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Do #BlackLivesMatter? Implicit Bias, Institutional Racism and Fear of the Black Body
Get PDFThe paper implores a brief cultural analysis to examine racial tensions and injustices in the U.S. that have led to the Black Lives Matter movement. Specifically, implicit bias is of primary focus as the authors examine how bias of the Black male frames the “Black-as-criminal” mentality, as well as connotes fear of the Black male body. The authors further discuss how fear of the Black face and Black male body has led to discriminatory actions such as institutional racism and, in the most vehement yet consistent cases, the killing of unarmed Black men and women. Cases such as Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown are presented as exemplars of instances in which implicit bias and institutional racism result in malicious and racially framed discriminatory actions. The paper concludes with a presentation of how the Black Lives Matter movement is a modern-day representation of movements born from historical racial unrest for Black Americans around matters of social injustice, and how the movement can serve to project U.S. society toward an All Lives Matter position. The paper also presents implications that can be used for research and policy-level chang
How Promising is the Second Chance Act in Reducing Recidivism among Male Ex-Offenders in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi?
Get PDFThis study examines the effectiveness of reentry programs as provided by the Second Chance Act of 2007 in reducing recidivism among ex-offender males in the southern states of Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. Drawing on secondary data coming mainly from the Bureau of Justice Statistics the study uses multivariate analysis to assess the factors that explain recidivism, and evaluate the impact of the Second Chance legislation on recidivism among young adult males in the three states. Findings indicate that imprisoned Black and Hispanic males, as well as median household income are significant predictors of recidivism. Additionally, the study finds that, three years after its implementation, the Second Chance Act has achieved significant recidivism reduction among males in two of the three states under study (Georgia and Mississippi), and it is, therefore, a promising legislation for decreasing criminal recidivism
Report on the Texas Legislature, 85th Session: An Urban Perspective-Criminal Justice Edition
Get PDFIn Texas, the legislature meets every 2 years and at the end of a regular legislative session, hundreds of passed bills will have been sent to the governor for approval. The large number of bills and the wide range of topics they cover can make it difficult to gain an understanding of all the new laws that were passed. At the close of each legislative session the Earl Carl Institute publishes, for the benefit of its constituents, highlights from the session in a bi-annual legislative report. In this year’s publication entitled Report on the Texas Legislature, 85th Session: An Urban Perspective the Institute attempted to cover matters that it believes to be of concern to the urban community, however, many of the highlights cover issues of particular concern to other traditionally disenfranchised communities as well. The legislation covered in these reports generally falls under such issues as Election, Criminal Justice (Human Trafficking, Criminal Procedure, Wrongful Convictions, Domestic Violence), Juvenile Justice, Family Law, Property, Education, Healthcare, Wills, Estate and Probate, Wealth and Litigation. We are pleased to present, via The Bridge: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Legal & Social Policy, an excerpt this year’s legislative report that highlights legislative actions in the area of criminal justice reform in the State of Texas. The full report, published in August 2017, can be accessed via the Institute’s website www.tsulaw.edu/centers/ECI/publications.html
Minimum Cost Deployment of Heterogeneous Directional Sensor Networks for Differentiated Target Coverage
No full textA basic deployment goal of a directional sensor network (DSN) is to satisfy the coverage quality requirements of targets. The limited sensing angle of directional sensors makes the deployment of such a network more complicated than that of an omnidirectional sensor network. In some emerging DSN applications, targets may have differentiated coverage quality requirements due to their differentiated importance or priorities. Meanwhile, directional sensors of multiple types with different sensing ranges and prices are available for optimally organizing a network. To deploy such a DSN with satisfied network connectivity under the minimum cost constraint is a significant problem to be solved. This work formulates and addresses the problem for the first time. First, we prove its NP-completeness. Then, this problem is formulated as an integer linear programming model. To solve it, we propose three algorithms, i.e., a greedy heuristic, local search, and particle swarm optimization. Extensive numerical experiments are conducted to validate the proposed algorithms. The results show that all the proposed algorithms can effectively solve the problem, and the last one can achieve both highest success rate and best solution quality
