Courage in Mississippi (short)

Letter to the editor praising James Silver\u27s courage in speaking out about racial problems in Mississippi; Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatchhttps://egrove.olemiss.edu/jws_clip/1247/thumbnail.jp

Warriors and Guardians: Police Recruit Role Orientation and Heterogeneity

American police have experienced an expansion of duties over the last century, and their function has become increasingly diverse. As a result, researchers have developed role orientation typologies to understand how officers view themselves, their attitudes toward their work, and their responsibilities. One such typology is the warrior/guardian framework, where warrior-oriented officers see themselves as crime-fighting soldiers in conflict with criminals, while guardian-oriented officers view themselves as protectors of the community and providers of broader public services. Despite its popularity, there is limited empirical evidence supporting this framework. Further, little research examines how police recruits differentially view their role as most studies focus on fully-fledged officers. Recruits undergo a transformative process of socialization as they learn the norms and values of the police, but differences between individuals in their beliefs on the police role and how beliefs affect their academy experience are not well developed. Drawing on interviews with 26 police recruits from two academies in a Midwestern metropolitan area, this dissertation explores recruit beliefs on policing using the warrior/guardian framework. First, I classify recruits as warrior- or guardian-oriented drawing on the limited literature and then extend this line of research by identifying novel dimensions that may help categorize recruits within the framework. Second, I examine how recruits’ orientations align with or contradict academy portrayals of policing and explore the implications of this disconnect. Lastly, I analyze how some guardian-oriented recruits perceive academy and policing practices as contributing to staffing challenges. The findings suggest that recruits can broadly be classified as warrior- or guardian-oriented, although hybridization exists, with recruits sometimes holding views associated with the opposite orientation. I find that recruits’ perspectives on several unexplored topics—such as community support, “alpha” personalities, motivation to help others, and police misconduct—align fairly consistently with the warrior/guardian framework. Additionally, guardian-oriented recruits exhibited signs of cognitive dissonance due to discrepancies between their views and academy portrayals of policing, while warrior-oriented recruits generally aligned with academy presentations of the profession. Finally, findings suggest that certain recruitment and academy practices may “weed out” some guardian-oriented recruits, potentially contributing to police staffing concerns

The Effect upon State Crime Rates of the Legalization of Recreational Marijuana in California

This work examines criminal effects of the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state of California in 2016. While multiple states have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes, there is little empirical evidence to determine the criminal effect, if any, of introducing marijuana products into the legal market. The research analyzes crime rates pre and post legalization. Crime rates from the years 1990-2018 are taken from the California Attorney General Office “Crime in California” annual report, and consist of FBI Part I offenses: murder and non-negligent homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson. Misdemeanor drug arrests, marijuana felony arrests, and non-marijuana felony drug arrests are also included. DUI arrests are sourced from the California Department of Motor Vehicles DUI management information annual report. Interrupted time-series analysis is the primary analytic strategy, in conjunction with descriptive statistics. Results suggest that legalization has had a non-trivial impact on some offenses, although there are severe data limitations in place

Field strength dependence of grey matter R2* on venous oxygenation

The relationship between venous blood oxygenation and change in transverse relaxation rate (ΔR2 *) plays a key role in calibrated BOLD fMRI. This relationship, defined by the parameter β, has previously been determined using theoretical simulations and experimental measures. However, these earlier studies have been confounded by the change in venous cerebral blood volume (CBV) in response to functional tasks. This study used a double-echo gradient echo EPI scheme in conjunction with a graded isocapnic hyperoxic sequence to assess quantitatively the relationship between the fractional venous blood oxygenation (1-Yv) and transverse relaxation rate of grey matter (ΔR2 * GM), without inducing a change in vCBV. The results demonstrate that the relationship between ΔR2 * and fractional venous oxygenation at all magnet field strengths studied was adequately described by a linear relationship. The gradient of this relationship did not increase monotonically with field strength, which may be attributed to the relative contributions of intravascular and extravascular signals which will vary with both field strength and blood oxygenation

A Novel Reconfigurable Vector-Processed Interleaving Algorithm for a DVB-RCS2 Turbo Encoder

