The capability maturity model as a criminal justice process improvement paradigm

Background: The administrators, managers, and leaders of criminal justice organizations experience a plethora of processes that impact the strategic, tactical, and operational facets of their respective organizations. Sound processes are central to effectively and efficiently managing criminal justice organizations and for facilitating the optimal operations of the organization. Such management characteristics are necessary to render public services towards the goals of deterring crime and maintaining societal order. Administrating and managing criminal justice organizations involves paradigms that favor process improvement and quality of processes. Existing methods include the Compstat paradigm Total Quality Management, business process management, business process improvement, business process reengineering, standards, legislation, policy, and Six Sigma. However, such paradigms not approach process improvement from the unique perspective of process maturity as a foundational basis. Additionally, no solitary foundational basis exists that uniquely addresses organizational process improvement issues, regarding criminal justice entities, from the perspective of evolutionary process maturation through time. This research examines the potential of adapting the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMi) as a foundational process improvement framework among criminal justice organizations. Within the CMMi framework, process improvement begins from a state of random, ad hoc processes and culminates in a state of highly optimized processes. Through time, process maturation occurs through five primary stages sequentially: 1) random, 2) managed, 3) defined/specific, 4) quantitatively managed, and 5) optimized. This research explores the potential of leveraging the CMMi paradigm as a form of organizational process improvement within the criminal justice domain. Scope of the Study: This research investigated the potential for adapting the Capability Maturity Model (Integrated) (CMMi) within the criminal justice domain. A derivative maturity model framework, the Criminal Justice Maturity Model (CJMM), was crafted using the CMMi concept as its foundational premise. A Likert scale survey was implemented to investigate the perceptions of personnel regarding process improvement initiatives and their work settings. This study was constrained to the criminal justice domains of the states of Alabama and Mississippi. Data processing encompassed demographic descriptions of the survey instrument and the received responses, ANOVA, Chi-Square analysis, and the Cronbach Method. Stratifications involved separating the survey responses into classifications of Alabama versus Mississippi entities, urban versus rural entities, and management versus non-management entities. Findings and Conclusions: The conclusions of this research failed to show that all five levels of the maturity model framework appear to be separately perceived among the respondents. Therefore, per each individual stage of the maturity model framework, this research failed to show conclusively that the complete maturity model framework is adaptable among administrative settings in the criminal justice domain and that process maturity issues among respondent settings are addressed via a process maturity framework. Because this research failed to show the perceived characteristics of all five maturity levels of the maturity model framework separately, it is concluded that the criminal justice administrative settings of the respondents do not conform completely to the tenets of the CMMi paradigm. Future studies were recommended to pursue additional approaches of this research project. This study represents an initial starting point from which several future endeavors may be initiated.Criminology and Security ScienceD. Litt. et Phil. (Police Science

Assessing Male vs. Female Business Student Perceptions of Plagiarism at a Southern Institution of Higher Education

Plagiarism, cheating, and academic dishonesty affect institutions of higher education. This study examines student perceptions of plagiarism within a Southern, Division-II teaching institution. This study employed a five-point Likert-scale to examine differences of perceptions between male versus female business students. Two statistically significant outcomes were observed between males and females involving the notions that plagiarism is perceived as a necessary evil and that plagiarism is illegal. Respectively, the analyses of the means showed that both male and female respondents tended toward disagreement concerning whether plagiarism is a necessary evil and neutrality regarding whether plagiarism is illegal

Revisiting Violence in Rural Academic Settings: A School Killing Impacting Livingston High School and Considerations of Policy and Programs

This article provides a discussion of violence with respect to educational environments involving a school shooting incident.  This article examines a rural shooting incident that occurred in Livingston, Alabama.  Discussions regarding the origins of school violence, preventive strategies, and violence control strategies are considered with respect to the crafting of policies and programs regarding the deterrence of school violence.  Perspectives of campus violence are presented with respect to a rural high school.  Various conclusions and recommendations regarding campus safety and campus security are provided

Assessing Domestic vs. International Student Perceptions and Attitudes of Plagiarism

The authors examined students’ perceptions of plagiarism from a higher education teaching institution within the U.S. southeast. This study employed a five-point Likert-scale to examine differences of perceptions between domestic versus international students. Statistically significant outcomes were observed regarding the notions that plagiarism is a necessary evil and that plagiarism is illegal. Respectively, the analyses of the means showed that respondents tended toward disagreement concerning the former notion and neutrality regarding the latter notion

High prevalence of NMDA receptor IgA/IgM antibodies in different dementia types

OBJECTIVE: To retrospectively determine the frequency of N-Methyl-D-Aspartate (NMDA) receptor (NMDAR) autoantibodies in patients with different forms of dementia. METHODS: Clinical characterization of 660 patients with dementia, neurodegenerative disease without dementia, other neurological disorders and age-matched healthy controls combined with retrospective analysis of serum or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for the presence of NMDAR antibodies. Antibody binding to receptor mutants and the effect of immunotherapy were determined in a subgroup of patients. RESULTS: Serum NMDAR antibodies of IgM, IgA, or IgG subtypes were detected in 16.1% of 286 dementia patients (9.5% IgM, 4.9% IgA, and 1.7% IgG) and in 2.8% of 217 cognitively healthy controls (1.9% IgM and 0.9% IgA). Antibodies were rarely found in CSF. The highest prevalence of serum antibodies was detected in patients with “unclassified dementia” followed by progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal syndrome, Parkinson’s disease-related dementia, and primary progressive aphasia. Among the unclassified dementia group, 60% of 20 patients had NMDAR antibodies, accompanied by higher frequency of CSF abnormalities, and subacute or fluctuating disease progression. Immunotherapy in selected prospective cases resulted in clinical stabilization, loss of antibodies, and improvement of functional imaging parameters. Epitope mapping showed varied determinants in patients with NMDAR IgA-associated cognitive decline. INTERPRETATION: Serum IgA/IgM NMDAR antibodies occur in a significant number of patients with dementia. Whether these antibodies result from or contribute to the neurodegenerative disorder remains unknown, but our findings reveal a subgroup of patients with high antibody levels who can potentially benefit from immunotherapy

