The politics of fulfilling the mission in a private, nonprofit cultural organization an analysis of the management of the Historic New Orleans Collection

This report is the result of a three month internship with The Historic New Orleans Collection in Louisiana. The purpose of the internship was to gain an understanding of the projects and strategies used in operating this nonprofit cultural organization. The majority of my time during the three month period was spent working on five tasks assigned to me by the Director of Williams Research Center (WRC), one of the buildings within The Collection. I also attended staff meetings and lectures as if l were a paid employee of the organization. Consequently, l observed the work practices of the statf at WRC. This paper outlines my numerous observations of the operations of THNOC, including board and staff structures, task descriptions, the supervisory approaches of managers, the importance of work environment on productivity, and the acquisitions, purchases, and programs which fulfill the organization\u27s mission

Standing Mute at Arrest as Evidence of Guilt: The \u27Right to Silence\u27 Under Attack

It is commonly understood that an arrested person has a right to remain silent and that the government may not use his or her silence to prove guilt at trial. Three Circuit Courts of Appeal, however, reject this understanding. They allow the prosecution to use an arrested person\u27s pre-Miranda silence as direct evidence of guilt. This article argues that those Circuits are wrong. The article, first, demonstrates the historical antiquity of the Common Law principle that a detained person has the right to stand mute. Though the right was limited by statutory incursion and in tension, at times, with the evidentiary principle of tacit admissions an arrested person\u27s right to stand mute has never been so attenuated that a defendant\u27s mere silence upon arrest can give rise to an inference of guilt. Two of the Circuits that permit the use of post-arrest pre-Miranda silence to prove guilt neglect the distinction between the impeachment use of silence, which the Supreme Court has sanctioned, and the substantive use of silence. A third Circuit has confused the giving of Miranda warnings with the inception of the right to remain silent. Four other Circuits bar the prosecution from using post-arrest pre-Miranda silence to prove guilt. These courts correctly perceive that the right against self-incrimination protects a person at least from the moment he or she is detained

Farmers tell us how to help improve their mental health help-seeking

Farmers’ mental health help-seeking is reported to be poor. Mental health help-seeking is seeking help from professionals such as GPs and psychologists for issues relating to distress or mental health (Rickwood & Thomas, 2012). Timely mental health help-seeking behaviour is important because it may minimise any negative outcomes. At present, there is no research that has identified how to target farmers to improve their mental health help-seeking. It is known that tailored approaches to intervention are superior and this is likely to be so for intervening with farmers whom have a strong culture and a vastly different situation than metropolitan populations. This study is part of a body of work exploring the factors that influence mental health help-seeking in farmers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 farmers (farming as their occupation) as well as 10 farmers’ partners (for their additional insight), all of whom resided/worked in Queensland. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) technique of thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Based on the data three themes were developed regarding intervention: education (what needs to be taught and how to teach it), the medium (which mediums preferred and engagement with them) and multi-faceted programs (Many aspects important such as community input and role of GPs, family, and friends). This research improves the knowledge on how to target interventions, including the medium, specifically to farmers for mental health help-seeking. The findings could be utilised in the design process to create interventions that are more likely to have an impact, specific for farmers to improve their mental health help-seeking behaviour

Farmers are not seeking help: what does service provision have to do with it?

Aim The rate of suicide in farmers is twice that of the general population. Help-seeking from health professionals, if this occurs in a timely manner, can significantly minimise the negative consequences of mental ill-health. However, it has now been demonstrated that farmers as a group are reluctant to seek help for mental ill-health, which likely contributes to this problem. Previous research has demonstrated that General Practitioners are the most commonly visited health professional in rural farming areas, however, they are under-utilised as a means of seeking help. This research aimed to examine the potential barriers and facilitators of mental health help-seeking in farmers, that relate to the provision of service from the perspective of farmers. Methods The present research draws on findings from semi‐structured interviews with 10 farmers residing in Queensland. The techniques of Braun and Clarke (2006) were used to guide the thematic analysis. Results Several key factors relating to services were identified as having the potential to directly or indirectly influence mental health help-seeking. These include: how services are marketed/packaged and delivered, availability and accessibility, continuity of care, having ‘knowledgeable bush practitioners’ as well as perception of good outcomes. Conclusion It is expected that this research will create a better understanding of the farmers’ perspective relating to service provision for the purpose of seeking help for mental health. The outcomes have implications for developing and providing interventions for farmers to promote services for the purpose of mental health help-seeking as well as create awareness in service provider and other stakeholders of issues that prevent timely help-seeking

