Substantive Changes Research Articles

Update to Assessing Economic Damages in Personal Injury and Wrongful Death Litigation: The State of California

Abstract This article is designed to update the original article that appeared in the Journal of Forensic Economics, 17:3 (2004). The article discusses a change in procedure for expert discovery and deposition and five substantive changes and clarifications affecting the legal guidance for valuation of damages in personal injury and wrongful death cases in California.

Exosomally derived Y RNA fragment alleviates hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in transgenic mice

Cardiosphere-derived cell exosomes (CDCexo) and YF1, a CDCexo-derived non-coding RNA, elicit therapeutic bioactivity in models of myocardial infarction and hypertensive hypertrophy. Here we tested the hypothesis that YF1, a 56-nucleotide Y RNA fragment, could alleviate cardiomyocyte hypertrophy, inflammation, and fibrosis associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in transgenic mice harboring a clinically relevant mutation in cardiac troponin I (cTnIGly146). By quantitative PCR, YF1 was detectable in bone marrow, spleen, liver, and heart 30 min after intravenous (i.v.) infusion. For efficacy studies, mice were randomly allocated to receive i.v. YF1 or vehicle, monitored for ambulatory and cardiac function, and sacrificed at 4 weeks. YF1 (but not vehicle) improved ambulation and reduced cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis. In parallel, peripheral mobilization of neutrophils and proinflammatory monocytes was decreased, and fewer macrophages infiltrated the heart. RNA-sequencing of macrophages revealed that YF1 confers substantive and broad changes in gene expression, modulating pathways associated with immunological disease and inflammatory responses. Together, these data demonstrate that YF1 can reverse hypertrophic and fibrotic signaling pathways associated with HCM, while improving function, raising the prospect that YF1 may be a viable novel therapeutic candidate for HCM.

Will the Real Theoretical Structure of the WISC-V Please Stand Up? Implications for Clinical Interpretation

The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children’s (WISC) factorial\theoretical structure has undergone numerous substantive changes since it was first developed, and each of these changes has subsequently been questioned by assessment experts. Given remaining questions about the structure of the latest revision, the WISC-V, the present study used three different exploratory factor analytic techniques to investigate the factor structure of the 10 primary subtests in a large clinical sample (N = 5359). Results revealed that the WISC-V likely contains four factors (e.g., Gc, Gwm, Gs, and either Gv (via exploratory bifactor analysis) or a complexly determined perceptual reasoning factor (via the Schmid-Leiman procedure and oblique/higher-order factor analysis)), not the five factors proposed by the test publisher. Variance apportionment and omega estimates indicate that only secondary interpretive emphasis should be placed upon group factors, but only when there is structural validity support. This study suggests that the WISC-V measures four, not five, factors, although the four-factor configuration may be different than previously reported in the technical literature.

Increased viscosity of milk during infant feeding improves swallow safety through modifying sucking in an animal model.

Infants experiencing frequent aspiration, the entry of milk into the airway, are often prescribed thickened fluids to improve swallow safety. However, research on the outcomes of thickened milk on infant feeding have been limited to documenting rates of aspiration and the rheologic properties of milk following thickening. As a result, we have little insight into the physiologic and behavioral mechanisms driving differences in performance during feeding on high viscosity milk. Understanding the physiologic and behavioral mechanisms driving variation in performance at different viscosities is especially critical, because the structures involved in feeding respond differently to sensory stimulation. We used infant pigs, a validated animal model for infant feeding, to test how the tongue, soft palate, and hyoid respond to changes in viscosity during sucking and swallowing, in addition to measuring swallow safety and bolus size. We found that the tongue exhibited substantive changes in its movements associated with thickened fluids during sucking and swallowing, but that pharyngeal transit time as well as hyoid and soft palate movements during swallowing were unaffected. This work demonstrates the integrated nature of infant feeding and that behaviors associated with sucking are more sensitive to sensorimotor feedback associated with changes in milk viscosity than those associated with the pharyngeal swallow, likely due to its reflexive nature.

