Evaluating the Minnesota Comprehensive Offender Reentry Plan (MCORP): Results from a Randomized Experiment

Using a randomized experimental design, this study evaluated the effectiveness of the Minnesota Comprehensive Offender Reentry Plan (MCORP), an offender reentry pilot project implemented in 2008. In an effort to reduce recidivism, MCORP attempted to increase offender access to community services and programming by producing greater case management collaboration between caseworkers in prison and supervision agents in the community. The results showed that MCORP significantly improved employment rates, decreased homelessness, broadened offenders’ systems of social support, and increased the extent to which offenders participated in community support programming (mentoring, restorative justice services, and faith‐based programming). The findings further revealed that MCORP significantly reduced all three types of reoffending (rearrest, reconviction, and new offense reincarcerations) but did not have a significant impact on supervision revocations for technical violations. The evidence suggests that MCORP was effective in decreasing reoffending largely because it increased the extent to which offenders were employed, involved in community support programming, and able to develop systems of social support.     

实践中的刑事一审期限:期间耗费与功能探寻——以S省两个基层法院为主要样板

透过审限耗费角度的实证研究可以发现,我国基层法院刑事审判程序具有如下特征:庭前程序的"事务化",庭前程序沦为纯粹的案件管理活动;庭审程序的"速审化",庭审时间耗费少,庭审节奏明快;庭后程序的"中心化"与"间隔化"。传统观点认为,我国刑事审限制度具有人权保障和效率提升功能。通过比较和实证的考察发现,我国"贯通式"审限的真实功能为通过监控法官的审理行为,达到塑造与行政化司法制度结构相契合的审理主体的目的。     

Visualizing Indented Writing on Thermal Paper by the Controlled Application of Heat

Indented writing on thermal paper made with either one, two, or three sheets of paper above the thermal paper has been visualized by the controlled application of heat to the thermal paper at temperatures below the paper's normal color change temperature. Indentations created by applying a variable pressure to a steel letter stamp showed that, with one sheet above the thermal paper, indentations were more visible at lower pressures than with either two or three sheets above. Handwriting from 20 volunteers produced indented writing graded with most of the text clear and easy to read for all samples with one sheet above, half the samples with two sheets above and eight samples with three sheets above. Comparison with ESDA showed that, with three sheets above, there was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.01), with heating producing more samples than ESDA with most of the text clear and easy to read.     

我国民事诉讼中举证责任分配契约研究

举证责任分配契约是民事证据契约的重要类型。对举证责任分配契约的实证讨论是对此类证据契约更直观的展现。诉中举证责任分配契约、否定性举证责任分配契约是值得关注的举证责任分配契约新类型。举证责任分配契约是当事人行使处分权的正当形式,并未违背自由心证原则,可以解决举证责任分配法规存在的漏洞,弥补规范说及法官自由裁量分配举证责任的不足。该制度的运行需要结合实践根据不同类型构建不同的适用规则。     

The ratio of vision to data: Promoting emergent science and technologies through promissory regulation,the case of the FDA and personalised medicine

Pharmacogenetic tests provide genetic data to tailor drug treatment and were widely predicted to be one of the first fruits of the Human Genome Project. In the mid-2000s, the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) became an advocate for pharmacogenetic testing, but its efforts to build a market for this new technology brought the agency into dispute with other regulatory actors over the type of evidence needed for the adoption of pharmacogenetic testing, in particular the importance of randomized control trials. The warfarin case highlights the tension between a new form of promissory regulation driven by future expectations and FDA's established role as protector of public health; and the controversy can be conceptualized as a struggle over regulatory epistemologies within a complex polycentric regulatory space. Our case study addresses two themes central to the burgeoning scholarship on the governance of emergent science and technologies (EST): the political economy of regulation, in particular the role that regulators play in creating markets for EST; and the epistemological politics of regulatory science, in particular the controversy that arises when regulators modify scientific standards to accommodate EST. Linking these two themes is the concept of promissory regulation: the idea that regulatory policy may be shaped by an institutional commitment to the transformational potential of EST. This concept sheds new light on the neo-mercantilist nature of contemporary regulatory capitalism.     

Using Experimental Research to Test Instructional Effectiveness: A Case Study

Cross-cultural competence is now regarded as a critical student learning outcome by many U.S. higher educational institutions. It requires in part that students be able to empathize with people whose ethno-cultural, economic, political, and/or geographic backgrounds are different from their own—a quality that we are labeling global empathy. Yet colleges and universities frequently find it difficult to develop global empathy among their students. We conducted an experiment to investigate whether different instructional techniques—traditional lecture, video news reports, and an online game—or undergraduate students’ academic majors are associated with variations in indicators of global empathy. Statistically significant variations in survey data were found only among students majoring in psychology and in responses to two survey questions. Two behavioral measures did not reveal any statistically significant variation. A larger sample, longer exposure to treatment condition, or other changes to the experimental design might elucidate stronger evidence that instructional method or undergraduate academic major affects the development of global empathy, but this type of research may not be feasible at colleges and universities where enrollments are small and faculty lack necessary resources.     

