Ensuring That Punishment Does, in Fact, Fit the Crime

The United States imprisons a greater proportion of its own population than any other country in the world.2 A legal framework provides protections for those individuals who are incarcerated, but that framework is flawed. The jurisprudence distinguishes pretrial detainees (who have not been convicted) from convicted persons (who are serving a sentence).3 Based on that distinction, different standards apply to conditions of confinement and use of force cases brought by pretrial detainees and those brought by convicted persons.4 That distinction–and the resulting disparate application of legal standards–does not comport with the reality of incarceration, the concept of punishment, or the principle that the Constitution still applies behind bars. This Note argues that, as Justice Thomas has long believed, the Eighth Amendment, properly understood, covers only the specific sentence declared by a sentencing court. Beyond that specific sentence, a convicted person has a substantive due process right to be free from unsanctioned punishment; and therefore, any of his claims should be governed by the more protective due process standard that pretrial detainees enjoy

Compassion Fatigue and Educational Preparation Among Mississippi Child Welfare Workers

The prevalence of trauma among youth involved with the child welfare system affects not only these individuals but also child welfare service providers, namely social workers, who experience this trauma indirectly through interaction with the children. This exposure places service providers at risk for compassion fatigue, in which these workers themselves experience trauma symptoms or are less able to complete job tasks. It is especially important to address the issues of negative personal reactions among this population in order to best care for social service workers in Mississippi and identify strategies to effectively improve Mississippi’s child welfare system. As such, the researcher investigated the following questions: “What is the prevalence and manifestation of compassion fatigue among child welfare workers in Mississippi?” and “How does educational preparation mitigate the occurrence of compassion fatigue among child welfare workers in Mississippi?” Thirty-eight part-time students in the MSW program at The University of Southern Mississippi currently employed by the Mississippi Department of Human Services were surveyed using the Professional Quality of Life scale. Ultimately, the participants did not report scores of burnout and secondary traumatic stress that reached or exceeded the national median, indicating low prevalence of symptoms and low risk for burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Moreover, educational preparation via curriculum, agency training, and supervisory support did not have a statistically significant relationship with rates of compassion fatigue, although higher levels of burnout correlated with lower levels of supervisory support

Shades of Grey: Ethical Dilemmas

No abstract available

Investigating the impact of cleaning treatments on polystyrene using SEM, AFM and ToF–SIMS

Concerns about the stability of plastic artefacts are commonly expressed when discussing the conservation of modern materials. One of the factors affecting the degradation of plastics is the presence of soil, degradation products and other contaminants on the surface. Cleaning treatments for plastic artefacts may therefore increase their stability as well as improving their visual appearance. While past studies have shown that dry, aqueous and solvent cleaning can visibly damage a plastic surface, the chemical and physical changes occurring to the surface at the micro-scale have been largely unexplored. In this work time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF–SIMS) has been used in conjunction with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to examine the effect of cleaning treatments on the surface of sheet polystyrene. Chemometric analysis of the ToF–SIMS data reveals the presence of surfactant residues and contamination from cleaning agents while physical damage in the form of scratching has been characterised using AFM and SEM. It is anticipated such work will assist in informing future conservation treatments for plastics

Electronic Storage and Interchange of Geotechnical Engineering Data

School of Civil and Environmental Engineerin

Investment in Cellulosic Biofuel Refineries: Do Waivable Biofuel Mandates Matter?

We develop a conceptual model to study the impact of mandate policies on stimulating investment in cellulosic biofuel refineries. In a two-period framework, we compare the first-period investment level (FIL) under three scenarios: laissez-faire, non-waivable mandate (NWM) policy, and waivable mandate (WM) policy. Results show that when plant-level marginal costs are increasing then both NWM policy and WM policy may stimulate FIL. The WM policy has a smaller impact than does the NWM policy. When the plant-level marginal costs are constants, however, WM policy does not increase FIL but does increase the expected profit of more efficient investors

