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How Have People’S Daily Activities Affected Mood During The Covid-19 Pandemic?

Neurosciences

No abstract provided.

Efficacy And Safety Of Corpus Callosotomy Versus Vagus Nerve Stimulation As Long-Term Adjunctive Therapies In Children With Lennox–Gastaut Syndrome: Experience Of A Tertiary Care Center, Ghalib M. Alanazi, Turki F. Alosaimi, Ali H. Alwadei, Ali D. Al-Otaibi, Lamya A. Jad, Alawi A. Al-Attas

Neurosciences

Objectives: To compare the efficacy and safety of corpus callosotomy versus vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) as long-term adjunctive therapies in children with Lennox–Gastaut syndrome. Methods: This retrospective study was conducted in King Fahad Medical City between 2010 and 2019. The authors identified and followed 9 patients with Lennox–Gastaut syndrome (LGS) who underwent corpus callosotomy or VNS implantation for at least 12 months; seizure frequency and major complications were monitored. Five patients with a mean age of 10.8±1.3 years had corpus callosotomy, and 4 patients with a mean age of 13.8±3.9 years were implanted with VNS stimulators. Results: Reduction in seizure …

Association Between Obesity During Different Age Periods And Multiple Sclerosis In Saudi Arabia: A Multicenter Case–Control Study, Osama A. Al-Wutayd, Ashri G. Mohamed, Jameelah A. Saeedi, Hessa S. Alotaibi, Mohammed A. Al Jumah

Neurosciences

Objectives: To determine whether body size in different age periods is associated with an increased risk of MS in Saudi Arabia. Methods: This study included 307 MS patients and 307 healthy controls from clinics and hospital wards in three cities (Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam) in Saudi Arabia (2016-2017). We used Stunkard’s standard body silhouettes to determine the participants’ body sizes (from 1 to 9) during different age periods (school levels). We calculated adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and performed multivariable analysis adjusted for age and gender. Results: Large body sizes (silhouettes 6–9) and body size 5 …

Quality Of Life Of Caregivers Of Autistic Children In Saudi Arabia: Cross-Sectional Study, Basma A. Al-Jabri, Refal M. Abualhamael, Maryam T. Al Hazza, Salwa A. Bahabri, Yara M. Alamri, Bayan M. Alghamdi

Neurosciences

Objectives: To assess the impact on quality of life (QOL) caused by caring for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and examine the impact according to provincial residence. Methods: This was an observational, cross-sectional study conducted from May to July 2019 at King Abdulaziz University Hospital in Jeddah. Eight hundred and twelve participants were included and divided equally into caregivers of children with and without ASDs. Data were collected through an online questionnaire distributed via autism associations and parental support groups across all 13 Saudi Arabian provinces. Results: Caregivers of children with ASDs showed lower scores in most quality-of-life domains …

Qualified Immunity And Unqualified Assumptions, Teressa E. Ravenell, Riley H. Ross Iii

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Section 1983 gives people the right to sue a government official for violating their constitutional rights. Qualified immunity provides these same officials with an affirmative defense -- even if they violated the constitution, they are not liable for monetary damages if the right at issue was not clearly established at the time of the alleged conduct. The qualified immunity is based upon the basic assumption that “a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct.” If the law was clearly established the official will be liable. If not, the Court has reasoned that it would be unfair …

Policing Suspicion: Qualified Immunity And "Clearly Established" Standards Of Proof, Seth W. Stoughton, Kyle Mclean, Justin Nix, Geoffrey Alpert

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

This Article explores the intersection of Fourth Amendment standards of proof and the “clearly established” prong of qualified immunity. It illustrates how the juxtaposition of the Court’s insistence on a low level of specificity for the development of suspicion and a high degree of specificity for the imposition of liability makes it exceedingly difficult to hold officers accountable for violating constitutional rights. And it offers both a path for future research into the development of suspicion and suggestions for methods that police agencies can use to improve the development and articulation of suspicion. Ultimately, it contends that policing in the …

