Understanding Police Organizational Transition to Community Policing and Beyond

The article surveys police organizational responses over time as demands for sevice change and result in change for police roles

Valuation of US Infrastructure Assets Related to Liquid Hydrocarbons and Transportation: With implications on the decarbonization of mobility and the grid as of Sept 2019

Original research conducted by GT's EPICenterIn this brief report, we summarize existing asset values and investments for U.S. infrastructure related to liquid hydrocarbon transportation systems. This includes primarily assets in the hydrocarbon fuel supply chain as well as the engines and equipment that consume hydrocarbon fuels. The motivation prompting this effort is generally stated as a desire to better understand near-, medium-, and long-term pathways to decarbonize transportation. As such, this particular effort was a part of a broader scoping effort in which researchers with Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute sought to compare the economic viability of renewable hydrocarbons as a substitute for petroleum-derived fuels. This includes both biofuels and synthetically produced alternative fuels. Doing so is believed to help facilitate a more direct and holistic comparison of renewable fuels with other forms of sustainable transportation, such as electric vehicles (EVs). In short, the US hydrocarbon (HC) sector, broadly defined, comprises a large investment, upwards of 8.4 trillion dollars, out of a total U.S. infrastructure investment of about $37 trillion . Our HC infrastructure estimate excludes the parts of the transportation system that could be used with other vehicle propulsion systems, such as roads, but includes the petroleum refining industry, as well as publicly and privately owned vehicles in the U.S. fleet that rely on internal combustion engines. So called “upstream” or “supply side assets” are defined to liquid hydrocarbon support infrastructure (e.g., refineries, pipelines, storage assets). These account for about 40% of the total. So called “downstream” or fuel consuming devices are defined to include engines and the broad category of equipment that uses them. This segment account for the remaining 60% of HC sector assets. Separately, initial estimates suggest that the replacement value of the U.S. electric grid is about 4.8 trillion dollars

Substance Abuse Interventions: Catalysts for Change: Criminal Justice and Community Collaboration

The premise of this book is to address the substantial number of people who enter the criminal justice system, accompanied by alcohol or substance abuse issues. Offering alternative and supplemental help impart value as it seeks to improve intervention, treatment, and prevention to the return to violence and personal harm. Interceding with individuals at this step in the process allows them to consider continued professional assistance to their addiction, and to refrain from criminality and seek out a more productive and fulfilling life. The added interjection by police and others in the criminal justice system substantially increases the potential for drug elimination to an addicted person. It takes place at an opportune time and serves a legitimate purpose. The intent of this book is to examine entry points for intervention and assistance to people entering or within the criminal justice system. This early intervention step begins with controlled implementation and seeks to engage the individual in a pathway forward that does not include drugs. The authors explore the opportunity, strategy, and models of intervention that bring promise to reducing substance abuse.https://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/sunybeb/1005/thumbnail.jp

A geochemical study of the Theta Reef of the Frankfort Mining Complex in the Sabie-Pilgrim's Rest Goldfield South Africa.

