Bureaucide: A Method for Organizational Disassembly

Efforts to hold down spending plainly have high priority in government now. One area often singled out for reductions is the bureaucracy. This word, which has developed such negative connotations over the years, has recently been invested with the character of an anti-Christ

Immigration Cyber Prisons: Ending the Use of Electronic Ankle Shackles

The call to end immigration detention has garnered strong support in recent years due to a growing public awareness of its devastating impact on the individuals locked away, their families, and entire communities. Throughout the nation, communities, organizers, advocates, and public officials have demanded the shutdown of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers, particularly those operated by private prison companies. However, less attention has been paid to another form of detention that has been insidiously expanding alongside ICE’s brick-and-mortar jails: the Intensive Supervision Assistance Program (ISAP), the primary component of ICE’s so-called “Alternatives to Detention” program. ISAP surveils, monitors, and restricts immigrants by using invasive and evolving forms of technology. Like much of ICE’s sprawling detention system, ISAP is fueled by a multi-billion-dollar contract with the subsidiary of a private prison corporation that profits from detaining and surveilling immigrants. One of the most common and dehumanizing forms of surveillance in ISAP is a GPS enabled ankle monitor that shackles individuals both visibly and invisibly. This report recommends that ICE immediately wind down ISAP and cease its use of electronic ankle shackles, first by removing them from all individuals currently subject to ISAP. To the extent that ankle shackles continue being used while phasing out ISAP, the administration should mandate ICE to track the data needed to prevent discriminatory practices; provide both a clear written justification and review process when deciding to subject an individual to ankle shackles; and allow those subject to ankle shackles to secure employment, participate in family and community activities, and seek medical treatment. This report also recommends a severance of the link between immigration enforcement and service provision through community-based programs, as well as allocation of government funding for community support and legal representation services. As the harms of electronic ankle shackling demonstrate, ISAP is by no means an acceptable reform to the existing detention apparatus; rather it is another form of confinement that must be dismantled alongside physical detention. While the coercive and dehumanizing shackling of humans is unacceptable in any form, the data demonstrating the comparable or superior efficacy of more holistic intervention also lay bare the animus and profit motives at the heart of ICE’s shackling regime. Ending shackling is not just good policy; it is an issue of racial, economic, and health justice

Difficult Life Situations as a Risk Factor Among Young People

Раскрывается суть сложной жизненной ситуации среди молодежи. Важность темы исследования заключается в том, что от физического, ментального, нравственного здоровья молодежи зависит то, как меняется мир, в какую сторону движется общество в перспективе. Рассмотрен вопрос о значении государства и общества в целом, как основных факторов, направление деятельности которых может быть профилактикой или устранением последствий трудных жизненных ситуаций среди молодежи.This article reveals the essence of the difficult life situation among young people. The importance of this research topic lies in the fact that the way the world is changing, in which direction society is moving in the future, depends on the physical, mental, moral health of young people. The question of the importance of the state and society as a whole, as the main factors, the direction of which can be the prevention or elimination of the consequences of difficult life situations among young people, is considered

Zinc Finger Database (ZiFDB): a repository for information on C2H2 zinc fingers and engineered zinc-finger arrays

Zinc fingers are the most abundant DNA-binding motifs encoded by eukaryotic genomes and one of the best understood DNA-recognition domains. Each zinc finger typically binds a 3-nt target sequence, and it is possible to engineer zinc-finger arrays (ZFAs) that recognize extended DNA sequences by linking together individual zinc fingers. Engineered zinc-finger proteins have proven to be valuable tools for gene regulation and genome modification because they target specific sites in a genome. Here we describe ZiFDB (Zinc Finger Database; http://bindr.gdcb.iastate.edu/ZiFDB), a web-accessible resource that compiles information on individual zinc fingers and engineered ZFAs. To enhance its utility, ZiFDB is linked to the output from ZiFiT—a software package that assists biologists in finding sites within target genes for engineering zinc-finger proteins. For many molecular biologists, ZiFDB will be particularly valuable for determining if a given ZFA (or portion thereof) has previously been constructed and whether or not it has the requisite DNA-binding activity for their experiments. ZiFDB will also be a valuable resource for those scientists interested in better understanding how zinc-finger proteins recognize target DNA