Sleep Disturbance and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: The Role of Catastrophic Worry

Depression is a common and debilitating disorder in adolescence. Sleep disturbances and depression often co-occur with sleep disturbances frequently preceding depression. The current study investigated whether catastrophic worry, a potential cognitive vulnerability, mediates the relationship between adolescent sleep disturbances and depressive symptoms, as well as whether there are gender differences in this relationship. High school students, ages 16–18, n = 1,760, 49 % girls, completed annual health surveys including reports of sleep disturbance, catastrophic worry, and depressive symptoms. Sleep disturbances predicted depressive symptoms 1-year later. Catastrophic worry partially mediated the relationship. Girls reported more sleep disturbances, depressive symptoms, and catastrophic worry relative to boys. The results, however, were similar regardless of gender. Sleep disturbances and catastrophic worry may provide school nurses, psychologists, teachers, and parents with non-gender specific early indicators of risk for depression. Several potentially important practical implications, including suggestions for intervention and prevention programs, are highlighted.     

The dynamic character of disguise behavior for text-based, mixed, and stylized signatures

The aims of this study were to determine if dynamic parameters (duration, size, velocity, jerk, and pen pressure) differed for signing style (text-based, stylized, and mixed) and if signing style influences handwriting dynamics equally across three signature conditions (genuine, disguised, and auto-simulation). Ninety writers provided 10 genuine signatures, five disguised signatures, and five auto-simulated signatures. All 1800 signatures were collected using a digitizing tablet resulting in a database of each signature's dynamic characteristics. With genuine signatures, there were significant differences between styles for size, velocity, and pen pressure, and there were significant differences between genuine signatures and at least one of the un-natural signature conditions for all parameters. For velocity and size, these changes with condition were dependent on style. Changes with condition for the other parameters were similar for the three styles. This study shows that there are differences among natural signature styles and disguise behaviors that may be relevant in forensic signature examinations.     

Nyerere's Road to Socialism

The privatisation of Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) was an important part of Ghana’s neo-liberal reforms. Privatisation is explicitly intended to alter the balance of power between the public and private sector, and the process revealed much about the relationship between the state and the country’s business community. A close examination of the process confirms widely-held perceptions of the Rawlings government and its reform process as highly state-driven and subject to the personal idiosyncrasies of the country’s president. By contrast, Kufuor’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) demonstrated a less equivocal commitment to boosting the role of the private sector in the economy and employed a more routinely institutionalised set of interactions. While the outcome of these processes was sometimes counterintuitive, overall the privatization of AGC is likely to have shifted power out of the hands of the state and into the hands of an international set of shareholders.     

Dynamic Characteristics of Signatures: Effects of Writer Style on Genuine and Simulated Signatures

The aims of this study were to determine if computer‐measured dynamic features (duration, size, velocity, jerk, and pen pressure) differ between genuine and simulated signatures. Sixty subjects (3 equal groups of 3 signature styles) each provided 10 naturally written (genuine) signatures. Each of these subjects then provided 15 simulations of each of three model signatures. The genuine (N = 600) and simulated (N = 2700) signatures were collected using a digitizing tablet. MovAlyzeR^® software was used to estimate kinematic parameters for each pen stroke. Stroke duration, velocity, and pen pressure were found to discriminate between genuine and simulated signatures regardless of the simulator's own style of signature or the style of signature being simulated. However, there was a significant interaction between style and condition for size and jerk (a measure of smoothness). The results of this study, based on quantitative analysis and dynamic handwriting features, indicate that the style of the simulator's own signature and the style of signature being simulated can impact the characteristics of handwriting movements for simulations. Writer style characteristics might therefore need to be taken into consideration as potentially significant when evaluating signature features with a view to forming opinions regarding authenticity.     

Safeguarding the Independence and Impartiality of the Cambodian Extraordinary Chambers

The article focuses on one limited but vexed issue — howto safeguard judicial independence and impartiality in the CambodianExtraordinary Chambers (CEC). The author addresses some of themost problematic issues that she anticipates could diminishor hamper the possibility for judicial independence and impartialityat the CEC. To the extent possible, she offers workable andrealistic suggestions for dealing with the situation.     

Women Accused of International Crimes: A Trans-Disciplinary Inquiry and Methodology

This paper tackles one of the gender silences in situations of atrocity: women accused of international crimes (‘WAIC’). It is part of a larger body of work that is ongoing. Debate and discussion that shine light into this murky area is essential, for with hundreds of women tried after World War II, some 96,000 females processed in Rwanda through gacaca alone, some 30–40% of the combatants in the Liberian civil war being females and over 25% of reported gang rapes in Sierra Leone alleged to involve female perpetrators, it is hardly an insignificant challenge to peace and security. The hypothesis motivating the author’s study, at this stage, is a methodological one. It is that an open-minded and non-ideological study of WAIC can be developed as a field in its own right. In seeking to tackle the ‘elephant in the room’ and understand WAIC, the author has engaged in a prospecting methodology that begins with global contextualisation, engages with work done across relevant disciplines (the transdisciplinary approach) leading to identification of rich seams of future research. Within the trans-disciplinary approach, work done to understand instances of serious female criminality is of particular value. These ‘hard’ cases, involving female serial killers and sexual offenders, females engaged in torture and female terrorists, suicide bombers and others within extremist ideological or religious movements are particularly close to the criminality that lawyers label as ‘international’. Much work has been done on these situations across disciplines, and this paper draws from that to identify meaningful lines of inquiry into WAIC. The author’s approach has been pluralistic, drawing in diverse perspectives and interpretations within and from different disciplines. This, it is argued, is the best – if not the only way – to gain a genuine and meaningful understanding of female participation in atrocity. This paper therefore presents that prospecting exercise, and opens doors to new ways of thinking about WAIC. By its nature, the work raises more questions than answers. Future publications will address discrete themes, where possible presenting a new paradigm or hypothesis.     

Completing the Circle: Accountability for the Crimes of the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation

Criminal Law Forum -     

The legal status of abortion in the states if Roe v. Wade is overruled

This article explores the legal status of abortion in the States if the Supreme Court overrules Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), as modified by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). Although an overruling decision eventually could have a significant effect on the legal status of abortion, the immediate impact of such a decision would be far more modest than most commentators-on both sides of the issue-believe. More than two-thirds of the States have repealed their pre-Roe laws or have amended those laws to conform to Roe v. Wade, which allows abortion for any reason before viability and for virtually any reason after viability. Pre-Roe laws that have been expressly repealed would not be revived by the overruling of Roe. Only three States that repealed their pre-Roe laws (or amended them to conform to Roe) have enacted post-Roe laws attempting to prohibit some or most abortions throughout pregnancy. Those laws have been declared unconstitutional by the federal courts and are not now enforceable. Of the less than one-third of the States that have retained their pre-Roe laws, most would be ineffective in prohibiting abortions. This is (1) because the laws, by their express terms or as interpreted, allow abortion on demand, for undefined health reasons or for a broad range of reasons (including mental health), or (2) because of state constitutional limitations. In yet other States, the pre-Roe laws prohibiting abortion may have been repealed by implication, due to the enactment of comprehensive post-Roe laws regulating abortion. In sum, no more than twelve States, and possibly as few as eight, would have enforceable laws on the books that would prohibit most abortions in the event Roe, Doe and Casey are overruled. In the other States (and the District of Columbia) abortion would be legal for most or all reasons throughout pregnancy. Although the long-term impact of reversing Roe could be quite dramatic, the author concludes that the immediate impact of such a decision would be very limited. This article is current through May 1st, 2007.