Master of Science in Geology. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.For over a century the Sabie-Pilgrim’s Rest Goldfield has been one of the most important gold producers in South Africa. The epigenetic gold deposits are situated at the eastern escarpment of the Eastern Transvaal Drakensberg, approximately 60 km away from the eastern rim of the Bushveld Igneous Complex. The Theta and Bevets Reef of the Frankfort Mining Complex occur within the Neoarchean dolomite of the Malmani Subgroup and the Paleoproterozoic Pretoria Group, respectively, of the Transvaal Supergroup. While the Theta Reef is situated in the dolomites of the Eccles Formation of the Malmani Subgroup, the Bevets Reef is situated at the contact between a conglomerate, also called the Bevets Conglomerate and the shales of the Rooihoogte Formation of the Pretoria Group, therefore providing two different environments for the ore mineralisation. The ore-bearing reefs are represented by quartz-carbonate veins. The ore minerals are pyrite, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite and minor amounts of minerals of the tetrahedrite-tennantite series. The reefs were emplaced along thrust faults developed parallel to bedding which dips at 4-7° west towards the Bushveld Complex. The thrusts are attributed to forces related to the emplacement of the intrusion. Stable isotope geochemistry revealed that isotopes within a single mineral phase and between two phases are not in isotopic equilibrium. This suggests an episodic mineralisation of the ore-bearing quartz vein. Oxygen and carbon isotopic compositions of 10.9 – 13.8 (fluid) and -4.1 - -2.8 ‰ (calcite), respectively, indicate that the ore forming fluids are most likely of igneous origin and interacted with the rocks of the Transvaal Supergroup. Sulphur isotopic compositions of -1 – 2.3 ‰ (sulphides) show that fluids and metals seem to have originated from the Bushveld Complex. Trace element analysis of ore samples from the most northern section of the Theta Reef shows that the gold content within pyrite is generally low. The common trace elements are Cu, As, Ag Sb, Au, Pb and Bi, occurring as minerals or mineral inclusions of the tetrahedrite-tennantite series. Gold occurs as invisible solid solution and/or as Au-As and/or Au-Sb compound in arsenic rich sulphide minerals and occasionally in association with silver as electrum. The research shows that the intrusion of the Bushveld Complex played a major role in the formation of the gold deposits in the Sabie-Pilgrim’s Rest area being responsible for the mineralizing hydrothermal fluids, the ore metals, the heat budget for the hydrothermal cell and the forces that created the thrust faults that acted as pathways for the circulation of the mineralizing fluids. The circa 2.055Ga age of the Bushveld Complex also provides a maximum age for the Au-mineralization

Public safety officer emotional health: addressing the silent killer

This article focuses on the accumulation of stress and adversity that public safety officer’s experience when carrying out their respective duties. We focus on providing strategies to help officers reduce the impact of danger, adversity, trauma, stress and confronting abnormal situations that may have a deleterious effect on the officer’s health and well-being

Behavior change interventions: the potential of ontologies for advancing science and practice

A central goal of behavioral medicine is the creation of evidence-based interventions for promoting behavior change. Scientific knowledge about behavior change could be more effectively accumulated using "ontologies." In information science, an ontology is a systematic method for articulating a "controlled vocabulary" of agreed-upon terms and their inter-relationships. It involves three core elements: (1) a controlled vocabulary specifying and defining existing classes; (2) specification of the inter-relationships between classes; and (3) codification in a computer-readable format to enable knowledge generation, organization, reuse, integration, and analysis. This paper introduces ontologies, provides a review of current efforts to create ontologies related to behavior change interventions and suggests future work. This paper was written by behavioral medicine and information science experts and was developed in partnership between the Society of Behavioral Medicine's Technology Special Interest Group (SIG) and the Theories and Techniques of Behavior Change Interventions SIG. In recent years significant progress has been made in the foundational work needed to develop ontologies of behavior change. Ontologies of behavior change could facilitate a transformation of behavioral science from a field in which data from different experiments are siloed into one in which data across experiments could be compared and/or integrated. This could facilitate new approaches to hypothesis generation and knowledge discovery in behavioral science

IDO2 in Immunomodulation and Autoimmune Disease.

IDO2 is a relative of IDO1 implicated in tryptophan catabolism and immune modulation but its specific contributions to normal physiology and pathophysiology are not known. Evolutionary genetic studies suggest that IDO2 has a unique function ancestral to IDO1. In mice, IDO2 gene deletion does not appreciably affect embryonic development or hematopoiesis, but it leads to defects in allergic or autoimmune responses and in the ability of IDO1 to influence the generation of T regulatory cells. Gene expression studies indicate that IDO2 is a basally and more narrowly expressed gene than IDO1 and that IDO2 is uniquely regulated by AhR, which serves as a physiological receptor for the tryptophan catabolite kynurenine. In the established KRN transgenic mouse model of rheumatoid arthritis, where IDO1 gene deletion has no effect, IDO2 deletion selectively blunts responses to autoantigen but has no effect on responses to neoantigen challenge. In human populations, natural variations in IDO2 gene sequence that attenuate enzymatic activity have been reported to influence brain cancer control and adaptive immune responses to the IDO2 protein itself, consistent with the concept that IDO2 is involved in shaping immune tolerance in human beings. Biochemical and pharmacological studies provide further evidence of differences in IDO2 enzymology and function relative to IDO1. We suggest that IDO2 may act in a distinct manner from IDO1 as a set-point for tolerance to altered-self antigens along the self-non-self continuum where immune challenges from cancer and autoimmunity may arise

