Sex offenders, sexuality, and social control: A case study in the social construction of a social problem

Legislation regarding sex offenses is often passed swiftly with little to no evaluation of the effectiveness of such policies on preventing recidivism and protecting the public. Further, little criticism is raised despite overwhelming evidence that sex offender registration and community notification is ineffective and has many negative consequences. The societal reaction is created through moral panics resulting in views that are not always reflective of the nature of the problem. In effect, the policies put into place in the name of declaring war on the deviant behavior reflect these views and do not target the specific problem. While the first two panics involved the identification of sexual offenses, offenders, and the causes of such deviance, the failure of these two time periods to eradicate the problem of sexual offending has caused an evolution in the third sex crime panic from focusing on the nature of sexual offending to a drive to control and contain the population of sexual offenders. Because U.S. society still has little understanding of the nature and cause of sexual offending, laws continue to be ineffective in the third panic and exacerbate the original problem

Accommodating Employees With and Without Disabilities

Efforts to recruit and retain employees with disabilities are often tempered by employers’ concerns over potential workplace accommodation costs. This study reports on accommodations requested and granted in intensive case studies of eight companies, based on more than 5,000 employee and manager surveys, and interviews and focus groups with 128 managers and employees with disabilities. Two unique contributions are that we analyze accommodations for employees without disabilities as well as for those with disabilities, and compare perspectives on accommodation costs and benefits among employees, their coworkers, and their managers. We find people with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities to request accommodations, but the types of accommodations requested and the reported costs and benefits are similar for disability and non-disability accommodations. In particular, fears of high accommodation costs and negative reactions of coworkers are not realized; all groups tend to report generally positive coworker reactions. Multilevel models indicate granting accommodations has positive spillover effects on attitudes of coworkers, as well as a positive effect on attitudes of requesting employees, but only when coworkers are supportive. Consistent with recent theorizing and other studies, our results suggest the benefits from a corporate culture of flexibility and attention to the individualized needs of employees

Validation of alternative indicators of social support in perinatal outcomes research using quality of the partner relationship

Aim To test alternatives to the current research and clinical practice of assuming that married or partnered status is a proxy for positive social support. Background Having a partner is assumed to relate to better health status via the intermediary process of social support. However, women's health research indicates that having a partner is not always associated with positive social support. Design An exploratory post hoc analysis focused on posttraumatic stress and childbearing was conducted using a large perinatal database from 2005–2009. Methods To operationalize partner relationship, four variables were analysed: partner (‘yes’ or ‘no’), intimate partner violence (‘yes’ or ‘no’), the combination of those two factors, and the woman's appraisal of the quality of her partner relationship via a single item. Construct validity of these four alternative variables was assessed in relation to appraisal of the partner's social support in labour and the postpartum using linear regression standardized betas and adjusted R ‐squares. Predictive validity was assessed using unadjusted and adjusted linear regression modelling. Results Four groups were compared. Married, abused women differed most from married, not abused women in relation to the social support, and depression outcomes used for validity checks. The variable representing the women's appraisals of their partner relationships accounts for the most variance in predicting depression scores. Conclusions Our results support the validity of operationalizing the impact of the partner relationship on outcomes using a combination of partnered status and abuse status or using a subjective rating of quality of the partner relationship.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98144/1/jan12015.pd

Polygenic threshold model with sex dimorphism in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: The Carter effect

Background: Idiopathic clubfoot is approximately twice as common in males than in females. The reason for this discrepancy is unclear butmay represent an inherent difference in the susceptibility to thedeformity. If this difference is due to genetic factors it is predicted that in order to inherit clubfoot, females need to have a greater number of susceptibility genes than males. Females would also be more likely to transmit the disease to their children and have siblings with clubfoot. This phenomenon is known as the Carter effect, and the presence of such an effect supports a multifactorial threshold model of inheritance. Methods: Ninety-seven multiplex families with more than one individual with idiopathic clubfoot were studied. The study included1093 individuals: 291with clubfoot and802unaffected relatives. Ratesof transmissionby the thirty-seven affected fathers and twenty-six affected mothers were calculated, and the prevalence among siblings was determined in the nuclear families of affected persons

Outcome of all-inside second-generation meniscal repair: Minimum five-year follow-up

