Harmelin v. Michigan: Effective Application of Anti-Drug Legislation or Cruel and Unusual Punishment?

The traditional American concept of criminal sentencing is that prisons exist for rehabilitation and release as much as for incarceration. 1 However, in recent years Congress and state legislatures have enacted a series of stringent anti-drug laws, which have largely abandoned the concept of rehabilitating prisoners2 and instead, focused on keeping inmates locked up for longer periods of time.\u2

Myers-Briggs personality types in chronic pain patients

This study uses the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to examine the possibility that there are personality types that are more likely to cope maladaptively, and experience the syndrome of chronic pain, when they are faced with an injury or pain which results in unexpected life changes. The Chronic Pain sample in this study scored significantly higher than a Normal sample in their preference for Introversion, Sensing and Judging and were significantly more likely to be the personality types ISFJ or ISTJ. This study also examines the relationship between MMPI depression scores and Myers-Briggs Introversion scores and the results tend to confirm earlier research which showed a correlation between the two. Chronic pain subjects who scored high on the MMPI depression scale when they were admitted to a four-week multidisciplinary Pain Management Center, scored significantly lower on depression as well as exhibiting a significant move toward Extraversion at the time of their discharge from treatment. Chronic pain subjects who were within the normal range for depression on admission did not exhibit a significant change on the Introversion/ Extraversion scale at the time of discharge. There was a significant shift toward lower MMPI depression scores at the time of discharge for the chronic pain sample irrespective of whether or not they scored as preferring Introversion or Extraversion at the time of admission to treatment. The results support the concept that there are personality types that are at higher risk to experience chronic pain syndrome when faced with an unexpected injury

The net benefit of public expenditures on avalanche defence structures in the municipality of Davos, Switzerland

International audienceAvalanches pose a threat to settlements as well as industrial and recreational areas in the Alps. As a counter measure, technical mitigation measures have been implemented since the 19th century, resulting in a raise in value of formerly endangered areas. This increase in value can be considered as a benefit due to prevented damage. This paper compares the total costs and benefits of technical mitigation measures in the municipality of Davos, Switzerland as a basis for evaluating their net social benefit. The benefit of avalanche defence structures is determined using two different approaches. First, the replacement value of buildings protected by mitigation measures is quantified. Second, the number of protected persons is monetarily assessed by means of a human capital approach. The quantified benefit is compared with the present value of cumulative capital expenditures on avalanche mitigation measures. In addition, distributional effects of the public expenditures on technical mitigation measures are discussed based on the average future tax revenues within protected areas. Depending on whether benefits are calculated in terms of protected buildings or protected persons, the results show a large range of cost-benefit ratios. Critical issues of cost-benefit analyses in the context of alpine natural hazards are highlighted, including problems related to the human capital approach and the sensitivity of results to how benefits are calculated. The applicability of cost-benefit analyses for evaluating avalanche mitigation measures is discussed

School Level and Urbanicity Differences in School Threat Scenario Plans: A National Analysis

The overall purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the degree to which school level (i.e., elementary, middle, and high schools) and school urbanicity (i.e., city, suburb, town, and rural) were related to written safety plans (i.e., active shooter, hostage, bomb, and pandemic flu/disease threats) and drilled safety plans (i.e., evacuation, lockdown, and shelter-in-place) based on school administrator responses to a nationwide school safety survey. The first specific purpose was to ascertain the extent to which the frequencies of written school safety plans for active shooter, hostage, and bomb threats differ by school level and urbanicity. The second specific purpose was to establish the extent to which the frequencies of drilled school safety plans for evacuation, lockdown, and shelter-in-place practices differ by school level and urbanicity. The third specific purpose was to examine the extent to which written pandemic flu/disease safety plans differ by school level and urbanicity. In the third study, analyses were performed to determine if trends were present for school safety written pandemic flu/disease plans by school level and urbanicity

Sonographic detection of fetal extrathoracic pulmonary sequestration.