Increased serum OPG in atrophic nonunion shaft fractures

Background Bone repair alteration is hypothesized for nonunion fracture pathogenesis. Since it is involved in osteoclast regulation, the RANK/RANKL/OPG system (receptor activator of nuclear factor kB/its ligand/osteoprotegerin) may play a role. Materials and methods Serum OPG, free RANKL, bone alkaline phosphatase (BAP), osteocalcin (OC), and urinary deoxypyridinoline (DPD) were determined in 16 male patients (20\u201339 years) with long bone atrophic nonunion fractures. Serum markers were also measured in 18 agematched male controls who healed from the same type of fractures within six months, and in 14 age-matched male controls who were healing from the same fractures one month after injury. One-way ANOVA and Bonferroni\u2019s test were used for statistical analysis. Results Only OPG was significantly higher (0.56 sd 0.11 ng/ml) in the patients compared to healed (0.26 sd 0.04 ng/ml; P\0.001) and healing (0.29 sd 0.09 ng/ml; P\0.001) controls. The patients\u2019 DPD levels were normal. No correlations were found between bone markers and the characteristics of the subjects in all groups. Conclusions A normal steady state of bone metabolism seems to be present in patients with atrophic nonunion fractures, despite the high serum OPG. The reason for the inability of the patients\u2019 OPG to inhibit osteoclastic activity is unknown. Osteoblast activity also appears normal, so another cellular source of OPG can be hypothesized

Digital Metastases of Giant Cell Rich Malignant Fibrous Histiocytoma

Background. Metastatic spread of soft tissue sarcomas to the digits is extremely rare and metastasis of MFH to the fingers and toes has not been documented

Combining heterogeneous features for time series prediction

© 2017 IEEE. Time series prediction is a challenging task in reality, and various methods have been proposed for it. However, only the historical series of values are exploited in most of existing methods. Therefore, the predictive models might be not effective in some cases, due to: (1) the historical series of values is not sufficient usually, and (2) features from heterogeneous sources such as the intrinsic features of data samples themselves, which could be very useful, are not take into consideration. To address these issues, we proposed a novel method in this paper which learns the predictive model based on the combination of dynamic features extracted from series of historical values and static features of data samples. To evaluate the performance of our proposed method, we compare it with linear regression and boosted trees, and the experimental results validate our method's superiority

Evaluating morphometric and metabolic markers of body condition in a small cetacean, the harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)

Mammalian body condition is an important individual fitness metric as it affects both survival and reproductive success. The ability to accurately measure condition has key implications for predicting individual and population health, and therefore monitoring the population-level effects of changing environments. No consensus currently exists on the best measure to quantitatively estimate body condition in many species, including cetaceans. Here, two measures of body condition were investigated in the harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena). First, the most informative morphometric body condition index was identified. The mass/length2 ratio was the most appropriate morphometric index of 10 indices tested, explaining 50% of the variation in condition in stranded, male porpoises with different causes of death and across age classes (n = 291). Mass/length2 was then used to evaluate a second measure, blubber cortisol concentration, as a metabolic condition marker. Cortisol is the main glucocorticoid hormone involved in the regulation of lipolysis and overall energy balance in mammals, and concentrations could provide information on physiological state. Blubber cortisol concentrations did not significantly vary around the girth (n = 20), but there was significant vertical stratification through the blubber depth with highest concentrations in the innermost layer. Concentrations in the dorsal, outermost layer were representative of concentrations through the full blubber depth, showed variation by sex and age class, and were negatively correlated with mass/length2. Using this species as a model for live cetaceans from which standard morphometric measurements cannot be taken, but from which blubber biopsy samples are routinely collected, cortisol concentrations in the dorsal, outermost blubber layer could potentially be used as a biomarker of condition in free-ranging animals