The employment of finance in small business

Small‐scale businessmen everywhere, and particularly in developing countries, believe that their most pressing problem, if not their only one, is lack of finance. Organisations devoted to the promotion of small business have come to believe that finance must be accompanied by management advice. It is suggested that such advice should in fact precede any consideration of financial assistance; this will not only improve the chances of effective use of the additional finance, if it is eventually provided, but, more important still, it may show that there is in fact no need for more capital at all.     

A comparative study of the microbiological contamination of postmortem blood and vitreous humour samples taken for ethanol determination

Postmortem blood and vitreous humour samples were taken from each of 51 subjects. None of the vitreous humour samples contained large numbers of bacteria or fungi, whereas many micro-organisms were detected in 32 of the blood samples. The results of the microbiological examinations provided useful information for the interpretation of some ethanol levels that might otherwise have been misleading.     

Psychological factors influencing religious congregation members’ reporting of alleged sexual abuse

ABSTRACT

The sexual abuse of children within religious institutions has become a topic of increasing public concern in recent decades. However, to date there has been little in the way of psychological analyses of the processes by which congregation members judge the credibility of alleged abuses, or whether they would intend to report such allegations to the police. In this study, we examined the roles of ingroup identity, moral foundations, and social dominance orientation on reporting intentions and allegation credibility assessments among Church of England congregation members (n?=?454) and non-religious controls (n?=?457). While there were few predictors of reporting intentions, we found that churchgoers were consistently more sceptical of allegations of abuse, with these trends being differentially moderated by ingroup identification, the endorsement of various moral impulses, and anti-egalitarianism. We discuss our data in light of ongoing attempts to improve reporting procedures within the Church.     

The impact of fentanyl on DUIDs and traffic fatalities: Blood and oral fluid data

Fentanyl has emerged as the most prolific drug in the ongoing opioid epidemic and has greatly impacted traffic safety in recent years. This study aimed to evaluate fentanyl prevalence and concentrations in blood and oral fluid in driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) cases in three different regions (i.e., Alabama, Orange County, CA, and Houston, TX) from 2017 to 2022. Furthermore, traffic fatalities were evaluated for Alabama and Orange County, CA. Fentanyl positivity in DUID and traffic fatalities increased for most years in this study. In Alabama, the prevalence of fentanyl DUID cases increased 4-fold in 2022 compared to 2017. Orange County's increase from 2017 to 2022 was 14-fold. In Houston, the increase was approximately 2-fold from 2019 to 2022. The greatest increase for all laboratories coincided with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the median fentanyl DUID blood concentrations were 4.7, 11, and 4.7 ng/mL in Alabama, Orange County, and Houston, respectively. Most fentanyl cases were polydrug cases (≥90%). Methamphetamine, THC, and alprazolam were the most frequently detected drugs in combination with fentanyl. Alabama has collected oral fluid and blood in DUID cases since 2018. The detection of fentanyl in oral fluid was comparable to blood. However, 59% and 8.7% of fentanyl-positive cases had concentrations of >20 ng/mL in oral fluid and blood, respectively. Therefore, oral fluid as an alternative or supplemental specimen to blood is an attractive approach for fentanyl in DUID cases. This study contributes to understanding recent fentanyl trends and their impact on traffic safety.     

Measuring public perceptions of sex offenders: reimagining the Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale

The Community Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders (CATSO) scale is an 18-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure respondents’ attitudes toward sex offenders. Its original factor structure has been questioned by a number of previous studies, and so this paper sought to reimagine the scale as an outcome measure, as opposed to a scale of attitudes. A face validity analysis produced a provisional three-factor structure underlying the CATSO: ‘punitiveness,’ ‘stereotype endorsement,’ and ‘risk perception.’ A sample of 400 British members of the public completed a modified version of the CATSO, the Attitudes Toward Sex Offenders scale, the General Punitiveness Scale, and the Rational-Experiential Inventory. A three-factor structure of a 22-item modified CATSO was supported using half of the sample, with factors being labeled ‘sentencing and management,’ ‘stereotype endorsement,’ and ‘risk perception.’ Confirmatory factor analysis on data from the other half of the sample endorsed the three-factor structure; however, two items were removed in order to improve ratings of model fit. This new 20-item ‘Perceptions of Sex Offenders scale’ has practical utility beyond the measurement of attitudes, and suggestions for its future use are provided.     

The political economy of sugar legislation

The findings of this paper are a rather straightforward account of the political economy of senatorial voting on the sugar program. In the spirit of Stigler and Peltzman's accounts of interest group activity, voting on sugar is indeed related to the concentration of economic interests in the Senators' states. States with high concentrations of sugar growers and processing tend to vote for the program, those with high concentration of users tend to vote against it. The emergence of corn syrup as a sugar substitute and its subsequent interests in the program further supports this perspective. These concentrated interests are associated with conditions ripe for overcoming the collective action problem and, we infer, use their organizations to influence senatorial behavior. The political variables suggest countervailing forces which can be interpreted, at least in part, as further examples of organized (here, politically organized) influences on the interests of Senators. Thus, while the model is one of opposing interests, those of producers and users tend to influence different Senators. The major group-interest trade-off, then, is between the pull of organized interests in the constituency with that of party organization at the national (or national institutional level), at least for those for whom the pull is in opposite directions.It is clear, then, that variables representing (concentrated) consumer interests as well as variables representing grower and processor interests as well as variables representing grower and processor interests are significant in determining voting patterns on sugar legislation in the Senate. This model, therefore, is not one in which one-sided organizational interests operate politically uncontested. That, even so, consumer interests are not powerful enough to prevent sugar programs from passing is clear at one level, due to the existence of the program over most of this period. The existing level of the transfers from consumers to producers and of deadweight losses must be reflective of the magnitude of their respective free rider problems. Yet voting on the program to renew or alter those benefits at any level clearly reflects these interests and their interplay.