Court Delay and the Waiting Child

This Comment addresses the failure of our legal system when adopted children are forced to wait years before it is determined who will have legal custody of them. The author begins by exposing the problem and the devastating effects of these delays by providing evidence of delay in both private adoption and foster care placement cases. Then, the author explores the current legal framework within which courts make these life-altering child placement decisions. Next, the author confronts the question of why delay occurs, including several contributing factors, such as a lack of specific guidelines based on a child’s sense of time, the lack of judicial leadership, and the lack of accountability mechanisms. Finally, the author makes recommendations for reducing delay and ensuring that a greater number of children can be placed in safe, stable homes. One such recommendation is that courtrooms should be opened to the public so that the public may have the access it needs to keep the system accountable

COVID-19 and Preventing Harm to Vulnerable Children

Although COVID-19 mercifully seems to affect children less severely than adults, children are far from immune from the impacts of the virus. Public health orders closing schools and businesses, cancelling events, and keeping children at home have been disruptive and distressing to many children and families. But for children who rely on government entities for protection, care, custody, and services, the effects of the public health orders can be devastating. COVID-19 and the response to it has serious implications for the safety, well-being, and development of these vulnerable children—those within the child welfare, juvenile justice, and special education systems. All three groups consist of children to whom the state has legal obligations. Additionally, all three groups consist disproportionately of children of color, a reality being brought to the forefront in the context of this pandemic and beyond. As these child-serving systems adapt to the new realities defined by public health limitations, there exists an opportunity to address both immediate challenges as well as enduring concerns within these complex structures. This Article explores the current state of child rights within the child welfare, juvenile justice, and special education systems, highlighting concerns that pre-date COVID-19 as well as recent legal implications of the pandemic. Each section examines the particular repercussions of the pandemic and the response to it on children and proposes potential remedies. It also offers perspective on how meeting today’s critical challenges can result in long-term systemic improvements

A deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance study of chain disorder in lamellar potassium palmitate: The effect of long and short chain guests

The deuterium magnetic resonance spectra of lamellar phases of host perdeuterated potassium palmitate mixed with varying amounts of guest protiated potassium octanoate and behenate and 86.3 mol% D2O are reported. At higher temperatures, the short chain guests give rise to more fluidity and the long chain guests give rise to less fluidity towards the end of the host chain. At low temperatures there are changes in the interaction between the polar head group and the water which depend on sample composition. The transition from the lamellar phase to the low temperature gel phase is investigated and in some cases the gel phase is found to be a complicated many-phase region, at least for the water. The spectral results are presented in detail but compact and empirical methods of analysis are also investigated

A deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance study of chain disorder in lamellar potassium palmitate: The effect of long and short chain guests

The deuterium magnetic resonance spectra of lamellar phases of host perdeuterated potassium palmitate mixed with varying amounts of guest protiated potassium octanoate and behenate and 86.3 mol% D2O are reported. At higher temperatures, the short chain guests give rise to more fluidity and the long chain guests give rise to less fluidity towards the end of the host chain. At low temperatures there are changes in the interaction between the polar head group and the water which depend on sample composition. The transition from the lamellar phase to the low temperature gel phase is investigated and in some cases the gel phase is found to be a complicated many-phase region, at least for the water. The spectral results are presented in detail but compact and empirical methods of analysis are also investigated

Using Social Media to Promote STEM Education: Matching College Students with Role Models

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields have become increasingly central to U.S. economic competitiveness and growth. The shortage in the STEM workforce has brought promoting STEM education upfront. The rapid growth of social media usage provides a unique opportunity to predict users' real-life identities and interests from online texts and photos. In this paper, we propose an innovative approach by leveraging social media to promote STEM education: matching Twitter college student users with diverse LinkedIn STEM professionals using a ranking algorithm based on the similarities of their demographics and interests. We share the belief that increasing STEM presence in the form of introducing career role models who share similar interests and demographics will inspire students to develop interests in STEM related fields and emulate their models. Our evaluation on 2,000 real college students demonstrated the accuracy of our ranking algorithm. We also design a novel implementation that recommends matched role models to the students.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, accepted by ECML/PKDD 2016, Industrial Trac

Design and testing of hydrophobic core/hydrophilic shell nano/micro particles for drug-eluting stent coating

In this study, we designed a novel drug-eluting coating for vascular implants consisting of a core coating of the anti-proliferative drug docetaxel (DTX) and a shell coating of the platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa receptor monoclonal antibody SZ-21. The core/shell structure was sprayed onto the surface of 316L stainless steel stents using a coaxial electrospray process with the aim of creating a coating that exhibited a differential release of the two drugs. The prepared stents displayed a uniform coating consisting of nano/micro particles. In vitro drug release experiments were performed, and we demonstrated that a biphasic mathematical model was capable of capturing the data, indicating that the release of the two drugs conformed to a diffusion-controlled release system. We demonstrated that our coating was capable of inhibiting the adhesion and activation of platelets, as well as the proliferation and migration of smooth muscle cells (SMCs), indicating its good biocompatibility and anti-proliferation qualities. In an in vivo porcine coronary artery model, the SZ-21/DTX drug-loaded hydrophobic core/hydrophilic shell particle coating stents were observed to promote re-endothelialization and inhibit neointimal hyperplasia. This core/shell particle-coated stent may serve as part of a new strategy for the differential release of different functional drugs to sequentially target thrombosis and in-stent restenosis during the vascular repair process and ensure rapid re-endothelialization in the field of cardiovascular disease

