Healthcare not Handcuffs: Putting the Affordable Care Act to Work for Criminal Justice and Drug Policy Reform

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) sets the stage for a new health-oriented policy framework to address substance use and mental health disorders. By dramatically expanding and funding healthcare coverage to millions of currently uninsured people, the ACA represents a remarkable opportunity for criminal justice and drug policy reform advocates to advance efforts for policies promoting safe and healthy communities, without excessive reliance on the criminal justice solutions that have become so prevalent under the War on Drugs. This paper is intended as a starting framework for criminal justice and drug policy advocates to navigate the ACA, and to take advantage of the conceptual and practical opportunities it offers for shifting the conversation and the landscape. Part One of this paper describes some of the major provisions of the ACA relevant to our work: the health insurance requirement; the places many people will buy insurance, called health exchanges; Medicaid expansion; insurance coverage requirements for substance use and mental health disorders; and opportunities for improved models of coordinated care. Part Two of this paper outlines a series of practical recommendations, including program and policy examples and suggested action steps, across three broad categories: ensuring access to healthcare, leveraging the ACA to reduce incarceration, and moving from a criminilization-based drug policy approach to one rooted in health

One Million Police Hours: Making 440,000 Marijuana Possession Arrests in New York City

A new report released today documents the astonishing number of hours the New York Police Department has spent arresting and processing hundreds of thousands of people for low-level misdemeanor marijuana possession arrests during Mayor Bloomberg's tenure. The report finds that NYPD used approximately 1,000,000 hours of police officer time to make 440,000 marijuana possession arrests over 11 years. These are hours that police officers might have otherwise have spent investigating and solving serious crimes.The report was prepared by Dr. Harry Levine, Professor of Sociology at Queens College and recognized expert on marijuana possession arrests, at the request of members of the New York City Council and the New York State Legislature.Additionally, the report estimates that the people arrested by NYPD for marijuana possession have spent 5,000,000 hours in police custody over the last decade. The report includes a compendium of quotes from academics, journalists, law enforcement professionals and elected officials attesting to the wastefulness, consequences and racial disparities inherent in these arrests

Onboard multichannel demultiplexer/demodulator

An investigation performed for NASA LeRC by COMSAT Labs, of a digitally implemented on-board demultiplexer/demodulator able to process a mix of uplink carriers of differing bandwidths and center frequencies and programmable in orbit to accommodate variations in traffic flow is reported. The processor accepts high speed samples of the signal carried in a wideband satellite transponder channel, processes these as a composite to determine the signal spectrum, filters the result into individual channels that carry modulated carriers and demodulate these to recover their digital baseband content. The processor is implemented by using forward and inverse pipeline Fast Fourier Transformation techniques. The recovered carriers are then demodulated using a single digitally implemented demodulator that processes all of the modulated carriers. The effort has determined the feasibility of the concept with multiple TDMA carriers, identified critical path technologies, and assessed the potential of developing these technologies to a level capable of supporting a practical, cost effective on-board implementation. The result is a flexible, high speed, digitally implemented Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) bulk demultiplexer/demodulator

Australian Government Balance Sheet Management

Since almost eliminating net debt, the Australian Government%u2019s attention has turned to the financing of broader balance sheet liabilities, such as public sector superannuation. Australia will be developing a significant financial asset portfolio in the %u2018Future Fund%u2019 to smooth the financing of expenses through time. This raises the significant policy question of how best to manage the government balance sheet to reduce risk. This paper provides a framework for optimal balance sheet management. The major conclusions are that: %u2013 fiscal sustainability depends on both the expected path of future taxation and the risks around that path; %u2013 optimal balance sheet management requires knowledge of how risks affect the balance sheet (and therefore volatility in tax rates); and %u2013 the government%u2019s financial investment strategy should reduce the risk to government finances from macroeconomic shocks that permanently affect the budget. Based on this framework, we find that a Future Fund portfolio that included (amongst other potential investments) domestic nominal securities and equities of selected countries would reduce overall balance sheet risk.