BACKGROUND: Meniscal repair and preservation are the goal, when possible, of the treatment of meniscal injury. Current research on second-generation all-inside repair systems has been limited to a maximum of three years of follow-up. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the mid-term clinical success (at more than five years) of meniscal repair performed with a second-generation all-inside repair device, both as an isolated procedure and with a concomitant anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. METHODS: This is a retrospective review of patients who underwent meniscal repair with use of the all-inside FAST-FIX Meniscal Repair System (Smith & Nephew Arthroscopy, Andover, Massachusetts) from December 1999 to January 2007. Eighty-three meniscal repairs (in eighty-one patients) were identified, and follow-up data were obtained for seventy-five (90%). Twenty-six (35%) of the meniscal repairs were performed as isolated procedures. Clinical failure was defined as repeat surgical intervention involving resection or revision repair. Clinical outcomes were also assessed with the Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS), International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score, and the Marx activity score. RESULTS: The minimum duration of follow-up was five years (average, seven years). Twelve patients (16%) had failure of the meniscal repair, at an average of forty-seven months (range, fifteen to ninety-five months). The data did not offer enough statistical evidence, at alpha = 0.05, to establish a difference in average patient age, patient sex, or number of sutures utilized between successful repairs and failures. There was no difference in the failure rate between isolated repairs (12%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.76% to 23.76%) and those performed with concurrent ACL reconstruction (18%; 95% CI: 7.47% to 29.13%), and the average time to failure was similar between these two groups (48.1 months versus 46.6 months, p = 0.939). Postoperative KOOS and IKDC outcome scores were also similar between the groups. CONCLUSIONS: This report of mid-term follow-up results of primary second-generation all-inside meniscal repair demonstrates its effectiveness both as an isolated procedure and when it is performed with concurrent ACL reconstruction. After a minimum of five years of follow-up, 84% of the patients continued to demonstrate successful repair. Treatment success was further supported by favorable results on patient-based outcome measures. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence

Climate Change within a Biome

In this iLEARN lesson, students will investigate impacts of climate change on the native plants and animals, as well as the fisheries, agriculture, and forestry, within a biome of their choosing, and then develop and refine a solution for one of the impacts resulting from the climate change

Fast forward genetics to identify mutations causing a high light tolerant phenotype in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by whole-genome-sequencing

Schierenbeck L, Ries D, Rogge K, Grewe S, Weisshaar B, Kruse O. Fast forward genetics to identify mutations causing a high light tolerant phenotype in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by whole-genome-sequencing. BMC Genomics. 2015;16(1): 57.Background: High light tolerance of microalgae is a desired phenotype for efficient cultivation in large scale production systems under fluctuating outdoor conditions. Outdoor cultivation requires the use of either wild-type or non-GMO derived mutant strains due to safety concerns. The identification and molecular characterization of such mutants derived from untagged forward genetics approaches was limited previously by the tedious and time-consuming methods involving techniques such as classical meiotic mapping. The combination of mapping with next generation sequencing technologies offers alternative strategies to identify genes involved in high light adaptation in untagged mutants. Results: We used the model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in a non-GMO mutation strategy without any preceding crossing step or pooled progeny to identify genes involved in the regulatory processes of high light adaptation. To generate high light tolerant mutants, wildtype cells were mutagenized only to a low extent, followed by a stringent selection. We performed whole-genome sequencing of two independent mutants hit1 and hit2 and the parental wildtype. The availability of a reference genome sequence and the removal of shared bakground variants between the wildtype strain and each mutant, enabled us to identify two single nucleotide polymorphisms within the same gene Cre02.g085050, hereafter called LRS1 (putative Light Response Signaling protein 1). These two independent single amino acid exchanges are both located in the putative WD40 propeller domain of the corresponding protein LRS1. Both mutants exhibited an increased rate of non-photochemical-quenching (NPQ) and an improved resistance against chemically induced reactive oxygen species. In silico analyses revealed homology of LRS1 to the photoregulatory protein COP1 in plants. Conclusions: In this work we identified the nuclear encoded gene LRS1 as an essential factor for high light adaptation in C. reinhardtii. The causative random mutation within this gene was identified by a rapid and efficient method, avoiding any preceding crossing step, meiotic mapping, or pooled progeny. Our results open up new insights into mechanisms of high light adaptation in microalgae and at the same time provide a simplified strategy for non-GMO forward genetics, a crucial precondition that could result in the identification of key factors for economically relevant biological processes within algae