An Exploratory Study of Confidence in Policing in India

The November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai has brought a great deal of attention upon policing in India. In light of the proposed overhauls in policing in India, community policing initiatives have become increasingly utilized across the sub-continent. There remains, however, the important question as to how successful these initiatives can be in a country with such ethnic, class and religious diversity. The study undertaken here is an exploratory examination as to which variables are most closely associated with police confidence. The data for the study drew upon the India Human Development Study 2004-2005 of 41,554 households across India. The results of this study suggest that the variables most significantly associated with confidence in police (human/social capital, religion/caste) are best examined at the state level due to the degree of variance across states. Possible implications for community policing policies in India are also considered

The Pracademic and Academic in Criminal Justice Education: A Qualitative Analysis

Over the past several years, a few hundred colleagues involved in criminal justice education have participated in panel discussions and roundtables to discuss the trials and issues that have been observed by practitioners turned academics, or “pracademics.” Some complained of having difficulty breaking into academia. A debate has occurred in a number of colleges and universities over the benefit of having faculty with traditional academic credentials versus hiring non-traditional scholars with a blend of educational and practical experience. Similarly, there have been lively discussions over the appropriateness of a J.D. or professional doctorate as opposed to a Ph.D. in criminal justice. This debate started in an article in ACJS Today (2002) and continued in subsequent publications. It is believed that there is importance, benefit and relevance to incorporating practical experience on college and university campuses. In academic program after program, internships, externships, observation, and practicums have become essential in preparing students for the real world

Differential binding of Escherichia coli McrA protein to DNA sequences that contain the dinucleotide m5CpG

The Escherichia coli McrA protein, a putative C5-methylcytosine/C5-hydroxyl methylcytosine-specific nuclease, binds DNA with symmetrically methylated HpaII sequences (Cm5CGG), but its precise recognition sequence remains undefined. To determine McrA’s binding specificity, we cloned and expressed recombinant McrA with a C-terminal StrepII tag (rMcrA-S) to facilitate protein purification and affinity capture of human DNA fragments with m5C residues. Sequence analysis of a subset of these fragments and electrophoretic mobility shift assays with model methylated and unmethylated oligonucleotides suggest that N(Y > R) m5CGR is the canonical binding site for rMcrA-S. In addition to binding HpaII-methylated double-stranded DNA, rMcrA-S binds DNA containing a single, hemimethylated HpaII site; however, it does not bind if A, C, T or U is placed across from the m5C residue, but does if I is opposite the m5C. These results provide the first systematic analysis of McrA’s in vitro binding specificity

Comparative analysis of affinity-based 5-hydroxymethylation enrichment techniques

The epigenetic modification of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) is receiving great attention due to its potential role in DNA methylation reprogramming and as a cell state identifier. Given this interest, it is important to identify reliable and cost-effective methods for the enrichment of 5hmC marked DNA for downstream analysis. We tested three commonly used affinity-based enrichment techniques; (i) antibody, (ii) chemical capture and (iii) protein affinity enrichment and assessed their ability to accurately and reproducibly report 5hmC profiles in mouse tissues containing high (brain) and lower (liver) levels of 5hmC. The protein-affinity technique is a poor reporter of 5hmC profiles, delivering 5hmC patterns that are incompatible with other methods. Both antibody and chemical capture-based techniques generate highly similar genome-wide patterns for 5hmC, which are independently validated by standard quantitative PCR (qPCR) and glucosyl-sensitive restriction enzyme digestion (gRES-qPCR). Both antibody and chemical capture generated profiles reproducibly link to unique chromatin modification profiles associated with 5hmC. However, there appears to be a slight bias of the antibody to bind to regions of DNA rich in simple repeats. Ultimately, the increased specificity observed with chemical capture-based approaches makes this an attractive method for the analysis of locus-specific or genome-wide patterns of 5hmC

An exploratory study

ABSTRACT The November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai has brought a great deal of attention upon policing in India. In light of the proposed overhauls in policing in India, community policing initiatives have become increasingly utilized across the sub-continent. There remains, however, the important question as to how successful these initiatives can be in a country with such ethnic, class and religious diversity. The study undertaken here is an exploratory examination as to which variables are most closely associated with police confidence. The data for the study drew upon the India Human Development Study 2004-2005 of 41,554 households across India. The results of this study suggest that the variables most significantly associated with confidence in police (human/social capital, religion/caste) are best examined at the state level due to the degree of variance across states. Possible implications for community policing policies in India are also considered

The Pracademic and Academic in Criminal Justice Education: A Qualitative Analysis

Over the past several years, a few hundred colleagues involved in criminal justice education have participated in panel discussions and roundtables to discuss the trials and issues that have been observed by practitioners turned academics, or “pracademics.” Some complained of having difficulty breaking into academia. A debate has occurred in a number of colleges and universities over the benefit of having faculty with traditional academic credentials versus hiring non-traditional scholars with a blend of educational and practical experience. Similarly, there have been lively discussions over the appropriateness of a J.D. or professional doctorate as opposed to a Ph.D. in criminal justice. This debate started in an article in ACJS Today (2002) and continued in subsequent publications It is believed that there is importance, benefit and relevance to incorporating practical experience on college and university campuses. In academic program after program, internships, externships, observation, and practicums have become essential in preparing students for the real world

The Pracademic and Academic in Criminal Justice Education: A Qualitative Analysis

Over the past several years, a few hundred colleagues involved in criminal justice education have participated in panel discussions and roundtables to discuss the trials and issues that have been observed by practitioners turned academics, or “pracademics.” Some complained of having difficulty breaking into academia. A debate has occurred in a number of colleges and universities over the benefit of having faculty with traditional academic credentials versus hiring non-traditional scholars with a blend of educational and practical experience. Similarly, there have been lively discussions over the appropriateness of a J.D. or professional doctorate as opposed to a Ph.D. in criminal justice. This debate started in an article in ACJS Today (2002) and continued in subsequent publications It is believed that there is importance, benefit and relevance to incorporating practical experience on college and university campuses. In academic program after program, internships, externships, observation, and practicums have become essential in preparing students for the real world

Identification and characterization of two novel JARID1C mutations: suggestion of an emerging genotype–phenotype correlation

Mental retardation (MR) is characterized by cognitive impairment with an IQ <70. Many of the major causes are genetically determined and the ∼30% male excess suggests that mutations in genes carried on the X chromosome are disproportionably represented. One such gene, jumonji AT-rich interactive domain 1C (JARID1C) on Xp11.2, has been identified in families with X-linked MR (XLMR), with 18 different mutations reported to date. As part of a systematic resequencing of 720 genes in 208 XLMR families of the International Genetic of Learning Disability (IGOLD) consortium, two novel nucleotide changes in the JARID1C coding region were identified, with the nucleotide changes segregating with the disease phenotype in the two families. The first mutation is a single-nucleotide insertion in exon 21 (c.3258_3259insC p.K1087fs*43) causing a frameshift and resulting in a premature termination codon (PTC). Such PTC-containing mRNAs are generally degraded by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) surveillance, but our results show that this is not the case with this mutation. The other change is a single-nucleotide substitution in exon 12 (c.1160C>A) in a published family with nonsyndromic MR, MRX13. This change occurs in a highly conserved amino acid, with proline (P) being substituted by threonine (T) (p.P544T). Functional analysis shows that this amino-acid substitution compromises both tri- and didemethylase activity of the JARID1C protein. We conclude that the two novel changes impair JARID1C protein function and are disease-causing mutations in these families