Legal medical consideration of alzheimer’s disease patients’ dysgraphia and cognitive dysfunction: a 6 month follow up

Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients to express intentions and desires, and their decision-making capacity. This study examines the findings from a 6-month follow-up of our previous results in which 30 patients participated. Materials and methods: The patient’s cognition was examined by conducting the tests of 14 questions and letter-writing ability over a period of 19 days, and it was repeated after 6 months. The difference between these two cognitive measures (PQ1 before–PQ2 before), tested previously and later the writing test, was designated DΔ before. The test was repeated after 6 months, and PQ1 after–PQ2 after was designated DΔ after. Results: Several markedly strong relationships between dysgraphia and other measures of cognitive performance in AD patients were observed. The most aged patients (over 86 years), despite less frequency, maintain the cognitive capacity manifested in the graphic expressions. A document, written by an AD patient presents an honest expression of the patient’s intention if that document is legible, clear, and comprehensive. Conclusion: The identification of impairment/deficits in writing and cognition during different phases of AD may facilitate the understanding of disease progression and identify the occasions during which the patient may be considered sufficiently lucid to make decisions. Keywords: cognition, intentions, unfit to plead, consen

International Violence Against Women: U.S. Response and Policy Issues

[Excerpt] In recent years, the international community has increasingly recognized international violence against women (VAW) as a significant human rights and global health issue. VAW, which can include both random acts of violence as well as sustained abuse over time, can be physical, psychological, or sexual in nature. Studies have found that VAW occurs in all geographic regions, countries, cultures, and economic classes, with some research showing that women in developing countries experience higher rates of violence than those in developed countries. Many experts view VAW as a symptom of the historically unequal power relationship between men and women,and argue that over time this imbalance has led to pervasive cultural stereotypes and attitudes that perpetuate a cycle of violence. This report addresses causes, prevalence, and consequences of violence against women. It provides examples of completed and ongoing U.S. activities that address VAW directly or include anti-VAW components, and it outlines possible policy issues for the 112th Congress, including • the scope and effectiveness of U.S. programs in addressing international VAW; • further integrating anti-VAW programs into U.S. assistance and foreign policy mechanisms; • U.S. funding for anti-VAW activities worldwide, particularly in light of the global financial crisis, economic recession, and subsequent calls to reduce the U.S. budget deficit; and • strengthening U.S. government coordination of anti-VAW activities

Yokoyama procedure efficacy on non-highly myopic patients with acquired esotropia and hypotropia

Objective: To assess the efficacy of \u201cYokoyama Procedure,\u201d on non-highly myopic patients with acquired esotropia and hypotropia. Methods: The study involved 10 eyes of 5 patients with eso-hypotropia. Inclusion criteria were acquired esotropic-hypotropic strabismus with lateral rectus inferior displacement and superior rectus nasal displacement confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging, refractive errors between \ub16 D, and axial length < 27 mm. Range of full duction movements and maximum angles of abduction-sursumduction was measured in each eye before and after surgery. All patients underwent T1- and T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. The surgery was aimed at creating a junction between the muscle bellies of the superior and lateral rectus muscles. This junction was made approximately 14 mm behind the insertions using a non-absorbable mersilene 5/0 suture (Yokoyama procedure). Results: Mean patient age was 64.8 \ub1 4.8 years. The mean globe axial length was 25.4 \ub1 0.76 mm and a mean corresponding spherical equivalent refraction of 123.7 \ub1 1.7 D was observed. Eight eyes on 10 had mild limitation in abduction, while the remaining 2 had no limitation. Three out of 10 eyes showed a moderate limited sursumduction, 5 eyes were categorized as mild, and the remaining 2 had no limitation. No evident post-operative limitation was present in any eye, in both abduction and sursumduction (p < 0.01). Pre-operative esotropia and hypotropia were, respectively, 32 \ub1 11 prismatic diopters and 25 \ub1 5 prismatic diopters, and they were significantly reduced after surgery as 9 \ub1 1.7 prismatic diopters and 6 \ub11 prismatic diopters (p = 0.043), respectively. Conclusion: Yokoyama procedure is an effective, fast, reversible procedure to face eso-hypotropic acquired strabismus, even in patients with a clear magnetic resonance imaging displacement of superior and lateral rectus muscles, and absence of globe dislocation and of elevated myopia

