Disproportionate Minority Contact: Alameda County

This FOCUS explores racial and ethnic disproportion in the juvenile justice system. A case study of Alameda County, California, examines Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) at various points in the system and its implications. The study is juxtaposed to other societal conditions to explore patterns and potential connections

Summary of Findings: Released Time Bible Education

Released Time Religious Education is a program started in 1914 by a public school superintendent in Gary, Indiana. The program, which was approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952, is primarily designed to teach religious education during the school day to public school students off campus with parental permission. A key by-product has been improved academic performance and the development of positive moral character among youth. While many incidents of improvement have been documented, there previously has been no major independent study of Released Time. School Ministries, Inc., a nonprofit organization that has been encouraging the expansion of Released Time nationally, engaged the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) to do an independent program evaluation in cooperation with the Oakland, California, Released Time program

Representations of swine flu: Perspectives from a Malaysian pig farm

© The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Novel influenza viruses are seen, internationally, as posing considerable health challenges, but public responses to such viruses are often rooted in cultural representations of disease and risk. However, little research has been conducted in locations associated with the origin of a pandemic. We examined representations and risk perceptions associated with swine flu amongst 120 Malaysian pig farmers. Thirty-seven per cent of respondents felt at particular risk of infection, two-thirds were somewhat or very concerned about being infected. Those respondents who were the most anxious believed particular societal “out-groups” (homosexuals, the homeless and prostitutes) to be at higher infection risk. Although few (4%) reported direct discrimination, 46% claimed friends had avoided them since the swine flu outbreak. Findings are discussed in the context of evolutionary, social representations and terror management theories of response to pandemic threat

Adapting Quickly to Emerging Forms of Warfare in the Indian Context

The military-strategic community is awash with former practitioners, strategic thinkers, and policymakers whose job it is to look at future trends in warfare, influenced as they are by the seductive pull of the latest technological game-changer. In this cacophony of ideas and contestable claims, new means of waging war, for mostly the same old reasons, are discernible and can be grasped by strategic audiences who then look at the specific context in which some of these very ideas could fructify into doable strategic effort for a nation’s overall wellbeing. This paper has tried to view the Indian strategic context without delving into too many specific recommendations for change in our policies, other than to crystallise them, or new structures in the military organisation as it exists. Instead, it tries to view this context through a wide-angle lens, searching for the pros and cons of change in the Sub-continental strategic-military future, and how our top leadership and military commanders could be better prepared, mentally as well as in material capabilities, for a war of the future

MAKING MISTAKES WITH MACHINES

MAKING MISTAKES WITH MACHINE

An Implementation and Comparison of NAT64 using eBPF and the Jool Kernel Module.

IPv4 exhaustion has been a prevalent problem for years, as organizations and service providers have fought against the scarcity of IPv4 address space on the internet. NAT64 is increasingly deployed as a solution to this problem. As a result, it becomes increasingly important that the deployment of NAT64 technologies is easy and performant. Numerous implementations of NAT64 technologies already exist, and some new implementations use eBPF as well. In this research, we implemented a CLAT with an eBPF TC classifier and compared its performance to Jool, a widely used kernel module. We did this using a series of virtual machines on two networks, and a VyOS router. Using iperf3, we compared throughput in TCP and UDP and analyzed throughput and performance loss. Deployment is trivial – essentially loading the program to the appropriate interfaces – and the overhead is minimized because both approaches stay entirely within kernel space

Estimates of measles case fatality ratios: a comprehensive review of community-based studies.