Getting Better at Getting Better: Improvement Dispositions in Education

Background/Context Continuous improvement methods are becoming increasingly popular in education. Existing research has emphasized the technical aspects of improvement practice and has rarely focused on important social phenomena that underlie improvement work, such as the mindsets and identities of successful practitioners. To address this gap, we conducted an exploratory study of educators involved with networked improvement communities (NICs). Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Two questions guide our study: (1) How do participants in networked improvement communities describe the key dispositions of educational “improvers”? and (2) What do participants report as the types of activities, social processes, and tools that enable the development of these dispositions? Research Design We used purposive and snowball sampling to recruit participants from diverse roles and who had received training in improvement science and/or had been involved in a NIC. We asked respondents to refer us to colleagues who were incorporating improvement science principles and tools into their professional work. In total, we interviewed 22 participants. Data Collection and Analysis We conducted semistructured, virtual interviews using Zoom. We audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim each interview for analysis. Through a collaborative and progressive process using NVivo 12 software, we applied open and axial coding methods to the data to identify emergent themes and patterns. Findings/Results Respondents report that educational improvers engage in disciplined inquiry, adopt a learning stance, take a systems perspective, possess an orientation toward action, seek the perspective of others, and persist beyond initial improvement attempts. Results also suggest that having opportunities to practice improvement with guidance from a coach, having access to a learning community of trusted colleagues, working in an environment where there are resources to support improvement work, and having leaders who model an improvement mindset support educators’ ability to engage in new practices that shift how they see themselves and relate to their work. Conclusions/Recommendations This study helps identify important dispositions associated with continuous improvement work in education. It also highlights the potential for NICs to bring about substantive changes in how participants connect to their professional practice, as well as with their colleagues, and how they pursue solutions to complex problems. Our research also suggests the need to provide educators with authentic opportunities to engage in fundamentally novel types of activities to cultivate new ways of approaching work that help all students learn and succeed.

The dual form of education as a component of integration processes in the educational environment

The most important characteristic feature of the current stage of development of higher education in Ukraine is integration processes that reflect, on the one hand, substantive and structural changes within the education system, and on the other hand, the processes of interaction between education and the production sphere. The priorities of state policy and the concept of innovative development in the field of education indicate the necessity to form a wide range of mechanisms for cooperation between business and educational institutions. In the educational standard of higher education in specialty it is noted that the future specialist must be ready for the following activities: production and technological activities, project activities, research activities, organizational and management activities. Specific types of professional activity, for which a specialist is mainly prepared, are determined by higher educational institutions in cooperation with students, teachers, and employers' associations. With such an essential range of requirements for future specialists, there is a need for qualitative changes in the content and organization of training.
 In modern social and economic conditions, the activities of higher education institutions that train specialists for the food industry are associated with solving a number of problems: the imperfection of the mechanisms of social partnership between educational institutions and employers; insufficient practical orientation in the training of qualified personnel for a particular enterprise; inconsistency of the educational and resource base of educational institutions. As a result of the search for effective forms of organizing of the educational process for solving the tasks set before education, the introduction of elements of dual education in the educational process seems to be expedient, promising, and of current interest