Prison Medical Deaths And Qualified Immunity, Andrea Craig Armstrong

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The defense of qualified immunity for claims seeking monetary damages for constitutionally inadequate medical care for people who are incarcerated is misguided. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, medical illness is the leading cause of death of people incarcerated in prisons and jails across the United States. Qualified immunity in these cases limits accountability for carceral actors, thereby limiting incentives for improvements in the delivery of constitutionally adequate medical care. The qualified immunity defense also compounds other existing barriers, such as higher subjective intent standards and the Prison Litigation Reform Act, to asserting legal accountability of prison and jail …

Recalibrating Qualified Immunity: How Tanzin V. Tanvir, Taylor V. Riojas, And Mccoy V. Alamu Signal The Supreme Court's Discomfort With The Doctrine Of Qualified Immunity, Patrick Jaicomo, Anya Bidwell

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

In December 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued its most important decision on qualified immunity since Harlow v. Fitzgerald, and the issue in the case did not even involve the doctrine. In the Court’s unanimous opinion in Tanzin v. Tanvir, which dealt with the interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Justice Thomas explicitly distanced the Court from the very type of policy reasoning used to create qualified immunity. He also embraced the availability of damages claims against government officials as historically justified and often necessary to vindicate individual rights and to check the government’s power. The …

Civil Rights Litigation In The Lower Courts: The Justice Barrett Edition, Aaron L. Nielson, Paul Stancil

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Now that Justice Amy Coney Barrett has joined the United States Supreme Court, most observers predict the law will shift on many issues. This common view presumably contains at least some truth. The conventional wisdom, however, overlooks something important: the Supreme Court’s ability to shift the law is constrained by the cases presented to it and how they are presented. Lower courts are thus an important part of the equation. Elsewhere, the authors have offered a model of certiorari to demonstrate how lower courts in theory can design their decisions to evade Supreme Court review; they also explain why such …

How Culture Impacts Courtrooms: An Empirical Study Of Alienation And Detachment In The Cook County Court System, Maria Hawilo, Kat Albrecht, Meredith Martin Rountree, Thomas Geraghty

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Courtrooms operate as unique microcosms—inhabited by courtroom personnel, legal actors, defendants, witnesses, family members, and community residents who necessarily interact with each other to conduct the day-to-day functions of justice. This Article argues that these interactions create a nuanced and salient courtroom culture that separates courtroom insiders from courtroom outsiders. The authors use the Cook County courts, specifically the George N. Leighton Courthouse at 2650 S California Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, to investigate courtroom culture and construct a thematic portrait of one of the largest criminal court systems in the United States. Using this newly constructed data source of rich …

Risk-Based Sentencing And The Principles Of Punishment, Christopher Lewis

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Risk-based sentencing regimes use an offender’s statistical likelihood of returning to crime in the future to determine the amount of time he or she spends in prison. Many criminal justice reformers see this as a fair and efficient way to shrink the size of the incarcerated population, while minimizing sacrifices to public safety. But risk-based sentencing is indefensible even (and perhaps especially) by the lights of the theory that supposedly justifies it. Instead of trying to cut time in prison for those who are least likely to reoffend, officials should focus sentencing reform on the least advantaged who tend to …

Reconceiving Coercion-Based Criminal Defenses, Stephen R. Galoob, Erin Sheley

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Coercing someone is sometimes wrong and sometimes a crime. People subject to coercion are sometimes eligible for criminaldefenses, such as duress. How, exactly, does coercion operate in such contexts? Among legal scholars, the predominant understanding of coercion is the “wrongful pressure” model, which states that coercion exists when the coercer wrongfully threatens the target and, as a result of this threat, the target is pressured to act in accordance with the coercer’s threat. Some tokens of coercion do not fit neatly within existing legal categories or the wrongful pressure model of coercion. For example, coercive control is a psychological phenomenon …

