Disproportionate Minority Contact: Alameda County

This FOCUS explores racial and ethnic disproportion in the juvenile justice system. A case study of Alameda County, California, examines Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) at various points in the system and its implications. The study is juxtaposed to other societal conditions to explore patterns and potential connections

Summary of Findings: Released Time Bible Education

Released Time Religious Education is a program started in 1914 by a public school superintendent in Gary, Indiana. The program, which was approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952, is primarily designed to teach religious education during the school day to public school students off campus with parental permission. A key by-product has been improved academic performance and the development of positive moral character among youth. While many incidents of improvement have been documented, there previously has been no major independent study of Released Time. School Ministries, Inc., a nonprofit organization that has been encouraging the expansion of Released Time nationally, engaged the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) to do an independent program evaluation in cooperation with the Oakland, California, Released Time program

Representations of swine flu: Perspectives from a Malaysian pig farm

© The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Novel influenza viruses are seen, internationally, as posing considerable health challenges, but public responses to such viruses are often rooted in cultural representations of disease and risk. However, little research has been conducted in locations associated with the origin of a pandemic. We examined representations and risk perceptions associated with swine flu amongst 120 Malaysian pig farmers. Thirty-seven per cent of respondents felt at particular risk of infection, two-thirds were somewhat or very concerned about being infected. Those respondents who were the most anxious believed particular societal “out-groups” (homosexuals, the homeless and prostitutes) to be at higher infection risk. Although few (4%) reported direct discrimination, 46% claimed friends had avoided them since the swine flu outbreak. Findings are discussed in the context of evolutionary, social representations and terror management theories of response to pandemic threat

Adapting Quickly to Emerging Forms of Warfare in the Indian Context

The military-strategic community is awash with former practitioners, strategic thinkers, and policymakers whose job it is to look at future trends in warfare, influenced as they are by the seductive pull of the latest technological game-changer. In this cacophony of ideas and contestable claims, new means of waging war, for mostly the same old reasons, are discernible and can be grasped by strategic audiences who then look at the specific context in which some of these very ideas could fructify into doable strategic effort for a nation’s overall wellbeing. This paper has tried to view the Indian strategic context without delving into too many specific recommendations for change in our policies, other than to crystallise them, or new structures in the military organisation as it exists. Instead, it tries to view this context through a wide-angle lens, searching for the pros and cons of change in the Sub-continental strategic-military future, and how our top leadership and military commanders could be better prepared, mentally as well as in material capabilities, for a war of the future

MAKING MISTAKES WITH MACHINES

MAKING MISTAKES WITH MACHINE

Non-typhoidal Salmonella bacteraemia: Epidemiology, clinical characteristics and its' association with severe immunosuppression

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Non-typhoidal <it>Salmonella </it>(NTS) is increasingly recognized as an important pathogen associated with bacteraemia especially in immunosuppressed patients. However, there is limited data specifically describing the clinical characteristics and outcome amongst the immunosuppressed patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 56,707 blood culture samples and 5,450 stool samples were received by the microbiology laboratory at a tertiary referral hospital in Malaysia, during a 4-year study period. Out of these samples, 55 non-duplicate NTS isolates were identified from blood and 121 from stool. A retrospective analysis of the 55 patients with NTS bacteraemia was then conducted to determine the predominant NTS serovars causing bacteraemia and its' blood invasive potential, epidemiological data, clinical characteristics and antimicrobial susceptibility. Patients were then grouped as immunosuppressed and non-immunosuppressed to determine the association of severe immunosuppression on clinical features. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 15.0) using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test, Fisher's exact test or Chi-squared test. The odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. The <it>P</it>-value < 0.05 (two-tailed) was taken as the level of significance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Out of 55 NTS bacteraemia cases identified, 81.8% (45/55) were community-acquired. <it>Salmonella enterica </it>serovar Enteritidis had the highest blood invasiveness. An extra-intestinal focus of infection was noted in 30.9% (17/55) of the patients, most commonly involving the lungs and soft tissue. 90.9% (50/55) of the patients had an underlying disease and 65.5% (36/55) of the patients had severe clinical immunosuppressive condition with malignancy and HIV being the most common. Immunosuppressed patients had higher mortality (P = 0.04), presented more commonly with primary bacteraemia (P = 0.023), leukopenia (P = 0.001) and opportunistic infections (P = 0.01). In contrast, atherosclerotic conditions (P = 0.015), mycotic aneurysms (0.037) and gastroenteritis (P = 0.03), were significantly more common in the non-immunosuppressed patients. The non-immunosuppressed group also had a higher proportion of older patients (>50 years) with a significantly higher median age (64 versus 36.5 years; p = 0.005).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Patients with severe clinical immunosuppression had higher mortality, presented more commonly with primary bacteraemia, leukopenia and opportunistic infections and absence of gastroenteritis. Early identification and prompt medical treatment can be life saving because of the high mortality and morbidity associated with this disease especially in the immunosuppressed patients.</p

E-Health Point: Water Distribution & Health Insurance Report

eHealthpoint (EHP) clinics deliver improved health and productivity to low income populations in India using broadband wireless to provide affordable point-of-care medical services & clean drinking water facilities. Clinics operates in rural areas and small towns that do not have ready access to quality medical services such as: medical consultations, genuine medicines, reliable diagnostics, and safe drinking water. EHP focuses on regions that contain households where one or more family members earns at least $2 per day. In India, the number of people that can potentially benefit from EHP innovation is estimated to be more than 200 million

Is acetylene essential for carbon dust formation?

We have carried out an investigation of the chemical evolution of gas in different carbon-rich circumstellar environments. Previous studies have tended to invoke terrestrial flame chemistries, based on acetylene (C2H2) combustion to model the formation of carbon dust, via Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). In this work we pay careful attention to the accurate calculation of the molecular photoreaction rate coefficients to ascertain whether there is a universal formation mechanism for carbon dust in strongly irradiated astrophysical environments. A large number of possible chemical channels may exist for the formation of PAHs, so we have concentrated on the viability of the formation of the smallest building block species, C2H2, in a variety of carbon-rich stellar outflows. C2H2 is very sensitive to dissociation by UV radiation. This sensitivity is tested, using models of the time-dependent chemistry. We find that C2H2 formation is sensitive to some of the physical parameters and that in some known sources of dust-formation it can never attain appreciable abundances. Therefore multiple (and currently ill-defined) dust-formation channels must exist.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 5 table