'How the Sausage Gets Made': Voter ID and Deliberative Democracy

I was in “the room where it happens” when Kentucky enacted a new photo ID law for voting. And I lived to tell the tale. This Article recounts the evolution of Kentucky’s voter ID law, which could have been one of the strictest ID laws in the country but ultimately became one of the mildest. The inside story of how that occurred is itself interesting, but the Article also relates it to a theory of deliberative democracy, or a legislative process that benefits from debate, negotiation, and compromise from various voices, making the final enactment more legitimate. The Article traces the history of the voter ID law, explaining the significant substantive changes that occurred during the legislative process. Next, the Article analyzes the litigation over the bill, which was focused on its implementation during the pandemic and not about the substance of the new law—showing that even opponents accepted its main substantive components. Finally, the Article relates the Kentucky story to a legislative theory of deliberative democracy. The Kentucky process mostly worked because, even though Republicans had the votes to pass the most stringent law possible, they instead moderated in response to opposition from Democrats and advocacy organizations. That moderation made the process more legitimate and created a better substantive outcome. The Article suggests that, to encourage a stronger legislative process, courts could give slightly more deference to a state that passes an election law with indicia of deliberative democracy. Voter ID laws are unnecessary: they do not root out any fraud that exists and can disenfranchise voters. But the Kentucky experience shows that not all voter ID laws are created equal. If the political reality meant that a new voter ID law was inevitable, the Kentucky version—with its various exceptions and fail-safe protections—is about as good as one can expect. Further, its passage opened the door to other pro-voter reforms. Perhaps the Kentucky model—and the deliberative democracy process it exhibits—can lower the temperature in other states.

How Long Will It Take to Reach Gender Parity in Orthopaedic Surgery in the United States? An Analysis of the National Provider Identifier Registry.

Although previous studies have evaluated how the proportion of women in orthopaedic surgery has changed over time, these analyses have been limited by small sample sizes, have primarily used data on residents, and have not included information on growth across subspecialties and geographic regions. We used the National Provider Identifier registry to ask: How have the (1) overall, (2) regional, and (3) subspecialty percentages of women among all currently practicing orthopaedic providers changed over time in the United States? The National Provider Identifier Registry of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was queried for all active providers with taxonomy codes pertaining to orthopaedic subspecialties as of April 2020. Women orthopaedic surgeons were identified among all physicians with subspecialty taxonomy codes. As all providers are required to provide a gender when applying for an NPI, all providers with queried taxonomy codes additionally had gender classification. Our final cohort consisted of 31,296 practicing orthopaedic surgeons, of whom 8% (2363 of 31,296) were women. A total of 11,714 (37%) surgeons possessed taxonomy codes corresponding with a specific orthopaedic subspecialty. A univariate linear regression analysis was used to analyze trends in the annual proportions of women who are active orthopaedic surgeons based on NPI enumeration dates. Specifically, annual proportions were defined using cross-sections of the NPI registry on December 31 of each year. Linear regression was similarly used to evaluate changes in the annual proportion of women orthopaedic surgeons across United States Census regions and divisions, as well as orthopaedic subspecialties. The national growth rate was then projected forward to determine the year at which the representation of women orthopaedic surgeons would achieve parity with the proportion of all women physicians (36.3% or 340,018 of 936,254, as determined by the 2019 American Medical Association Physician Masterfile) and the proportion of all women in the United States (50.8% or 166,650,550 of 328,239,523 as determined by 2019 American Community Survey from the United States Census Bureau). Gender parity projections along with corresponding 95% confidence intervals were calculated using the Holt-Winters forecasting algorithm. The proportions of women physicians and women in the United States were assumed to remain fixed at 2019 values of 36.3% and 50.8%, respectively. There was a national increase in the proportion of women orthopaedic surgeons between 2010 and 2019 (r2 = 0.98; p < 0.001) at a compound annual growth rate of 2%. Specifically, the national proportion of orthopaedic surgeons who were women increased from 6% (1670 of 26,186) to 8% (2350 of 30,647). Assuming constant growth at this rate following 2019, the time to achieve gender parity with the overall medical profession (that is, to achieve 36.3% women in orthopaedic surgery) is projected to be 217 years, or by the year 2236. Likewise, the time to achieve gender parity with the overall US population (which is 50.8% women) is projected to be 326 years, or by the year 2354. During our study period, there were increases in the proportion of women orthopaedic surgeons across US Census regions. The lowest growth was in the West (17%) and the South (19%). Similar growth was demonstrated across census divisions. In each orthopaedic subspecialty, we found increases in the proportion of women surgeons throughout the study period. Adult reconstruction (0%) and spine surgery (1%) had the lowest growth. We calculate that at the current rate of change, it will take more than 200 years for orthopaedic surgery to achieve gender parity with the overall medical profession. Although some regions and subspecialties have grown at comparably higher rates, collectively, there has been minimal growth across all domains. Given this meager growth, we believe that substantive changes must be made across all levels of orthopaedic education and leadership to steepen the current curve. These include mandating that all medical school curricula include dedicated exposure to orthopaedic surgery to increase the number of women coming through the orthopaedic pipeline. Additionally, we believe the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and individual programs should require specific benchmarks for the proportion of orthopaedic faculty and fellowship program directors, as well as for the proportion of incoming trainees, who are women. Furthermore, we believe there should be a national effort led by American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and orthopaedic subspecialty societies to foster the academic development of women in orthopaedic surgery while recruiting more women into leadership positions. Future analyses should evaluate the efficacy of diversity efforts among other surgical specialties that have achieved or made greater strides toward gender parity, as well as how these programs can be implemented into orthopaedic surgery.

