Female impulsive aggression: A sleep research perspective

The rate of violent crimes among girls and women appears to be increasing. One in every five female prisoners has been reported to have antisocial personality disorder. However, it has been quite unclear whether the impulsive, aggressive behaviour among women is affected by the same biological mechanisms as among men. Psychiatric sleep research has attempted to identify diagnostically sensitive and specific sleep patterns associated with particular disorders. Most psychiatric disorders are typically characterized by a severe sleep disturbance associated with decreased amounts of slow wave sleep (SWS), the physiologically significant, refreshing part of sleep. Among men with antisocial behaviour with severe aggression, on the contrary, increased SWS has been reported, reflecting either specific brain pathology or a delay in the normal development of human sleep patterns. In our preliminary study among medication-free, detoxified female homicidal offenders with antisocial personality disorder, the same profound abnormality in sleep architecture was found. From the perspective of sleep research, the biological correlates of severe impulsive aggression seem to share similar features in both sexes.     

Does Democratization Reduce the Risk of Military Interventions in Politics in Africa?

This article investigates whether there is an association between a trajectory of political liberalization, democratization, and military interventions. In what is arguably the ‘least likely case’ region in the world, this study analyzes the experience of 55 regimes in Africa between 1990 and 2004 and finds a striking regularity. Liberalizing, and in particular democratic, regimes have a significantly different track record of being subjected either to successful or failed military interventions. The analysis suggests that democratic regimes are about 7.5 times less likely to be subjected to attempted military interventions than electoral authoritarian regimes and almost 18 times less likely to be victims of actual regime breakdown as a result. Through an additional case study analysis of the ‘anomalous’ cases of interventions in democratic polities, the results are largely strengthened as most of the stories behind the numbers suggests that it is only when democratic regimes perform dismally and/or do not pay soldiers their salaries that they are at great risk of being overthrown. Legitimacy accrued by political liberalization seems to ‘inoculate’ states against military intervention in the political realm.     

Breath alcohol concentration determined with a new analyzer using free exhalation predicts almost precisely the arterial blood alcohol concentration

A new breath alcohol (ethanol) analyzer has been developed, which allows free exhalation, standardizes measured exhaled alcohol concentration to fully saturated water vapor at a body temperature of 37 degrees C (43.95 mg/L) and includes a built-in self-calibration system. We evaluated the performance of this instrument by comparing standardized alcohol concentration in freely expired breath (BrAC) with arterial (ABAC) and venous (VBAC) blood alcohol concentrations in fifteen healthy volunteers who drank 0.6 g of alcohol per kg body weight. The precision (coefficient of variation, CV) of the analyzer based on in vivo duplicate measurements in all phases of the alcohol metabolism was 1.7%. The ABAC/BrAC ratio was 2251+/-46 (mean+/-S.D.) in the post-absorptive phase and the mean bias between ABAC and BrAC x 2251 was 0.0035 g/L with 95% limits of agreement of 0.033 and -0.026. The ABAC and BrAC x 2251 were highly correlated (r=0.998, p<0.001) and the regression relationship was ABAC = 0.00045 + 1.0069 x (BrAC x 2251) indicating excellent agreement and no fixed or proportional bias. In the absorption phase, ABAC exceeded BrAC x 2251 by at most 0.04+/-0.03 g/L when tests were made at 10 min post-dosing (p<0.05). The VBAC/BrAC ratio never stabilized and varied continuously between 1834 and 3259. There was a proportional bias between VBAC and BrAC x 2251 (ABAC) in the post-absorptive phase (p<0.001). The pharmacokinetic analysis of the elimination rates of alcohol and times to zero BAC confirmed that BrAC x 2251 and ABAC agreed very well with each other, but not with VBAC (p<0.001). We conclude that this new breath analyzer using free exhalation has a high precision for in vivo testing. The BrAC reflects very accurately ABAC in the post-absorption phase and substantially well in the absorption phase and thereby reflects the concentration of alcohol reaching the brain. Our findings highlight the magnitude of arterio-venous differences in alcohol concentration and support the use of breath alcohol analyzers as a stand-alone test for medical and legal purposes.     

