Review of Hidden Victims: The Effects of the Death Penalty on Families of the Accused

The debate over capital punishment is driven by data and stories. Social scientists have amassed and analyzed mountains of data on issues like deterrence, public opinion, racial bias, and financial cost, data that have convinced most social scientists and much of the general public that the death penalty ought to be abandoned. But support for or opposition to capital punishment is not guided by a dispassionate analysis of data alone. It is also fueled by stories. There are the stories of the murderers and their horrible crimes. There are the stories of the victims whose lives were tragically cut short, and the stories of their families who must cope not only with the loss of the person they love but must also come to terms with how the victim\u27s life was ended. The development of DNA identification has added another set of compelling stories to the debate: those of people who have been wrongly convicted of capital murder and have spent year son death row waiting to be killed for crimes they did not commit. In her groundbreaking book, Susan F. Sharp adds the stories of the families of death row prisoners to those of victims, murderers, and the wrongly convicted

METHODS AND TECHNIQUES A Method for Teaching About Verbal and Nonverbal Communication

The studv of verbal and nonverbal communication has assumed a prominent role in psychology during the past 20 years Researchers are also investigating the process of interpretation-how we use nonverbal cues to form impressions and conclusions about others. Correct interpretation is a remarkable feat because. in anv interaction. hundreds or thousands of verbal and nonverbal cues stream by us, vanishing in milliseconds. How do we discard most of these cues, seizing the few (e.g., a momentary facial expression, a vocal inflection) that tell us what another person means or is feeling? The process of interpretationis one of the most impressive and least understood of human abilities. Research attests to the importance of subtle expressive behaviors in how we communicate with others and in how we interpret their behavior. However, teaching about verbal and nonverbal behavior is a difficult challenge because the subtlety and complexity of verbal and nonverbal behavior are difficult to convey in lectures and readings. Students often come away with the impression that there is a simple codebook of nonverbal cues-that specific cues have invar-.iant and unambiguous meanings. This article describes instructional techniques that make use of the Interpersonal Perception Task (IPT). These techniques sensitize students to the variety and complexity of verbal and nonverbal cues, facilitate classroom discussion, and help students understand the process of interpreting these cues. The IPT The IPT consists of a videotape of 30 brief (20 s to 60 s) scenes. Every scene is paired with a multiple-choice question that has two or three options. The questions appear on the screen before each scene. Viewers are asked to reach a conclusion about the people who appear in the scene that follows. A 6-s blank interval on the videotape enables viewers to enter their responses on an answer sheet after each scene. The design of the IPT is best conveyed by describing a few scenes. The first scene shows a woman and a man havine a -conversation with two 7-year-old children. The question corresponding to this scene is "Who is the child of the two adults?" A second scene shows a man first telling his true life story and then, after a pause, telling a completely fabricated version of his life story. The question posed is "Which is the lie. and which is the truth?" In the IPT, accuracy can always be verified against an external standard. In the examples just mentioned, one of the children is the child of the two adults, and one of the two versions of the man's life story is a lie. For every scene, there is an objectively correct answer, which is verifiable and unambiguous. The IPT has four other important design features: 1. Every scene contains a full communications repertoire, with information presented naturalistically in all channels (verbal, vocal paralanguage, and nonverbal behavior). Because natural streams of behavior are used, clues to correct interpretation can be found in a variety of channels. 2. All scenes contain spontaneous behavior and unscripted conversation. The 30 brief scenes were extracted from longer videotaped interactions

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation for Severe Pure Aortic Regurgitation with Dedicated Devices

Aortic regurgitation (AR) is not the most common valvular disease; however, its prevalence increases with age, with more than 2% of those aged >70 years having at least moderate AR. Once symptoms related to AR develop, the prognosis becomes poor. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation for patients with pure severe AR and at prohibitive surgical risk is occasionally performed, but remains a clinical challenge due to absence of valvular calcium, large aortic root and increased stroke volume. These issues make the positioning and deployment of transcatheter aortic valve implantation devices unpredictable, with a tendency to prosthesis embolisation or malposition. To date, the only two dedicated transcatheter valves for AR are the J-Valve (JC Medical) and the JenaValve (JenaValve Technology). Both devices have been used successfully via the transapical approach. The transfemoral experience is limited to first-in-human publications and to a clinical trial dedicated to AR, for which the completion date is still pending

Aculturación y diferencias en las creencias irracionales sobre el rol femenino tradicional (o kelly women beliefs scale) en mujeres colombianas residentes en su país de origen y en estados unidos

La Escala de Creencias de las Mujeres de O'Kelly (O'Kelly Women Beliefs Scale., O'Kelly, en prensa; Ellis, 1958) fue aplicada a colombianas residentes en Cali, Colombia, colombianas residentes en el noreste de los Estados Unidos y sus contrapartes estadounidenses (20 madres y 20 hijas mayores de 17 años en cada grupo). Se encontró que existen diferencias transculturales en los puntajes totales de los tres grupos. Comparaciones posthoc (LSD) indicaron que las diferencias significativas se encuentran en las hijas colombianas residentes en Estados Unidos, comparadas con las madres colombianas residentes en Colombia y las madres e hijas estadounidenses. No existen diferencias entre madres e hijas colombianas residentes en Estados Unidos. Los resultados sugieren que el patrón de aculturación de los colombianos en los Estados Unidos es el de asimilación al país de adopción conservando aspectos de la tradición y la cultura del país de origen

Application of non-HDL cholesterol for population-based cardiovascular risk stratification: results from the Multinational Cardiovascular Risk Consortium.

