Tougher Prosecution When the Rapist Is Not a Stranger: Suggested Reform to the California Penal Code

This article advocates changes to existing California statutes to better protect the rights of victims of nonstranger rape. As this article will show, the mere happenstance that a victim knows her rapist too often changes the dynamics of the prosecution and the perception of the victim. Section II of this Article discusses the differences between stranger and nonstranger rape, looking specifically at the psychological factors that distinguish the victims of each type of crime. Section II also focuses on the nonstranger rape victim\u27s difficulty in reconciling that the randomness of the violence against her is absent compared to the victim of stranger rape. Section III explores the obstacles associated with prosecuting non stranger rape cases focusing on low reporting rates and the reluctance of prosecutors to file charges and for judges and juries to convict. Section IV examines the inadequacy of the current California rape statutes and critiques five specific sections of the Penal Code that may contribute to the low rate of prosecutions of nonstranger rape. Finally, Section V provides suggestions for reform and proposes a model rape statute that would more fairly protect the rights of women raped by either strangers or nonstrangers. The proposed statute clarifies what rape is, and does not focus on the victim\u27s actions or inactions, her consent or lack of consent, or her state of mind, because to do so would keep the focus of the crime on the woman as opposed to the perpetrator

Tougher Prosecution When the Rapist Is Not a Stranger: Suggested Reform to the California Penal Code

This article advocates changes to existing California statutes to better protect the rights of victims of nonstranger rape. As this article will show, the mere happenstance that a victim knows her rapist too often changes the dynamics of the prosecution and the perception of the victim. Section II of this Article discusses the differences between stranger and nonstranger rape, looking specifically at the psychological factors that distinguish the victims of each type of crime. Section II also focuses on the nonstranger rape victim\u27s difficulty in reconciling that the randomness of the violence against her is absent compared to the victim of stranger rape. Section III explores the obstacles associated with prosecuting non stranger rape cases focusing on low reporting rates and the reluctance of prosecutors to file charges and for judges and juries to convict. Section IV examines the inadequacy of the current California rape statutes and critiques five specific sections of the Penal Code that may contribute to the low rate of prosecutions of nonstranger rape. Finally, Section V provides suggestions for reform and proposes a model rape statute that would more fairly protect the rights of women raped by either strangers or nonstrangers. The proposed statute clarifies what rape is, and does not focus on the victim\u27s actions or inactions, her consent or lack of consent, or her state of mind, because to do so would keep the focus of the crime on the woman as opposed to the perpetrator

Landgrabs, Institutional Violence and Shrinking Civic Space

oai:intr2dok.vifa-recht.de:mir_mods_0001437

Can People Experiencing Homelessness Acquire Financial Assets?

Through an innovative Individual Development Account (IDA) program run by the Community Empowerment Fund (CEF), individuals at risk for or experiencing homelessness receive financial education, access matched savings accounts, and have saved a total of $89,831.55. This is notable as low-income individuals often lack access to the means to build assets, which can moderate financial distress. In this mixed-method study we examine the program\u27s impact through administrative data, surveys, and qualitative interviews. Of the 17 interview participants, 15 opened an account, saving an average of$1,356.24 toward housing, emergency savings, cars, education, and computers. Few U.S. IDA programs have served those experiencing homelessness, although the results demonstrate they can save, which is remarkable considering the U.S. saving rate has been steadily declining to close to zero. Our findings suggest that this model is effective in working with the most disadvantaged populations to successfully acquire financial assets

No influence of CO2 on stable isotope analyses of soil waters with OA-ICOS

Acknowledgements We are thankful for the support by Audrey Innes with the stable isotope, LOI, and GWC analysis. We thank Jonathan Dick for suggesting that we use sparkling water to generate different CO2 concentrations in the headspace and Claire Tunaley for proof reading. We further highly appreciate the help of David Galloway and Michael Mcgibbon from the School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, with the CO2 analysis. We are also thankful for the support by Robert Provencal and Doug S. Baer regarding the technical aspects of the isotope analyzer. We would also like to thank the European Research Council (ERC, Project No. GA 335910 VeWa) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, Project No. NE/K000268/1) for funding. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback that helped to improve the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Regional scale cropland carbon budgets: Evaluating a geospatial agricultural modeling system using inventory data