The Effectiveness of the Learning to BREATHE Program on Adolescent Emotion Regulation

This study assessed the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based program, Learning to BREATHE, on adolescent emotion regulation. Participants included 216 regular education public high school students with pretest and posttest data participating in the program or instruction-as-usual comparison condition. Program participants reported statistically lower levels of perceived stress and psychosomatic complaints and higher levels of efficacy in affective regulation. Program participants also evidenced statistically larger gains in emotion regulation skills including emotional awareness, access to regulation strategies, and emotional clarity. These findings provide promising evidence of the effectiveness of Learning to BREATHE on the development of key social-emotional learning skills

Genetic and genomic architecture in eight strains of the laboratory opossum Monodelphis domestica

The gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica) is an established laboratory-bred marsupial model for biomedical research. It is a critical species for comparative genomics research, providing the pivotal phylogenetic outgroup for studies of derived vs ancestral states of genomic/epigenomic characteristics for eutherian mammal lineages. To characterize the current genetic profile of this laboratory marsupial, we examined 79 individuals from eight established laboratory strains. Double digest restriction site-associated DNA sequencing and whole-genome resequencing experiments were performed to investigate the genetic architecture in these strains. A total of 66,640 highquality single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified. We analyzed SNP density, average heterozygosity, nucleotide diversity, and population differentiation parameter Fst within and between the eight strains. Principal component and population structure analysis clearly resolve the strains at the level of their ancestral founder populations, and the genetic architecture of these strains correctly reflects their breeding history. We confirmed the successful establishment of the first inbred laboratory opossum strain LSD (inbreeding coefficient F \u3e 0.99) and a nearly inbred strain FD2M1 (0.98 \u3c F \u3c 0.99), each derived from a different ancestral background. These strains are suitable for various experimental protocols requiring controlled genetic backgrounds and for intercrosses and backcrosses that can generate offspring with informative SNPs for studying a variety of genetic and epigenetic processes. Together with recent advances in reproductive manipulation and CRISPR/Cas9 techniques for Monodelphis domestica, the existence of distinctive inbred strains will enable genome editing on different genetic backgrounds, greatly expanding the utility of this marsupial model for biomedical research

Infanticide in wolves: seasonality of mortalities and attacks at dens support evolution of territoriality

Evidence for territoriality is usually correlative or post hoc as we observe the results of past selection that are challenging to detect. Wolves (Canis lupus) are considered territorial because of competition for food (resource defense), yet they exhibit classic intrinsic behaviors of social regulation (protection against infanticide). This emphasis on prey and infrequent opportunity to observe wild wolf behavior has led to little investigation into the causes of or competitive underpinnings in the evolution of wolf territoriality. We report 6 cases of territorial wolf packs attacking neighboring packs at or near their den; 2 attacks were observed in detail. In all cases, except perhaps one, the attacking pack killed adult wolves either at the den or near it; in 4 cases, pups were probably lost. Loss of pups led to future loss of territory and in one case pack cessation. Intraspecific killing (measured in collared adults only) peaked in April, the month when pups were born and helpless in dens, even though aggressive interactions were at their seasonal low. Twelve of 13 (92%) of the wolves killed during the denning season (March, April, May) were reproductive (males and females), and 8 of 12 were dominant individuals (highest ranking wolf for that sex in the pack). Wolf–wolf killings were also high in October and December, the beginning and middle of the nomadic season, respectively. Aggressive interactions were more frequent during the nomadic season when wolves were roaming their territory as a group compared to the denning season when wolf activity was centered on the den and pack members less cohesive. We conclude that attacks on dens are a more effective form of interpack competition than interference during the breeding season, the current best-supported hypothesis, and that protected pup-rearing space is the primary cause of wolf territoriality