The spectrum of intramyocardial small vessel disease associated with sudden death

Intramyocardial small vessel abnormalities are not commonly recognized. The best known abnormality is fibromuscular dysplasia involving the sinoatrial or atrioventricular nodal arteries. Small vessel disease has been reported as an isolated cardiac anomaly in individuals with sudden death, and may also be associated with other cardiac conditions including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and mitral valve prolapse. The nature of the association is unknown, and the mechanism causing sudden death is sometimes obscure. We describe pathological changes of the intramyocardial small vessels of three individuals with sudden death. Abnormalities involved small vessels at different levels. In all the cases, the abnormalities were thought to have caused or contributed to the individual's death. The possible mechanisms of this are discussed.     

The Impact of Timing of Exposure to Violence on Violent Behavior in a High Poverty Sample of Inner City African American Youth

A growing body of research has linked exposure to violence to violent behavior, but few studies have examined the impact of the timing of exposure to violence on violent behavior among inner city, minority youth. Theoretical insights derived from developmental psychology and psychopathology (DPP) and Agnew’s general strain theory (GST) give contrasting accounts of whether exposure to violence has a short term or long term impact on violent behavior. Five waves of data collected from African American youth living in twelve high poverty inner city neighborhoods was used to examine how the timing of exposure to violence over a four year time period impacts year five violent behavior. Multivariate results support GST’s contention that more proximal exposure to violence has a larger impact on violent behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings for adolescent development in high poverty settings are discussed.

Public Opinion on U.S. Federal and Intergovernmental Issues in 2006: Continuity and Change

A 2006 trend survey found that Americans most often select localgovernment as giving them the most for their money, followedby the federal and state governments. African Americans aremost supportive of the federal government as giving them themost for their money; Hispanics are most supportive of localgovernment. As in many previous years, the local property taxwas viewed as the worst tax, followed by the federal incometax, state sales tax, and state income tax. Americans displayedreduced trust and confidence in the federal government; however,trust in all three spheres of government—federal, state,and local—dropped between 2004 and 2006, possibly reflectiveof the poor response of all governments to Hurricane Katrina.Analysis of surveys since 1972 reveals that there has been along-term decline in the public's support for the federal governmentand a corresponding increase in support of state and especiallylocal governments.     

Does Performance Budgeting Work? An Examination of the Office of Management and Budget’s PART Scores

In this paper, the authors use the Bush administration's management grades from the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) to evaluate performance budgeting in the federal government—in particular, the role of merit and political considerations in formulating recommendations for 234 programs in the president's fiscal year 2004 budget. PART scores and political support were found to influence budget choices in expected ways, and the impact of management scores on budget decisions diminished as the political component was taken into account. The Bush administration's management scores were positively correlated with proposed budgets for programs housed in traditionally Democratic departments but not in other departments. The federal government's most ambitious effort to use performance budgeting to date shows both the promise and the problems of this endeavor.