The Bahamas is suffering from a serious social fragmentation process, due to the cocaine crisis of the 1980's and its continuing sequelae. Burgeoning murder and violent crime rates associated with family and community disintegration have led to the incarceration of many young persons. The Family: People Helping People Project is a community based intervention designed to confront social fragmentation and promote re-socialization among the inmates at the Bahamas Department of Corrections. The method used is a dynamic supportive group process, involving storytelling, personal reflection and transformation based on the psychotherapeutic principles of the Contemplative Discovery Pathway Theory (CDPT). Since the program's inception, there have been 109 group sessions. A thematic analysis of these sessions indicates the four most common themes were violence, anger, revenge and addiction. The thematic analysis of the Prison group, described in this paper indicates the depths of negativity of shame but also provides hope for Resocialization and preparation for the inmates to live a meaningful and crime-free community life upon their release. This paper discusses the Resocialization process of a group of inmates who attended the program for three (3) years.
In the context of global climate change, water availability is an essential factor for geographical distribution and abundance of plant species. Pseudotsuga menziesii has been reported as a highly sensitive species to climatic variation and is regarded as a genetic resource of invaluable importance. The objective of this paper was to evaluate the specific effect of precipitation on radial growth throughout year for this species. From historical climate records and tree ring cores collected in Mexican northern forests, growth was correlated with monthly precipitation by standard statistical techniques. Results showed that P. menziesii was more susceptible to winter precipitation prior to the growing season. Low precipitation in winter makes the survival of these individuals vulnerable. In light of our results, direct implications for management strategies of P. menziesi, are discussed.
Ventricular torsion and cardiac suction effect:The electrophysiological analysis of the cardiac band muscle Introduction and objectives: The Torrent Guasp concept postulates that the ventricles are formed by a continuous muscle band that begins at the level of the pulmonary valve and extends to the aortic root, limiting in this way the two ventricular chambers. This specific anatomical arrangement would support the interpretation of two fundamental aspects of left ventricular dynamics: 1) the torsion mechanism and 2) the physiology of rapid diastolic filling by the suction effect. Methods: Five patients with no structural cardiac abnormalities and normal QRS complexes underwent three-dimensional endoepicardial electroanatomic mapping during ablation of lone atrial fibrillation or concealed epicardial accessory pathways. The propagation times of the electrical activation by the muscular band was measured in milliseconds (ms). Results: 1) The apical loop is activated by a simultaneous depolarization of the distal descending and proximal ascending band segments. 2) At the point of crossing of both bands a radial activation spreads from the descending to the ascending band. From this point, begins a simultaneous and opposing activation of the proximal and distal ascending band.3) The activation of the distal ascending band segment is the latest. Conclusions: The novel activation sequence of the Torrent Guasp band found in this study would explain the previous process triggering the ventricular torsion and suction mechanism. Moreover, this work demonstrates that activation of the ascending band segment completes the QRS. This finding explains the persistent contraction of this muscle segment during early diastole, rejecting the traditional concept of passive relaxation.
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