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In 2015, South Carolina passed the Domestic Violence Reform Act giving officers increased arrest discretion and rescinding mandatory arrest laws for intimate partner violence (IPV). Analyses using incident reports (2016/2017) from South Carolina show that officers primarily rely on the presence of five variables to determine arrest: children, injury, property destruction, offender at scene, and weapons. Cases with Black female victims are more likely to result in arrest, suggesting that Black males are being criminalized. We conclude that officers are reluctant to use individual discretion and rely on a form of structured discretion provided by administrators that shapes local culture and decision-making.

Background: Technology has been incorporated into the classrooms of future healthcare professionals for decades and vast research has investigated its effectiveness. Much less attention, however, has examined how medical schools are actually using technology and telemedicine to aid teaching., Aims: It is unclear how medical schools use technology as pedagogical aids. This study investigates technology and telemedicine use in physician training in the United States., Methods: We distributed an online survey on technology and telemedicine use through the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine and the Association of American Medical Colleges., Results: Both allopathic and osteopathic institutions train students with various forms of technology, but appear to be doing so differently. Few schools use telemedicine in the classroom and even fewer require it., Conclusion: Osteopathic institutions report more positive attitudes toward e-learning and technology, but allopathic schools on an average have more technology available and longer years of use.

Context: The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC) has been the only medical school in the state since its inception in 1955 (until the 2008 establishment of the William Carey College of Osteopathic Medicine, yet to graduate its first class). Recruiting out-of-state physicians is difficult in Mississippi, and stakeholders frequently talk of "growing our own" physicians, especially challenging with a single public medical school., Purpose: This study investigates: (1) the proportion of a recent (1990-1999) cohort of UMC graduates practicing in Mississippi, (2) the proportion of all practicing Mississippi physicians who are UMC grads, (3) whether UMC graduates are more likely to practice in rural, small towns, or geographically isolated areas than other physicians, and (4) whether UMC graduates are more likely to recommend Mississippi as a practice location to new medical school graduates., Methods: Using Mississippi Board of Medical Licensure data (2009) and Mississippi Medical Doctors survey data (2007-2008), we employ GIS, logistic regression, and multinomial logistic regression models. We also use qualitative methods to examine interviews from purposefully sampled minority and/or female Mississippi physicians from the Mississippi Medical Doctors survey., Findings: Approximately 56% of UMC 1990-1999 cohort grads are practicing in Mississippi. Moreover, UMC graduates--of any year--constitute about 58% of Mississippi's practicing physicians. UMC graduates are not more likely to practice in rural, small towns, or geographically isolated areas in Mississippi than physicians who graduated elsewhere. Controlling for other factors, UMC grads are not more likely to recommend practicing in Mississippi than physicians trained elsewhere., Conclusion: Health educators and policy makers should consider broadening UMC's enrollment policies, and greater emphasis should be placed on recruiting physicians.

A number of proteins and drugs have been implicated in the process of transcriptional elongation by RNA polymerase (Pol) II, but the factors that govern the elongation rate (nucleotide additions per min) and processivity (nucleotide additions per initiation event) in vivo are poorly understood. Here, we show that a mutation in the Rpb2 subunit of Pol II reduces both the elongation rate and processivity in vivo. In contrast, none of the putative elongation factors tested affect the elongation rate, although mutations in the THO complex and in Spt4 significantly reduce processivity. The drugs 6-azauracil and mycophenolic acid reduce both the elongation rate and processivity, and this processivity defect is aggravated by mutations in Spt4, TFIIS, and CTDK-1. Our results suggest that, in vivo, a reduced rate of Pol II elongation leads to premature dissociation along the chromatin template and that Pol II processivity can be uncoupled from elongation rate.

The FACT complex facilitates transcription on chromatin templates in vitro, and it has been functionally linked to nucleosomes and putative RNA polymerase II (Pol II) elongation factors. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells, FACT specifically associates with active Pol II genes in a TFIIH-dependent manner and travels across the gene with elongating Pol II. Conditional inactivation of the FACT subunit Spt16 results in increased Pol II density, transcription, and TATA-binding protein (TBP) occupancy in the 3' portion of certain coding regions, indicating that FACT suppresses inappropriate initiation from cryptic promoters within coding regions. Conversely, loss of Spt16 activity reduces the association of TBP, TFIIB, and Pol II with normal promoters. Thus, FACT is required for wild-type cells to restrict initiation to normal promoters, thereby ensuring that only appropriate mRNAs are synthesized. We suggest that FACT contributes to the fidelity of Pol II transcription by linking the processes of initiation and elongation.