Turbo-Codes (TC) are a family of convolutional codes enabling Forward-Error-Correction (FEC) while approaching the theoretical limit of channel capacity predicted by Shannons theorem. One of the bottlenecks of a Turbo Encoder (TE) lies in the non-uniform interleaving stage. Interleaving algorithms require stalling the input vector bits before the bit rearrangement causing a delay in the overall process. This paper presents performance enhancement via a parallel algorithm for the interleaving stage of a Turbo Encoder application compliant with the DVB-RCS2 standard. The algorithm efficiently implements the interleaving operation while utilizing attributes of a given DSP. We will discuss and compare a serial model for the TE, with the presented parallel processed algorithm. Results showed a speed-up factor of up to 3.4 Total-Cycles, 4.8 Write and 7.3 Read

Biofunktionalisierung von Gold-Nanostrukturen mit Plasma-Fibronektin

Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wird das Fibronektin (Fn) Dimer (welches im Blut vorkommt und zur Fibrillenbildung fähig ist) oder Monomer (welches nach der Reduktion von Dimeren erhalten wird) an unterschiedlich dicht verteilte und circa 7 nm große Gold-Nanopartikel auf Oberflächen gebunden. Die Herstellung dieser Oberflächen erfolgt mittels Diblockcopolymer-Mizellen-Nanolithographie (engl.: block copolymer micelle lithography (BCML)). Eine Herausforderung ist hierbei die effiziente und reproduzierbare Anbindung einzelner, unmodifizierter Fn Dimere oder Monomere an einzelne Gold-Nanopartikel auf Oberflächen sowie deren Charakterisierung. Hierfür wird die Effizienz a) einer direkten Anbindungsstrategie, bei der das Molekül statistisch orientiert an Gold-Nanopartikel gebunden wird, und b) einer indirekten Anbindungsstrategie, bei der das Molekül gerichtet orientiert über einen Linker an Gold-Nanopartikel gebunden wird, mittels der Schwingquarzmikrowaage mit Bestimmung des Dissipationsfaktors (engl. quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D)), einer Kombination von QCM-D und Reflektometrie, Fluoreszenzmikroskopie, Rasterelektronenmikroskopie (REM), Transmissions-elektronenmikroskopie (TEM) und Rasterkraftmikroskopie (engl. atomic force microscope (AFM)) untersucht. Ein Vergleich der Hydrophilie von Oberflächen untereinander geschieht hier mit Hilfe der statischen Kontaktwinkelmessung

Cerebral Infarct/Intracranial Cerebrovascular Disease

Imaging goals for intracranial cerebral vascular disease are (1) to assess the degree of parenchymal injury and identify intraparenchymal hemorrhage; (2) to determine if there are areas of altered perfusion that may be at risk for future injury; and (3) to assess the intracranial arteries (patency as well as direction of flow). This unit describes a Basic Protocol that can be used to evaluate stable patients with acute, subacute, or chronic cerebrovascular symptoms. An Alternate Protocol is also given for cases of hyperacute strokes or cerebrovascular symptoms in an unstable patient.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145411/1/cpmia0101.pd

Myelin Water Fraction Changes in Febrile Seizures

Objective The objective of this feasibility study was to investigate whether myelin water fraction (MWF) patterns can differentiate children presenting with febrile seizures who will go on to develop nonfebrile epilepsy from those who will not. Patients and Methods As part of a prospective study of myelination patterns in pediatric epilepsy, seven subjects with febrile seizures underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) including the following standard sequences—T1-weighted, T2-weighted, fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR)—and an additional experimental sequence, multicomponent-derived equilibrium single-pulse observation of T1 and T2 (mcDESPOT) to quantify MWF. For each of these subjects, MWF maps were derived and compared with an age-matched population-averaged MWF atlas. Results All seven subjects

Estimate of vascular permeability and cerebral blood volume using Gd-DTPA contrast enhancement and dynamic T2*-weighted MRI

Purpose To develop a numerical approach for estimation of vascular permeability from dynamic T2*-weighted imaging, a technique routinely used to measure cerebral blood volume (CBV) and flow in gliomas. Materials and Methods This study describes a process for estimating both the gadolinium diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd-DTPA) transvascular transfer constant and CBV from dynamic T2*-weighted images. The algorithm was applied to data from the brains of 12 patients with grade IV gliomas. The stability of the method was assessed. Estimates of CBV by this technique were compared to those of the conventional method. Results The algorithm was found to be insensitive to noise and to generate stable voxel-by-voxel estimates of permeability and CBV. Conclusion Using a single imaging acquisition, the three most important vascular properties, CBV, cerebral blood flow (CBF), and permeability, can be estimated. This approach may have potential in clinical evaluation of patients with brain tumor or acute ischemic stroke. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/55796/1/20634_ftp.pd