Legitimacy in criminal governance: Managing a drug empire from behind bars

States, rebels, and mafias all provide governance beyond their core membership; increasingly, so do prison gangs. US gangs leverage control over prison life to govern street-level drug markets. Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) gang goes further, orchestrating paralyzing attacks on urban targets, while imposing a social order throughout slums that sharply reduces homicides. We analyze hundreds of seized PCC documents detailing its drug business and internal disciplinary system. Descriptively, we find vast, consignment-based trafficking operations whose profits fund collective benefits for members’ families; elaborate bureaucratic procedures and recordkeeping; and overwhelmingly nonviolent punishments for debt-nonpayment and misconduct. These features, we argue, reflect a deliberate strategy of creating rational-bureaucratic legitimacy in criminal governance. The PCC’s collectivist norms, fair procedures, and meticulous “criminal criminal records” facilitate community stigmatization of infractors, giving mild sanctions punitive heft and inducing widespread voluntary compliance without excessive coercion. This has aided the PCC’s rapid expansion across Brazil.We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Social Science Research Council/Open Society Foundations, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, the Center for International Social Science Research and the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflict at the University of Chicago, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Benjamin Lessing received additional support from award W911-NF-1710044 from the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Army Research Office/Army Research Laboratory under the Minerva Research Initiative. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to any of these agencies or foundations

Acceptance of co-operative education practice by the academic staff at Technikon South Africa

ArticleTechnikons advocate the practice of co-operative education, which is an educational strategy that integrates learning through productive work with the theoretical curriculum. However, only 35% of theTechnikon SA programmes have a compulsory experiential learning component. Grounded theory research was undertaken to determine some of the basic assumptions of Technikon SA’s academic staff in this regard. Rather than starting out with a specific research problem, grounded theory explores an area of interest and allows what is relevant to emerge. Semi-structured interviews with four open-ended questions, were conducted with a stratified-random sample of 25 teaching staff at Technikon SA. It was found that, although there is some willing compliance and belief in co-operative education, it is not indicative of the organisational culture of Technikon SA.Technikons propageer die beoefening van ko˛peratiewe onderwys,’n opvoedkundige strategie wat leer deur produktiewe werkservaring integreer met die teoretiese kurrikulum. ByTechnikon SA egter, het slegs sowat 35% van die formele programme ’n verpligte leerervarings komponent.Teoretiese-begrondings navorsingsmetodologie is gebruik om sekere basiese veronderstellings van akademiese personeel te bepaal. Eerder as om’n spesi¢eke navorsingsprobleem as vertrekpunt te gebruik, ondersoek teoretiese-begronding’n area van belang en laat die metodiek die relevante sake toe om te voorskyn te kom. Semi-gestruktureerde onderhoude, met vier ope vrae, is gevoer met ’n gestrati¢seerde eweskansige steekproef van 25 akademiese personeellede vanTechnikon SA. Daar is bevind dat alhoewel daar beperkte oortuiging en gewillige uitlewing van ko˛peratiewe onderwys is, is dit nie beduidend as kenmerkend van die organisasie kultuur vanTechnikon SA nie.Educational Studie

Regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor-A and its soluble receptor sFlt-1 by luteinizing hormone in vivo: implication for ovarian follicle angiogenesis

Objective: To determine in vivo whether LH supplementation during the late follicular phase induces ovarian follicle angiogenesis in humans, as reflected by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A, its soluble receptor sFlt-1, and placental growth factor (PlGF) expression. Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Setting: Academic tertiary care medical center. Patient(s): Twenty infertile, healthy women (aged 18-39 years) undergoing IVF. Intervention(s): Administration of recombinant FSH after down-regulation and equal randomization of subjects to receive recombinant LH 75 IU/day or placebo when two or more follicles reached a mean diameter of 14 mm

Cervical Length, Multifetal Pregnancy Reduction, and Prediction of Preterm Birth

ABSTRACT: Purpose. To evaluate the application of transvaginal sonography assessment of cervical length before fetal reduction for predicting spontaneous preterm birth in triplet gestations reduced to twins. Methods. This retrospective study was conducted at the ultrasound unit of a university-affiliated municipal hospital. The study cohort consisted of 25 women with triplet gestations following ovulation induction or assisted-reproduction techniques who underwent fetal reduction to twins. Cervical length was assessed via transvaginal sonography before fetal reduction, and data on pregnancy outcome were retrieved from maternal records and/or maternal interviews. Results. Cervical length (mean ± SD) at reduction was 4.0 ± 0.85 (range: 1.2-5.5). Five women were excluded from statistical evaluation because pregnancy complications precluded spontaneous delivery. Two of 3 (67%) women with a cervical length of <3.5 cm delivered prior to 33 weeks' gestation compared with 1/17 (6%) women with a cervical length 3.5 cm. This difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of cervical lengths <3.5 cm to predict delivery prior to 33 gestational weeks was 67%, 94%, 67%, and 94%, respectively. Conclusions. Measurement of cervical length in triplet pregnancies before fetal reduction provides useful predictive information on the risk for preterm delivery. ª 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Identification and relative quantification of tyrosine nitration in a model peptide using two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy

Nitration of tyrosine in proteins and peptides is a post-translational modification that occurs under conditions of oxidative stress. It is implicated in a variety of medical conditions, including neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases. However, monitoring tyrosine nitration and understanding its role in modifying biological function remains a major challenge. In this work, we investigate the use of electron-vibration-vibration (EVV) two-dimensional infrared (2DIR) spectroscopy for the study of tyrosine nitration in model peptides. We demonstrate the ability of EVV 2DIR spectroscopy to differentiate between the neutral and deprotonated states of 3-nitrotyrosine, and we characterize their spectral signatures using information obtained from quantum chemistry calculations and simulated EVV 2DIR spectra. To test the sensitivity of the technique, we use mixed-peptide samples containing various levels of tyrosine nitration, and we use mass spectrometry to independently verify the level of nitration. We conclude that EVV 2DIR spectroscopy is able to provide detailed spectroscopic information on peptide side-chain modifications and to detect nitration levels down to 1%. We further propose that lower nitration levels could be detected by introducing a resonant Raman probe step to increase the detection sensitivity of EVV 2DIR spectroscopy. (Graph Presented)