Policing the Drinking Community: An Assessment of the Criminal Justice Response to Drunk Driving and Alcohol Related Crashes (1985 -2014)

The objective of this study was to analyze the relationships among arrests, informal alcohol related social norms, and alcohol related fatal crashes in the U.S. from 1985-2014. Despite inexorable efforts to eliminate drunk driving, approximately twenty percent of the population drives after drinking (Drew, 2010). Although law enforcement arrests play a key part in policies to deter drunk driving, enforcement of DUI laws varies widely across the country (Erickson et al., 2015). However, no project has explored the relationship between structural factors related to community norms, enforcement, and automobile crashes. Thus, this project adds to the literature and understanding of drunk driving by providing a longitudinal evaluation of drunk driving policy that can inform future policy and community-based interventions. This study hypothesizes that community norms toward alcohol will affect DUI enforcement as well as the occurrence of alcohol related crashes and that this relationship will vary over time. The objective was accomplished by aggregating and merging several large longitudinal secondary data sets to the county level and state level. Because of differences in aggregate level factors and policies (O\u27Neill & Kyrychenko, 2006), multilevel modeling was used to allow for the contemporaneous assessment of state and county factors as well as model these data over time (Raudenbush, 2004). The findings provide mixed support for the contention that DUI arrests reduce the frequency of alcohol related fatal crashes within counties. However, some support is found for the hypothesis that structural factors associated with community alcohol norms are related to DUI enforcement and alcohol related crashes, although the directionality is not always as it was originally hypothesized. These results, coupled with the extant research on drunk driving as well as other theoretical issues, suggest that policies aimed at deterring drunk driving may be less effective at preventing drunk driving. The importance of the impact of structural factors related to community norms is also discussed with an emphasis on further exploration of these factors in future research

Expression and loss of alleles in cultured mouse embryonic fibroblasts and stem cells carrying allelic fluorescent protein genes

BACKGROUND: Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) contributes to many cancers, but the rate at which these events occur in normal cells of the body is not clear. LOH would be detectable in diverse cell types in the body if this event were to confer an obvious cellular phenotype. Mice that carry two different fluorescent protein genes as alleles of a locus would seem to be a useful tool for addressing this issue because LOH would change a cell's phenotype from dichromatic to monochromatic. In addition, LOH caused by mitotic crossing over might be discernable in tissues because this event produces a pair of neighboring monochromatic cells that are different colors. RESULTS: As a step in assessing the utility of this approach, we derived primary embryonic fibroblast populations and embryonic stem cell lines from mice that carried two different fluorescent protein genes as alleles at the chromosome 6 locus, ROSA26. Fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) showed that the vast majority of cells in each line expressed the two marker proteins at similar levels, and that populations exhibited expression noise similar to that seen in bacteria and yeast. Cells with a monochromatic phenotype were present at frequencies on the order of 10(-4 )and appeared to be produced at a rate of approximately 10(-5 )variant cells per mitosis. 45 of 45 stably monochromatic ES cell clones exhibited loss of the expected allele at the ROSA26 locus. More than half of these clones retained heterozygosity at a locus between ROSA26 and the centromere. Other clones exhibited LOH near the centromere, but were disomic for chromosome 6. CONCLUSION: Allelic fluorescent markers allowed LOH at the ROSA26 locus to be detected by FACS. LOH at this locus was usually not accompanied by LOH near the centromere, suggesting that mitotic recombination was the major cause of ROSA26 LOH. Dichromatic mouse embryonic cells provide a novel system for studying genetic/karyotypic stability and factors influencing expression from allelic genes. Similar approaches will allow these phenomena to be studied in tissues

Field Evaluation and Genetic Analysis of {\It Heliothis\/} Spp. Resistance in Advanced Lanthanum Cotton Strains.

Seventeen advanced La cotton breeding strains having Heliothis spp. resistance attributed to morphological characters and allelochemics were evaluated for field resistance and flowerbud gossypol content at Baton Rouge, LA. in 1982 and 1983. These experimental cottons averaged less than 50% of the Heliothis spp. larvae and feeding-damaged fruit of two cotton cultivars recommended for production in Louisiana. These strains also had at least 25% less feeding-damaged fruit and 15% fewer live Heliothis spp. larvae than two Heliothis spp. resistant cotton germplasm lines. Results suggested that high flowerbud gossypol pigment glandulosity, rather than flowerbud gossypol content per se, played an important role in decreasing Heliothis spp. populations and larval activity. Generation means and diallel analyses were conducted at Clinton, LA. in 1985 to obtain estimates of gene effects and general and specific combining ability (GCA and SCA) for Heliothis spp. resistance and flowerbud gossypol content among advanced La cotton strains. Sources of resistance for these experimental cottons include high flowerbud gossypol pigment glandulosity (HG), and T-27 and T-254 x factors. Results indicated that additive gene effects were important for parents with HG and T-27 and T-254 x factor resistance and GCA was of importance for parents with HG and T254 x factor resistance sources. Additive gene effects and GCA estimates for flowerbud gossypol were also the most important forms of gene action and combining ability. These results indicated that it should be possible to fix and select for resistance to Heliothis spp. when utilizing these or related parents in a breeding program. Intrapopulation recurrent selection was suggested as an efficient breeding strategy for improving and combining Heliothis spp. resistance with important agronomic properties in cotton. Near-isogenic red cotton strains having the R\sb1 (red leaf), R\sb1\sp{\rm dar} (Darwinii red), R\sp{\rm S} (red stem), R\sp{\rm V} (red vein) and R\sp{\rm M} (red margin) traits were evaluated for field resistance to Heliothis spp. in 1983 and 1984. The red near-isolines were not found to have significantly less feeding-damaged fruit or fewer Heliothis spp. larvae than Stoneville 213 or their normal green recurrent parent in either year, suggesting that red pigmentation does not confer meaningful resistance to these pests