Déclenchement de la LTP hippocampique et de l'apprentissage par la dopamine : un signal d'apprentissage

L'hippocampe est la principale structure cérébrale impliquée dans la formation de la mémoire épisodique. Les mécanismes sous-jacents la mémoire hippocampique ont été étudié en détail chez les rongeurs, en particulier grâce à l'utilisation de tests de mémoire contextuelle. La potentialisation à long terme (PLT) est une augmentation de la transmission synaptique des afférences glutamatergiques ; elle sous-tend la formation des mémoires hippocampiques. Elle peut être déclenchée par une stimulation à haute fréquence (SHF). Ce mécanisme a permis de déchiffrer les mécanismes de la mémoire, montrant que la PLT, tout comme la mémoire, repose dans sa phase précoce sur des mécanismes de phosphorylation, ensuite, elle nécessite la formation de protéines de novo. Le lien entre la mémoire et la PLT est démontré par le fait que le blocage des différentes étapes de la PLT empêche la formation de la mémoire contextuelle et que celle-ci déclenche la PLT dans le CA1 de l'hippocampe. Étant donné que la PLT, tout comme la mémoire, est saturable, le système nerveux ne peut pas enregistrer tous les évènements vécus par l'animal. De plus, la SHF n'est pas compatible avec l'activité neuronale. Cela implique l'existence d'un signal d'apprentissage qui choisirait les entrées pertinentes à sauvegarder, et qui serait le déclencheur moléculaire de la PLT lors de l'apprentissage. La dopamine est un neuro-modulateur longtemps considéré comme indiquant la récompense. Cependant, la dopamine est libérée en réponse à tous les événements saillants, y compris aversifs. Les récepteurs dopaminergiques peuvent déclencher la phosphorylation et la formation de novo des protéines, et les récepteurs dopaminergiques D1/5 sont nécessaires pour la PLT tardive et la mémoire à long terme. De plus, la stimulation dopaminergique in vitro peut moduler la transmission synaptique du CA1. Dans ce travail, nous avons utilisé le comportement et l'électrophysiologie couplés aux manipulations optogénétiques des afférences dopaminergiques du mésencéphale et à l'inhibition pharmacologique des récepteurs dopaminergiques D1/5 pour étudier le rôle de la dopamine en tant que signal d'apprentissage déclenchant la PLT et l'apprentissage. En utilisant l'électrophysiologie, nous montrons que le couplage de stimulations optogénétiques des afférences dopaminergiques du mésencéphalique avec des entrées glutamatergiques du CA1 induit une PLT progressive de ces dernières, qui atteint un plateau 90 minutes après la dernière stimulation dopaminergique. Cette PLT dure au moins 5 heures, dépend des récepteurs D1/5 et occlue partiellement la PLT déclenchée par SHF. Ensuite, en utilisant le conditionnement de peur contextuel, nous montrons que l'infusion intra-hippocampique de de l'inhibiteur des récepteurs D1/5, SCH23390, bloque l'apprentissage du conditionnement de peur au contextuel mais pas à un indice auditif. Nous concluons que les récepteurs D1/5 hippocampiques sont nécessaires pour la mémoire de peur contextuelle. Enfin, nous avons utilisé une variante du conditionnement de peur au contexte appelée effet de facilitation par la préexposition contextuelle. Dans ce test, le conditionnement de peur a lieu le lendemain de l'apprentissage contextuel. Il permet ainsi d'étudier indépendamment chacune de ces deux étapes. Nous montrons que les récepteurs D1/5 sont nécessaires à l'apprentissage du contexte et à celui de la peur. Enfin, nous montrons que la stimulation optogénétique des axones dopaminergiques dans l'hippocampe favorise l'apprentissage contextuel et que leur inhibition empêche l'apprentissage contextuel. Ce travail nous permet de conclure que la voie dopaminergique du mésencéphale vers l'hippocampe a toutes les caractéristiques d'un signal d'apprentissage : elle déclenche la PLT sur les entrées sensorielles co-activées favorisant l'enregistrement d'informations contextuelles dans l'hippocampe indépendamment de toute information de valeur positive ou négative.The hippocampus is the main brain structure involved in episodic memory formation. The role of the hippocampus in learning, memory and their underlying mechanisms has been studied extensively in rodents, in particular by using contextual learning. Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) is an increase in synaptic transmission of glutamatergic afferents that lasts for hours, days or months and is thought to underlie hippocampal memory formation. It can be triggered in the hippocampus by an artificial High frequency Stimulation (HFS). This mechanism helped in deciphering memory mechanisms, showing that both memory and LTP rely firstly on phosphorylation and later on de novo protein synthesis. The link between memory and LTP was confirmed by showing that blocking LTP mechanisms hinders memory formation, and that contextual learning induces LTP in the CA1 of the hippocampus. Since LTP, just like memory, can be saturated, the nervous system cannot store every sensory input that the animal encounters. Moreover, HFS is not compatible with neuronal activity. Hence, there must be a teaching signal that would be the natural molecular trigger of LTP during learning, acting as a filter choosing the pertinent inputs to store. Dopamine is a neuromodulator that has historically been thought of as a value signal, for dopamine gets released during rewarding events. However, dopamine has later been shown to be released whenever a salient unrewarding, or even punishing, event occurs. Dopamine receptors can trigger both phosphorylation and de novo protein formation in most brain structures showing plasticity, and D1/5 Dopaminergic receptors are necessary for LTP maintenance and long-term memory. Moreover, dopaminergic stimulation in vitro can modulate synaptic transmission in CA1. Thus, we hypothesized that dopamine could act as a teaching signal. In this work, we use behavior and electrophysiology coupled with optogenetic manipulations of midbrain dopamine afferents and pharmacology inhibition of D1/5 dopaminergic receptors in order to study the role of dopamine as a teaching signal triggering LTP so that pertinent sensory inputs get stored. Using electrophysiology, we show that coupling optogenetic stimulations of midbrain dopamine with glutamatergic inputs in CA1 induces a progressive LTP that reaches its plateau 90 minutes after the pairing. This LTP endures at least 5 hours, is dependent on D1/5 receptors and partially occludes HFS-triggered LTP. Then, using contextual fear conditioning coupled with auditory cue conditioning we show that intraperitoneal injection of D1/5 receptor inhibitor, SHC23390, hinders both contextual and cue fear memories. Alternatively, intra-hippocampal infusion of SCH23390 blocks contextual memory but preserves cue fear memory intact. These results allowed us to conclude that hippocampal D1/5 receptors are necessary for contextual fear memories and in another brain structure for associative fear memories. Finally, we use a variation of contextual fear conditioning called contextual pre-exposure facilitation effect, which separates contextual learning from fear conditioning since the animal in this task learns each of them on two consecutive days. This allows studying dopamine as a teaching signal without the interference of any value inputs. We show that mice require between 2-8 minutes to encode contextual information. Furthermore, we show that D1/5 receptors are necessary for contextual and fear learning. Finally, we show that optogenetic stimulation of dopaminergic axons in the hippocampus promotes contextual learning and, conversely, their inhibition hinders contextual learning. This work allows us to conclude that the dopaminergic pathway from the midbrain to the hippocampus has all the characteristics of a teaching signal, namely, triggering LTP on co-activated sensory inputs promoting the storage of contextual information in the hippocampus without the need for any value information

