555 research outputs found
Intimate and Familial Murder: Examining Trends in Domestic Violence Homicides in Oklahoma from 2010-2014
Domestic violence homicides, particularly involving intimate partners, have been the subject of research for many decades. What has been lacking in the literature, however, is an in-depth comparison of the many types of relationships that fall under the umbrella definition for domestic violence. Such relationships include parents, siblings, grandparents, and other family members, as well as roommates. This study focuses on the trends and characteristics of the domestic violence homicides that occurred in the state of Oklahoma from January 2010 through December 2014. A total of 1318 homicides were reviewed and 368 were determined to meet the definition of domestic violence homicide. For this study, domestic violence is defined by Title 22 of the Oklahoma State Statutes in the Protection from Domestic Abuse Act. For each domestic violence case, several pieces of information were collected. Data collected were: demographics of the victim and offender, relationship between victim and offender, the mechanism of injury that caused the death, the number of injuries to the victim, drug or alcohol use by either the victim or offender, and the county where the death occurred. The collected variables were then analyzed using 2-way contingency tables and Pearson’s chi-square to test significant associations between the variables. Significant association were found between: offender type and the sex of the offender, offender type and sex of the victim, offender type and race of the offender, race of the offender and mechanism of injury, offender’s age and mechanism of injury, offender type and mechanism of injury, offender type and number of injuries to the victim, mechanism of injury and sex of the victim, mechanism of injury and race of the victim, mechanism of injury and age of the victim, offender type and drug and/or alcohol use of the victim or offender, and mechanism of injury and drug and/or alcohol use of the victim or offender. The conclusions in this study do not match those reported in recent studies on national data in aspects concerning mechanism of injury and perpetrator types. Furthermore, this study illustrates the prevalence of family homicides despite their exclusion from the literature on domestic violence.Forensic Scienc
Multimode solutions of first-order elliptic quasilinear systems obtained from Riemann invariants
Two new approaches to solving first-order quasilinear elliptic systems of
PDEs in many dimensions are proposed. The first method is based on an analysis
of multimode solutions expressible in terms of Riemann invariants, based on
links between two techniques, that of the symmetry reduction method and of the
generalized method of characteristics. A variant of the conditional symmetry
method for constructing this type of solution is proposed. A specific feature
of that approach is an algebraic-geometric point of view, which allows the
introduction of specific first-order side conditions consistent with the
original system of PDEs, leading to a generalization of the Riemann invariant
method for solving elliptic homogeneous systems of PDEs. A further
generalization of the Riemann invariants method to the case of inhomogeneous
systems, based on the introduction of specific rotation matrices, enables us to
weaken the integrability condition. It allows us to establish a connection
between the structure of the set of integral elements and the possibility of
constructing specific classes of simple mode solutions. These theoretical
considerations are illustrated by the examples of an ideal plastic flow in its
elliptic region and a system describing a nonlinear interaction of waves and
particles. Several new classes of solutions are obtained in explicit form,
including the general integral for the latter system of equations
Enhancing the Thermal Stability of Carbon Nanomaterials with DNA
Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have recently been utilized as fillers that reduce the flammability and enhance the strength and thermal conductivity of material composites. Enhancing the thermal stability of SWCNTs is crucial when these materials are applied to high temperature applications. In many instances, SWCNTs are applied to composites with surface coatings that are toxic to living organisms. Alternatively, single-stranded DNA, a naturally occurring biological polymer, has recently been utilized to form singly-dispersed hybrids with SWCNTs as well as suppress their known toxicological effects. These hybrids have shown unrivaled stabilities in both aqueous suspension or as a dried material. Furthermore, DNA has certain documented flame-retardant effects due to the creation of a protective char upon heating in the presence of oxygen. Herein, using various thermogravimetric analytical techniques, we find that single-stranded DNA has a significant flame-retardant effect on the SWCNTs, and effectively enhances their thermal stability. Hybridization with DNA results in the elevation of the thermal decomposition temperature of purified SWCNTs in excess of 200 °C. We translate this finding to other carbon nanomaterials including multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and fullerene (C60), and show similar effects upon complexation with DNA. The rate of thermal decomposition of the SWCNTs was also explored and found to significantly depend upon the sequence of DNA that was used
Urinary Allantoin as an Estimate of Microbial Protein Synthesis
Allantoin excretion in the urine was evaluated as a marker for bacterial protein production in lactating and dry cows grazing Sandhills range and meadows. Allantoin excretion declined with season as diet digestibility declined. Bacterial protein predicted from allantoin was significantly related (R2 = .62) to bacterial protein predicted by NRC. Urinary allantoin has potential as a tool to predict bacterial protein production in grazing cattle