Formation of Polyglutamine Inclusions in a Wide Range of Non-CNS Tissues in the HdhQ150 Knock-In Mouse Model of Huntington's Disease

BACKGROUND:Huntington's disease (HD) is an inherited progressive neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the ubiquitously expressed HD gene resulting in an abnormally long polyglutamine repeat in the huntingtin protein. Polyglutamine inclusions are a hallmark of the neuropathology of HD. We have previously shown that inclusion pathology is also present in the peripheral tissues of the R6/2 mouse model of HD which expresses a small N-terminal fragment of mutant huntingtin. To determine whether this peripheral pathology is a consequence of the aberrant expression of this N-terminal fragment, we extend this analysis to the genetically precise knock-in mouse model of HD, HdhQ150, which expresses mutant mouse huntingtin. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We have previously standardized the CAG repeat size and strain background of the R6/2 and HdhQ150 knock-in mouse models and found that they develop a comparable and widespread neuropathology. To determine whether HdhQ150 knock-in mice also develop peripheral inclusion pathology, homozygous Hdh(Q150/Q150) mice were perfusion fixed at 22 months of age, and tissues were processed for histology and immunohistochemistry with the anti-huntingtin antibody S830. The peripheral inclusion pathology was almost identical to that found in R6/2 mice at 12 weeks of age with minor differences in inclusion abundance. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:The highly comparable peripheral inclusion pathology that is present in both the R6/2 and HdhQ150 knock-in models of HD indicates that the presence of peripheral inclusions in R6/2 mice is not a consequence of the aberrant expression of an N-terminal huntingtin protein. It remains to be determined whether peripheral inclusions are a pathological feature of the human disease. Both mouse models carry CAG repeats that cause childhood disease in humans, and therefore, inclusion pathology may be a feature of the childhood rather than the adult forms of HD. It is important to establish the extent to which peripheral pathology causes the peripheral symptoms of HD from the perspective of a mechanistic understanding and future treatment options

The SKA Particle Array Prototype: The First Particle Detector at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory

We report on the design, deployment, and first results from a scintillation detector deployed at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO). The detector is a prototype for a larger array -- the Square Kilometre Array Particle Array (SKAPA) -- planned to allow the radio-detection of cosmic rays with the Murchison Widefield Array and the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array. The prototype design has been driven by stringent limits on radio emissions at the MRO, and to ensure survivability in a desert environment. Using data taken from Nov.\ 2018 to Feb.\ 2019, we characterize the detector response while accounting for the effects of temperature fluctuations, and calibrate the sensitivity of the prototype detector to through-going muons. This verifies the feasibility of cosmic ray detection at the MRO. We then estimate the required parameters of a planned array of eight such detectors to be used to trigger radio observations by the Murchison Widefield Array.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, 3 table

The Depth Resolution of Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometers: A Critical Evaluation

The ability of five Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) instruments to resolve thin layer and modulated dopant structures by depth profiling has been assessed. Three magnetic sector instruments (two Cameca IMS 3f\u27s and one 4f), which use optical gating and a high extraction field, were used, together with two different quadrupole based instruments (EVA 2000 and Atomika) , which use electronic gating and a low extraction field. The test structure, a thirty-one peak boron-in-silicon modulating dopant structure, was grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). In all the depth profiles the near surface peaks appeared narrow and asymmetric, being broadened only by fundamental processes (e.g., atomic mixing and recoil implantation). As the profiles proceeded, however, further broadening was observed. This phenomena varied markedly both from one instrument to another and from one experiment to another on the same instrument. In some cases the loss of depth resolution with depth was manifested by broadening mainly in the leading edge, in others the trailing edge, of successive boron peaks. The \u27order of merit\u27 of the instruments thus depended on the parameter used to define depth resolution. The loss of peak (depth) resolution with depth was due to variations in primary ion beam density across the gated area of the crater, which led to uneven etching. The changes in peak shape with depth can be explained by a numerical model of the etching process. These observations dictate that the depth resolution of a SIMS instrument should not be measured in terms of a single interface width, such as the leading or trailing edge