Waves of Change: Evolution in the US Navy's Strategic Approach to Disaster Relief Operations between the 2004 and 2011 Asian Tsunamis

Abstract

The US military response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami had a powerful strategic influence on Indonesia, and led the US Navy to make far-reaching changes in its strategic approach to humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) operations. These changes emerged because the positive benefits of military-delivered relief were so clearly demonstrated and the experiences validated specific concepts that have since guided the US Navy toward becoming a humanitarian partner. Current force structures were demonstrated to be adaptable to HA/DR, close cooperation with diverse partners was affirmed as a key element of successful maritime operations, and seabasing was shown as an operational construct exceptionally well suited for HA/DR. As a result of the changes, the naval response to the tsunami that struck Japan in 2011 took place in a very different strategic context.     

The Electoral Connection and Legislative Committees

This article examines whether the career needs of legislators – to be re-elected or to move on to another political post – allow us to explain the rules governing committee structures and the committee assignments individual legislators obtain. It uses the institutional variations provided by Argentina, Costa Rica, and Venezuela to test hypotheses about committee assignments and committee assignment mechanisms. It finds that incentives created by candidate selection procedures and electoral rules show some relationship to committee assignments, but with a good deal of variation across national cases and individual careers.     

Do Parenting Practices and Child Disclosure Predict Parental Knowledge? A Meta-Analysis

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Parental knowledge of a child’s whereabouts, activities, and relationships is one of the most salient factors protecting adolescents against delinquency and...     

The stalking victim's decision to contact the police: A test of Gottfredson and Gottfredson's theory of criminal justice decision making

There is a significant body of research exploring the reporting behaviors of crime victims. Much of this literature has focused on specific types of victimization (e.g., sexual assault) and the correlates of victim reporting. Recently, the crimes of stalking and cyberstalking have received empirical attention; however, few studies have examined the reporting behaviors of victims of these crimes. Using the theoretical framework proposed by Gottfredson and Gottfredson (1988), the current study explored how offense seriousness, the victim-offender relationship, and the prior record of the offender influenced a victim's decision to contact the police. Data were drawn from the 2006 stalking supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which examined stalking in the United States. Results offered support to Gottfredson and Gottfredson (1988) and highlighted the significance of understanding the reporting behaviors for this sample of crime victims. Differences in reporting for victims of stalking and cyberstalking were also examined.     

The belated autopsy and identification of an eighteenth century naval hero--the saga of John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones, the "Father of the American Navy," is known for the battletime assertion that he had "not yet begun to fight." His central role in a triumph of scientific forensic identification more than a century after his death is less known. John Paul Jones died in 1792 and was buried in Paris, France. The location of his grave was lost over time and a search for his corpse began in 1899. Remains matching his physical characteristics and circumstance of burial were discovered in 1905 and returned to the United States for a hero's burial. Some questioned the identification at the time and the major source of identifying information has since been shown to contain false information. The published forensic literature fails to address existing critiques of the identification. We provide a substantive analysis and conclude that the available evidence supports the identification of the unknown remains as those of John Paul Jones.     

Osteoporosis associated with the treatment of paraphilias: a clinical review of seven case reports

Osteoporosis and long-term androgen suppression in the treatment of paraphilias has been documented with surgical castration and the use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists. The literature has suggested that the use of cyproterone acetate (CPA) may be protective against osteoporosis, although there are case reports of osteoporosis in men treated with CPA. This pilot study represents a case series of seven patients diagnosed with severe paraphilias and treated with CPA, leuprolide, or surgical castration. Two of the four patients treated with CPA developed significant osteoporosis, while the other two had normal bone density studies. The remaining three patients, one treated with leuprolide and two with surgical castration, had osteopenia. Based upon the current literature, the finding of significant osteoporosis in two of four patients treated with CPA, but not those treated with leuprolide or castration, is surprising. Monitoring of all patients treated with long-term androgen suppression for osteoporosis is suggested.     

History "lite" in modern American bioethics

This article explores a disconcerting phenomenon. In recent years, in writing on the subject of assisted suicide, several bioethicists have made extraordinary historical claims. The history of Western moral theories that exhibit disapproval of all forms of suicide is well known. Nevertheless, the bioethicists have claimed that some of Europe's most prominent early modern moral philosophers never believed in the inalienable right to life. This claim is quite controversial because this right is an important basis for secular moral opposition to assisted suicide. Irrespective of whether or not opposition to assisted suicide is philosophically justified, the philosophers the bioethicists write about did in fact believe in the inalienable right to life. Bioethicists can only come to their conclusions concerning the philosophers by employing an improper historical methodology.     

Police Legitimacy and the Norm to Cooperate: Using a Mixed Effects Location-Scale Model to Estimate the Strength of Social Norms at a Small Spatial Scale

Journal of Quantitative Criminology - Test whether cooperation with the police can be modelled as a place-based norm that varies in strength from one neighborhood to the next. Estimate whether...