Everything Must Go: A Collection of Short Stories

Everything Must Go: A Collection of Short Stories seeks to explore the complexity of life through a number of characters and the situations and relationships that define them. Work, death, family, religion, illness, addiction, and Mother Nature all play their part in shaping the lives and choices of the characters within this collection. In The Experiment, a college student counts cards with her sick father in order to pay her tuition, while a football coach questions his woth in the story, Making the Call. Drought follows the effects of a statewide water shortage through the imaginative lens of one old woman, and through the limited lens of another we see a hunting dog go on a vicious rampage in The Duke of Cordillera. From a rodeo clown trying to be a father to a pawn shop owner\u27s questions about God, each character in this collection must find his or her own way or die trying. Much like Antonio Morales, the struggling boxer, in The Sparring Partner, these characters often find themselves beaten and penned in the corner by what life throws at them. Their best chance for survial is to come out swinging

RIZICI, PRAVA ILI OBOJE? EVALUACIJA OPĆE ETIOLOGIJE NEGATIVNIH I POZITIVNIH ISHODA ZA MLADE KAO INFORMACIJA ZA PRAKSU

The policy and practice of the Youth Justice System of England and Wales has become dominated by risk-focused, offender-first approaches underpinned by the deterministic, reductionist and psychosocially-biased risk factor prevention paradigm. Using the All Wales Youth Offending Strategy and the evaluation of the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘Extending Entitlement’ youth inclusion strategy as its touchstones, this paper explores a rights- and entitlements-based, children first model of working with young people. This model critiques the management of risks and the purported ‘common aetiology’ of negative and positive behaviours/outcomes and evidences the potential advantages of pursuing a proactive, inclusionary, children first, children’s rights agenda when seeking to reduce youth offending.Nacionalna politika i praksa u sustavu maloljetničkog pravosuđa u Engleskoj i Walesu postala je dominantno fokusirana na rizičnost. Pristup je primarno usmjeren na počinitelje kaznenih djela, čemu doprinosi i deterministička, redukcionistička i u psihosocijalnom smislu pristrana paradigma prevencije temeljene na rizičnim čimbenicima. Rad se bavi modelom rada s mladima temeljenom na građanskim i socijalnim pravima (engl. rights i entitlements), a kao osnova uzima se Strategija maloljetničkog pravosuđa pod nazivom “Svi mladi Walesa” te evaluacija Strategije Vlade u Walesu o uključivanju mladih pod nazivom “Proširivanje prava”. Spomenuti model u području redukcije maloljetničkog prijestupništva kritizira tzv. menadžment rizika i “opću etiologiju” negativnih i pozitivnih ponašanja / ishoda te dokumentira potencijalne prednosti od usmjeravanja k proaktivnom, inkluzivnom, na djecu i njihova prava usmjerenom pristupu

Risks, rights or both? Evaluating the common aetiology of negative and positive outcomes for young people to inform youth justice practice

"The policy and practice of the Youth Justice System of England and Wales has become dominated by risk-focused, offender-first approaches underpinned by the deterministic, reductionist and psychosocially-biased risk factor prevention paradigm. Using the All Wales Youth Offending Strategy and the evaluation of the Welsh Assembly Government's 'Extending Entitlement' youth inclusion strategy as its touchstones, this paper explores a rights- and entitlements-based, children first model of working with young people. This model critiques the management of risks and the purported 'common aetiology' of negative and positive behaviours/ outcomes and evidences the potential advantages of pursuing a proactive, inclusionary, children first, children’s rights agenda when seeking to reduce youth offending." [author's abstract

Transatlantic ‘Positive Youth Justice’: a distinctive new model for responding to offending by children?

A model of ‘positive youth justice’ has been developed on both sides of the Atlantic to challenge the hegemonic punitivity and neo-correctionalism of contemporary actuarial risk-based approaches and the conceptually-restricted rightsbased movement of child-friendly justice. This paper examines the origins, main features, guiding principles and underpinning evidence bases of the diferent versions of positive youth justice developed in England/Wales (Children First, Ofenders Second) and the USA (Positive Youth Justice Model) and their respective critiques of negative and child-friendly forms of youth jus tice. Comparing and contrasting these two versions enables an evaluation of the extent to which positive youth justice presents as a coherent and coordinated transatlantic ‘movement’, as opposed to disparate critiques of traditional youth justice with limited similarities

The future of youth justice

What is the future for youth justice in England and Wales? In a current climate of divergence, normlessness and local variations, we explore reform recommendations and the impact of economic austerity on local Youth Offending Teams: a retraction of support/services, yet increasing oversight by non-specialist managers. Four emerging youth justice delivery structures are identified, followed by an assessment of what does not work in practice – punishment, system contact, treatment and offender-focused interventions. We conclude that ‘what might work’ to progress youth justice is expert analysis, specialist youth workers and Children First principles in a coherent, flexible national policy context

Oulipian Codes, Wittgensteinian Games, Borgesian Labyrinths: The Potential Literature of Gravity’s Rainbow