Geospatial and Machine Learning Regression Techniques for Analyzing Food Access Impact on Health Issues in Sustainable Communities

Food access is a major key component in food security, as it is every individual’s right to proper access to a nutritious and affordable food supply. Low access to healthy food sources influences people’s diet and activity habits. Guilford County in North Carolina has a high ranking in low food security and a high rate of health issues such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to investigate the geospatial correlation between health issues and food access areas. The secondary objective was to quantitatively compare food access areas and heath issues’ descriptive statistics. The tertiary objective was to compare several machine learning techniques and find the best model that fit health issues against various food access variables with the highest performance accuracy. In this study, we adopted a food-access perspective to show that communities that have residents who have equitable access to healthy food options are typically less vulnerable to health-related disasters. We propose a methodology to help policymakers lower the number of health issues in Guilford County by analyzing such issues via correlation with respect to food access. Specifically, we conducted a geographic information system mapping methodology to examine how access to healthy food options influenced health and mortality outcomes in one of the largest counties in the state of North Carolina. We created geospatial maps representing food deserts—areas with scarce access to nutritious food; food swamps—areas with more availability of unhealthy food options compared to healthy food options; and food oases—areas with a relatively higher availability of healthy food options than unhealthy options. Our results presented a positive correlation coefficient of R2 = 0.819 among obesity and the independent variables of transportation access, and population. The correlation coefficient matrix analysis helped to identify a strong negative correlation between obesity and median income. Overall, this study offers valuable insights that can help health authorities develop preemptive preparedness for healthcare disasters

Badanie modelu dojrzałości procesu jako paradygmatu doskonalenia procesu reklamowego

This article examined a variant of the Capability Maturity Model integrated (CMMi) through the lens of advertising process improvement. The population and sample were taken from a national array of U.S. marketing organizations. Using ANOVA, a 0.05 significance level, and a stratification of service marketing organizations versus product marketing organizations, the study showed a statistically significant difference (F(1, 304) = 4.03; p = 0.04; ω2 = 0.00) regarding the hypothesis representing the notion that processes were potentially sporadic, chaotic, and ad hoc. This notion corresponded to the first maturity level of the examined process maturity framework. With respect to the Likert-scale data representing the first maturity level, the successive means analysis showed that both service marketing firms (M = 2.99) and product marketing firms (M = 2.74) reported neutrality regarding whether processes were deemed sporadic, chaotic, and ad hoc. Thus, the respondents perceived no evidence of the first maturity level among the queried work settings. Future studies may examine different stratifications of marketing firms (e.g., for-profit versus non-profit; domestic versus international; and so on) to better explore the proposed advertising maturity model.Niniejszy artykuł poświęcony jest badaniu wariantu modelu Capability Maturity Model integrated (CMMi) z perspektywy doskonalenia procesu reklamowego. Populacja i próba zostały pozyskane z narodowego zasobu amerykańskich organizacji marketingowych. Z zastosowaniem ANOVA, poziomu istotności 0.05 oraz stratyfikacji organizacji usług marketingowych, badanie wykazało statystycznie istotną różnicę (F(1, 304) = 4.03; p = 0.04; ω2 = 0.00) w odniesieniu do hipotezy reprezentującej twierdzenie, że procesy były sporadyczne, chaotyczne i nieprzygotowane. To twierdzenie odpowiada pierwszemu poziomowi dojrzałości badanego schematu dojrzałości procesu. W odniesieniu do danych na skali Likerta reprezentujących pierwszy poziom dojrzałości, analiza kolejnych średnich wykazała, że zarówno firmy dostarczające usługi marketingowe (M = 2.99) jak też firmy zajmujące się marketingiem produktu (M = 2.74) wskazywały na neutralność w odniesieniu do tego czy procesy były uważane za sporadyczne, chaotyczne i nieprzygotowane. Zatem, respondenci nie dostrzegli dowodów na pierwszy poziom dojrzałości w badanych układach pracy. Przyszłe analizy mogą zbadać inne stratyfikacje firm marketingowych (n.p. dla zysku kontra non-profit; narodowe kontra międzynarodowe; i tak dalej) w celu lepszego zbadania proponowanego modelu dojrzałości reklamowej

Assessing the Recovery Aftermaths of Selected Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico

This research examined quantitatively in-port grain loading levels during the periods preceding and succeeding selected human-made and natural disasters among U.S. Gulf Coast ports. The array of selected disasters consisted of the 2010 British Petroleum oil spill, the 2011 Mississippi River flood, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Gustav, and Hurricane Isaac. The outcomes of the analyses showed that the examined in-port Gulf Coast grain loading activities have not fully recovered and achieved the level of normalcy that existed before the examined cataclysms