Inmates: Who occupies our jails?

The purpose of this investigation was to identify inmate personal and demographic data that may be used to further define or profile persons with a greater likelihood of being at risk for serving a jail sentence. This study was explorative. The survey administration was similar in format to that conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice. Chaplains were used as survey proctors. Pilot studies were conducted to determine the suitability of survey content. Surveys consisted of 172 items. Subjects included four hundred inmates: males comprised 88.75 percent of the sample, Caucasians 58.25 percent, Blacks 37 percent, Hispanics 3.25 percent and other 1.5 percent of the sample. Respondents ranged in age from 15 to 64 years with an average age of 30.3 years. Less than two percent of the contacted inmates refused participation in the survey. Results are presented for demographic data, select legal/criminal data, select drug and alcohol use data, employment data, health, parent/family data, education data, social data, and “other”.     

Portable high‐resolution automated 3D imaging for footwear and tire impression capture

The forensic science community raised the need for improved evidence recognition, collection, and visualization analytical instrumentation for field and laboratory use. While the 3D optical techniques for imaging static objects have been extensively studied, there is still a major gap between current knowledge and collecting high‐quality footwear and tire impression evidence. Among optical means for 3D imaging, digital fringe projection (DFP) techniques reconstruct 3D shape from phase information, achieving camera‐pixel spatial resolution. This paper presents a high‐resolution 3D imaging technology using DFP techniques dedicated to footwear and tire impression capture. We developed fully automated software algorithms and a graphical user interface (GUI) that allow anyone without training to operate for high‐quality 3D data capture. We performed accuracy evaluations and comparisons comparing with the commercial high‐end 3D scanner and carried out qualitative tests for various impressions comparing with the current practices. Overall, our technology achieves similar levels of accuracy and resolution with a high‐end commercially available 3D scanner, while having the merits of being (1) more affordable; (2) much easier to operate; and (3) more robust. Compared with the current practice of casting, our technology demonstrates its superiority because it (1) is non‐destructive; (2) collects more evidence detail than casts, especially when an impression is fragile; (3) requires less time and money to collect each piece of evidence; and (4) results in a digital file that can easily be shared with other examiners.     

Factors Associated with Physician Discussion of Health Behaviors with Adolescents

Behaviors developed in adolescence influence health later in life. The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency of health care provider's discussion of health behaviors with overweight and non-overweight adolescents and identify demographic and health behaviors related to exercise, hours of television viewing, and weight issues associated with these discussions. A Cross sectional survey of urban adolescents was conducted. Trained interviewers administered surveys over a three month period in 2001 at an urban academic pediatric and adolescent clinic. The 252 adolescents surveyed had a mean age of 15 with 49% categorized as being at risk for overweight/overweight and 51% as normal weight using the CDC percentiles for BMI. While 16% of the adolescents reported that their physician or nurse discussed the amount of television they watched, rates of discussion related to exercise (58%), and weight (54%) were much higher. In multivariate analyses, health care provider discussions with adolescents regarding exercise were more common for overweight (O.R.=2.42, 95% C.I. [1.28–4.57]) and at risk for overweight (O.R.=1.98, 95% C.I. [1.03–3.81]) adolescents, whereas physician discussion of television viewing was not associated with weight. Discussions of weight were more common for female (O.R.=2.18, 95% C.I. [1.21–3.95]), African-American (O.R.=2.53, 95% C.I. [1.40–4.57]), and overweight (O.R.=3.92, 95% C.I. [1.97–7.81]) adolescents. Even after adjusting for weight, race and gender strongly influenced the frequency of discussions about weight in physician offices. Although health care providers frequently address weight and exercise with adolescents, more discussions related to sedentary behaviors such as television viewing may be warranted to address adolescent obesity.Received PhD in Epidemiology from University of California, San Diego. Research interests include smoking prevention and cessation among adolescents and health promotion interventions.Received MD from University of Missouri-Kansas City and MPH from Johns Hopkins University. Research interests include health services research and research in support of measurable, systematic improvements in the quality of medical care.Received medical degree from Christian Medical College, Punjab, India and Master of Public Health from University of Kansas School of Medicine. Research interests include diet and physical activity behaviors, role of the environment in obesity and obesity prevention, especially among children and adolescents.Received MBBS from Allama Iqbal Medical College, Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan and MPH from University of Kansas Medical Center. Research interests include smoking cessation, database design, implementation, data management and analysis, and use of information technology in health care settings.Director, Cancer Prevention, Control, and Population Sciences, Kansas Cancer Institute. Received MD/MPH from Tulane University and MS from Harvard School of Public Health. Research interests include disparities in healthcare; smoking cessation among underserved populations, specifically African Americans; diet, nutrition, obesity, and physical activity.     

Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy: is death by seizures a cardiac disease?

RESULTS: Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) gains more and more acknowledgment across the various interdisciplinary fields. Accordingly, we performed in a prospective setting a case-control study of all SUDEP cases in a well-defined part of Denmark (Northern Jutland), between January 1998 and September 2000. We attempted to look into the cardiopathologic mechanism behind this phenomenon by assessing the degree of myocardial fibrosis in SUDEP patients versus controls. The histologic evaluation was possible in 65% of the cases (15/23) whose death was attributed to SUDEP and in 71% (15/21) of controls. Forty percent of the SUDEP cases (6/15) presented several foci of fibrotic changes in the deep and subendocardial myocardium in contrast to 1 control (6.6%, P = 0.03). None of the subjects from the SUDEP group showed fibrotic changes in their conduction system as compared with 1 control (6.6%). The quantitative evaluation of fibrosis demonstrated a trend toward more fibrosis in the deep and subendocardial myocardium of the SUDEP cases. Forty percent of cases in the SUDEP group were men (6/15), characteristically young at time of death (mean age 38 years) and with a late epilepsy onset (mean age 21 years). Antemortem, 73% of the SUDEP patients (11/15) had experienced infrequent seizures (self-reported). We conclude that the SUDEP cases displayed significant fibrosis of the myocardium when this was assessed by qualitative means. This fibrosis may be the consequence of myocardial ischemia as a direct result of repetitive epileptic seizures, which, associated with the ictal sympathetic storm, may lead to lethal arrhythmias.     

小城镇服务业人才培养问题研究

劳动力市场人才资源的配置问题是小城镇服务业发展中急需解决的重要问题之一。本文从用人单位满意度分析的基础上,采用模糊综合评价法对当前小城镇服务业劳动力需求与人才培养对接问题现状进行了评价,发现劳动力市场人才资源的配置与人才培养供给之间出现了严重的失衡。人才培养只有遵循劳动力市场需求,动态地调整培训方案与体系,才能够健康持续地发展。     

Analyzing Concepts of Human Rights with an Asian Accent

Let’s suppose we were in the early Twentieth Century,trying to answer the question:What will be the most important things that will happen in this century?You may think about the"rise of the United States,"or the long-lived British Empire.