Ions conductance and external-stimulation dependent bifurcations

By analyzing the Hodgkin-Huxley model, it can be estimated how neurons communicate with each other. It is the most widely used model that describes why the action potentials happen and how action potentials are generated and propagated in neurons. In a nerve cell, an action potential is evoked when the membrane potential attains its threshold (bifurcation point of neuron activity) membrane potential. The substantive changes associated with membrane voltage and conductance driving the action potential. Sometimes, nerve cells show abnormal activity for different causes. In this paper, we analyze the bifurcation of the Hodgkin-Huxley model to show the relationship between the abnormal activity of the nerve cells and the ionic conductance and external stimulation into the nerve cells. We also illustrated the possible region where the nerve cells show undesirable hyperactivity by calculating the Hopf bifurcation curve.

Litter trait driven dampening of flammability following deciduous forest community shifts in eastern North America

Global change has contributed to substantial vegetation shifts across many ecosystems through altered fire-vegetation feedbacks, but the direction, strength, and mechanism of these processes vary considerably. Most prior studies have focused on fire-vegetation feedbacks that enhance community flammability with less emphasis on examples of feedbacks resulting from dampened flammability. Widespread fire exclusion in many deciduous forests and woodlands of eastern North America has caused substantive changes in overstory species composition. These changes have led to feedbacks that are hypothesized to decrease community flammability (i.e. mesophication) to the detriment of fire-dependent “pyrophytes”. Mesophytic species, such as maple (Acer spp.), are implicated in these fire regime changes and have extensively invaded many oak (Quercus spp.) landscapes across the region. To date, only limited circumstantial evidence is available in support of dampened flammability as the mechanism contributing to mesophication. Here we use laboratory experiments to determine whether red maple (A. rubrum) and sugar maple (A. saccharum) could reduce forest floor flammability through the input of their leaf litter. Wetting, drying, and burning characteristics of three pyrophytic oaks, white oak (Q. alba), northern red oak (Q. rubra), and chestnut oak (Q. montana), and the two mesophytic maples revealed the strong potential for red maple to reduce community flammability. Red maple absorbed the greatest amount of water, was the slowest to dry, and was the least flammable among these species while white oak was the most resistant to water absorption, the fastest to dry, and the most flammable. Northern red oak, chestnut oak, and sugar maple were intermediate in their moisture dynamics and flammability. The moisture and flammability responses of the species examined were a result of their corresponding leaf traits, with drying rate and curling having the strongest influence. Our findings provide substantial evidence that vegetation shifts resulting from an altered fire regime could result in dampened litter flammability that further limit fire and reinforce on-going changes.

