The New Era of Administrative Regularization: Controlling Prosecutorial Discretion through the Administrative Procedure Act

Beginning in 1969, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia began developing and installing, with the help of management consultants, a computerized record keeping process that came to be known as the Prosecutor\u27s Management Information System, or PROMIS. I Unlike other federal prosecutors, the U. S. Attorney in the District of Columbia is responsible for prosecuting felonies under local law and shares many of the problems of court backlog and scarcity of resources familiar to local prosecutors in other large cities. PROMIS is a computer data bank in which six kinds of information are collected and correlated with each other for every criminal case litigated by the U. S. Attorney\u27s office. The computer will report information about the defendant (such as aliases, prior arrests and convictions, age, race, sex, and employment status), the crime (such as the amount of violence and property damage, the number of persons accused of working with the defendant, and the date and place of the incident), the arrest (such as the type of arrest and the names of the arresting officers), the offense or offenses charged (such as the charges at arrest, the charges actually placed after initial screening by a prosecutor, and the reasons for any changes), the witnesses (such as name, address, evidentiary value, and assessment of whether there will be problems getting a given witness to testify), and the court history of the case (such as the date and substance of every court event from arraignment to sentencing, the cause of each event, and the names of the prosecutor, defense attorney, and judge involved at each stage). Information about the defendant and the offense of which he is accused is computed through formulae that produce a case priority rating which allows the office to single out certain cases for special attention and provides the basis for detailed supervision, through guidelines, of each Assistant U. S. Attorney\u27s discretion. While PROMIS was being developed, and in conjunction with it, the U. S. Attorney\u27s office put many of its guidelines in the form of a Papering and Screening Manual for its Superior Court Division and Guidelines for First Offender Treatment. Neither the existence nor the contents of these documents was disclosed to the public

Legislation\u27s Culture

American statutes can seem like labyrinthine mazes when compared to some countries’ legislation. French codes are admired for their intellectual elegance and clarity. Novelists and poets (Stendhal, Valéry) have considered the Code civil to be literature. Swedish legislation might be based on empirical research into problems the legislation is intended to remedy, and the drafting style, though modern today, is descended from an oral tradition of poetic narrative. Comparing these legislative cultures with our own reveals that the main problem with American legislation is not too many words. It is too many ideas — a high ratio of concepts per legislative goal. When American, French, and Swedish legislatures address similar problems, the French and Swedes draft using far fewer concepts than Americans do. In both countries, simple solutions are preferred over convoluted ones. The drafters of the Code civil thought the highest intellectual and legislative accomplishment to be simplicity. The Swedes got to approximately the same place through a cultural value that law be understandable to the public. Where the American legislative process can seem chaotic, there has been some respect for Cartesian rationality in France and for empirical evidence in Sweden. Even if American statutes were to be translated into ordinary English, they would still be labyrinths because our legislatures insist on addressing every conceivable detail that legislators can imagine. The result is excessively conceptualized legislation, imposing large numbers of duties. Statutory concepts cost money. They create issues, which must be decided by publicly funded courts and agencies with additional costs to the parties involved. Every unnecessary statutory concept wastes social and economic resources. And to the extent law seems incomprehensible to the public, it loses moral authority

Publishing and sharing multi-dimensional image data with OMERO

Imaging data are used in the life and biomedical sciences to measure the molecular and structural composition and dynamics of cells, tissues, and organisms. Datasets range in size from megabytes to terabytes and usually contain a combination of binary pixel data and metadata that describe the acquisition process and any derived results. The OMERO image data management platform allows users to securely share image datasets according to specific permissions levels: data can be held privately, shared with a set of colleagues, or made available via a public URL. Users control access by assigning data to specific Groups with defined membership and access rights. OMERO’s Permission system supports simple data sharing in a lab, collaborative data analysis, and even teaching environments. OMERO software is open source and released by the OME Consortium at www.openmicroscopy.org

Isoform Diversity and Regulation in Peripheral and Central Neurons Revealed through RNA-Seq

