Understanding Your Domestic Relations Rights in Virginia, 2016-2017

The Metropolitan Richmond Women’s Bar Association has published this booklet to help you understand the general legal circumstances that you may face in resolving domestic relations problems under Virginia law. Each person faces unique circumstances that may not be specifically addressed in a broad overview. This booklet is not intended to provide specific advice to you or to address your specific situation. You should use this document only as an introduction to understanding your legal rights. This booklet is based on laws in effect in Virginia on July 1, 2016. Because laws are always subject to change, you should consult your local court or a lawyer for possible changes

30 Tips for Excellence in Juvenile Defense

This article for the Virginia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers newsletter provides advice on representing juvenile clients

Making Juvenile Justice More Humane and Effective

Long commutes, high costs and too much time away from family are among the most common frustration for workers in Virginia. But while those annoyances may be tolerable when it comes to our daily commutes, they have become an unfortunate feature of Virginia’s youth justice system, which confines hundreds of youth in large institutions far from their homes. When young people have regular visits with their family and other members of the community, they have a much higher chance of being rehabilitated and successfully returning to those communities. Currently, many incarcerated youth in Virginia are held far from their families, unable to stay connected due to high travel costs and restrictive visiting hours. This model, which inhibits regular and therapeutic contact, is untenable, unfair, and counterproductive to our goal of helping young people eventually rejoin their communities and become productive citizens

Five Devastating Collateral Consequences of Juvenile Delinquency Adjudications You Should Know Before You Represent a Child

The original purpose of the juvenile court was to create a forum, separate from the adult courts, in which children could be given the opportunity for rehabilitation and treatment. Society placed an emphasis on correcting misbehavior and minimizing disruptions in the transition to adulthood for young people and wanted to spare them the stigma of being branded as “criminals.” In 1967, the Court established in In re Gault that juveniles, even though they were in a different system, were still entitled to the basic safeguards that an adult would be granted in the courtroom. For most of the existence of the juvenile court in Virginia, the belief that children are amenable to reform prevailed. Unfortunately, the late 1980s and 1990s ushered in a new attitude about how children should be treated in the criminal justice system. Based on a now disproven theory that there would be a wave of juvenile “superpredators” that would wreak havoc on our communities, public policy began to deemphasize youth privacy, treatment, and rehabilitation in favor of laws designed to heighten public accountability. In reality, the predicted youth crime wave never materialized and between 1999 and 2008, juvenile arrest rates for violent crimes decreased by 8.6 percent and total juvenile arrest rates have fallen by 15.7 percent in the past decade. Regardless, Congress and the Virginia General Assembly enacted numerous laws ceating serious collateral consequences attendant to delinquency adjudications. In Padilla v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court recently addressed the duty of counsel to advise clients about collateral consequences. In light of this case, the lifelong impact of many collateral consequences, and the inherent vulnerability of children, it is imperative that to provide efective assistance of counsel, attorneys inform their clients of all the potential collateral consequences of a juvenile adjudication or conviction. Collateral consequences greatly impact the lives of individuals with criminal records, as well as, in many instances, the lives of their families. These consequences, both individually and collectively, constrict the social, economic, and political access of the two million juveniles arrested nationwide each year, impeding the individual’s ability to reintegrate successfully into the community upon release. The collection of consequences that can attach to a single conviction is exceedingly difficult to grasp, as they comprise a mixture of federal and state statutory law, regulatory law, and local policies

Capital Sentencing for Children in Virginia in the Wake of Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana

Recent United States Supreme Court decisions have declared it unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile to mandatory life in prison without an opportunity for parole. Virginia, a state that abolished parole in 1995, has yet to recognize the federally mandated prohibition against disproportionate punishment imposed on juveniles, particularly in cases where the mandatory minimum sentence is life without parole. This article proposes the General Assembly should amend current laws that reflect the unconstitutionality of these statutes as applied to juveniles

