Youth Adversities Amplify the Association between Adult Stressors and Chronic Inflammation in a Domain Specific Manner: Nuancing the Early Life Sensitivity Model

There is strong evidence that chronic, systemic inflammation hastens onset of the diseases of old age that ultimately lead to death. Importantly, several studies suggest that childhood adversity predicts chronic inflammation. Unfortunately, this research has been plagued by retrospective reports of childhood adversity, an absence of controls for adult stressors, and a failure to investigate various competing models of the link between childhood adversity and chronic inflammation. The present study was designed to address these limitations. Using 18 years of data collected from 413 African Americans (58% female) included in the Family and Community Health Study, hierarchical regression analyses provided support for a nuanced early life sensitivity explanation for the link between early adversity and adult chronic inflammation. Controlling for health risk behaviors and adult SES, late childhood (ages 10–12) adversity amplified the association between adult adversity (age 29) and chronic inflammation. This interaction operated in a domain-specific fashion. Harsh parenting amplified the relation between intimate partner hostility and inflammation, whereas early discrimination amplified the relation between adult discrimination and inflammation. These findings suggest that individuals may be primed to respond physiologically to adverse adult circumstances that resemble those experienced earlier in life.

     

End of the Lone Wolf: The Typology that Should Not Have Been

This research note argues that the “lone wolf” typology should be fundamentally reconsidered. Based on a three-year empirical research project, two key points are made to support this argument. First, the authors found that ties to online and offline radical milieus are critical to lone actors' adoption and maintenance of both the motive and capability to commit acts of terrorism. Second, in terms of pre-attack behaviors, the majority of lone actors are not the stealthy and highly capable terrorists the “lone wolf” moniker alludes to. These findings not only urge a reconsideration of the utility of the lone-wolf concept, they are also particularly relevant for counterterrorism professionals, whose conceptions of this threat may have closed off avenues for detection and interdiction that do, in fact, exist.     

Poner el Cuerpo: Women's Embodiment and Political Resistance in Argentina

This article explores the relationship between women's embodiment and political resistance in Argentina during 2002–2003. This was a time of socioeconomic crisis, influenced by neoliberal globalization. In this tumultuous context, women's bodies became embattled sites, shaken by the crisis but also actively engaged in constructing a new society and new forms of womanhood. Bodies are important to understanding political resistance, as reflected by the meanings attached to poner el cuerpo , a common expression in contemporary Argentine social movements. This article analyzes how women construct embodied subjectivities through their activist practices and how they define poner el cuerpo in terms of collective protest and daily activist work, coherence between words and actions, embodied sacrifice, and risk taking and struggle. As life in Argentina deteriorated because of the crisis, women's bodies represented not only suffering but also resistance and renewal.     

Price discrimination in a rent-seeking economy

This paper examines the incentive and the consequences of using discriminatory pricing by a monopolist in a rent-seeking economy. It is shown that, even if all consumer groups' demands have identical elasticities at any given price, the monopolist has an incentive to charge a lower price to high pressure consumer groups so as to alleviate their rent-seeking efforts in challenging its monopolistic power. Furthermore, it is shown that by allowing the firm to price discriminate total welfare may increase, even if all rent-seeking expenditures are completely wasteful.     

Assessing the “will of the people”: an investigation into town service delivery satisfaction

Abstract: The “will of the people^‘’ is considered to be the highest authority in a democracy and said to be the driving force behind public policies. Yet not many past studies have assessed the level of citizen satisfaction with government services and identified ways of improving service delivery. At a municipal level, there is even less emphasis on measuring consumer satisfaction. This study measures citizens' satisfaction with municipal services in a town in Atlantic Canada. A taxonomy of government services based on user experience with the service and heterogeneity of consumer needs was developed and tested. Results indicate that while consumer satisfaction with municipal services is high, it does vary based on the nature of the service. Some action guidelines are suggested at the end of the paper to improve town service delivery. Sommaire: La «volonté du peuple» est considérée comme étant la plus haute autorité dans une démocratice, et l'on dit même que c'est elle qui est à l'origine des politiques publiques. Pourtant, peu d'études ont examiné le niveau de satisfaction du citoyen en ce qui concerne les services gouvernementaux et ont tenté de cerner les moyens permettant d'améliorer ces services. Au niveau municipal, on fait encore moins d'efforts pour mesurer la satisfaction des consommateurs. La présente étude mesure la satisfaction des citoyens à l'égard des services municipaux dans une ville située dans la région Atlantique du Canada. Une taxonomie des services gouvernementaux basée sur l'expérience des utilisateurs et sur l'hétérogénéité des besoins des consommateurs a été mise au point et testée. Les résultats indiquent que, bien que la satisfaction des consommateurs face aux services municipaux soit élevée, elle varie selon la nature de services. À la fin de l'article, on suggère quelques lignes directrices pour améliorer la prestation de services des villes.     

Comparison of the elemental composition of office document paper: evidence in a homicide case

Fraudulent substitution of a page within a multiple page document such as a will or business contract, the counterfeit manufacture of paper banknotes, and linking ransom or extortion notes have all been the focus of criminal investigations at one time or another. In a recent homicide investigation, document examiners were requested to compare a threatening letter received by a business partner of the deceased with paper samples seized under warrant from a suspect's house. Through a quantitative elemental analysis of the concentrations of nine elements (Na, Mg, Al, Mn, Sr, Y, Ba, La, and Ce) within the questioned and specimen documents, determined by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), it was concluded that (i) the paper of the threatening letter originated from a different source to that of the paper seized from the suspect's house and (ii) all six pages of paper seized from the suspect's house originated from the same source. This discrimination of paper is presented as both a statistical t-test analysis (99.9% confidence limit) as well as construction of an elemental fingerprint for individual replicates within the questioned and specimen sample populations. This is the first reported use of the comparison of the elemental composition of document paper, determined by ICP-MS, to assist in a criminal investigation.     

Vulnerability to Friends’ Suicide Influence: The Moderating Effects of Gender and Adolescent Depression

This paper examines whether severity of depression reduces or intensifies the relationship between friends’ suicide attempt and adolescent's own attempt to commit suicide, and whether there are gender differences in this interrelationship. Using logistic regression and data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents studied at 2 points in time, this study yielded significant findings. First, friends’ suicide attempt and adolescent depression each predicts adolescent's own attempt to commit suicide, and these effects are similar for both boys and girls. Second, highly depressed adolescents are less likely than low- or nondepressed adolescents to attempt suicide when their friends attempt suicide, and this relationship is observed mainly among adolescent boys. Finally, for adolescent girls, depression reduces the relationship between friends’ suicidal attempt and adolescent's own attempt but this effect is not statistically significant. These results are discussed in light of their theoretical importance and policy implications.Professor of Sociology at San Diego State University. Has published in the areas of crime/delinquency, drug use/abuse, intergenerational processes, and psychosocial stress. Recent publications have appeared in Western Criminology Review, Social Psychology Quarterly, Sociological Inquiry, Journal of Adolescent Research, and Youth and Society.