To fully understand cell type identity and function in the nervous system there is a need to understand neuronal gene expression at the level of isoform diversity. Here we applied Next Generation Sequencing of the transcriptome (RNA-Seq) to purified sensory neurons and cerebellar granular neurons (CGNs) grown on an axonal growth permissive substrate. The goal of the analysis was to uncover neuronal type specific isoforms as a prelude to understanding patterns of gene expression underlying their intrinsic growth abilities. Global gene expression patterns were comparable to those found for other cell types, in that a vast majority of genes were expressed at low abundance. Nearly 18% of gene loci produced more than one transcript. More than 8000 isoforms were differentially expressed, either to different degrees in different neuronal types or uniquely expressed in one or the other. Sensory neurons expressed a larger number of genes and gene isoforms than did CGNs. To begin to understand the mechanisms responsible for the differential gene/isoform expression we identified transcription factor binding sites present specifically in the upstream genomic sequences of differentially expressed isoforms, and analyzed the 3′ untranslated regions (3′ UTRs) for microRNA (miRNA) target sites. Our analysis defines isoform diversity for two neuronal types with diverse axon growth capabilities and begins to elucidate the complex transcriptional landscape in two neuronal populations

Genomic imprinting and assisted reproduction

Imprinted genes exhibit a parent-of-origin specific pattern of expression. Such genes have been shown to be targets of molecular defects in particular genetic syndromes such as Beckwith-Wiedemann and Angelman syndromes. Recent reports have raised concern about the possibility that assisted reproduction techniques, such as in vitro fertilization or intracytoplasmic sperm injection, might cause genomic imprinting disorders. The number of reported cases of those disorders is still too small to draw firm conclusions and the safety of these widely used assisted reproduction techniques needs to be further evaluated

Weight-loss and exercise for communities with arthritis in North Carolina (we-can): design and rationale of a pragmatic, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled trial

Background: Recently, we determined that in a rigorously monitored environment an intensive diet-induced weight loss of 10% combined with exercise was significantly more effective at reducing pain in men and women with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA) than either intervention alone. Compared to previous long-term weight loss and exercise trials of knee OA, our intensive diet-induced weight loss and exercise intervention was twice as effective at reducing pain intensity. Whether these results can be generalized to less intensively monitored cohorts is unknown. Thus, the policy relevant and clinically important question is: Can we adapt this successful solution to a pervasive public health problem in real-world clinical and community settings? This study aims to develop a systematic, practical, cost-effective diet-induced weight loss and exercise intervention implemented in community settings and to determine its effectiveness in reducing pain and improving other clinical outcomes in persons with knee OA. Methods/Design: This is a Phase III, pragmatic, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled trial. Participants will include 820 ambulatory, community-dwelling, overweight and obese (BMI ≥ 27 kg/m2) men and women aged ≥ 50 years who meet the American College of Rheumatology clinical criteria for knee OA. The primary aim is to determine whether a community-based 18-month diet-induced weight loss and exercise intervention based on social cognitive theory and implemented in three North Carolina counties with diverse residential (from urban to rural) and socioeconomic composition significantly decreases knee pain in overweight and obese adults with knee OA relative to a nutrition and health attention control group. Secondary aims will determine whether this intervention improves self-reported function, health-related quality of life, mobility, and is cost-effective. Discussion: Many physicians who treat people with knee OA have no practical means to implement weight loss and exercise treatments as recommended by numerous OA treatment guidelines. This study will establish the effectiveness of a community program that will serve as a blueprint and exemplar for clinicians and public health officials in urban and rural communities to implement a diet-induced weight loss and exercise program designed to reduce knee pain and improve other clinical outcomes in overweight and obese adults with knee OA

Report on the sixth blind test of organic crystal-structure prediction methods

The sixth blind test of organic crystal-structure prediction (CSP) methods has been held, with five target systems: a small nearly rigid molecule, a polymorphic former drug candidate, a chloride salt hydrate, a co-crystal, and a bulky flexible molecule. This blind test has seen substantial growth in the number of submissions, with the broad range of prediction methods giving a unique insight into the state of the art in the field. Significant progress has been seen in treating flexible molecules, usage of hierarchical approaches to ranking structures, the application of density-functional approximations, and the establishment of new workflows and "best practices" for performing CSP calculations. All of the targets, apart from a single potentially disordered Z` = 2 polymorph of the drug candidate, were predicted by at least one submission. Despite many remaining challenges, it is clear that CSP methods are becoming more applicable to a wider range of real systems, including salts, hydrates and larger flexible molecules. The results also highlight the potential for CSP calculations to complement and augment experimental studies of organic solid forms