Two Dimensional Sign Language Agent

No abstract available

Annual net snow accumulation over southern Greenland from 1975 to 1998

As part of NASA's Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment (PARCA), extensive ice core measurements of annual net water-equivalent accumulation have been made recently around the southern Greenland ice sheet. Analysis of these measurements demonstrates that annual and seasonal accumulation patterns are sometimes regional, with temporal variability in accumulation correlated over large areas. Using this unique, widely distributed set of contemporaneous accumulation measurements, as well as available previously published observations, we developed maps of annual net snow accumulation south of �73° N for each year from 1975 to 1998. Here net snow accumulation is defined as snow accumulation minus ablation. In order to achieve a more consistent spatial distibution of core measurements for each of the 24 years in the study period, some of the observed records were extrapolated up to 5 years using empirical relationships between monthly precipitation measured at coastal stations and the observed ice core net accumulation records. Initial comparisons between the maps of annual net snow accumulation and similar maps of net accumulation derived from meteorological model simulations show excellent agreement in the temporal variability of accumulation, although significant differences in the magnitude of accumulation remain. Both measurements and model simulations indicate that annual net accumulation, averaged over all higher-elevation regions (above 2000 m) of the southern ice sheet, varies significantly from one year to the next. The maximum year-to-year change during the 24-year study period occurred between calendar years 1995 and 1996, when the average annual net snow accumulation increased by 101 and 172 kg m-2 yr-1, or 37 and 57, for observations and model simulations, respectively. Taken alone, this 1-year change in average net snow accumulation corresponds to a drop in sea level of �0.16 and �0.28 mm yr-1. Copyright 2001 by the American Geophysical Union

Random sequences are an abundant source of bioactive RNAs or peptides

It is generally assumed that new genes arise through duplication and/or recombination of existing genes. The probability that a new functional gene could arise out of random non-coding DNA is so far considered to be negligible, since it seems unlikely that such a RNA or protein sequence could have an initial function that influences the fitness of an organism. We have here tested this question systematically, by expressing clones with random sequences in E . coli and subjecting them to competitive growth. Contrary to expectations, we find that random sequences with bioactivity are not rare. In our experiments we find that up to 25% of the evaluated clones enhance the growth rate of their cells and up to 52% inhibit growth. Testing of individual clones in competition assays confirms their activity and provides an indication that their activity could be exerted either by the transcribed RNA or the translated peptide. This suggests that transcribed and translated random parts of the genome could indeed have a high potential to become functional. The results also suggest that random sequences may become an effective new source of molecules for studying cellular functions, as well as for pharmacological activity screening

Improving undergraduate STEM education: The efficacy of discipline-based professional development

We sought to determine whether instructional practices used by undergraduate faculty in the geosciences have shifted from traditional teacher-centered lecture toward student-engaged teaching practices and to evaluate whether the national professional development program On the Cutting Edge (hereinafter Cutting Edge) has been a contributing factor in this change. We surveyed geoscience faculty across the United States in 2004, 2009, and 2012 and asked about teaching practices as well as levels of engagement in education research, scientific research, and professional development related to teaching. We tested these self-reported survey results with direct observations of teaching using the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol, and we conducted interviews to understand what aspects of Cutting Edge have supported change. Survey data show that teaching strategies involving active learning have become more common, that these practices are concentrated in faculty who invest in learning about teaching, and that faculty investment in learning about teaching has increased. Regression analysis shows that, after controlling for other key influences, faculty who have participated in Cutting Edge programs and who regularly use resources on the Cutting Edge website are statistically more likely to use active learning teaching strategies. Cutting Edge participants also report that learning about teaching, the availability of teaching resources, and interactions with peers have supported changes in their teaching practice. Our data suggest that even one-time participation in a workshop with peers can lead to improved teaching by supporting a combination of affective and cognitive learning outcomes

Evaporative Gasoline Emissions and Asthma Symptoms

Attached garages are known to be associated with indoor air volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This study looked at indoor exposure to VOCs presumably from evaporative emissions of gasoline. Alaskan gasoline contains 5% benzene making benzene a marker for gasoline exposure. A survey of randomly chosen houses with attached garages was done in Anchorage Alaska to determine the exposure and assess respiratory health. Householders were asked to complete a health survey for each person and a household survey. They monitored indoor air in their primary living space for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes for one week using passive organic vapor monitoring badges. Benzene levels in homes ranged from undetectable to 58 parts per billion. The median benzene level in 509 homes tested was 2.96 ppb. Elevated benzene levels in the home were strongly associated with small engines and gasoline stored in the garage. High concentrations of benzene in gasoline increase indoor air levels of benzene in residences with attached garages exposing people to benzene at levels above ATSDR’s minimal risk level. Residents reported more severe symptoms of asthma in the homes with high gasoline exposure (16%) where benzene levels exceeded the 9 ppb