Re-painting the golden gate bridge: Coordination of services for abducted children reunited with their families

This is a case study of a program implemented to serve abducted children who have been recovered and returned to their families. Development of working relationships between and coordination of mental health, law enforcement, child protective, judicial, mediation and victim assistance services is a process which produced effective readjustment services for children traumatized by abduction and has reduced systems trauma for the children and their families. Trials and triumphs of the continuing and tedious process of re-painting the bridge are reviewed as potential guidelines to be employed for other such coordinated efforts, a concept increasingly viewed as thesine qua non of service in complex and chronic problem situations.Credit for the application of the bridge painting metaphor to the Child Abduction Tast Force process goes to Michael Durfee, MD.The Reunification Project would not have been possible without the dedicated work of Rebecca Refuerzo, LCSW, in establishing the Center's Program, and the clinical expertise of Merilla McCurry-Scott, Ph.D., Jenenne Macklin, LCSW, Melissa Gleason, MSW, and Karina Walters, MSW.The Reunification Program is jointly funded by Find the Children and the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice Programs.     

Geographic Hotspots of Critical National Infrastructure

Failure of critical national infrastructures can result in major disruptions to society and the economy. Understanding the criticality of individual assets and the geographic areas in which they are located is essential for targeting investments to reduce risks and enhance system resilience. Within this study we provide new insights into the criticality of real‐life critical infrastructure networks by integrating high‐resolution data on infrastructure location, connectivity, interdependence, and usage. We propose a metric of infrastructure criticality in terms of the number of users who may be directly or indirectly disrupted by the failure of physically interdependent infrastructures. Kernel density estimation is used to integrate spatially discrete criticality values associated with individual infrastructure assets, producing a continuous surface from which statistically significant infrastructure criticality hotspots are identified. We develop a comprehensive and unique national‐scale demonstration for England and Wales that utilizes previously unavailable data from the energy, transport, water, waste, and digital communications sectors. The testing of 200,000 failure scenarios identifies that hotspots are typically located around the periphery of urban areas where there are large facilities upon which many users depend or where several critical infrastructures are concentrated in one location.     

Exact estimation of multiple directed acyclic graphs

This paper considers structure learning for multiple related directed acyclic graph (DAG) models. Building on recent developments in exact estimation of DAGs using integer linear programming (ILP), we present an ILP approach for joint estimation over multiple DAGs. Unlike previous work, we do not require that the vertices in each DAG share a common ordering. Furthermore, we allow for (potentially unknown) dependency structure between the DAGs. Results are presented on both simulated data and fMRI data obtained from multiple subjects.     

The Effect of Mask Use on the Spread of Influenza During a Pandemic

Face masks have traditionally been used in general infection control, but their efficacy at the population level in preventing transmission of influenza viruses has not been studied in detail. Data from published clinical studies indicate that the infectivity of influenza A virus is probably very high, so that transmission of infection may involve low doses of virus. At low doses, the relation between dose and the probability of infection is approximately linear, so that the reduction in infection risk is proportional to the reduction in exposure due to particle retention of the mask. A population transmission model was set up to explore the impact of population‐wide mask use, allowing estimation of the effects of mask efficacy and coverage (fraction of the population wearing masks) on the basic reproduction number and the infection attack rate. We conclude that population‐wide use of face masks could make an important contribution in delaying an influenza pandemic. Mask use also reduces the reproduction number, possibly even to levels sufficient for containing an influenza outbreak.     

On the Correspondence Between Physiological and Nonverbal Responses: Nonverbal Behavior Accompanying Challenge and Threat

Little is known regarding the covariance between physiological and nonverbal responses to “stressful” situations. We argue that physiological markers are especially likely to be accompanied by psychologically-meaningful nonverbal behavior. Within “stressful” motivated performance situations, complex patterns of cardiovascular (CV) reactivity mark challenge and threat motivational states relevant to confidence. We expected the CV challenge and threat markers to be distinguished on the basis of facial and vocal confidence. In a test of this hypothesis, participants’ cardiovascular (CV) responses were recorded during a videotaped social interaction. As expected, the CV challenge marker was associated with more vocal confidence and less facial confidence than the CV threat marker. These findings are related to the complexity of human responses to motivated performances.