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135413/1/jum198655283.pd

Force-velocity relation and density profiles for biased diffusion in an adsorbed monolayer

In this paper, which completes our earlier short publication [Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 511 (2000)], we study dynamics of a hard-core tracer particle (TP) performing a biased random walk in an adsorbed monolayer, composed of mobile hard-core particles undergoing continuous exchanges with a vapor phase. In terms of an approximate approach, based on the decoupling of the third-order correlation functions, we obtain the density profiles of the monolayer particles around the TP and derive the force-velocity relation, determining the TP terminal velocity, V_{tr}, as the function of the magnitude of external bias and other system's parameters. Asymptotic forms of the monolayer particles density profiles at large separations from the TP, and behavior of V_{tr} in the limit of small external bias are found explicitly.Comment: Latex, 31 pages, 3 figure

NADPH and glutathione redox link TCA cycle activity to endoplasmic reticulum homeostasis

Many metabolic diseases disrupt endoplasmic reticulum (ER) homeostasis, but little is known about how metabolic activity is communicated to the ER. Here, we show in hepatocytes and other metabolically active cells that decreasing the availability of substrate for the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle diminished NADPH production, elevated glutathione oxidation, led to altered oxidative maturation of ER client proteins, and attenuated ER stress. This attenuation was prevented when glutathione oxidation was disfavored. ER stress was also alleviated by inhibiting either TCA-dependent NADPH production or Glutathione Reductase. Conversely, stimulating TCA activity increased NADPH production, glutathione reduction, and ER stress. Validating these findings, deletion of the Mitochondrial Pyruvate Carrier-which is known to decrease TCA cycle activity and protect the liver from steatohepatitis-also diminished NADPH, elevated glutathione oxidation, and alleviated ER stress. Together, our results demonstrate a novel pathway by which mitochondrial metabolic activity is communicated to the ER through the relay of redox metabolites

Effects of heavy ion particle irradiation on spore germination of bacillus spp. From extremely hot and cold environments

Extremophiles are optimal models in experimentally addressing questions about the effects of cosmic radiation on biological systems. The resistance to high charge energy (HZE) particles, and helium (He) ions and iron (Fe) ions (LET at 2.2 and 200 keV/µm, respectively, until 1000 Gy), of spores from two thermophiles, Bacillus horneckiae SBP3 and Bacillus licheniformis T14, and two psychrotolerants, Bacillus sp. A34 and A43, was investigated. Spores survived He irradiation better, whereas they were more sensitive to Fe irradiation (until 500 Gy), with spores from thermophiles being more resistant to irradiations than psychrotolerants. The survived spores showed different germination kinetics, depending on the type/dose of irradiation and the germinant used. After exposure to He 1000 Gy, D-glucose increased the lag time of thermophilic spores and induced germination of psychrotolerants, whereas L-alanine and L-valine increased the germination efficiency, except alanine for A43. FTIR spectra showed important modifications to the structural components of spores after Fe irradiation at 250 Gy, which could explain the block in spore germination, whereas minor changes were observed after He radiation that could be related to the increased permeability of the inner membranes and alterations of receptor complex structures. Our results give new insights on HZE resistance of extremophiles that are useful in different contexts, including astrobiology

Lizards Cooperatively Tunnel to Construct a Long-Term Home for Family Members

Constructing a home to protect offspring while they mature is common in many vertebrate groups, but has not previously been reported in lizards. Here we provide the first example of a lizard that constructs a long-term home for family members, and a rare case of lizards behaving cooperatively. The great desert skink, Liopholis kintorei from Central Australia, constructs an elaborate multi-tunnelled burrow that can be continuously occupied for up to 7 years. Multiple generations participate in construction and maintenance of burrows. Parental assignments based on DNA analysis show that immature individuals within the same burrow were mostly full siblings, even when several age cohorts were present. Parents were always captured at burrows containing their offspring, and females were only detected breeding with the same male both within- and across seasons. Consequently, the individual investments made to construct or maintain a burrow system benefit their own offspring, or siblings, over several breeding seasons

Demonstartion of density dependence of x-ray flux in a laser-driven hohlraum

Experiments have been conducted using laser-driven cylindrical hohlraums whose walls are machined from Ta{sub 2}O{sub 5} foams of 100 mg/cc and 4 g/cc densities. Measurements of the radiation temperature demonstrate that the lower density walls produce higher radiation temperatures than the high density walls. This is the first experimental demonstration of the prediction that this would occur [M. D. Rosen and J. H. Hammer, Phys. Rev. E 72, 056403 (2005)]. For high density walls, the radiation front propagates subsonically, and part of the absorbed energy is wasted by the flow kinetic energy. For the lower wall density, the front velocity is supersonic and can devote almost all of the absorbed energy to heating the wall