BACKGROUND: The relevance of blood lipid concentrations to long-term incidence of cardiovascular disease and the relevance of lipid-lowering therapy for cardiovascular disease outcomes is unclear. We investigated the cardiovascular disease risk associated with the full spectrum of bloodstream non-HDL cholesterol concentrations. We also created an easy-to-use tool to estimate the long-term probabilities for a cardiovascular disease event associated with non-HDL cholesterol and modelled its risk reduction by lipid-lowering treatment. METHODS: In this risk-evaluation and risk-modelling study, we used Multinational Cardiovascular Risk Consortium data from 19 countries across Europe, Australia, and North America. Individuals without prevalent cardiovascular disease at baseline and with robust available data on cardiovascular disease outcomes were included. The primary composite endpoint of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease was defined as the occurrence of the coronary heart disease event or ischaemic stroke. Sex-specific multivariable analyses were computed using non-HDL cholesterol categories according to the European guideline thresholds, adjusted for age, sex, cohort, and classical modifiable cardiovascular risk factors. In a derivation and validation design, we created a tool to estimate the probabilities of a cardiovascular disease event by the age of 75 years, dependent on age, sex, and risk factors, and the associated modelled risk reduction, assuming a 50% reduction of non-HDL cholesterol. FINDINGS: Of the 524 444 individuals in the 44 cohorts in the Consortium database, we identified 398 846 individuals belonging to 38 cohorts (184 055 [48·7%] women; median age 51·0 years [IQR 40·7-59·7]). 199 415 individuals were included in the derivation cohort (91 786 [48·4%] women) and 199 431 (92 269 [49·1%] women) in the validation cohort. During a maximum follow-up of 43·6 years (median 13·5 years, IQR 7·0-20·1), 54 542 cardiovascular endpoints occurred. Incidence curve analyses showed progressively higher 30-year cardiovascular disease event-rates for increasing non-HDL cholesterol categories (from 7·7% for non-HDL cholesterol <2·6 mmol/L to 33·7% for ≥5·7 mmol/L in women and from 12·8% to 43·6% in men; p<0·0001). Multivariable adjusted Cox models with non-HDL cholesterol lower than 2·6 mmol/L as reference showed an increase in the association between non-HDL cholesterol concentration and cardiovascular disease for both sexes (from hazard ratio 1·1, 95% CI 1·0-1·3 for non-HDL cholesterol 2·6 to <3·7 mmol/L to 1·9, 1·6-2·2 for ≥5·7 mmol/L in women and from 1·1, 1·0-1·3 to 2·3, 2·0-2·5 in men). The derived tool allowed the estimation of cardiovascular disease event probabilities specific for non-HDL cholesterol with high comparability between the derivation and validation cohorts as reflected by smooth calibration curves analyses and a root mean square error lower than 1% for the estimated probabilities of cardiovascular disease. A 50% reduction of non-HDL cholesterol concentrations was associated with reduced risk of a cardiovascular disease event by the age of 75 years, and this risk reduction was greater the earlier cholesterol concentrations were reduced. INTERPRETATION: Non-HDL cholesterol concentrations in blood are strongly associated with long-term risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. We provide a simple tool for individual long-term risk assessment and the potential benefit of early lipid-lowering intervention. These data could be useful for physician-patient communication about primary prevention strategies. FUNDING: EU Framework Programme, UK Medical Research Council, and German Centre for Cardiovascular Research

Expanded protein information at SGD: new pages and proteome browser

The recent explosion in protein data generated from both directed small-scale studies and large-scale proteomics efforts has greatly expanded the quantity of available protein information and has prompted the Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD; ) to enhance the depth and accessibility of protein annotations. In particular, we have expanded ongoing efforts to improve the integration of experimental information and sequence-based predictions and have redesigned the protein information web pages. A key feature of this redesign is the development of a GBrowse-derived interactive Proteome Browser customized to improve the visualization of sequence-based protein information. This Proteome Browser has enabled SGD to unify the display of hidden Markov model (HMM) domains, protein family HMMs, motifs, transmembrane regions, signal peptides, hydropathy plots and profile hits using several popular prediction algorithms. In addition, a physico-chemical properties page has been introduced to provide easy access to basic protein information. Improvements to the layout of the Protein Information page and integration of the Proteome Browser will facilitate the ongoing expansion of sequence-specific experimental information captured in SGD, including post-translational modifications and other user-defined annotations. Finally, SGD continues to improve upon the availability of genetic and physical interaction data in an ongoing collaboration with BioGRID by providing direct access to more than 82 000 manually-curated interactions

Genome Snapshot: a new resource at the Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD) presenting an overview of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome

Sequencing and annotation of the entire Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome has made it possible to gain a genome-wide perspective on yeast genes and gene products. To make this information available on an ongoing basis, the Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD) () has created the Genome Snapshot (). The Genome Snapshot summarizes the current state of knowledge about the genes and chromosomal features of S.cerevisiae. The information is organized into two categories: (i) number of each type of chromosomal feature annotated in the genome and (ii) number and distribution of genes annotated to Gene Ontology terms. Detailed lists are accessible through SGD's Advanced Search tool (), and all the data presented on this page are available from the SGD ftp site ()