Drosophila heat shock factor (HSF) binds to specific sequence elements of heat shock genes and can activate their transcription 200-fold. Though HSF has an acidic activation domain, the mechanistic details of heat shock gene activation remain undefined. Here we report that HSF interacts directly with the general transcription factor TBP (TATA-box binding protein), and these two factors bind cooperatively to heat shock promoters. A third factor that binds heat shock promoters, GAGA factor, also interacts with HSF and further stabilizes HSF binding to heat shock elements (HSEs). The interaction of HSF and TBP is explored in some detail here and is shown to be mediated by residues in both the amino- and carboxyl-terminal portions of HSF. This HSF/TBP interaction can be specifically disrupted by competition with the potent acidic transcriptional activator VP16. We further show that the acidic domain of the largest subunit of Drosophila RNA polymerase II (Pol II) associates with TBP in vitro and is specifically displaced from TBP upon addition of HSF. The region of TBP that mediates both HSF and Pol II acidic domain binding maps to the conserved carboxyl-terminal repeats and depends on at least one of the TBP residues known to be contacted by VP16 and to be critical for transcription activation. We discuss these findings in the context of a model in which HSF triggers hsp70 transcription by freeing the hsp70 promoter-paused Pol II from the constraints on elongation caused by the affinity of Pol II for general transcription factors.

Lectin-affinity analyses with Lens culinaris agglutinin (LCA) and other lectins have demonstrated that the glycosylation of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) secreted by hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) is frequently altered when the serum AFP concentration is increased. To determine if AFP LCA-binding properties are altered in patients with HCC whose serum AFP concentration is normal, the percentage of LCA-binding AFP in serum from white newborns, white normal adults, white patients with chronic hepatitis and hereditary tyrosinemia and white and black patients with HCC were determined. The serum LCA-binding AFP fraction was low in newborns (1-4%) and normal adults (1-8%). There was a significant increase in LCA-binding AFP in patients with chronic hepatitis (10-24%) and hereditary tyrosinemia (5-35%). The AFP LCA-binding fraction was clearly abnormal (greater than 40%) in three of the white patients with an HCC and a normal serum AFP concentration, and the range of values (10-63%) in these HCC patients was similar to that seen in both white and black patients with HCC accompanied by increased AFP concentrations.

The relative contribution of the Sertoli cell and the pachytene spermatocyte to dolichol and N-linked oligosaccharide biosynthesis within the seminiferous tubule was investigated. Evidence is presented to show that the interaction between these two cell types affects dolichol and N-linked oligosaccharide biosynthesis. Analysis of the dolichol content of Sertoli cultures confirms earlier data suggesting that the Sertoli cell constitutes the major pool of dolichols within the seminiferous tubule. [14C]Acetate incorporation studies suggest that the Sertoli cell in culture synthesizes dolichol much more rapidly than does the isolated pachytene spermatocyte. This information, in addition to previous data in the literature, infers an interactive effect whereby the presence of the spermatogenic cell in the tubule stimulates dolichol synthesis in the Sertoli cell. The absence of normal Sertoli-spermatocyte interactions in in vitro incubations may also limit dolichol synthesis in the pachytene spermatocyte. The distribution of dolichol kinase between the Sertoli and the pachytene spermatocyte was also examined. The concentration of this enzyme in the Sertoli cell suggests the presence of an active salvage pathway within that cell. The correlation between the appearance of the pachytene spermatocyte and the previously described peak of dolichol kinase activity in the seminiferous tubules of the prepubertal animal implies cell-cell interactions. Radiolabelling studies of N-linked oligosaccharides were conducted using [3H]mannose and concanavalin A affinity chromatography to identify multiantennary, biantennary, and high-mannose oligosaccharide pools. An in vitro bicameral coculture system was used to demonstrate that pachytene spermatocytes stimulate incorporation of [3H]mannose into Sertoli cell oligosaccharides.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)