Microbial Protein Synthesis and Efficiency in Nursing Calves
Microbial protein synthesis and efficiency were estimated in springborn nursing calves grazing native range and subirrigated meadow. Forage intake increased from 1.5 lb/ day (0.6% BW) in June to 5.9 lb/day (1.2% BW) in September while milk intake decreased over the same period. Microbial protein (MCP) synthesis increased from 67 g/day in May to 278 g/day right before weaning in September. Urinary allantoin was used as a marker. Efficiency of MCP synthesis was approximately 19% of forage digestible organic matter (OM) intake
Review: Towards the agroecological management of ruminants, pigs and poultry through the development of sustainable breeding programmes. II. Breeding strategies
Agroecology uses ecological processes and local resources rather than chemical inputs to develop productive and resilient livestock and crop production systems. In this context, breeding innovations are necessary to obtain animals that are both productive and adapted to a broad range of local contexts and diversity of systems. Breeding strategies to promote agroecological systems are similar for different animal species. However, current practices differ regarding the breeding of ruminants, pigs and poultry. Ruminant breeding is still an open system where farmers continue to choose their own breeds and strategies. Conversely, pig and poultry breeding is more or less the exclusive domain of international breeding companies which supply farmers with hybrid animals. Innovations in breeding strategies must therefore be adapted to the different species. In developed countries, reorienting current breeding programmes seems to be more effective than developing programmes dedicated to agroecological systems that will struggle to be really effective because of the small size of the populations currently concerned by such systems. Particular attention needs to be paid to determining the respective usefulness of cross-breeding v. straight breeding strategies of well-adapted local breeds. While cross-breeding may offer some immediate benefits in terms of improving certain traits that enable the animals to adapt well to local environmental conditions, it may be difficult to sustain these benefits in the longer term and could also induce an important loss of genetic diversity if the initial pure-bred populations are no longer produced. As well as supporting the value of within-breed diversity, we must preserve between-breed diversity in order to maintain numerous options for adaptation to a variety of production environments and contexts. This may involve specific public policies to maintain and characterize local breeds (in terms of both phenotypes and genotypes), which could be used more effectively if they benefited from the scientific and technical resources currently available for more common breeds. Last but not least, public policies need to enable improved information concerning the genetic resources and breeding tools available for the agroecological management of livestock production systems, and facilitate its assimilation by farmers and farm technicians
Screening for Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Type 2A with DNA-Polymorphism Analysis
Nine chromosome 10 DNA markers (FNRB, D10S34, D10Z1, MEN203, D10S94, RBP3, D10S15, MBP [48.11], D10S22) were typed in two large Canadian pedigrees with multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2A (MEN 2A). These markers and the gene for MEN 2A (MEN2A) are believed to be in one linkage group spanning approximately 15 cM (male). MEN203 and D10S94 were informative and tightly linked to MEN2A with no recombinants observed in 26 meiotic events. D10S15 (MCK2), widely used in DNA genotyping predictions, demonstrated two recombinants in these two families. The use of multiple flanking markers increases both the likelihood of informativeness and the accuracy of risk assessments for predictive testing. We were able to assign a risk estimate for all 10 at-risk individuals
An extraction method for nitrogen isotope measurement of ammonium in a low-concentration environment
Ammonia (NH3) participates in the nucleation and growth
of aerosols and thus plays a major role in atmospheric transparency,
pollution, health, and climate-related issues. Understanding its emission
sources through nitrogen stable isotopes is therefore a major focus of
current work to mitigate the adverse effects of aerosol formation. Since ice
cores can preserve the past chemical composition of the atmosphere for
centuries, they are a top tool of choice for understanding past NH3
emissions through ammonium (NH4+), the form of NH3 archived
in ice. However, the remote or high-altitude sites where glaciers and ice
sheets are typically localized have relatively low fluxes of atmospheric
NH4+ deposition, which makes ice core samples very sensitive to
laboratory NH3 contamination. As a result, accurate techniques for
identifying and tracking NH3 emissions through concentration and
isotopic measurements are highly sought to constrain uncertainties in
NH3 emission inventories and atmospheric reactivity unknowns. Here, we
describe a solid-phase extraction method for NH4+ samples of low
concentration that limits external contamination and produces precise
isotopic results. By limiting NH3atm exposure with a scavenging fume
hood and concentrating the targeted NH4+ through ion exchange
resin, we successfully achieve isotopic analysis of 50 nmol NH4+
samples with a 0.6 ‰ standard deviation. This extraction
method is applied to an alpine glacier ice core from Col du DĂ´me,
Mont Blanc, where we successfully demonstrate the analytical approach
through the analysis of two replicate 8 m water equivalent ice cores
representing 4 years of accumulation with a reproducibility of ±2.1 ‰. Applying this methodology to other ice cores in
alpine and polar environments will open new opportunities for understanding
past changes in NH3 emissions and atmospheric chemistry.</p
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