BACKGROUND: Global deaths from measles have decreased notably in past decades, due to both increases in immunization rates and decreases in measles case fatality ratios (CFRs). While some aspects of the reduction in measles mortality can be monitored through increases in immunization coverage, estimating the level of measles deaths (in absolute terms) is problematic, particularly since incidence-based methods of estimation rely on accurate measures of measles CFRs. These ratios vary widely by geographic and epidemiologic context and even within the same community from year-to-year. METHODS: To understand better the variations in CFRs, we reviewed community-based studies published between 1980 and 2008 reporting age-specific measles CFRs. RESULTS: The results of the search consistently document that measles CFRs are highest in unvaccinated children under age 5 years; in outbreaks; the lowest CFRs occur in vaccinated children regardless of setting. The broad range of case and death definitions, study populations and geography highlight the complexities in extrapolating results for global public health planning. CONCLUSIONS: Values for measles CFRs remain imprecise, resulting in continued uncertainty about the actual toll measles exacts

Screening of anthocyanins in single red grapes using a non-destructive method based on the near infrared hyperspectral technology and chemometrics

BACKGROUND:Anthocyanins are the main compounds responsible for the colour of red wines and therefore itmay be important to evaluate the contentof the aforesaid secondary metabolites duringgraperipeningdueto the crucial importance to determine wine colour. Nowadays, there is a growing demand of rapid and non-destructive analytical tools for analysing grapes, such as the emerging hyperspectral analysis. RESULTS: The hyperspectral images of intact grapes (Vitis vinifera L. cv. Tempranillo, Graciano, Garnacha and Mazuelo red grape from vineyards located in the D.O.Ca. Rioja at two different developmental stages) were recorded using a near infrared hyperspectral imaging device (900–1700 nm). Reference values of anthocyaninswere obtained by HPLC-DAD. Calibrationswere performed by modified partial least squares regression and present a good potential (coefficient of determination of 0.72 and standard error of cross-validation values of 0.78 and 0.70mg per grape for total and non-acylated anthocyanins respectively). CONCLUSION: The procedure reported here presents a good potential for a fast and reasonably inexpensive screening of these compounds in intact single berries. Moreover, the heterogeneity of anthocyanins within the same ripeness stage could be evaluated using this non-detructive tool

Non-typhoidal Salmonella bacteraemia: Epidemiology, clinical characteristics and its' association with severe immunosuppression

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Non-typhoidal <it>Salmonella </it>(NTS) is increasingly recognized as an important pathogen associated with bacteraemia especially in immunosuppressed patients. However, there is limited data specifically describing the clinical characteristics and outcome amongst the immunosuppressed patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 56,707 blood culture samples and 5,450 stool samples were received by the microbiology laboratory at a tertiary referral hospital in Malaysia, during a 4-year study period. Out of these samples, 55 non-duplicate NTS isolates were identified from blood and 121 from stool. A retrospective analysis of the 55 patients with NTS bacteraemia was then conducted to determine the predominant NTS serovars causing bacteraemia and its' blood invasive potential, epidemiological data, clinical characteristics and antimicrobial susceptibility. Patients were then grouped as immunosuppressed and non-immunosuppressed to determine the association of severe immunosuppression on clinical features. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 15.0) using the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test, Fisher's exact test or Chi-squared test. The odds ratio (OR) and its 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. The <it>P</it>-value < 0.05 (two-tailed) was taken as the level of significance.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Out of 55 NTS bacteraemia cases identified, 81.8% (45/55) were community-acquired. <it>Salmonella enterica </it>serovar Enteritidis had the highest blood invasiveness. An extra-intestinal focus of infection was noted in 30.9% (17/55) of the patients, most commonly involving the lungs and soft tissue. 90.9% (50/55) of the patients had an underlying disease and 65.5% (36/55) of the patients had severe clinical immunosuppressive condition with malignancy and HIV being the most common. Immunosuppressed patients had higher mortality (P = 0.04), presented more commonly with primary bacteraemia (P = 0.023), leukopenia (P = 0.001) and opportunistic infections (P = 0.01). In contrast, atherosclerotic conditions (P = 0.015), mycotic aneurysms (0.037) and gastroenteritis (P = 0.03), were significantly more common in the non-immunosuppressed patients. The non-immunosuppressed group also had a higher proportion of older patients (>50 years) with a significantly higher median age (64 versus 36.5 years; p = 0.005).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Patients with severe clinical immunosuppression had higher mortality, presented more commonly with primary bacteraemia, leukopenia and opportunistic infections and absence of gastroenteritis. Early identification and prompt medical treatment can be life saving because of the high mortality and morbidity associated with this disease especially in the immunosuppressed patients.</p