EVIDENCE Witnesses Generally: Provide for Confidentiality of Certain Communications

The Act extends the scope of privileged communications beyond the psychiatrist-patient relationship and provides for privileged communications between enumerated licensed mental health care professionals and their patients. The privilege of confidentiality extends to discussions between treating professionals to the extent such discussions involve the confidential communications of the patient

EVIDENCE Witnesses Generally: Provide for Confidentiality of Certain Communications

The Act extends the scope of privileged communications beyond the psychiatrist-patient relationship and provides for privileged communications between enumerated licensed mental health care professionals and their patients. The privilege of confidentiality extends to discussions between treating professionals to the extent such discussions involve the confidential communications of the patient

EVIDENCE Securing Attendance of Witnesses and Production and Preservation of Evidence: Allow Depositions of Physicians to Preserve Testimony in Criminal Child Abuse and Molestation Proceedings

The Act expands the scope of the parties’ right to take depositions of witnesses in criminal matters when a defendant has been charged with an offense of child molestation, aggravated child molestation, or physical or sexual abuse of a child. The Act permits counsel for the defendant or the prosecuting attorney to preserve by deposition the testimony of any physician whose testimony is relevant to the crime charged. Upon motion by either party, the court having jurisdiction to try the charged offense may order the taking of a deposition

Secondary Structure, a Missing Component of Sequence-Based Minimotif Definitions

Minimotifs are short contiguous segments of proteins that have a known biological function. The hundreds of thousands of minimotifs discovered thus far are an important part of the theoretical understanding of the specificity of protein-protein interactions, posttranslational modifications, and signal transduction that occur in cells. However, a longstanding problem is that the different abstractions of the sequence definitions do not accurately capture the specificity, despite decades of effort by many labs. We present evidence that structure is an essential component of minimotif specificity, yet is not used in minimotif definitions. Our analysis of several known minimotifs as case studies, analysis of occurrences of minimotifs in structured and disordered regions of proteins, and review of the literature support a new model for minimotif definitions that includes sequence, structure, and function. © 2012 Sargeant et al