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Opioid Crisis in Ohio
Get PDFChronic pain and unnecessary suffering affect many people and healthcare professionals often respond by giving their patients pain relief through a variety of means. Pain assessment goes alongside any vital test medical staff administer to patients, meaning that pain management comes next. Modern technologies allow for innovative practices to help treat patients experiencing chronic pain, but the most common pain-relief methodology is prescription pain-relievers. In the 1990s, opioids were marketed by pharmaceutical companies as reliable pain-relieving drugs. Concerns about their addictive potential were minimized, suggesting they were low-risk substances. Three decades later, evidence has mounted that Americans are in the midst of a drug epidemic deadlier than any in US history
The Decision to Kill or Not to Kill
No full textTitle: The Decision to Kill or Not to Kill
Abstract:
Serial killers, by definition according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are individuals who unlawfully kill two or more victims on separate occasions. Convicted serial killers are tried and sentenced and most are given one of two convictions; life in prison or death. Why these killers receive different punishments was the basis of this research. The purpose of this research was to find different factors that may have had some effect on why some serial killers were sentenced to life, while others were given capital punishment. This case analysis examined two different American serial killers who conducted their killings throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Those serial killers were John Wayne Gacy Jr. and Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. These two serial killers were selected because they conducted their killings around the same time period, their victim total was relatively similar, and both were eligible to receive the death penalty due to being tried in a capital punishment state. Research includes how these serial killers conducted their murders and the entirety of their trials after they were caught. The two trials were then analyzed to see what difference led to one of them receiving a sentence of life while the other received the sentence of death. Results showed differences in the defense\u27s argument, if a plea deal was offered or not, the age in which the killer was tried for their murders, the number of victim impact statements given at the trial, and the time in which the serial killer was tried.
Keywords:
Serial killers, Death penalty, Criminal Justice, trial, life without parole, capital punishment, homicide, murder, plea deal, Federal Bureau of Investigatio
Impact of acute stress, sex, and childhood maltreatment on fear learning and fear generalization in a fear-potentiated startle paradigm
Get PDFMany researchers approach the etiology of trauma-, stressor-, and anxiety-related mental disorders from the perspective of classical conditioning processes gone awry. According to this view, abnormal associative relationships between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli may underlie pathological anxiety and result in unusually intense fear memories or fear memories that cannot be properly extinguished. Recent work has expanded on this view by showing that many psychological disorders involving pathological anxiety are associated with an exaggerated form of stimulus generalization, leading individuals with such disorders to respond with fear and anxiety to a variety of contexts and cues that should not be threatening. It is well-known that stress, biological sex, childhood maltreatment, and certain dispositional factors can increase one’s susceptibility for pathological anxiety and significantly impact fear learning; thus, it is possible that these factors, alone or in combination, contribute to clinical anxiety by influencing fear generalization processes. In the present study, 478 healthy undergraduate students were exposed to the socially-evaluated cold pressor test immediately or 30 min prior to learning to associate one geometrical shape, but not another, with an aversive stimulus in a fear-potentiated startle paradigm. The next day, participants were tested for fear generalization by measuring their fear responses to a variety of stimuli that were similar to, but different from, the shapes observed on Day 1. Objective and subjective measures of stress were collected on Day 1, and childhood maltreatment was quantified with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. The results revealed that, across both stress time points, greater heart rate and greater cortisol levels in response to stress were associated with weaker fear acquisition and a flatter generalization gradient. These effects were influenced by participant sex and trait anxiety. We also found evidence to suggest that greater childhood maltreatment was associated with impaired fear acquisition in males but enhanced fear acquisition in females. These findings reveal a complex interaction between acute stress, biological sex, childhood maltreatment, dispositional anxiety, and fear learning that may lend insight into the etiology of certain stress-related psychological disorders
The impact of mental health and wellness education on middle and high school aged children’s knowledge and comfortability of the topics: Head Health
No full textThe purpose of this research is to implement and examine the effects of providing mental health education and resources to middle and high school aged students. In 2021, nearly 20% of high school students seriously considered committing suicide, emphasizing the importance of incorporating conversations about mental health into students’ lives beginning at a young age. Public schools allow for an opportunity to reach all students in early adolescence and introduce them to topics pertaining to their mental health and wellness.
Methods included providing two presentations to 110 students in grades 7-12 as well as conducting pre/post-surveys. Topics included anxiety, depression, eating disorders, healthy relationships, and how to support others with their mental health. Students were also given access to a Google Drive folder containing various resources about mental health in various forms including: videos, infographics, podcasts, and others. The pre/post-surveys measured students’ knowledge, perceptions, comfortability, and stigma related to different mental health topics before and after any of the resources or presentations were provided to them.
Data collected from the pre/post-surveys are still under review. Conclusions are to be drawn at a future date once the data analysis is completed.
Key words: Mental health, students, middle school, high school, rural, educatio
Developing a Variable-Parameter Optimization Technique for Generating Morphometric Segment Chains
No full textMorphometrics is the study of quantifying and analyzing form including shape and size. There are a variety of fields where being able to represent a set of shapes with a minimal set of parameters is advantageous to enable efficient analysis, manipulation, and tracking. Work has previously been done to represent a set of such curves as a mechanical linkage. As the curves increase in complexity, so does the number of links required to represent it accurately.
Prior to this research the number and type of links required to represent the curve was based on years of prior knowledge and a guess and check approach. The aim of this research is to utilize genetic algorithms to determine the number and type of links required to accurately represent the curves with no prior knowledge.
To date, work has been done to generate test sets of curves for the genetic algorithm, and work has begun on creating the algorithm itself. The solution requires the ability to perform an optimization on a problem that can be represented by a changing number of parameters. Therefore, while the specific application is to solve morphometric problems faster and easier than ever before and without expert knowledge, there are broader opportunities to advance optimization techniques by designing, implementing, and validating an optimization routine that can address a variable number of parameters
The Auditing and Legal Implications of the FTX Collapse
No full textThis research provides background on the third largest cryptocurrency exchange during the time of its operations, FTX Trading Ltd. After providing a brief backstory, the paper outlines situations that took place within the company that led to its demise. These situations demonstrate the relationship between FTX Trading Ltd. and Alameda Research, the organization’s improper usage of customer funds, the violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the company’s misleading statements and acts to the public, illegal computer code changes, a lack of governance and risk management procedures, auditing procedures that were not followed, noncompliance with regulations, the lack of professional judgment and skepticism on behalf of the external auditor and the inherent lack of an internal audit function. These issues were major in the dissolution of FTX Trading Ltd., but were not the only events that took place that led the company to its imminent bankruptcy. FTX could have still been here today if the company did not find themselves in these situations. Additionally, if proper risk measures were implemented, the same could be true
