Sex Offender Treatment Program: Preliminary Description

This report provides a summary of the history of sex offender treatment in Alaska, including the current status of treatment programs offered by the Alaska Department of Corrections, a review of literature on sex offender treatment and recidivism issues, and a summary of the descriptive characteristics of individuals who came in contact with the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center from January 1987 to March 1993.Alaska Department of CorrectionsIntroduction / Sex Offender Treatment in Alaska / Literature Review / Methodology / Results / Conclusion and Recommendations / Bibliograph

Justice Data Base Directory

The Justice Data Base Directory was originally published in 1988 with an introduction, 8 chapters describing Alaska justice agencies and their data holdings, and an index. It was published in looseleaf notebook format for easy updating. Four updates were published in 1989–1992, each update consisting of additional chapters, revised table of contents and index, and updates to existing pages to reflect changes such as agency addresses. Five chapters were added in 1989; five in 1990; four in 1991; and five in 1992, for a total of 27 agencies covered by the Justice Data Base Directory in its final form. For archival purposes, this record includes all five versions of the directory. The 1992 edition is the most complete.The Justice Data Base Directory, first published in 1988 with new chapters added annually through 1992, presents information about the primary databases maintained by Alaska justice agencies and the procedures to be followed for access to the data. Its availability should substantially reduce the work required to identify the sources of data for research and policy development in law, law enforcement, courts, and corrections. The 1992 update to the directory adds five chapters, for a total of 27 Alaska agencies whose justice-related data holdings are described: Alaska Court System; Alaska Judicial Council; Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct; Alaska Department of Law; Alaska Department of Public Safety (DPS) and three agencies under DPS: Alaska Police Standards Council, Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (CDSA), and Violent Crimes Compensation Board; Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC) and Parole Board; four agencies of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services — Bureau of Vital Statistics (Division of Public Health), Epidemiology Section (Division of Public Health), Division of Family and Youth Services, and Office of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse; Alaska Public Defender Agency; Office of Public Advocacy (OPA); Alaska Bar Association; Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Unit; Alaska Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (Office of the Governor); Alaska Office of the Ombudsman; Alaska Legal Services Corporation; Alaska Public Offices Commission; Alaska State Commission for Human Rights; Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board; Legislative Research Agency; Legislative Affairs Agency; State Archives and Records Management Services (Alaska Department of Education). Fully indexed.Funded in part by a grant from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.1. Introduction / 2. Alaska Court System / 3. Alaska Department of Law / 4. Alaska Department of Public Safety / 5. Alaska Department of Corrections / 6. Division of Family and Youth Services, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services / 7. Alaska Bar Association / 8. Alaska Judicial Council / 9. Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Unit / 10. Bureau of Vital Statistics, Division of Public Health, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services / 11. Alaska Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, Office of the Governor / 12. Office of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services / 13. Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Alaska Department of Public Safety / 14. Epidemiology Section, Division of Public Health, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services / 15. Violent Crimes Compensation Board, Alaska Department of Public Safety / 16. Alaska Police Standards Council, Alaska Department of Public Safety / 17. Alcoholic Beverage Control Board / 18. Alaska Office of the Ombudsman / 19. State Archives and Records Management Services, Alaska Department of Education / 20. Legislative Research Agency / 21. Legislative Affairs Agency / 22. Alaska State Commission for Human Rights / 23. Parole Board, Alaska Department of Corrections / 24. Alaska Public Offices Commission / 25. Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct / 26. Alaska Legal Services Corporation / 27. Office of Public Advocacy / 28. Alaska Public Defender Agency / 29. Inde

Comments about the use of PLS path modeling in building a Job Quality Composite Indicator

A composite indicator is formed when elementary indicators are compiled into a single index, on the basis of an underlying model of the mul- tidimensional concept that is being measured. The PLS path modeling allows the estimation of composite indicators and the measurement model could be expressed both as formative and reflective. In this paper we construct a composite indicator of job quality using the PLS path modeling approach and compare results obtained by the formative and the reflective measurement models of the general concept. We observe that the two approaches can give different results. Consequently, we give some sugges- tions in order to estimate stable and reliable models

Ethnic conflict and economic disparity: Serbians and Albanians in Kosovo

We use the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) household survey from postconflict Kosovo to examine economic deprivation among Serbs and Albanians. Economic deprivation is measured by per capita household expenditure and by the incidence of poverty as captured by the headcount ratio. We examine the roles played by the stock of attributes and by the impact of these attributes on deprivation using Oaxaca-type decomposition methods. Empirical results for both decomposition analyses show differences in characteristics as well as returns to measured characteristics favor Serbs, even though Serbs have lower expenditures and higher poverty incidence than Albanians