Fetal Protection Laws And The "Personhood" Problem: Toward A Relational Theory Of Fetal Life And Reproductive Responsibility, Amanda Gvozden

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Fetal Protection Laws (FPLs) are laws that define and provide punishments for any number of crimes, including homicide, committed “against a fetus.” Previous literature has suggested that FPLs need to be explicit about who the intended target of this legislation is. Specifically, comments concerned about the use of FPLs against pregnant women in relation to their own pregnancies suggested that states include language in their FPLs that make it clear that the law ought not be applied to women for harm to their own fetuses. Indeed, some states like California have taken measures to curtail the application of FPLs to …

Paying For A Clean Record, Amy F. Kimpel

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Prosecutors and courts often charge a premium for the ability to avoid or erase a criminal conviction. Defendants with means, who tend to be predominantly White, can often pay for a clean record. But the indigent who are unable to pay, and are disproportionately Black and Brown, are saddled with the stigma of a criminal record. Diversion and expungement are two popular reforms that were promulgated as ways to reduce the scale of the criminal legal system and mitigate the impact of mass criminalization. Diversion allows a defendant to earn dismissal of a charge by satisfying conditions set by the …

Judicial Responses To Age And Other Mitigating Evidence: An Exploratory Case Study Of Juvenile Life Sentences In Pre-Miller Cases, José B. Ashford, Katherine Puzauskas, Robert Dormady

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

This study describes how judges in Maricopa County, Arizona responded to age and other mitigation evidence in imposing “life” versus “natural life” sentences for juvenile offenders convicted of homicide in pre-Miller cases. Maricopa County was selected for this case study because of its history of adhering to “restrictive interpretations” of various kinds of mitigation evidence and because of the characteristics of this county’s local court community. The study employed a mixed-methods design consisting of a content analysis of relevant case documents and a quantitative analysis of the findings from the qualitative analyses of legal case documents. It examined 82% …

Getting Out Of Traffic: Applying White Collar Investigative Tactics To Increase Detection Of Sex Trafficking Cases, Evan Binder

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

When federal authorities investigate sex trafficking, three realities are consistently present. First, most sex trafficking investigations begin in response to an individual affirmatively bringing evidence to investigators. Second, the elements required to prove a someone guilty of sex trafficking under federal sex trafficking laws incentivize prosecutors to rely on victim testimony and their cooperation throughout the life of the investigation. This can be, and often is, psychologically traumatizing for the victim. Third, most cases are viewed through a traditional tripartite structure, involving the trafficker, the victim(s), and the purchasers of the sex act (johns). However, recent high-profile sex trafficking indictments …

Rethinking Prison For Non-Violent Gun Possession, Robert Weiss

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Whatever the wisdom or folly of the belief, Americans who live in violence-affected neighborhoods often believe they need a gun for self-defense. Yet many are, due to age or criminal record, unable to legally possess a firearm. The result is a Catch-22 they describe as either being “caught with a gun . . . [or] dead without one.” Indeed, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other cities imprison thousands of mostly young, Black men each year for non-violent gun offenses. These offenses do not involve firing or wielding a gun, but simply being found in possession of one—commonly, during a routine traffic stop …

Reframing Hate, Lu-In Wang

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The concept and naming of “hate crime,” and the adoption of special laws to address it, provoked controversy and raised fundamental questions when they were introduced in the 1980s. In the decades since, neither hate crime itself nor those hotly debated questions have abated. To the contrary, hate crime has increased in recent years—although the prominent target groups have shifted over time—and the debate over hate crime laws has reignited as well. The still-open questions range from the philosophical to the doctrinal to the pragmatic: What justifies the enhanced punishment that hate crime laws impose based on the perpetrator’s motivation? …

“It Takes A Village”: A Qualitative Analysis Of Black Women’S Experiences Navigating Healthcare With High-Risk Perinatal Conditions, Simileoluwa Elizabeth Falako