Patient and public involvement prior to trial initiation: lessons learnt for rapid partnership in the COVID-19 era

Plain English summaryPatient and Public Involvement (PPI) describes the active involvement of patients and the public in the research process. Through PPI, patients and members of the public are increasingly involved in the design and conduct of clinical trials. PPI has been shown to improve the quality and relevance of research.During the COVID-19 pandemic, clinical trials have been playing a vital role in helping us find ways to prevent and treat the infection and improve our understanding of the virus. It is important that patients and the public are actively involved in deciding how COVID-19 research is carried out. Unfortunately, Research Ethics Committees in the UK have seen far less PPI for COVID-19 research studies compared with research before the pandemic. A key reason for this is that research is being designed much faster than normal and researchers may feel they do not have time to properly involve patients and the public.In this paper, we share our experiences of PPI for a COVID-19 clinical trial. We show that it is possible to rapidly involve patients and the public in COVID-19 clinical trials. We also explain how the design of the clinical trial was changed in response to feedback from public contributors. Lastly, we discuss the wider learning from this process which might be useful for researchers planning PPI activities for COVID-19 clinical trials in the future.Background:Clinical trials are playing a critical role in the global public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the increasing recognition of the value of PPI in clinical trials, just 22% of the COVID-19 research proposals reviewed by Research Ethics Committees in the UK at the start of the pandemic reported PPI. There is a perception that PPI might result in delays in delivering research and therefore delays in obtaining important results. In this paper, we report our experience of rapid PPI for a COVID-19 clinical trial.Methods:RAPID-19 is a COVID-19 clinical trial which was planned to be submitted for fast-track ethics review in the United Kingdom. During the development of the trial protocol, the PPI Panel at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Clinical Trials Unit was involved in the design of the study. The meeting with the PPI Panel lasted just over 1 h and was conducted by teleconference.Results:Although we only had a short period of time to explore the study with the PPI Panel, we were able to gain valuable insight into how the trial would be perceived by potential trial participants. Substantive changes were made to the trial to improve the acceptability of the research without compromising the study timelines. Having access to public contributors with relevant lived experience is an important resource for a Clinical Trials Unit and is critical for rapid PPI. The move to remote working due to lockdown required virtual discussions which helped to overcome some of the barriers to organising face-to-face meetings at short notice.Conclusions:PPI for clinical trials can be conducted in a time-efficient manner within the pressured environment of a pandemic. Involving PPI contributors at an early stage in protocol development maximised the opportunity to shape and influence the trial as well as limited potential delays which could occur if changes to the protocol had to be made at a later stage.

Shape of BMI-Mortality Risk Associations: Reverse Causality and Heterogeneity in a Representative Cohort of US Adults.

This study examines BMI-mortality associations and evaluates strategies intended to limit reverse causality. Heterogeneity in BMI-mortality risk associations across subgroups and causes of death is explored. A cohort of 654,382 adults from the US National Health Interview Survey was constructed. Associations between unit BMI levels and mortality were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models, including and excluding the first 5 years of follow-up, with and without controls for smoking or preexisting conditions, and including and excluding ever-smokers and individuals with preexisting conditions. Stratified analyses by individual characteristics were performed. Addressing reverse causality led to reduced risk of mortality among those with low BMI levels (<18 kg/m2 ). Excluding ever-smokers and individuals with preexisting conditions further led to increased risk among those with high BMI levels (between 33 kg/m2 and >40 kg/m2 ) and lowered the estimated nadir risk from 27 kg/m2 to 23 kg/m2 . After excluding ever-smokers and individuals with preexisting conditions, limiting the analysis to >5 years of follow-up produced no substantive changes. Heterogeneous results were observed across individual characteristics, particularly age and causes of death. The exclusion of smokers and individuals with preexisting conditions alters the BMI-mortality risk association and results in a somewhat lower range of BMI with minimum mortality risk.

Incorporating Data Analytics into a Graduate Accounting Program

ABSTRACT Over the past several years, there have been numerous calls by the accounting profession, advisory boards, and the American Accounting Association to increase the incorporation of data analytics and related tools into the accounting curriculum. While the calls have been loud and clear for “what” needs to be included in the accounting curriculum, the accounting programs have struggled with “how” to incorporate data analytics. This paper describes how one Master's of Accounting Program (M.Acc.) modified its graduate accounting program in a unique way to incorporate data analytics. Led by faculty, the changes were identified and implemented within nine months. Additionally, data analytics was implemented throughout the program, rather than as a stand-alone class. While not a lasting solution, it enabled the M.Acc. program to incorporate substantive changes into the program in a quick and efficient manner, pending a more extensive revision of the M.Acc. curriculum.

