Making Detention Reform Work for Girls: A Guide to Juvenile Detention Reform

Throughout the nation, court-involved girls frequently pose minimal risk to public safety but suffer with significant social service needs. Data on detention utilization show that girls are being disproportionately detained for misdemeanors, status offenses and technical violations of probation and parole. In short, many girls enter detention for the wrong reasons and many remain in detention for extended periods harmful to them and contrary to best practice. This practice guide responds to a call from both mature and new sites from within the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) network, which continue to find that effectively serving and supervising girls is among the most difficult issues in detention reform. The practice guide stresses that efforts to safely reduce the inappropriate detention of low-risk girls must be rooted in JDAI\u27s core strategies, but with an added intentional focus on applying those core strategies to girls\u27 unique needs and circumstances. Thus, the Practice Guide updates the 2005 Pathways report Detention Reform and Girls: Challenges and Solutions and then details steps jurisdictions can take to pinpoint policies or practices that may result in girls\u27 inappropriate or unnecessary detention. It then profiles an array of promising and proven strategies drawn from experience and literature that jurisdictions can use to improve the detention process and reduce the use of detention for girls

Methods and apparatus for determining cardiac output

The present invention provides methods and apparatus for determining a dynamical property of the systemic or pulmonary arterial tree using long time scale information, i.e., information obtained from measurements over time scales greater than a single cardiac cycle. In one aspect, the invention provides a method and apparatus for monitoring cardiac output (CO) from a single blood pressure signal measurement obtained at any site in the systemic or pulmonary arterial tree or from any related measurement including, for example, fingertip photoplethysmography.According to the method the time constant of the arterial tree, defined to be the product of the total peripheral resistance (TPR) and the nearly constant arterial compliance, is determined by analyzing the long time scale variations (greater than a single cardiac cycle) in any of these blood pressure signals. Then, according to Ohm's law, a value proportional to CO may be determined from the ratio of the blood pressure signal to the estimated time constant. The proportional CO values derived from this method may be calibrated to absolute CO, if desired, with a single, absolute measure of CO (e.g., thermodilution). The present invention may be applied to invasive radial arterial blood pressure or pulmonary arterial blood pressure signals which are routinely measured in intensive care units and surgical suites or to noninvasively measured peripheral arterial blood pressure signals or related noninvasively measured signals in order to facilitate the clinical monitoring of CO as well as TPR

Bioinformatics enrichment tools: paths toward the comprehensive functional analysis of large gene lists

Functional analysis of large gene lists, derived in most cases from emerging high-throughput genomic, proteomic and bioinformatics scanning approaches, is still a challenging and daunting task. The gene-annotation enrichment analysis is a promising high-throughput strategy that increases the likelihood for investigators to identify biological processes most pertinent to their study. Approximately 68 bioinformatics enrichment tools that are currently available in the community are collected in this survey. Tools are uniquely categorized into three major classes, according to their underlying enrichment algorithms. The comprehensive collections, unique tool classifications and associated questions/issues will provide a more comprehensive and up-to-date view regarding the advantages, pitfalls and recent trends in a simpler tool-class level rather than by a tool-by-tool approach. Thus, the survey will help tool designers/developers and experienced end users understand the underlying algorithms and pertinent details of particular tool categories/tools, enabling them to make the best choices for their particular research interests

Method and apparatus for guiding ablative therapy of abnormal biological electrical excitation

This invention involves method and apparatus for guiding ablative therapy of abnormal biological electrical excitation. In particular, it is designed for treatment of cardiac arrhythmias. In the method of this invention electrical signals are acquired from passive electrodes, and an inverse dipole method is used to identify the site of origin of an arrhytmia. The location of the tip of the ablation catheter is similarly localized from signals acquired from the passive electrodes while electrical energy is delivered to the tip of the catheter. The catheter tip is then guided to the site of origin of the arrhythmia, and ablative radio frequency energy is delivered to its tip to ablate the site

The Phantom Burster Model for Pancreatic β-Cells

Abstract Pancreatic β-cells exhibit bursting oscillations with a wide range of periods. Whereas periods in isolated cells are generally either a few seconds or a few minutes, in intact islets of Langerhans they are intermediate (10–60 s). We develop a mathematical model for β-cell electrical activity capable of generating this wide range of bursting oscillations. Unlike previous models, bursting is driven by the interaction of two slow processes, one with a relatively small time constant (1–5 s) and the other with a much larger time constant (1–2 min). Bursting on the intermediate time scale is generated without need for a slow process having an intermediate time constant, hence phantom bursting. The model suggests that isolated cells exhibiting a fast pattern may nonetheless possess slower processes that can be brought out by injecting suitable exogenous currents. Guided by this, we devise an experimental protocol using the dynamic clamp technique that reliably elicits islet-like, medium period oscillations from isolated cells. Finally, we show that strong electrical coupling between a fast burster and a slow burster can produce synchronized medium bursting, suggesting that islets may be composed of cells that are intrinsically either fast or slow, with few or none that are intrinsically medium