‘Gross inefficiency and criminal negligence’: the Services Reconnaissance Department in Timor in 1943–45 and the Darwin war crimes trials in 1946

The post-World War II Australian military war crimes trials of Japanese from 1945–51 have been criticised for using a rule of evidence considerably relaxed from the ordinary requirements of a criminal trial, one that did not require witnesses to give evidence in person. Circumstantial evidence suggests that, in relation to a trial held in Darwin in March 1946 for war crimes committed in Timor, the secretive Special Operations Australia, otherwise known as the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), took advantage of the rule. This article argues that the SRD did not allow their members to give evidence in person in an attempt to control and limit the dissemination of information about their operational and security failures in Timor from 1943–45. The SRD operation was adjudged by its own official historian as displaying ‘gross inefficiency and criminal negligence’. While the SRD’s failures were known to select personnel at the time, access restrictions to archival records in the post-war period, including the war crimes trials, meant that the extent of its failures and how it appeared to manage knowledge of them has not been widely known.     

丹红注射液联合西药常规治疗不稳定型心绞痛疗效和安全性系统评价

［摘要］目的 系统评价丹红注射液联合西药常规治疗不稳定型心绞痛的有效性与安全性。方法 检索PubMed、Medline、中国期刊全文数据库、万方数据知识服务平台中丹红注射液联合西药常规治疗不稳定型心绞痛的临床随机对照试验文献,按照Cochrane协作网推荐的方法评价纳入研究文献的质量后,采用RevMan 4.2软件进行Meta分析。结果 经筛选纳入23篇文献,共2 675例,其中治疗组（丹红注射液联合西药常规治疗）1 382例,对照组（单纯西药治疗）1 293例。各研究基线情况具有可比性。Meta分析结果显示：丹红注射液加西药常规治疗在提高心电图疗效[RR=2.84, 95% CI(2.28,3.55)]、心绞痛疗效[RR=4.13,95% CI（3.12,5.47）],升高高密度脂蛋白-胆固醇[high density lipoprotein-cholesterol, HDL-C）（WMD=0.29,95% CI（0.05,0.52）],降低低密度脂蛋白-胆固醇（low density lipoprotein-cholesterol, LDL-C）[WMD=-0.98, 95% CI(-1.33,-0.63）]和高敏C反应蛋白（high sensitive C-reactive protein, hs-CRP）[WMD=-1.42, 95% CI(-2.18, -0.65)]方面均优于西药常规治疗组。结论 丹红注射液联合西药常规治疗在改善不稳定型心绞痛患者的心电图疗效,升高HDL-C,降低LDL-C和hs-CRP水平方面优于对照组。受纳入文献质量的限制,本研究结论尚需更多高质量大样本的临床随机双盲对照研究加以验证。     

通督调神针法结合夹脊穴治疗脑卒中后痉挛性瘫痪

目的 观察比较通督调神针法结合夹脊穴与单纯通督调神针法治疗脑卒中后痉挛性瘫痪的疗效差异。方法 将61例患者随机分为观察组（通督调神针法结合夹脊穴）31例和对照组（单纯通督调神针法）30例,两组患者均给予康复治疗,对照组针刺取督脉穴百会、风府、水沟、大椎、至阳、腰阳关为主穴;观察组在对照组基础上结合夹脊穴针刺,取颈2—7、腰1—5夹脊穴,双侧交替针刺,每日针刺1次,每次40 min,每周6次,共治疗4周。两组患者均采用简易Fugl- Meyer运动功能量表和修订的Barthel指数（Barthel index,BI）量表评定运动功能,比较两组的疗效差异。结果 治疗4周后,观察组肢体痉挛改善程度与对照组相当,差异无统计学意义（P>0.05）;两组治疗后Fugl- Meyer和BI评分均较治疗前显著升高（P<0.05）,观察组治疗后Fugl- Meyer和BI评分较对照组升高更为显著（P＜0.05）。结论 通督调神针法结合夹脊穴在改善脑卒中后痉挛性瘫痪患者的痉挛状态方面与单纯通督调神针法疗效相当,但在提高肢体运动功能和日常生活活动能力方面,通督调神针法结合夹脊穴均优于单纯通督调神针法。     

稳心颗粒治疗心房颤动疗效及安全性Meta分析

目的 系统评价稳心颗粒治疗心房颤动的临床疗效及安全性。方法 计算机检索中国知网、万方数据知识服务平台、读秀中文学术搜索、PubMed数据库中关于稳心颗粒治疗心房颤动的临床随机对照试验,经质量评价最终纳入文献后,采用Review Manager 5.0软件进行Meta分析。结果 共纳入13个研究,全部为中文,Jadad评分均为1分。Meta分析结果显示,稳心颗粒组与西药常规治疗组比较,稳心颗粒可提高临床疗效（OR=3.40,95% CI为2.41～4.80,P<0.01）,降低心室率（WMD=-5.86,95% CI为－6.73～－4.99,P<0.01）,提高转复率（OR=2.76,95% CI为1.29～5.92,P<0.01）,降低不良反应率（OR=0.52,95% CI为0.29～0.94,P=0.03）。结论 与西药常规疗法比较,稳心颗粒治疗心房颤动可进一步提高临床疗效,降低心室率,提高转复率,降低不良反应率。