Public Health Theses

Black women have a likelihood of maternal mortality that is three to four times higher than white women in the United States. In Connecticut, most pregnancy-related deaths are from Black and Latinx women, even though they do not have the majority of live births in the state. This study aims to explore the medical experiences of Black women with high-risk perinatal conditions and their navigation of healthcare at a tertiary care center in Connecticut. A qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with seven Black women with hypertension and/or diabetes in pregnancy who gave birth at a large, tertiary medical …

The Impact Of Personalized Nursing Care On Anxiety, Depression, Angina Related Life Quality, And Physiological Conditions In Older Adults With Coronary Heart Disease, Qiao Fan

Public Health Theses

AbstractObjective: To study the impact of medical-personalized nursing care on anxiety, depression, BMI, blood pressure, blood lipid and quality of life in elderly patients with coronary heart disease. Methods: In this study, 160 older adults with coronary heart disease had been enrolled and randomized using the random range method. The control group included 80 older adults who received a conventional nursing intervention, and the experiment group included 80 older adults who were treated with a focused and personalized nursing intervention. The two groups of older adults had been compared and evaluated for Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) mark, the Self-rating Depression …

A Scoping Review Comparing Sustainable Diet Indices, Natalie Henning

Public Health Theses

Interest in environmentally sustainable diets (i.e., diets beneficial for both human and planetary health) has increased as the role of food systems in climate change and population health has become better understood. Sustainable diet indices have been proposed as a holistic approach to assessing diets around the world with regards to human and planetary outcomes. The aim of this scoping review was to summarize and compare sustainable diet indices and their applicability to various populations.A literature search of three databases (Scopus, PubMed, and the Climate Change and Human Health Literature Search Portal) was conducted to identify articles that developed, validated, …

Comprehensive West Nile Virus Phylogenetic Analysis: Europe And Beyond, Robert T. Koch

Public Health Theses

ABSTRACT West Nile virus (WNV) inhabits a unique position in the infectious disease landscape. It is both the most widespread arbovirus in the world, and yet is one of the least known. WNV is spread by mosquitoes and has high morbidity and mortality in birds, humans are dead-end hosts of the virus but can develop a serious neuroinvasive form of the disease (WNND). The incidence of such cases is on the rise around the world. To explore WNV, we created a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis with all available WNV genomes in genbank database using Nextstrain to identify use cases for increasing …

Comparative Impact Of Network Adequacy Standard Strategies On Medicaid Recipient Cvd Outcomes: A Computer Simulation Modeling Study, Sreeja Kondeti

Public Health Theses

Context: Medicaid managed care network adequacy standards vary widely across states and are not typically informed by scientific evidence. The comparative efficacy of these standards for protecting the health of the Medicaid population has not yet been comprehensively researched.Objective: The aims of this study are to construct simulation modeling methods to approach this policy problem and to determine which numeric values for network adequacy standards are most effective for producing favorable health outcomes for Medicaid recipients who develop CVD. Design and Setting: A continuous-time Markov model was used to simulate the natural history of cardiovascular disease, using a cohort that …

Identification Of An In Vitro Medium For Leptospira Spp. As A Surrogate For Host Environment, Using Rna-Seq Transcriptome Analysis, Zitong Lin

Public Health Theses

Pathogenic Leptospira species causes millions of leptospirosis cases around the world and is an urgent public health issue that needs to be properly addressed. The infection leads to clinical manifestations ranging from self-limiting febrile illness to severe life-threatening symptoms. Currently, there is a lack of sensitive assay for early diagnosis of leptospirosis, and there is no FDA-approved vaccine for human use in the United States. Despite the worldwide occurrence of this zoonotic disease, low and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected by it. A better understanding of the pathogenesis of Leptospira is a crucial step for the development of better diagnostic …

Effectiveness Of Primary And Booster Covid-19 Mrna Vaccination Against Infection Caused By The Sars-Cov-2 Omicron Variant In People With A Prior Sars-Cov-2 Infection, Alexander James Robertson