Higher Education and the Challenges of Network Society: Philosophical Themes

The article presents a philosophical analysis of the humanitarian impact of educational reform due to the influence of new digital technologies. The post-industrial development of society has been characterized as a network society. Specifically, the revolution in media today defines the technological and substantive changes in the educational sector. Its modernization in the 1990s in Russia began through the discussion of the humanitarian mission of the classical university model. However, the process of globalization and the mobility of education demanded the alignment and unification of national educational programs. The Bologna Process was a response. It was implemented in Russia as a two-tiered system, although the society still needed specialists and engineers rather than bachelors and masters. The restructuring of the educational process to comply with international standards then led to the necessity of economic reform. Society needed educated specialists but could not support a large number of educational institutions with a sizable staff. In the manufacturing sector, automatization leads to a growth in workforce productivity whereas in education the traditional pedagogy is mainly practiced. Digital technologies have opened up new opportunities for the increased economic efficiency of centers of education. However, the faculty body, especially in the Humanities sphere, expressed strong criticism. The argument is that digital technologies do not solve pedagogic problems. While discussing the economic efficiency, the main, substantive issue of the meaning and purpose of education has been left aside. Hence the question of how an individual’s education can be embedded into the overall educational process continues to be of high relevance. Resorting to philosophy may be appropriate and reasonable inasmuch as it has accumulated a range of caring and self-preservation practices aimed at the development of social skills of an individuum. Philosophy can also provide an anthropological expertise of on-going reforms, identifying their social and cultural implications.

The COVID-19 Pandemic, the Empowering Olympic, Paralympic, and Amateur Athletes Act, and the Dawn of a New Age of U.S. Olympic Reform

In the fall of 2020, Congress enacted the first substantive changes in the governance of the Olympic Sports system in over four decades. The new law, The Empowering Olympic, Paralympic and Amateur Athletes Act, was passed in the wake of sexual abuse scandals that rocked certain sport governing bodies. In amending the 1978 Amateur Sports Act, the new law grants Congress the power to decertify the United States Olympic bodies, mandates greater athlete representation in governance, and increases funding to protect athletes through greater support of the U.S. Center for SafeSport. Aside from the decertification power, the most significant provision of the new law is the establishment of a Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics to review the governance of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (“USOPC”) and make proposals for change. The Commission’s creation comes at a crucial time in U.S. Olympic governance. Due to the governance scandals, uncertain funding and the general national sports upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, this article advocates for more significant changesto the Olympic structure that the commission should consider, such as direct or indirect government funding for the USOPC and the sport governing bodies in return for adherence to more stringent transparency and ethical rules. Ideas that the Commission could consider include mandatory disclosure of information such as sponsorship agreements as well as compensation and bonus limitations for those in key leadership positions, the appointment of an inspector-general, and greater athlete involvement in the U.S. Olympic movement. The article also proposes more statutory changes such as a limited antitrust exemption and the end of special trademark protections for the USOPC.

Comparing the frequency and variation of additive word problems in United States first‐grade textbooks in the 1980s and the Common Core era

AbstractDecades of research conducted worldwide has resulted in a taxonomy for word problems involving additive situations. Research published in the 1980s found that U.S. curricula only exposed first‐grade students to a small subset of the easiest types of word problems. Widely adopted curriculum standards in the United States call for first‐grade students to be exposed to the full set of 11 types of problems in the taxonomy, but research shows that substantive changes to the content of instructional materials can be elusive. We asked whether the U.S. curricula continue to expose students to the same small subset of problems. We coded four widely used first‐grade textbooks from the Common Core era. Comparing our findings with those from the 1980s, we found many more word problems, a wider variety of word problems, and a consistent pattern in relative emphasis of various problems in the current textbooks. These results clearly show that U.S. students’ exposure to word problems through curriculum materials has changed. This finding lays the groundwork for further research to determine whether such changes in exposure to different types of word problems have resulted in changes to relative problem difficulty.

