Practice and Procedure—Impeachment of Verdicts by Jurors\u27 Affidavits

Gardner v. Malone, presents this problem: In what circumstances and by what evidence may a jury verdict be impeached for alleged misconduct in the jury-room? As an original proposition it would seem that, consonant with our notions of a fair trial, an improperly reached verdict should be subject to timely impeachment in every case. And further, there is no more logical means of proving such misconduct than by the testimony or affidavits of the jurors themselves. This, however, is not the law. Most American jurisdictions will not admit the testimony or affidavits of jurors to impeach their verdicts under any circumstances. This rule has two bases. The first is Vaise v. Delaval, written by Lord Mansfield in 1785. Premised on the idea that testimony of a juror regarding his own misconduct is inadmissible, while that of an eavesdropper to the same act may be heard, Vaise is obviously an historic anomaly

Community Property—Savings Bonds—Community Property—Supremacy Clause

This note concerns the conflict between federal and state law in a difficult though narrow area which is representative of broader problems in contemporary federalism. Specifically, the subject is the clash between the survivorship provisions of United States savings bonds and state community property laws, as evinced in two recent cases, Free v. Bland and Yiatchos v. Yiatchos. These cases will be examined while seeking an answer to two questions: How were the cases actually decided? and How should they have been decided? \u2

Life sciences recruitment objectives

The goals of the Life Sciences Division of the Office of Space Sciences and Application are to ensure the health, well being and productivity of humans in space and to acquire fundamental scientific knowledge in space life sciences. With these goals in mind Space Station Freedom represents substantial opportunities and significant challenges to the Life Sciences Division. For the first time it will be possible to replicate experimental data from a variety of simultaneously exposed species with appropriate controls and real-time analytical capabilities over extended periods of time. At the same time, a system for monitoring and ameliorating the physiological adaptations that occur in humans subjected to extended space flight must be evolved to provide the continuing operational support to the SSF crew. To meet its goals, and take advantage of the opportunities and overcome the challenges presented by Space Station Freedom, the Life Sciences Division is developing a suite of discipline-focused sequence. The research phase of the Life Sciences Space Station Freedom Program will commence with the utilization flights following the deployment of the U.S. laboratory module and achievement of Man Tended Capability. Investigators that want the Life Sciences Division to sponsor their experiment on SSF can do so in one of three ways: submitting a proposal in response to a NASA Research Announcement (NRA), submitting a proposal in response to an Announcement of Opportunity (AO), or submitting an unsolicited proposal. The scientific merit of all proposals will be evaluated by peer review panels. Proposals will also be evaluated based on relevance to NASA's missions and on the results of an Engineering and Cost Analyses. The Life Sciences Division expects that the majority of its funding opportunities will be announced through NRA's. It is anticipated that the first NRA will be released approximately three years before first element launch (currently scheduled for late 1995). Subsequent NRA's will be released on a rotating two year cycle

Clinical trials of potential cognitive-enhancing drugs in schizophrenia: what have we learned so far?

In light of the number of studies conducted to examine the treatment of cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia (CIAS), we critically reviewed recent CIAS trials. Trials were identified through searches of the website "www.clinicaltrials.gov" using the terms "schizophrenia AND cognition," "schizophrenia AND neurocognition," "schizophrenia AND neurocognitive tests," "schizophrenia AND MATRICS," "schizophrenia AND MCCB," "schizophrenia AND BACS," "schizophrenia AND COGSTATE," and "schizophrenia AND CANTAB" and "first-episode schizophrenia AND cognition." The cutoff date was 20 April 2011. Included trials were conducted in people with schizophrenia, the effects on cognition were either a primary or secondary outcome, and the effect of a pharmacologically active substance was examined. Drug challenge, pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, or prodrome of psychosis studies were excluded. We identified 118 trials, with 62% using an add-on parallel group design. The large majority of completed trials were underpowered to detect moderate effect sizes, had ≤8 weeks duration, and were performed in samples of participants with chronic stable schizophrenia. The ongoing add-on trials are longer, have larger sample sizes (with a number of them being adequately powered to detect moderate effect sizes), and are more likely to use a widely accepted standardized cognitive battery (eg, the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery) and MATRICS guidelines. Ongoing studies performed in subjects with recent onset schizophrenia may help elucidate which subjects are most likely to show an effect in cognition. New insights into the demands of CIAS trial design and methodology may help increase the probability of identifying treatments with beneficial effect on cognitive impairment in schizophrenia

