“Criminal” Insanity, Diagnosis, and Public Morality

The insanity defense contains at its core an intractable tension between the insane as sick and the insane as criminally deviant. The very phrase ―mentally-ill offender ―epitomizes the social vectors of therapeutic concern for and punitive attack against those who deviate from our sexual habits, deprive us of our property, or threaten our physical well-being. Sociopaths represent the apotheosis of this contradiction in that they suffer from a mental disease defined in terms of criminality. As such, these individuals have traditionally been treated differently from the insane and incompetent; they are denied the therapeutic approaches normally accorded to the mentally ill and routinely hammered with punishment within our criminal justice system. This state of affairs provokes at least two worthy lines of inquiry: first, why the special treatment of sociopaths in the insanity defense and criminal law generally? And second, should it be otherwise? The answers to these questions, I will argue, move us far beyond the treatment of sociopaths to a general indictment of the social order and the criminal justice system that regulates it. In reality, sociopaths are a creation of psychiatric discourse, embraced by the criminal justice system for its convenience, and the contours of the insanity defense reflect this fact. While more critical considerations of moral responsibility might exculpate them, alongside numerous others, their persistence in the dominant ideology serves to conceal far more powerful—and hence far more threatening—sources of social harm

Recent starbirth and starburst activity in nearby galaxies.

The ionizing starbirth activity in M101, M82, and NGC 1569 has been investigated via CCD imagery at H$\alpha$, R, I, and (SIII) bands. The three galaxies are compared with one another and with M51, M83, and the Milky Way in terms of their starbirth intensities, starbirth efficiencies, and possible starbirth histories. The globally-averaged starbirth intensities that are inferred from the extinction-corrected H$\alpha$ surface brightnesses vary by $\sim$3 orders of magnitude, with M101 and the Milky Way defining the low end and with M82 defining the high-intensity regime. The annular-averaged starbirth intensities correlate strongly with the H\sb2 surface densities and with the total gas surface densities, where near-linear relationships are obtained. Unusually high starbirth efficiencies and eruptive gaseous morphologies are evident in M82, NGC 1569, and NGC 5461--one of the supergiant HII region complexes in M101. Crude indices of the galaxies\u27 starbirth histories indicate temporally declining starbirth intensities in M101 and the Milky Way but currently bursting starbirth intensities in M82 and NGC 1569. In M101, annular-averaged photometry of the H$\alpha$ emission yields a much flatter galactocentric profile of surface brightness than that of the red-continuum starlight. The corresponding e-folding scale lengths are 9 and 3.3 kpc. respectively, thus implying significant differences between the galactocentric distributions of current-epoch massive star formation and past-averaged star formation. Moreover, the giant HII regions in M101 show significant variations in H$\alpha$ equivalent width as a function of both galactocentric radius and H$\alpha$ luminosity. These variations can be attributed to changes in the upper stellar mass limits of the ionizing clusters--M(upper) increasing in the outer galaxy, where the brighter HII regions are more numerous. The galactocentric variation in H$\alpha$ equivalent widths appears more closely related to the galaxy\u27s radial profile of differential rotation than to its monotonic gradient in O/H abundances. The ionizing stellar populations in early-type, late-type, and starburst galaxies are discussed in terms of these results

A pre- and post-improvement study on six southeast Kansas strip-mine lakes

During the last sixty years extensive experimental research has been conducted in an attempt to establish methods of controlling the acid conditions resulting from coal mine operations. It was the purpose of this research to determine the feasibility of reclaiming acid strip-mine lakes for use as potential fisheries management areas. To accomplish the objectives outlined above a two-phase program was initiated. The first phase involved the physical alteration of the drainage areas of the experimental lakes included in this study in an attempt to divert all visible signs of acid drainage to areas other than those incorporated into the drainage systems of the experimental lakes

Behavioral-economics approach to auditors\u27 risk assessments

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/dl_proceedings/1044/thumbnail.jp

Care and the Neoliberal Individual

© 2017, Journal of Economic Issues / Association for Evolutionary Economics. Abstract: This article explores two conflicting ethical systems: neoliberalism and institutionalism. Neoliberalism’s foundations support an overarching ethic of individual autonomy and individual responsibility. Institutionalism contrasts this conception with a view of human beings as relational. The ethical foundation of such a view requires a meta-ethic of interpersonal responsibility that supports an ethic of care

Prototyping The Open Textbook Toolkit: Digital Infrastructure that Connects Libraries, Disciplinary Faculty, and University Presses to Support Open Education

If you care about access to information, student success, or transformative education you’re probably thinking about the potential of open educational resources (OERs). As a profession, librarians have embraced open education but so far, we have not given faculty instructors the tools or infrastructure needed to drive wide engagement. Faculty are interested in creating customized resources that empower their instruction but barriers around creation, hosting, and remix of OERs are too high. This session introduces the Open Textbook Toolkit, a project designed to reduce those barriers and grounded in deep research about the unmet needs of instructors and students. Currently in development, the Toolkit will leverage a partnership between libraries and university presses to offer concrete supports that empower faculty to develop open educational resources at all levels. Join Will Cross and Mira Waller, co-PI’s on an IMLS grant currently in the second stage of review for a discussion about the Toolkit as a case study in developing infrastructure that supports OERs. Participants will leave the session with an understanding of the project as well as preliminary data and actionable recommendations on the development of support for OERs. Whether designing your own platforms and tools, looking to leverage the Toolkit on your own campus, or just seeking an understanding of the state of the art in OER development, you will leave this session better-prepared to develop a library ecosystem that supports OERs