Les bergers de Le Clézio: Messages et significations

Gaspar et les bergers, allégories de deux mondes différents, la sédentarité et le nomadisme, qui se réunissent par hasard dans un désert émaillé de mirages et de réalités dramatiques. Leur heureuse rencontre se distingue par l’expérimentation d’une nouvelle façon d’échanger qui va au-delà du langage : c’est la communication silencieuse guidée par des sensations auditives et visuelles favorisées par la nature désertique des lieux. Dans un dialogue implicite à travers leur mode de vie, leurs voix, leur musique et leur dance, les bergers   réussissent à transmettre à Gaspar le goût de la culture nomade dans sa dimension à la fois réelle et imaginaire. L’enfant fugueur parvient à devenir un membre actif de cette communauté pastorale en accomplissant ses actes et en adoptant sa façon de communiquer. Néanmoins, s’il a acquis certaines de ses compétences, il n’a pas pu comprendre l’acuité de la lutte pour la survie dans le désert qui pourrait sacrifier l’ibis, l’oiseau blanc qu’il a beaucoup aimé en l’appelant « le roi de Genna ». Ainsi la rupture est consommée sous le poids infernal de la sécheresse et de la faim. Pourtant, l’escapade du jeune citadin aventureux en plein désert se révèle fructueuse au niveau de l’expérience humaine : il découvre l’essence de la vie et sa valeur authentique en goûtant, à la fois, sa beauté et ses misères. Riche de son expérience chez les bergers nomades, Gaspar regagne sa ville en devenant plus conscient de son humanité et des dangers qui guettent la nature et toutes les créatures vivantes. Gaspard and the shepherds, metaphors for two different worlds, the sedentary and nomadic lifestyles, that chance united in a desert filled with mirages and dramatic realities. Their happy encounter distinguished itself by the experimentation with a new way of communication, one that transcends language. It is a silent exchange, guided by auditory and visual sensations promoted by the surrounding landscape. In an implicit dialogue through their way of life, their voices, their music and their dance, the shepherds succeed in transmitting to Gaspar a taste for nomadic culture in both its real and imaginary dimensions. The runaway child manages to become an active member of this pastoral community by completing its actions and adopting its way of communication. Nevertheless, although he acquired some of its skills, he could not understand the harshness of the struggle for survival in the desert. A struggle that could sacrifice the Ibis, the white bird that he adored, so much so that he called it "the king of Genna". Thus the rupture is completed under the infernal weight of drought and hunger. However, the escape of the young and adventurous city dweller into the open desert proved abundant with humane experiences. He discovers the essence of life and its authentic value by confronting both its beauty and its miseries. Rich in his experience with the nomadic shepherds, Gaspard returns to his city while becoming more aware of his humanity and the dangers that prey on nature and all living creatures

L’Immortel de Borges ou le refus de l’éternité

La nouvelle « L’Immortel » de Borges, particulièrement à travers l’aventure du tribun romain Marcus Flaminius Rufus, illustre le conflit de l’esprit humain devant l’idée de l’immortalité. Tourmenté par le spectacle de la mort, il rêve de l’annuler. Pourtant, après avoir obtenu l’objet de sa quête en buvant du fleuve de l’éternité, la vue de la Cité surhumaine, inhabitée, labyrinthique et chaotique le choque et le fait changer d’opinion. En fréquentant les Troglodytes, créatures immortelles, ombres déformées et rabaissées des hommes, Marcus constate l’inanité de son ambition. Borges présente l’immortalité comme un état qui prive l’être humain de trois dimensions fondamentales : vitalité, identité et dignité. La première dimension est engendrée par le principe de la sensation en interférence avec la nature. La deuxième est l’identité individuelle basée sur la réflexion, la sensibilité et la mémoire. Enfin, la dignité humaine est fondée sur la conscience rattachée aux trois temps : passé, présent et futur. Effectivement, le héros, atteignant son but, et contre toute attente, rebrousse chemin afin de reconquérir la mortalité comme principe de finitude bienfaisante qui est à l’origine du goût inestimable de la vie. La présente recherche tentera de retracer le cheminement intellectuel de Marcus entre deux gorgées d’eau : l’une brouillée et sale aboutissant à l’immortalité destructrice et l’autre claire et salvatrice qui ramène à la mortalité. Cette dernière semble valoriser le destin de l’homme en conférant au temps son aspect singulier, précieux et non répétitif.   Borges' short story "The Immortal", particularly through the adventure of the Roman tribune Marcus Flaminius Rufus, illustrates the conflict of the human spirit when facing the idea of immortality. Tormented by the spectacle of death, he dreams of cancelling it. However, after having succeeded in his quest by drinking from the river of eternity, the sight of the superhuman, uninhabited, labyrinthine and chaotic City shocked him and made him change his mind. By frequenting the Troglodytes, immortal creatures, deformed and belittled shadows of men, Marcus realizes the inanity of his ambition. Borges presents immortality as a state that deprives the human being of three fundamental dimensions: vitality, identity and dignity. The first dimension is generated by the principle of sensations in interaction with nature. The second is individual identity based on reflection, sensitivity and memory. Finally, human dignity, based on the inherent consciousness of three periods: past, present and future. Indeed, the hero, reaching his goal, and against all odds, turns back in order to reconquer mortality as a principle of beneficent finitude which is at the origin of the priceless and unique taste of life. This research will attempt to retrace Marcus' intellectual journey between two sips of water: one blurred and foul leading to destructive immortality and the other clear and saving leading to constructive mortality