Ethical issues in implementation research: a discussion of the problems in achieving informed consent

Background: Improved quality of care is a policy objective of health care systems around the world. Implementation research is the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of clinical research findings into routine clinical practice, and hence to reduce inappropriate care. It includes the study of influences on healthcare professionals' behaviour and methods to enable them to use research findings more effectively. Cluster randomized trials represent the optimal design for evaluating the effectiveness of implementation strategies. Various codes of medical ethics, such as the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki inform medical research, but their relevance to cluster randomised trials in implementation research is unclear. This paper discusses the applicability of various ethical codes to obtaining consent in cluster trials in implementation research. Discussion: The appropriate application of biomedical codes to implementation research is not obvious. Discussion of the nature and practice of informed consent in implementation research cluster trials must consider the levels at which consent can be sought, and for what purpose it can be sought. The level at which an intervention is delivered can render the idea of patient level consent meaningless. Careful consideration of the ownership of information, and rights of access to and exploitation of data is required. For health care professionals and organizations, there is a balance between clinical freedom and responsibility to participate in research. Summary: While ethical justification for clinical trials relies heavily on individual consent, for implementation research aspects of distributive justice, economics, and political philosophy underlie the debate. Societies may need to trade off decisions on the choice between individualized consent and valid implementation research. We suggest that social sciences codes could usefully inform the consideration of implementation research by members of Research Ethics Committees

Molecular brakes regulating mTORC1 activation in skeletal muscle following synergist ablation

The goal of the current work was to profile positive (mTORC1 activation, autocrine/paracrine growth factors) and negative [AMPK, unfolded protein response (UPR)] pathways that might regulate overload-induced mTORC1 (mTOR complex 1) activation with the hypothesis that a number of negative regulators of mTORC1 will be engaged during a supraphysiological model of hypertrophy. To achieve this, mTORC1- IRS-1/2 signaling, BiP/CHOP/IRE1, and AMPK activation were determined in rat plantaris muscle following synergist ablation (SA). SA resulted in significant increases in muscle mass of 4% per day throughout the 21 days of the experiment. The expression of the insulin-like growth factors (IGF) were high throughout the 21st day of overload. However, IGF signaling was limited, since IRS-1 and -2 were undetectable in the overloaded muscle from day 3 to day 9. The decreases in IRS-1/2 protein were paralleled by increases in GRB10 Ser501/503 and S6K1 Thr389 phosphorylation, two mTORC1 targets that can destabilize IRS proteins. PKB Ser473 phosphorylation was higher from 3– 6 days, and this was associated with increased TSC2 Thr939 phosphorylation. The phosphorylation of TSC2 Thr1345 (an AMPK site) was also elevated, whereas phosphorylation at the other PKB site, Thr1462, was unchanged at 6 days. In agreement with the phosphorylation of Thr1345, SA led to activation of AMPK1 during the initial growth phase, lasting the first 9 days before returning to baseline by day 12. The UPR markers CHOP and BiP were elevated over the first 12 days following ablation, whereas IRE1 levels decreased. These data suggest that during supraphysiological muscle loading at least three potential molecular brakes engage to downregulate mTORC1. m

Quantifying extreme behaviour in geomagnetic activity

Understanding the extremes in geomagnetic activity is an important component in understanding just how severe conditions can become in the terrestrial space environment. Extreme activity also has consequences for technological systems. On the ground, extreme geomagnetic behavior has an impact on navigation and position accuracy and the operation of power grids and pipeline networks. We therefore use a number of decades of one-minute mean magnetic data from magnetic observatories in Europe, together with the technique of extreme value statistics, to provide a preliminary exploration of the extremes in magnetic field variations and their one-minute rates of change. These extremes are expressed in terms of the variations that might be observed every 100 and 200 years in the horizontal strength and in the declination of the field. We find that both measured and extrapolated extreme values generally increase with geomagnetic latitude (as might be expected), though there is a marked maximum in estimated extreme levels between about 53 and 62 degrees north. At typical midlatitude European observatories (55–60 degrees geomagnetic latitude), compass variations may reach approximately 3–8 degrees/minute, and horizontal field changes may reach 1000–4000 nT/minute, in one magnetic storm once every 100 years. For storm return periods of 200 years the equivalent figures are 4–11 degrees/minute and 1000–6000 nT/minute