Directional TGV-based image restoration under Poisson noise

We are interested in the restoration of noisy and blurry images where the texture mainly follows a single direction (i.e., directional images). Problems of this type arise, for example, in microscopy or computed tomography for carbon or glass fibres. In order to deal with these problems, the Directional Total Generalized Variation (DTGV) was developed by Kongskov et al. in 2017 and 2019, in the case of impulse and Gaussian noise. In this article we focus on images corrupted by Poisson noise, extending the DTGV regularization to image restoration models where the data fitting term is the generalized Kullback–Leibler divergence. We also propose a technique for the identifica-tion of the main texture direction, which improves upon the techniques used in the aforementioned work about DTGV. We solve the problem by an ADMM algorithm with proven convergence and subproblems that can be solved exactly at a low computational cost. Numerical results on both phantom and real images demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach

Positional Encoding by Robots with Non-Rigid Movements

Consider a set of autonomous computational entities, called \emph{robots}, operating inside a polygonal enclosure (possibly with holes), that have to perform some collaborative tasks. The boundary of the polygon obstructs both visibility and mobility of a robot. Since the polygon is initially unknown to the robots, the natural approach is to first explore and construct a map of the polygon. For this, the robots need an unlimited amount of persistent memory to store the snapshots taken from different points inside the polygon. However, it has been shown by Di Luna et al. [DISC 2017] that map construction can be done even by oblivious robots by employing a positional encoding strategy where a robot carefully positions itself inside the polygon to encode information in the binary representation of its distance from the closest polygon vertex. Of course, to execute this strategy, it is crucial for the robots to make accurate movements. In this paper, we address the question whether this technique can be implemented even when the movements of the robots are unpredictable in the sense that the robot can be stopped by the adversary during its movement before reaching its destination. However, there exists a constant $\delta > 0$, unknown to the robot, such that the robot can always reach its destination if it has to move by no more than $\delta$ amount. This model is known in literature as \emph{non-rigid} movement. We give a partial answer to the question in the affirmative by presenting a map construction algorithm for robots with non-rigid movement, but having $O(1)$ bits of persistent memory and ability to make circular moves

Department of Defense "Section 1207" Security and Stabilization Assistance: Background and Congressional Concerns

Section 1207 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2006 provides authority for the Department of Defense (DOD) to transfer to the State Department up to $100 million per fiscal year in defense articles, services, training or other support for reconstruction, stabilization, and security activities in foreign countries. The 111th Congress must decide whether to extend Section 1207, which expires on September 30, 2009. This report discusses what issues Congress must take into consideration when making this decision

Colombia: The Problem of Illegal Narcotics and U.S. - Colombian Relations

The United States has long been concerned with Colombia as a major producer and trafficker of the illegal narcotics entering this country: first marijuana, then cocaine, and now also heroin. Colombia's drug trafficking business has been dominated by two cartels during the two decades in which cocaine trafficking became a major activity: first the Medellin cartel, which dominated during the 1980s and then the Cali cartel, which dominated during the early 1990s. With the arrests of the major Cali cartel leaders in the mid-1990s, independent traffickers have filled the void

Department of Defense "Section 1207" Security and Stabilization Assistance: Background and Congressional Concerns, FY2006-FY2010

Now expired, Section 1207 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2006 (P.L. 109-163) provided authority for the Department of Defense (DOD) to transfer to the State Department up to $100 million per fiscal year in defense articles, services, training or other support for reconstruction, stabilization, and security activities in foreign countries. This report provides background and data on Section 1207 authority and funding that may be useful for possible debate in the 112th Congress regarding the appropriate roles and funding mechanisms for DOD, the State Department, and other U.S. agencies in conflict prevention, management, and resolution, and in stabilization and reconstruction operations