Emerging Organized Crime in Chicago

Organized crime is now international in scope and unrestricted by geographical borders. Better organized, more sophisticated, and using high-tech equipment the criminals have developed connections with so-called 'traditional organized crime'. This paper examines in detail the wave of organized criminal activity which has developed in Chicago and has now become entrenched through alliances with existing criminal groups.     

Directed Patrol for Preventing City Centre Street Violence in Sweden — A Hot Spot Policing Intervention

This study examines a hot spot policing intervention where private security guards patrolled a specific area in the city centre of a mid-sized Swedish town during summer weekend evenings and nights, aiming to reduce the number of reported street violence incidents. A follow-up of the intervention, using previous years as a control was conducted to measure changes in the number of street violence rates before and during the intervention. The results show non-significant decreases in the number of reported street violence incidents during the intervention. The results can be interpreted in at least two ways: that the intervention had no effects; or that the small, but non-significant decreases observed, are indeed small effects that can be strengthened by modifying the implementation of the intervention. An additional analysis shows that the changes in crime rates are larger at times when the guards adapted a stricter hot spot policing approach, which indicates that with a more structured implementation of the intervention it might be possible to see larger effects.     

Adolescent Health Risk Profiles: The Co-Occurrence of Health Risks among Females and Males

This analysis examines the complexity of adolescent health risk behaviors using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative study of students. The current sample includes 12,955 students (6,626 females and 6,329 males) in grades 9 through 12. Cluster analysis was conducted separately by gender to examine the interrelationships among eight health risk behaviors: sexual activity, general alcohol use, binge drinking, cigarette use, marijuana use, other illicit drug use, fighting, and suicide. Four distinct clusters for females and males were identified based on their profiles of risk-taking behavior. Females and males both report low- and high-risk profiles, and a risk profile with high alcohol use and sexual activity. Females have two distinct risk profiles, one that is highest on every measure of risk compared to others and one that has high levels of fighting and suicide with little participation in substance use or sexual activity. Males have a distinct risk profile with particularly high rates of marijuana use and suicidal behaviors. Few distinctions exist between profiles based on sociodemographic characteristics.     

Traditional Organized Crime in Chicago

For 78 years the Chicago Outfit or Mob has been the focus of the Chicago Crime Commission's1 efforts to combat organized crime. Indeed, the perception of organized crime in Chicago, as well as much of the city's reputation, stems from the notorious, and often inappropriately glamorized, activities of the Outfit from Al Capone in the 1930s through John DiFronzo in the 1990s. While the Outfit is most certainly still alive, much of the organized criminal activity presently targeting Chicago and its suburbs is perpetrated by new and emerging criminal enterprises. These groups range from local burglary rings to highly sophisticated international criminal organizations headquartered in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America, involved in corporate kidnapping and extortion, murder-for-hire, high-tech crime and drug trafficking. All require public attention and relentless law enforcement scrutiny. This paper deals with traditional organized crime in Chicago. Emerging Organized Crime will be dealt with in a forthcoming paper.     

The information age in concept and practice at the National Library of Medicine.

The evolution of today's information age is mirrored in the growth of the National Library of Medicine's bibliographic services: from the pioneering work of the Library in the last century to develop Index Medicus, to developing the innovative computerized MEDLARS system in the early 1960s, to the easily searchable on-line data bases now available to health professionals. The evolution has not come about without controversy, however, as tension developed between the public sector, where the information was viewed as a social benefit, and the private sector, where it was viewed as a source of profit. The Library has fostered research and development in biomedical communications in the laboratories of its Lister Hill Center and through grants to assist in establishing the field of medical informatics. The future of biomedical communications will be profoundly affected by work now being carried out by the Library: in fields such as biotechnology, through integrative methodologies such as the Unified Medical Language System now under development, and by a grant program to improve the infrastructure for information within academic health science centers.