Differential Effects of Emotional Information on Interference Task Performance Across the Life Span

While functioning in multiple domains declines with age, emotional regulation appears to remain preserved in older adults. The Emotion Inhibition (Emotional Stroop) Test requires participants to name the ink color in which neutrally and emotionally valenced words are printed. It was employed in the current investigation as a measure of affective regulation in the context of an interference task in relation to age. Results demonstrated that while participants ranging from 20 to 50 years of age performed significantly worse on the emotion Stroop Inhibition relative to the neutral Stroop Inhibition condition, subjects over 60 years of age displayed the converse of this pattern, performing better on the emotion than the neutral condition, suggesting that they are less affected by the emotional impact of the positive and negative words used in the former condition. This pattern of age-related change in the ability to manage emotion may be related to blunting of affective signaling in limbic structures or, at the psychological level, focusing on emotional regulation

The Role of Cognition and Social Functioning as Predictors in the Transition to Psychosis for Youth With Attenuated Psychotic Symptoms

In the literature, there have been several attempts to develop prediction models for youth who are at clinical high risk (CHR) of developing psychosis. Although there are no specific clinical or demographic variables that seem to consistently predict the later transition to psychosis in those CHR youth, in addition to attenuated psychotic symptoms, the most commonly occuring predictors tend to be poor social functioning and certain cognitive tasks. Unfortunately, there has been little attempt to replicate alogorithms. A recently published article by Cornblatt et al suggested that, for individuals with attentuated psychotic symptoms (APS), disorganized communication, suspiciousness, verbal memory, and a decline in social functioning were the best predictors of later transition to psychosis (the RAP model). The purpose of this article was to first test the prediction model of Cornblatt et al with a new sample of individuals with APS from the PREDICT study. The RAP model was not the best fit for the PREDICT data. However, using other variables from PREDICT, it was demonstrated that unusual thought content, disorganized communication, baseline social functioning, verbal fluency, and memory, processing speed and age were predictors of later transition to psychosis in the PREDICT sample. Although the predictors were different in these 2 models, both supported that disorganized communication, poor social functioning, and verbal memory, were good candidates as predictors for later conversion to psychosis

Recent radiocarbon dating and skeletal analysis of two log coffin burials from Yorkshire : Willie Howe and Towthorpe 139

This paper presents the results of the re-analysis and dating of skeletal material from two Early Bronze Age barrows in the east of Yorkshire, which contained log coffin burials. Towthorpe 139, which was investigated in the nineteenth century by the antiquarian JR Mortimer and Willie Howe, Cowlam which was excavated by TCM Brewster in the 1960s. Analysis of the human remains from Towthorpe revealed that the inhumed body was that of an adult male and the cremated remains, which were found in the mound above the log coffin burial were of a young person. Those from Willie Howe were of an adult male who had suffered a blow to the head. Not enough of the Towthorpe burials survived to obtain radiocarbon dates; however, two determinations were obtained on the skeleton from Willie Howe. These dates have revealed that the human remains date to the period ca. 2200–2000 cal BC

Results of phase 3 of the CATIE schizophrenia trial

Objective—The Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) study examined the comparative effectiveness of antipsychotic treatments for individuals with chronic schizophrenia. Patients who had discontinued antipsychotic treatment in phases 1 and 2 were eligible for phase 3, in which they selected one of nine antipsychotic regimens with the help of their study doctor. We describe the characteristics of the patients who selected each treatment option and their outcomes. Method—Two hundred and seventy patients entered phase 3. The open-label treatment options were monotherapy with oral aripiprazole, clozapine, olanzapine, perphenazine, quetiapine, risperidone, ziprasidone, long-acting injectable fluphenazine decanoate, or a combination of any two of these treatments. Results—Few patients selected fluphenazine decanoate (n=9) or perphenazine (n=4). Similar numbers selected each of the other options (range 33–41). Of the seven common choices, those who selected clozapine and combination antipsychotic treatment were the most symptomatic, and those who selected aripiprazole and ziprasidone had the highest body mass index. Symptoms improved for all groups, although the improvements were modest for the groups starting with relatively mild levels of symptoms. Side effect profiles of the medications varied considerably but medication discontinuations due to intolerability were rare (7% overall). Conclusions—Patients and their doctors made treatment selections based on clinical factors, including severity of symptoms, response to prior treatments, and physical health status. Fluphenazine decanoate was rarely used among those with evidence of treatment non-adherence and clozapine was underutilized for those with poor previous response. Combination antipsychotic treatment warrants further study