Characteristics of Medical Examiner/Coroner Offices Accredited by the National Association of Medical Examiners

The National Association of Medical Examiners accredits medical examiner and coroner offices. Approximately 60 offices were fully or provisionally accredited as of late 2011, and these offices serve one‐quarter of the U.S. population. The calculated average population served was 1.6M but ranged from 0.3 to 10.5M. The calculated mean death rate was 794 deaths/100K population, and the mean homicide rate was 7.2 homicides/100K population. The calculated mean budget was $4.35M, but budgets ranged from $0.67 to $26.8M. The calculated mean budget/capita was $3.02 but ranged from $0.62 to $10.22. The average size of the facility was under 30,000 sq. ft. The calculated average staffing was found to include five forensic pathologists, four and a half autopsy technicians, and nine investigators. The mean forensic pathologists/1M population was 3.7. Calculated workload indices included 222 autopsies/pathologist and an autopsy rate of 77.6/100K population. These results show that offices of every size can achieve accreditation.     

All Virtue Is Relative: A Response to Prior

In “The Challenge of Measuring Media Exposure: Reply to Dilliplane, Goldman, and Mutz,” Markus Prior suggests that scholars should avoid using a new method of measuring exposure to political television that we evaluated in a recent article published in the American Journal of Political Science. We respond to each of his criticisms, concluding that although no measurement approach is without its flaws, scholars should always use the best approach that is available at any given point in time.     

ASEAN Initiatives to combat Haze pollution: An assessment of regional cooperation in public policy‐making

Over the last 25 years, Southeast Asia had been affected by significant smoke pollution (commonly referred to as the haze), which has mainly emanated from the widespread burning of forests and scrubs by smallholders and plantation operators within Indonesia. The haze has seriously affected air quality in the neighbouring countries. The article will consider the concerted efforts of the states of ASEAN to deal jointly with the problem, through various initiatives culminating in the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution of 2002. The article will then assess the design and impact of these initiatives, and will argue that their success will depend particularly on the standards of governance and administration in Indonesia.     

FATHER INVOLVEMENT AND LONG‐TERM YOUNG ADULT OUTCOMES: THE DIFFERENTIAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF DIVORCE AND GENDER

The present study investigated the relationship between retrospectively reported father involvement and current reports of psychosocial outcomes in an ethnically diverse sample of 1,989 young adults. Outcomes included subjective well‐being, which has been traditionally used as an outcome of divorce, and desires for more or less father involvement, which have only recently been conceptualized as an outcome of divorce. The present results indicate that reported father involvement was related to subjective well‐being primarily in children from intact families, whereas it was related to desired father involvement primarily in children from divorced families. Among participants from divorced families, young women were more likely than young men to desire more expressive father involvement than they received. Implications for family court practices are discussed.     

Strategic Voting in a U.S. Senate Election

Due to the strength of its two-party system, the opportunity for voters to strategically defect in favor of third party or independent candidates is rare in high profile American elections. Indeed, it has been almost a century since a third party candidate finished better than one of the major party presidential nominees—in 1912 Bull Moose Progressive Teddy Roosevelt finished ahead of Republican William H. Taft. In this study we examine strategic voting in a U.S. Senate election where the independent candidate also finished above one of the major party nominees. In the 2010 Florida Senate contest the sitting Governor Charlie Crist shed his Republican label in order to compete in the general election since he was certain to lose in the GOP primary to Marco Rubio, the eventual winner. Crist finished second by taking a substantial share of votes away from the third place candidate, Democrat Kendrick Meek. Because this type of contest seldom occurs, in American politics there is scant empirical research on strategic voting under these conditions. We employ an unobtrusive survey of a large sample of registered Floridians in order to assess the likelihood of strategic voting among respondents who preferred the Democrat Kendrick Meek. For voters who sincerely preferred the Democrat, a significant portion defected in favor of the Independent Charlie Crist if they expected him to finish ahead of Meek. Additionally, we find that after a major news story broke, in which former President Bill Clinton allegedly advised Meek to drop out of the race so that Crist might win, respondents surveyed after this event were more likely to vote strategically in favor of Crist. Our study clearly demonstrates the importance of political context. Under the appropriate conditions, we find a high likelihood of strategic voting.     

Examining the Light and Dark Sides of Emerging Adults�� Identity: A Study of Identity Status Differences in Positive and Negative Psychosocial Functioning

Identity is a critical developmental task during the transition to adulthood in Western societies. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate an empirically based, cluster-analytic identity status model, to examine whether all four of Marcia's identity statuses (diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, and achievement) would emerge empirically, and to identify different patterns of identity formation among American college-attending emerging adults. An ethnically diverse sample of 9,034 emerging-adult students (73% female; mean age 19.73?years) from 30 U.S. universities completed measures of identity exploration (ruminative, in breadth, and in depth) and commitment (commitment making and identification with commitment), identity synthesis and confusion, positive and negative psychosocial functioning, and health-compromising behaviors. The identity status cluster solution that emerged provided an adequate fit to the data and included all four of Marcia's original identity statuses, along with Carefree Diffusion and Undifferentiated statuses. Results provided evidence for concurrent validity, construct validity, and practical applicability of these statuses. Implications for identity research are discussed.     

The Intersection of Redistricting,Race, and Participation

The drawing of congressional district lines can significantly reduce political participation in U.S. House elections, according to recent work. But such studies have failed to explain which citizens’ voting rates are most susceptible to the dislocating effects of redistricting and whether the findings are generalizable to a variety of political contexts. Building on this nascent literature and work on black political participation, we show that redistricting's negative effects on participation—measured by voter roll‐off in U.S. House elections—are generally strongest among African Americans, but that black voters can be mobilized when they are redrawn into a black representative's congressional district. Our findings, based on data from 11 postredistricting elections in five states from 1992 through 2006, both expand the empirical scope of previous work and suggest that redistricting plays a previously hidden role in affecting black participation in congressional contests.