Changes in Patterns of Social Role Combinations at Ages 25–26 among Those Growing Up in England between 1996 and 2015–16: Evidence from the 1970 British Cohort and Next Steps Studies

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Changes across education, employment, and family life over the past 20 years challenges the capacity of previously established social role combinations to...     

Support for emergency department screening for intimate partner violence depends on perceived risk

Emergency department (ED) screening for intimate partner violence (IPV) faces logistic difficulties and has uncertain efficacy. We surveyed 146 ED visitors and 108 ED care providers to compare their support for ED IPV screening in three hypothetical scenarios of varying IPV risk. Visitor support for screening was 5 times higher for the high-risk (86%) than for the low-risk (17%) scenario. Providers showed significantly more support for the need for ED IPV screening than visitors. Controlling for confounding by gender, race, experience with IPV, hospital, and marital status did not affect comparisons between groups. These responses indicate greater support for IPV screening in the ED for high-risk than for low-risk cases, particularly among visitors.     

Structural changes in Central and Eastern European economies: breaking news or breaking the ice?

This paper extends the sparse existing literature on structural breaks in emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe by analyzing structural breaks in the intercept, trend and variance of monthly key macroeconomic variables, such as industrial production, inflation, monetary aggregates, nominal exchange rates and series related to the labor market. Using the Bayesian procedure developed by Wang and Zivot (2000, A Bayesian time series model of multiple structural changes in level, trend and variance. J Busi Econom 18:374–386), we provide strong evidence in favor of multiple structural breaks in the series under study. As most of the existing empirical literature on European emerging markets does not sufficiently deal with structural breaks, the instability found in this paper has important implications for macro-econometric modeling as well as the ensuing recommendations for economic policy.     

One-hundred cases of suicide in Budapest: a case-controlled psychological autopsy study

The authors performed a case-controlled psychological autopsy study of 100 successive suicides in Budapest, examining the presence of major depression, alcohol, and drug and/or medicament dependency/ abuse according to DSM-IV. The presence of somatic diseases, psychosocial stress, oppressive experiences, and interpersonal relationship disorders within the period of 1 month previous to death was also examined. The control group of 100 people who died of natural causes was identical with the suicide group in respect of number, sex, and age. RESULTS: Among those committing suicide, psychosocial stress, oppressive experiences, and interpersonal relationship disorders were much more frequent and behavioral changes occurred more often in the weeks preceding death compared to the control group. A single suicide attempt during one's life span did not prove to be predictive for a later fatal action, but multiple attempts did. Major depression was diagnosed in 36% of the cases in the suicide group and 17% in the control group. Half of major-depressed suicides (18 persons) and almost all in the control group (16 persons) suffered from reactive (secondary) major depression as a result of somatic disease. Severe alcoholism was found in 33% of the suicide cases and in 44% of the control group. Drug and/or medicament consumption (misuse and/or abuse) occurred in 14% and 8% of the cases, respectively. The data emphasize again that alcoholism seems to be one of the most serious problems in Hungary both in psychological and somatic illnesses.     

Aqua-eroticum: an unusual autoerotic fatality in a lake involving a home-made diving apparatus

The term Aqua-eroticum was first introduced in 1984 by Sivaloganathan to describe the unusual autoerotic death of a man using submersion as an asphyxia method. This was the first case of that kind, and since then, no other case of autoerotic submersion has been reported, nor other autoerotic fatality in open water. Here we report the case of a 25-year-old man, nude under a home-made plastic body suit, overdressed for the season with winter clothes and restrained by complex bondage. He was submersed, tied underwater to a boat and was using a home-made diving apparatus for air supply. Death was ruled as accidental autoerotic asphyxia from rebreathing, caused by the faulty air-supply device.     

Detection and quantification of the age-related point mutation A189G in the human mitochondrial DNA

Mutation analysis in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region is widely used in population genetic studies as well as in forensic medicine. Among the difficulties linked to the mtDNA analysis, one can find the detection of heteroplasmy, which can be inherited or somatic. Recently, age-related point mutation A189G was described in mtDNA and shown to accumulate with age in muscles. We carried out the detection of this 189 heteroplasmic point mutation using three technologies: automated DNA sequencing, Southern blot hybridization using a digoxigenin-labeled oligonucleotide probe, and peptide nucleic acid (PNA)/real-time PCR combined method on different biological samples. Our results give additional information on the increase in mutation frequency with age in muscle tissue and revealed that the PNA/real-time PCR is a largely more sensitive method than DNA sequencing for heteroplasmy detection. These investigations could be of interest in the detection and interpretation of mtDNA heteroplasmy in anthropological and forensic studies.     

La commission parlernentaire: mécanisrne d'imputabilitéà l‘égard des sous-ministres et des dirigeants d'organismes

Sommaire: Plusieurs parlementaires, divers analystes et deux commissions d'étude récentes, l'une au palier fédéral (Lambert) et l'autre au Québec (Bisaillon), ont traité de la possibilité d'implanter un régime d'imputabilité pour les administrateurs publics, particulièrement les sous-ministres et les dirigeants d'organismes. Les modifications apportées, au début de la présente année, aux règles de procédure de l'Assemblée nationale vont permettre une certaine expérimentation à cet égard. Une telle réforme améne l'auteur à examiner diverses contraintes qui pourraient influencer et même jouer contre son implantation, notamment: les principes de la responsabilité et de la solidarité ministérielles, l'évolution des rapports entre le gouvernement et l'administration, les différences de statut entre les sous-ministres et les dirigeants d'organismes et les précédents relatifs à la participation des sous-ministres et des dirigeants d'organismes aux travails de l'Assemblée. Ces contraintes sont assurément sérieuses car elles remettent en cause des éléments majeurs du système politique. Reste à savoir si, comme cela se produit souvent, les hommes politiques réussiront encore une fois à concilier ce qui paraît incompatible. Abstract: Several members of Parliament, various analysts and two recent commissions of inquiry, one federal (Lambert Commission) and the other from Quebec (Bisaillon), have studied the possibility of implementing an accountability system for public administrators, particularly deputy ministers and chief executive officers of agencies. Amendments brought forth earlier this year to the procedures of the National Assembly of Quebec will allow for experimentation in that area. Such a reform leads the author to examine various constraints in its implementation; in particular, the principles of ministerial responsibility and soolidarity; the evolution of relationships between government and administration; the status differences between deputy ministers and chief executive officers of agencies; the precedents concerning the participation of deputy ministers and chief executive officers in the work of the Assembly. Those constraints are of great importance since they challenge some major elements of the political system. It remains to be seen whether politicians will succeed once again in reconciling what appears to be incompatible.