A Review of Volatile Organic Compound Contamination in Post-Industrial Urban Centers: Reproductive Health Implications Using a Detroit Lens

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a group of aromatic or chlorinated organic chemicals commonly found in manufactured products that have high vapor pressure, and thus vaporize readily at room temperature. While airshed VOCs are well studied and have provided insights into public health issues, we suggest that belowground VOCs and the related vapor intrusion process could be equally or even more relevant to public health. The persistence, movement, remediation, and human health implications of subsurface VOCs in urban landscapes remain relatively understudied despite evidence of widespread contamination. This review explores the state of the science of subsurface movement and remediation of VOCs through groundwater and soils, the linkages between these poorly understood contaminant exposure pathways and health outcomes based on research in various animal models, and describes the role of these contaminants in human health, focusing on birth outcomes, notably low birth weight and preterm birth. Finally, this review provides recommendations for future research to address knowledge gaps that are essential for not only tackling health disparities and environmental injustice in post-industrial cities, but also protecting and preserving critical freshwater resources

A high-performance 8 nV/root Hz 8-channel wearable and wireless system for real-time monitoring of bioelectrical signals

Background: It is widely accepted by the scientific community that bioelectrical signals, which can be used for the identification of neurophysiological biomarkers indicative of a diseased or pathological state, could direct patient treatment towards more effective therapeutic strategies. However, the design and realisation of an instrument that can precisely record weak bioelectrical signals in the presence of strong interference stemming from a noisy clinical environment is one of the most difficult challenges associated with the strategy of monitoring bioelectrical signals for diagnostic purposes. Moreover, since patients often have to cope with the problem of limited mobility being connected to bulky and mains-powered instruments, there is a growing demand for small-sized, high-performance and ambulatory biopotential acquisition systems in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and in High-dependency wards. Finally, to the best of our knowledge, there are no commercial, small, battery-powered, wearable and wireless recording-only instruments that claim the capability of recording electrocorticographic (ECoG) signals. Methods: To address this problem, we designed and developed a low-noise (8 nV/√Hz), eight-channel, battery-powered, wearable and wireless instrument (55 × 80 mm2). The performance of the realised instrument was assessed by conducting both ex vivo and in vivo experiments. Results: To provide ex vivo proof-of-function, a wide variety of high-quality bioelectrical signal recordings are reported, including electroencephalographic (EEG), electromyographic (EMG), electrocardiographic (ECG), acceleration signals, and muscle fasciculations. Low-noise in vivo recordings of weak local field potentials (LFPs), which were wirelessly acquired in real time using segmented deep brain stimulation (DBS) electrodes implanted in the thalamus of a non-human primate, are also presented. Conclusions: The combination of desirable features and capabilities of this instrument, namely its small size (~one business card), its enhanced recording capabilities, its increased processing capabilities, its manufacturability (since it was designed using discrete off-the-shelf components), the wide bandwidth it offers (0.5 – 500 Hz) and the plurality of bioelectrical signals it can precisely record, render it a versatile and reliable tool to be utilized in a wide range of applications and environments

Changing trends in mortality among solid organ transplant recipients hospitalized for COVID-19 during the course of the pandemic

Mortality among patients hospitalized for COVID-19 has declined over the course of the pandemic. Mortality trends specifically in solid organ transplant recipients (SOTR) are unknown. Using data from a multicenter registry of SOTR hospitalized for COVID-19, we compared 28-day mortality between early 2020 (March 1, 2020–June 19, 2020) and late 2020 (June 20, 2020–December 31, 2020). Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess comorbidity-adjusted mortality. Time period of diagnosis was available for 1435/1616 (88.8%) SOTR and 971/1435 (67.7%) were hospitalized: 571/753 (75.8%) in early 2020 and 402/682 (58.9%) in late 2020 (p <.001). Crude 28-day mortality decreased between the early and late periods (112/571 [19.6%] vs. 55/402 [13.7%]) and remained lower in the late period even after adjusting for baseline comorbidities (aOR 0.67, 95% CI 0.46–0.98, p =.016). Between the early and late periods, the use of corticosteroids (≥6 mg dexamethasone/day) and remdesivir increased (62/571 [10.9%] vs. 243/402 [61.5%], p <.001 and 50/571 [8.8%] vs. 213/402 [52.2%], p <.001, respectively), and the use of hydroxychloroquine and IL-6/IL-6 receptor inhibitor decreased (329/571 [60.0%] vs. 4/492 [1.0%], p <.001 and 73/571 [12.8%] vs. 5/402 [1.2%], p <.001, respectively). Mortality among SOTR hospitalized for COVID-19 declined between early and late 2020, consistent with trends reported in the general population. The mechanism(s) underlying improved survival require further study