regimens were associated with a higher incidence of increase in weight and BMI at 18-months than those initiating elvitegravir, NNRTI, and PI-based regimens. Those initiating raltegravir-based regimens, which also contained the PI darunavir, were associated with the highest incidence of increase in weight and BMI at 18-months compared to all other regimens. Further study is recommended

In Defense of the Nigerian Homeland

Recently, Nigeria has experienced various acts of domestic terrorism and kidnapping that may be rooted in many forms of motivations and agitations. These aggressions have resulted in homegrown bloodshed, émigré aggression, or even organized international network assaults against the population. The scourge of these terrorist activities has continued to weaken the Nigerian character or moral fiber. While the government is trying to combat these offenses caused by extremist activities, there are still remedies that have not been implemented prudently or applied properly. In this article, we propose various forms of the repertoire of actions which the government can use to effectively fight and combat terrorism in a democratic Nigeria

Classification of hyperbolic Dynkin diagrams, root lengths and Weyl group orbits

We give a criterion for a Dynkin diagram, equivalently a generalized Cartan matrix, to be symmetrizable. This criterion is easily checked on the Dynkin diagram. We obtain a simple proof that the maximal rank of a Dynkin diagram of compact hyperbolic type is 5, while the maximal rank of a symmetrizable Dynkin diagram of compact hyperbolic type is 4. Building on earlier classification results of Kac, Kobayashi-Morita, Li and Sa\c{c}lio\~{g}lu, we present the 238 hyperbolic Dynkin diagrams in ranks 3-10, 142 of which are symmetrizable. For each symmetrizable hyperbolic generalized Cartan matrix, we give a symmetrization and hence the distinct lengths of real roots in the corresponding root system. For each such hyperbolic root system we determine the disjoint orbits of the action of the Weyl group on real roots. It follows that the maximal number of disjoint Weyl group orbits on real roots in a hyperbolic root system is 4.Comment: J. Phys. A: Math. Theor (to appear

Correction to: First results on survival from a large Phase 3 clinical trial of an autologous dendritic cell vaccine in newly diagnosed glioblastoma

© 2018 The Author(s). Following publication of the original article [1], the authors reported an error in the spelling of one of the author names. In this Correction the incorrect and correct author names are indicated and the author name has been updated in the original publication. The authors also reported an error in the Methods section of the original article. In this Correction the incorrect and correct versions of the affected sentence are indicated. The original article has not been updated with regards to the error in the Methods section

Human immunoglobulin G levels of viruses and associated glioma risk

Few consistent etiological factors have been identified for primary brain tumors. Inverse associations to asthma and low levels of varicella-zoster virus, immunoglobulin (Ig) levels in prevalent cases have indicted a role for the immune system in the development of glioma. Because samples from prevalent cases of glioma could be influenced by treatments such as steroids and chemotherapy, we investigated pre-diagnostic samples from three large Scandinavian cohorts. To test the hypothesis that immune response levels to these viruses are associated etiologically with glioma risk, we investigated pre-diagnostic immunoglobulin levels for cytomegalovirus (CMV), varicella-zoster virus (VZV), adenovirus (Ad), and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) including the nuclear antigen (EBNA1) using plasma samples from 197 cases of adult glioma and 394 controls collected from population-based cohorts in Sweden and Denmark. Low VZV IgG levels were marginally significantly more common in glioma cases than the controls (odds ratio (OR) = 0.68, 95% CI 0.41–1.13) for the fourth compared with the first quartile (p = 0.06 for trend). These results were more prominent when analyzing cases with blood sampling at least 2 years before diagnosis (OR = 0.63, 95% CI 0.37–1.08) (p = 0.03). No association with glioma risk was observed for CMV, EBV, and adenovirus

Evaluation of SLC11A1 as an inflammatory bowel disease candidate gene

BACKGROUND: Significant evidence suggests that a promoter polymorphism withinthe gene SLC11A1 is involved in susceptibility to both autoimmune and infectious disorders. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether SLC11A1 has a role in the susceptibility to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by characterizing a promoter polymorphism within the gene and two short tandem repeat (STR) markers in genetic proximity to SLC11A1. METHODS: The studied population consisted of 484 Caucasians with IBD, 144 population controls, and 348 non-IBD-affected first-degree relatives of IBD patients. IBD subjects were re-categorized at the sub-disease phenotypic level to characterize possible SLC11A1 genotype-phenotype correlations. Polymorphic markers were amplified from germline DNA and typed using gel electrophoresis. Genotype-phenotype correlations were defined using case-control, haplotype, and family-based association studies. RESULTS: This study did not provide compelling evidence for SLC11A1 disease association; most significantly, there was no apparent evidence of SLC11A1 promoter allele association in the studied Crohn's disease population. CONCLUSION: Our results therefore refute previous studies that have shown SLC11A1 promoter polymorphisms are involved in susceptibility to this form of IBD