Public Health Theses

Objective: To estimate the effectiveness of a primary (two-dose) and booster (third dose) vaccination against Omicron infection among previously infected people.Methods: We designed a test-negative case-control study among vaccine eligible people who received SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing between November 1, 2021, and January 31, 2022 from the Yale New Haven Health System facilities serving southern Connecticut communities. Our primary exposure was COVID-19 mRNA primary and booster vaccination. We conducted two analyses, each with an outcome of Omicron BA.1 variant infection (S-gene target failure defined) and each stratified by prior SARS-CoV-2 infection status. We estimated the effectiveness of primary vaccination on the …

Melissa: Monitoring The Environment With Living Investigatory Sentinel Species Apis Mellifera, Brady Rowe

Public Health Theses

Without the ability to meaningfully detect an environmental contaminant, public health efforts can get behind the curve, and people suffer for it. Industrial polluters are the major source of environmental contamination. Despite regulation, industrial compliance efforts are often limited by the difficulty of getting samples to analyze due to cost and logistical challenges. The current method requires a compliance officer to gather a sample or rely on self-reported measures from the potential polluters. This process can be remarkably costly both in capital and human labor. These issues can be remedied by relying on the domesticated honeybee to gather the “samples.” …

Interactions Between Diabetes And Covid-19: A Scoping Review, Vani Topkar

Public Health Theses

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic that started in March 2020 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus introduced an incredible number of unknowns that ongoing research aims to investigate. One such unknown is the relationship between diabetes and COVID-19. Existing literature has identified diabetes as a risk factor for poor health outcomes in COVID-19 patients, however, other information is limited and inconclusive.

Objective: There are two primary goals of this scoping review. First, to consolidate existing literature about both associations between COVID-19 and diabetes, and the biological mechanisms of how diabetes and COVID-19 may interact. This includes consolidating information about diabetes as …

The Joint Effects Of Pre-Pregnancy Bmi, Race/Ethnicity On Infants’ Birth Weights, Mei Wang

Public Health Theses

AbstractObjective: We characterized the joint impacts of maternal race/ethnicity and pre-pregnancy BMI on adverse birth weight outcomes including low birth weight (LBW), and macrosomia. Methods: Retrospective cohort study of linked birth data for the years 2016-2020. Maternal race/ethnicity and maternal BMI were the key exposures; we analyzed their joint impact on outcomes using Poisson regression models. Results: When using race-specific reference groups, the difference in risk between NHB and NHW decreased as pre-pregnancy BMI increased and additionally, the difference in risk of macrosomia between the two groups increased with increasing BMI. NHB women generally had higher risk of low birth …

Demographic Representation In Clinical Trials Of Pharmacotherapy Fertility Treatments In Women With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (Pcos): A Cross-Sectional Analysis, Kendall Watanabe

Public Health Theses

ABSTRACT: Background: While Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a medical condition that impacts women of childbearing age, prior research has shown that women of color are at a disproportionately higher risk. The goal of this meta research project is to closely model a systematic process to assess demographic characteristics of participants recruited and enrolled in clinical trials and RCTs in PCOS-related research studies. Methods: An exhaustive electronic database search was performed through Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, Ovid Embase, and Web of Science to identify studies that focused on PCOS-related infertility. Out of the 2,883 records identified in the initial search …

Estimating The Burden Of Covid-19 Associated Hospitalizations In Connecticut, Ann Basting

Public Health Theses

The number of COVID-19 related hospitalizations that occur in a particular area is dependent on a variety of sociodemographic and clinical factors, but the percentage of hospitalizations that are identified in that region varies based on the type and quality of surveillance system that is utilized. In Connecticut, an active surveillance system called the COVID-19–Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET) conducts COVID-19 associated hospitalization surveillance in two of Connecticut’s eight counties. The other counties in Connecticut rely on a passive surveillance system which could be subject to underreporting. To evaluate possible underreporting, positive SARS-CoV-2 test rates obtained from the Connecticut Department …