Resuscitating Alberta's Senatorial Elections

In 2019, the provincial government of Alberta enacted legislation that resuscitated senatorial elections. Before previous legislation had lapsed in 2015, four were held. This article argues that the resuscitation of constitutionally dubious and costly elections ignores the fact that the prime minister, who advises the governor general on senate appointments, can disregard electoral results and appoint, as long as they meet the requirements set out in the Constitution Act, 1867, whomever he wants. Resuscitation ignores the fact that in 2014 the Supreme Court of Canada described an unelected senate is a fundamental feature of the Canadian parliament and held that substantive changes to it would require, under Part V of the Constitution Act, 1982, political consensus among the federal government and a majority of the provinces. Resuscitation ignores the fact that in three of the four senatorial elections previously held, voter turnout was below 50 per cent.

La investigación y el enjuiciamiento de crímenes ambientales cometidos en el marco de las actividades empresariales ante la Corte Penal Internacional

El reconocimiento de los graves daños ambientales como crímenes internacionales en el Estatuto de Roma de la Corte Penal Internacional (CPI) no solo expande la justicia penal internacional y refuerza la protección del medio ambiente a nivel global, sino también se constituye como un mecanismo para acabar con la gran impunidad que gozan actualmente las empresas. Por ello, a partir de un análisis descriptivo y comparativo de la práctica actual y de la bibliografía relacionada con el tema, el presente artículo, por un lado, evalúa el reconocimiento de los graves y extensos daños ambientales como crímenes que activan la competencia de la CPI, como respuesta a la actual crisis ambiental, y, por otro lado, explora los cambios sustantivos que implica la inclusión de los crímenes ambientales en el Estatuto de Roma, particularmente la extensión de las competencias personales de la CPI para la investigación y el enjuiciamiento de empresas.

Colluding With and Resisting the State: Organizing Against Gender Violence in the U.S.

The movements for racial justice, health equity, and economic relief have been activated in the contentious and challenging climate of 2020, with COVID-19 and social protest. In this context, feminist scholars, anti-violence advocates, and transformative justice practitioners have renewed their call for substantive changes to all forms of gender-based violence. This article offers a genealogy of the battered women’s movement in the U.S. from the lived experiences of two longtime activists. These reflections offer an analysis of the political praxis which evolved over the past half century of the anti-violence movement, and which has foregrounded the current social, political, and ideological framing of gender-based violence today. We conclude with a view to the future, focusing on the possibilities for transformative justice and abolition feminism as a return to our radical roots and ancestral histories.

Ready and Healthy for Kindergarten: A Bilingual Family Literacy Program in Primary Care.

To describe the development and pilot testing of a bilingual family literacy program (FLP) for dual language learners entering kindergarten implemented in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). The Ready and Healthy for Kindergarten program is an English-Spanish bilingual FLP that uses four parent and pediatrician-prioritized health topics to introduce early English literacy skills to families and promote health behaviors that are important for school readiness while encouraging maintenance of Spanish. We developed an FLP manual, conducted a 16-week single-arm pilot study, and modified the FLP based on family feedback and observation. We recruited 14 parent-child dyads for the pilot through clinician referral. All participating parents identified as Hispanic/Latino and 86% reported limited English proficiency. Two-thirds had less than a high school education. Seventy-one percent of families attended more than half of the sessions. Parents rated the FLP as highly acceptable. During implementation, we made substantive changes to the FLP including increasing the focus on promoting bilingualism, encouraging all participants to share their experiences with the health topics, helping parents identify literacy activities embedded in their daily health routines (e.g., lullabies), and distributing information on health resources. We developed and implemented an innovative bilingual FLP in an FQHC that was well-attended and acceptable to families. The FLP has the potential to be replicated in other primary care sites and our findings lay the groundwork for future studies on how to best leverage healthcare settings to promote equity in school readiness.