Accurate quantification and clear understanding of regional scale cropland carbon (C) cycling is critical for designing effective policies and management practices that can contribute toward stabilizing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However, extrapolating site-scale observations to regional scales represents a major challenge confronting the agricultural modeling community. This study introduces a novel geospatial agricultural modeling system (GAMS) exploring the integration of the mechanistic Environmental Policy Integrated Climate model, spatially-resolved data, surveyed management data, and supercomputing functions for cropland C budgets estimates. This modeling system creates spatiallyexplicit modeling units at a spatial resolution consistent with remotely-sensed crop identification and assigns cropping systems to each of them by geo-referencing surveyed crop management information at the county or state level. A parallel computing algorithm was also developed to facilitate the computationally intensive model runs and output post-processing and visualization. We evaluated GAMS against National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) reported crop yields and inventory estimated county-scale cropland C budgets averaged over 2000e2008. We observed good overall agreement, with spatial correlation of 0.89, 0.90, 0.41, and 0.87, for crop yields, Net Primary Production (NPP), Soil Organic C (SOC) change, and Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE), respectively. However, we also detected notable differences in the magnitude of NPP and NEE, as well as in the spatial pattern of SOC change. By performing crop-specific annual comparisons, we discuss possible explanations for the discrepancies between GAMS and the inventory method, such as data requirements, representation of agroecosystem processes, completeness and accuracy of crop management data, and accuracy of crop area representation. Based on these analyses, we further discuss strategies to improve GAMS by updating input data and by designing more efficient parallel computing capability to quantitatively assess errors associated with the simulation of C budget components. The modularized design of the GAMS makes it flexible to be updated and adapted for different agricultural models so long as they require similar input data, and to be linked with socio-economic models to understand the effectiveness and implications of diverse C management practices and policies

A Structured Tumor-Immune Microenvironment in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Revealed by Multiplexed Ion Beam Imaging

The immune system is critical in modulating cancer progression, but knowledge of immune composition, phenotype, and interactions with tumor is limited. We used multiplexed ion beam imaging by time-of-flight (MIBI-TOF) to simultaneously quantify in situ expression of 36 proteins covering identity, function, and immune regulation at sub-cellular resolution in 41 triple-negative breast cancer patients. Multi-step processing, including deep-learning-based segmentation, revealed variability in the composition of tumor-immune populations across individuals, reconciled by overall immune infiltration and enriched co-occurrence of immune subpopulations and checkpoint expression. Spatial enrichment analysis showed immune mixed and compartmentalized tumors, coinciding with expression of PD1, PD-L1, and IDO in a cell-type- and location-specific manner. Ordered immune structures along the tumor-immune border were associated with compartmentalization and linked to survival. These data demonstrate organization in the tumor-immune microenvironment that is structured in cellular composition, spatial arrangement, and regulatory-protein expression and provide a framework to apply multiplexed imaging to immune oncology

A Structured Tumor-Immune Microenvironment in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Revealed by Multiplexed Ion Beam Imaging

The immune system is critical in modulating cancer progression, but knowledge of immune composition, phenotype, and interactions with tumor is limited. We used multiplexed ion beam imaging by time-of-flight (MIBI-TOF) to simultaneously quantify in situ expression of 36 proteins covering identity, function, and immune regulation at sub-cellular resolution in 41 triple-negative breast cancer patients. Multi-step processing, including deep-learning-based segmentation, revealed variability in the composition of tumor-immune populations across individuals, reconciled by overall immune infiltration and enriched co-occurrence of immune subpopulations and checkpoint expression. Spatial enrichment analysis showed immune mixed and compartmentalized tumors, coinciding with expression of PD1, PD-L1, and IDO in a cell-type- and location-specific manner. Ordered immune structures along the tumor-immune border were associated with compartmentalization and linked to survival. These data demonstrate organization in the tumor-immune microenvironment that is structured in cellular composition, spatial arrangement, and regulatory-protein expression and provide a framework to apply multiplexed imaging to immune oncology