California\u27s Antistalking Statute: The Pivotal Role of Intent

Since 1990, prosecutors have learned that in order to effectively protect victims, antistalking laws must be broad in scope, carry substantial penalties, and pass constitutional muster. Convicted stalkers have repeatedly attacked the law as unconstitutional. All such challenges have failed. However, the California legislature has clarified and strengthened the antistalking law through a series of revisions over the past eight years.s Today, the antis talking law is broad in scope and has repeatedly passed constitutional scrutiny. However, the level of intent that the antistalking statute currently requires could pose problems for prosecutors by allowing accused stalkers to escape liability by asserting a defense of lack of specific intent. The law is therefore in need of revision

California\u27s Antistalking Statute: The Pivotal Role of Intent

Since 1990, prosecutors have learned that in order to effectively protect victims, antistalking laws must be broad in scope, carry substantial penalties, and pass constitutional muster. Convicted stalkers have repeatedly attacked the law as unconstitutional. All such challenges have failed. However, the California legislature has clarified and strengthened the antistalking law through a series of revisions over the past eight years.s Today, the antis talking law is broad in scope and has repeatedly passed constitutional scrutiny. However, the level of intent that the antistalking statute currently requires could pose problems for prosecutors by allowing accused stalkers to escape liability by asserting a defense of lack of specific intent. The law is therefore in need of revision

HIV decline in Zimbabwe due to reductions in risky sex? Evidence from a comprehensive epidemiological review.

Published versio

Patterns of self-reported behaviour change associated with receiving voluntary counselling and testing in a longitudinal study from Manicaland, Zimbabwe.

Voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) is promoted as a potential HIV prevention measure. We describe trends in uptake of VCT for HIV, and patterns of subsequent behaviour change associated with receiving VCT in a population-based open cohort in Manicaland, Zimbabwe. The relationship between receipt of VCT and subsequent reported behaviour was analysed using generalized linear models with random effects. At the third survey, 8.6% of participants (1,079/12,533), had previously received VCT. Women who received VCT, both those positive and negative, reduced their reported number of new partners. Among those testing positive, this risk reduction was enhanced with time since testing. Among men, no behavioural risk reduction associated with VCT was observed. Significant increases in consistent condom use, with regular or non-regular partners, following VCT, were not observed. This study suggests that, among women, particularly those who are infected, behavioural risk reduction does occur following VCT

Population-based Laboratory Surveillance for AmpC β-Lactamase–producing Escherichia coli, Calgary

AmpC β-lactamase–producing E. coli are commonly isolated from the urinary tract of older women

Memory, space and time: Researching children's lives

This article discusses the research approach in 'Pathways through Childhood', a small qualitative study drawing on memories of childhood. The research explores how wider social arrangements and social change influence children's everyday lives.The article discusses the way that the concepts of social memory, space and time have been drawn on to access and analyse children's experiences, arguing that attention to the temporal and spatial complexity of childhood reveals less visible yet formative influences and connections. Children's everyday engagements involve connections between past and present time, between children, families, communities and nations, and between different places. Children carve out space and time for themselves from these complex relations. © The Author(s) 2010

The Tracking of Morning Fatigue Status Across In-Season Training Weeks in Elite Soccer Players.

PURPOSE: To quantify the mean daily changes in training and match load and any parallel changes in indicators of morning-measured fatigue across in-season training weeks in elite soccer players. METHODS: Following each training session and match, ratings of perceived exertion (s-RPE) were recorded to calculate overall session load (RPE-TL) in 29 English Premier League players from the same team. Morning ratings of fatigue, sleep quality, delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), as well as sub-maximal exercise heart rate (HRex), post-exercise heart rate recovery (HRR%) and variability (HRV) were also recorded pre-match day and one, two and four days post-match. Data were collected for a median duration of 3 weeks (range:1-13) and reduced to a typical weekly cycle including no mid-week match and a weekend match day. Data were analysed using within-subjects linear mixed models. RESULTS: RPE-TL was approximately 600 AU (95%CI: 546-644) higher on match-day vs the following day (P0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Morning-measured ratings of fatigue, sleep quality and DOMS are clearly more sensitive than HR-derived indices to the daily fluctuations in session load experienced by elite soccer players within a standard in-season week

Federating distributed clinical data for the prediction of adverse hypotensive events

The ability to predict adverse hypotensive events, where a patient's arterial blood pressure drops to abnormally low (and dangerous) levels, would be of major benefit to the fields of primary and secondary health care, and especially to the traumatic brain injury domain. A wealth of data exist in health care systems providing information on the major health indicators of patients in hospitals (blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, etc.). It is believed that if enough of these data could be drawn together and analysed in a systematic way, then a system could be built that will trigger an alarm predicting the onset of a hypotensive event over a useful time scale, e.g. half an hour in advance. In such circumstances, avoidance measures can be taken to prevent such events arising. This is the basis for the Avert-IT project (http://www.avert-it.org), a collaborative EU-funded project involving the construction of a hypotension alarm system exploiting Bayesian neural networks using techniques of data federation to bring together the relevant information for study and system development

Clinical and microbiological characteristics of bloodstream infections due to AmpC β-lactamase producing Enterobacteriaceae: an active surveillance cohort in a large centralized Canadian region

Background: The objective of this study was to describe the clinical and microbiological characteristics of bloodstream infections (BSIs) due to AmpC producing Enterobacteriaceae (AE) in a large centralized Canadian region over a 9-year period. Methods: An active surveillance cohort design in Calgary, Canada. Results: A cohort of 458 episodes of BSIs caused by AE was assembled for analysis. The majority of infections were of nosocomial origin with unknown sources. Enterobacter spp. was the most common species while BSIs due to Serratia spp. had a significant higher mortality when compared to other AE. Delays in empiric or definitive antibiotic therapy were not associated with a difference in outcome. However, patients that did not receive any empiric antimicrobial therapy had increased mortality (3/5; 60% vs. 57/453; 13%; p = 0.018) as did those that did not receive definitive therapy (6/17; 35% vs. 54/441; 12%; p = 0.015). Conclusions: Delays in therapy were not associated with adverse outcomes although lack of active therapy was associated with increased mortality. A strategy for BSIs due to AE where β-lactam antibiotics (including oxyiminocephalosporins) are used initially followed by a switch to non-β-lactam antibiotics once susceptibility results are available is effective.</p