LC–MS/MS determination of D-mannose in human serum as a potential cancer biomarker
No full textSeveral metabolites in human serum have been identified as potential cancer biomarkers for early detection. This study focuses on the LC–MS/MS method development and validation of D-mannose in human serum. Surrogate blank serum, coupled with stable isotope D-mannose-13C6, as internal standard, was used for generating standard curves ranging from 1 to 50 μg/mL. Separation was achieved by an Agilent 1200 series HPLC equipped with a SUPELCOGELTM Pb, 6% Crosslinked column with HPLC water as a mobile phase at flow rate of 0.5 mL/min at 80 °C. Mass detection was performed under negative ionization electrospray. Inter- and intra-day accuracy and precision were \u3c2%. The extraction recovery and matrix effect were 104.1%–105.5% and 97.0%–100.0%, respectively. This method was successfully applied for the quantification of D-mannose in the serum samples of 320 esophageal cancer patients and 323 healthy volunteers. We report a simple, specific and reproducible LC–MS/MS method for the quantification of D-mannose in human serum as a potential cancer biomarker
The Use and Abuse of Police Powers and Extrajudicial Killings in Nigeria
Get PDFThe paper examines the use and abuse of police powers in Nigeria, with emphasis on extrajudicial killing. It argues that extrajudicial killing is the most serious abuse of power and violation of victims’ rights to life and fair hearing. Using four typical case studies of live events from Nigerian newspapers, the paper shows that the police in Nigeria not only adopt the doctrine of maximum force in crime control, they often kill suspects and non-suspects at the flimsiest excuse because of an institutionalized culture of impunity. This culture of impunity is derived largely from Government’s authorization of a policy of shoot-to-kill, when in confrontation with armed robbers and other dangerous criminal
Sodium arsenite-induced cardiovascular and renal dysfunction in rat via oxidative stress and protein kinase B (Akt/PKB) signaling pathway
No full textObjectives: Arsenic is a ubiquitous element that is widely distributed in the environment to which man and animals are exposed. Cardiovascular disease is one of the aftermaths of chronic arsenic exposure-related morbidity and mortality. This study sought to investigate the possibility of reversal from arsenic-induced cardio-renal toxicity following exposure and subsequent withdrawal. The study also seeks to understand the mechanism of action of this reversal. Methods: Rats were orally exposed to sodium arsenite at 10, 20 and 40 mg/kg daily for 4 weeks followed by 4 weeks of withdrawal. Results: Exposure to arsenic caused a significant increase in malondialdehyde, H2O2 generation but decrease total thiol and reduced glutathione levels in both cardiac and renal tissues. Furthermore, increases in superoxide dismutase, glutathione-S-transferase and catalase with significant increases in glutathione peroxidase activities were observed in the cardiac tissues. On the contrary, a significant reduction in the renal antioxidant enzyme activity was recorded following exposure. Also, antioxidant defense system did not return to apparent values after arsenic withdrawal. Immunohistochemistry revealed a reduction in the expression of the pro-survival protein–protein kinase B (Akt/PKB) following exposure to arsenic and this was not reversed by withdrawal Discussion: Exposure to arsenic caused cardio-renal toxicity via induction of oxidative stress and down-regulation of Akt/PKB expressions
TSU Faculty Research Database-Jan 2017
Get PDFResearch interests and selected publications from 230 Texas Southern University faculty have been updated in Jan 2017. Faculty from Public Affairs, the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, the College of Education, the College of Business, the College of Liberal Arts and Behavioral Sciences, the Law School and the School of Communications are included
Representative Bureaucracy, Recidivism, Education, Public Trust, and Citizen Evaluation of Government
Get PDFCorporate Psychopaths in Public Agencies?
Get PDFCorporate leaders with psychopathic traits are the subject of a growing scientific literature. Recently, scholars have begun to examine such personalities in public agencies. In this article, we relate psychopathic public leaders to research on toxic and destructive leadership, leader personality disorder, and the Dark Triad/Tetrad of psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic personalities. Via a brief scenario, we illustrate how the term “corporate psychopath” might be used by lay employees lacking psychiatric expertise as a catchall term for any one of the four dark types in a leadership role. We argue that dark personalities are found in public agency leadership and could perhaps be increasing in numbers. We highlight their prejudice toward immigrants and implications for public policy affecting minority groups. After outlining organizational responses discussed in the literature, we consider servant leadership as a screening strategy to help select constructive public leaders. Some areas for future research are suggested