The Effect of Religious Membership on Teen Abortion Rates

Religious membership can be related to teen abortion rates both directly, through antiabortion sentiment, and indirectly, through the higher probability of parental involvement laws being enacted in states with high levels of religious membership. Using data from the 1,024 counties in the 18 states that report teen abortion numbers, counties with high levels of religious membership were more likely to be in a state with a parental involvement law. In weighted regressions with several control variables—restrictive public funding, unemployment rate, per capita income, population density, percent white population, percent of families headed by a married couple, and regional indicators—both the religious membership level and a parental involvement law were negatively related to teen abortion rates. The coefficients for both variables were smaller when both variables were included in the model, indicating an interaction effect between religious membership and parental involvement laws on teen abortion rates.     

Detection of a primer-binding site polymorphism for the STR locus D16S539 using the Powerplex 1.1 system and validation of a degenerate primer to correct for the polymorphism

Quality assurance samples submitted from the NCSBI as part of a contract with TBTG to outsource DNA Database samples showed unexpected discrepancies for the locus D16S539 when all other loci yielded identical results. Discrepancies observed included allele drop out and an imbalance in sister alleles with samples returned from TBTG. This led to a comprehensive review of the technical procedures used between the two laboratories to determine the cause of the discrepancies noted for the locus D16S539, since both laboratories were using the PowerPlex 1.1 typing kit from the Promega Corporation. The NCSBI and the TBTG utilize different extraction methods (organic extraction vs. FTA) and amplification conditions (AmpliTaq vs AmpliTaq Gold), respectively, so the exact cause of discrepancy observed was not immediately apparent. Experiments at the NCSBI associated the observed allele drop out and the imbalance of the sister alleles with the use of AmpliTaq Gold and a hot start procedure. Sequencing data revealed that a point mutation resides on the D16S539 primer-binding site that reaches polymorphic levels in African-American populations. This led to the development of a degenerate primer by the Promega Corporation to detect "missing" alleles when AmpliTaq Gold is used. The degenerate primer was then thoroughly tested to show its efficacy in detecting the "true" D16S539 profile when used.     

Intellectual property and white-collar crime: report of issues,trends, and problems for future research

This research examines the association between intellectual property (IP) and whitecollar crime (WCC), and identifies future research that might benefit policymakers; federal, state, and local agencies; and the general public. Research methods include a review of literature, a review of information and data in IPR violations and WCC, and inquiry in areas that directly deal with IP laws and enforcement practices, such as law enforcement agencies, IP-based industries and private law firms.     

‘Big sisters’ are better domestic servants?! comments on the booming au pair business

This paper attempts to describe the present situation in the women's movement in Serbia and Montenegro and to tackle questions about its future, on the basis of a sociological study of newly formed women's groups. In the past, the women's movement in these societies has surged several times, only to be completely annulled, and its proponents falling to oblivion. Now, for the first time ever, the seeds of the movement originating from the long gone period of the socialist regime in Yugoslavia have survived the turmoil of disintegration and wars, and are germinating as women's groups and networks spring up alongside are being formed. The crucial task for the future will be strengthening this fragile and diffused network structure and laying down solid foundations for a movement with proper institutional mechanisms on a nation/state level. This investigation examined the prerequisites for this: firstly by examining the visibility and distinguishing features of women's groups and their activities in their current local environment; and secondly, by assessing activists' clear acceptance of feminist (and their groups') self-determination, which confront existing social attitudes towards feminist identities. In both respects, considerable advances towards a broader and clearer recognition of the aims and essence of women's groups' activities are identified, in spite of the ever-present traditional and ideological resistance to this type of women's engagement.     

‘Managing’ the Middle Classes: Urban Managers,Public Services and the Response to Middle-Class Capture

There is a longstanding concern about middle-class capture of the benefits of public service provision, although relatively little evidence exists on the exact nature of any advantage or on the processes by which this comes about. Using a framework developed from Gal (J. Gal, 1998. Formulating the Matthew Principle: on the role of the middle-classes in the welfare state. Scandinavian Journal of Social Welfare, 7, 42–55), and via two case studies of street cleansing services in the UK, the article explores the ways in which middle-class service users assert influence in relation to service design, resource allocation and practice on the ground. It explores how urban managers respond to middle-class influence, revealing the ways in which influence is accommodated and the benefits of this to middle-class service users. It also evidences how urban managers attempt to resist aspects of middle-class advantage, and the challenges such resistance presents. The article concludes that the need to ‘manage’ middle-class influence permeates the routine institutional policies and practices of this key public service.     

Quantifying Uncertainty in Estimations of the Total Weight of Drugs in Groups of Complex Matrices: Using the Welch–Satterthwaite Equation

In this paper, a method is described to quantify estimations of the total amount of drugs in groups of seized items, including quantification of the precision. Previous work on this topic was based on the assumptions of normally distributed measurements and grouping of items with a common relative standard deviation. In practice, these assumptions are often violated, for example, for data with point masses at 0, or if certain items in a group have a very high standard deviation. The method described in this paper is based on work by Welch and Satterthwaite and does not assume constant relative standard deviations. Case examples are described for which the method is applied, and simulation studies are carried out for which both methods are applied. In the cases, both methods perform reasonably well. If the assumption of common relative standard deviations clearly does not apply, it is advised to use the method described.