This intertextual analysis discusses the multimodal links between Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Borgesian metaphorical imagery and story structure, Oulipian mathematic and textual experiments, and Wittgensteinian linguistic philosophy. This analysis also draws on the work of Katherine Hayles in Writing Machines in that it seeks to identify the ways in which a work such as Gravity’s Rainbow requires non-trivial engagement from readers, what Hayles calls “ergodic” engagement, thereby transcending many of the traditional conceptions and functional limitations of texts. The goal of this analysis is to attempt to demarcate Gravity’s Rainbow as a unique form of textual experiment, one both painstakingly formulated and executed, but with traceable connective threads

Evidence for adaptive introgression of exons across a hybrid swarm in deer

Background: Secondary contact between closely related lineages can result in a variety of outcomes, including hybridization, depending upon the strength of reproductive barriers. By examining the extent to which different parts of the genome introgress, it is possible to infer the strength of selection and gain insight into the evolutionary trajectory of lineages. Following secondary contact approximately 8000 years ago in the Pacific Northwest, mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus hemionus) and black-tailed deer (O. h. columbianus) formed a hybrid swarm along the Cascade mountain range despite substantial differences in body size (up to two times) and habitat preference. In this study, we examined genetic population structure, extent of introgression, and selection pressures in freely interbreeding populations of mule deer and black-tailed deer using mitochondrial DNA sequences, 9 microsatellite loci, and 95 SNPs from protein-coding genes. Results: We observed bi-directional hybridization and classified approximately one third of the 172 individuals as hybrids, almost all of which were beyond the F1 generation. High genetic differentiation between black-tailed deer and mule deer at protein-coding genes suggests that there is positive divergent selection, though selection on these loci is relatively weak. Contrary to predictions, there was not greater selection on protein-coding genes thought to be associated with immune function and mate choice. Geographic cline analyses were consistent across genetic markers, suggesting long-term stability (over hundreds of generations), and indicated that the center of the hybrid swarm is 20-30 km to the east of the Cascades ridgeline, where there is a steep ecological transition from wet, forested habitat to dry, scrub habitat. Conclusions: Our data are consistent with a genetic boundary between mule deer and black-tailed deer that is porous but maintained by many loci under weak selection having a substantial cumulative effect. The absence of clear reproductive barriers and the consistent centering of geographic clines at a sharp ecotone suggests that ecology is a driver of hybrid swarm dynamics. Adaptive introgression in this study (and others) promotes gene flow and provides valuable insight into selection strength on specific genes and the evolutionary trajectory of hybridizing taxa

Visualization of Mitochondrial DNA Replication in Individual Cells by EdU Signal Amplification

Mitochondria are key regulators of cellular energy and mitochondrial biogenesis is an essential component of regulating mitochondria numbers in healthy cells1-3. One approach for monitoring mitochondrial biogenesis is to measure the rate of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) replication4. We developed a sensitive technique to label newly synthesized mtDNA in individual cells in order to study mtDNA biogenesis. The technique combines the incorporation of 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU)5-7 with a tyramide signal amplification (TSA)8 protocol to visualize mtDNA replication within subcellular compartments of neurons. EdU is superior to other thymidine analogs, such as 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU), because the initial click reaction to label EdU5-7 does not require the harsh acid treatments or enzyme digests that are required for exposing the BrdU epitope. The milder labeling of EdU allows for direct comparison of its incorporation with other cellular markers9-10. The ability to visualize and quantify mtDNA biogenesis provides an essential tool for investigating the mechanisms used to regulate mitochondrial biogenesis and would provide insight into the pathogenesis associated with drug toxicity, aging, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Our technique is applicable to sensory neurons as well as other cell types. The use of this technique to measure mtDNA biogenesis has significant implications in furthering the understanding of both normal cellular physiology as well as impaired disease states

Trusting children to enhance youth justice policy: The importance and value of children’s voices

Purpose: To explore the integration of children’s voices within youth justice policy and practice development. Design/methodology/approach: The authors theorise the efficacy of participatory practices in youth justice by presenting original empirical data drawn from innovative child friendly methodological approaches, including activity-oriented focus groups, questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Findings: Children’s voices have been noticeably absent from youth justice policy development in England. Children continue to be the recipients of adult-led, deficit-facing practices underpinned by a longstanding preoccupation with identifying and managing ‘risk’. These practices have undermined children’s knowledge and potential by distrusting their perspectives. In contrast, the internationally-relevant cogent arguments set out in this paper allude to the importance and benefits of engaging with children and listening to their voices in the planning and delivery of ‘Child First’ youth justice. Practical implications: It is recommended that youth justice professionals treat children in the Youth Justice System as children (not ‘offenders’), fostering non-hierarchical, empathic, trusting relationships with children, strengthen the child’s involvement in policy and practice processes and centralise their educative, health and wellbeing needs. Originality/value: The paper explores empirical examples from the emerging (but still limited) evidence-base of youth justice research studies that have placed the child’s voice at the centre of understanding their experiences at different stages of the Youth Justice System