The importance of self-beliefs on relational aggression of college students

This study examined the interrelationships among mattering to friends, self-esteem, spirituality, and perpetration of relational aggression in friendships among 457 college students. While the three self-belief variables were positively related to each other, only spirituality and mattering to friends discriminated between men and women. Women reported higher spirituality and mattering to friends, and men reported slightly higher self-esteem. Perpetration of relational aggression was negatively related to mattering to friends and self-esteem and was not related to spirituality. Findings are discussed in light of Erikson's theory of adolescent development and Gilligan's theory of interpersonal relationships.     

Criminal network security: An agent‐based approach to evaluating network resilience*

Criminal networks are frequently at risk of disruption through arrest and interorganizational violence. Difficulties in designing empirical studies of criminal network recovery, however, have problematized research into network responses to disruption. In this study, we evaluate criminal network resilience by examining network recovery from disruption in an array of different criminal networks and across different disruption strategies. We use an agent‐based model to evaluate how criminal networks recover from disruption. Our results reveal the vulnerabilities and time to recovery of numerous criminal organizations, and through them, we identify which disruption strategies are most effective at damaging various criminal networks.     

Research Foundations of Greenbook Interventions to Address the Co‐Occurrence of Child Maltreatment and Adult Domestic Violence

Twenty years ago the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges published Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment: Guidelines for Policy and Practice, which became known as the Greenbook because of its green cover. This article presents the social science research leading up to the Greenbook and the 20 years beyond the publication of this seminal document, including examination of the effect of co‐occurrence of child maltreatment and exposure to domestic violence on child outcomes, the interventions for families to improve the safety of both child and adult victims, and future directions for research.     

The Network Structure of Opioid Distribution on a Darknet Cryptomarket

Objectives

The current study is the first to examine the network structure of an encrypted online drug distribution network. It examines (1) the global network structure, (2) the local network structure, and (3) identifies those vendor characteristics that best explain variation in the network structure. In doing so, it evaluates the role of trust in online drug markets.

Methods

The study draws on a unique dataset of transaction level data from an encrypted online drug market. Structural measures and community detection analysis are used to characterize and investigate the network structure. Exponential random graph modeling is used to evaluate which vendor characteristics explain variation in purchasing patterns.

Results

Vendors’ trustworthiness explains more variation in the overall network structure than the affordability of vendor products or the diversity of vendor product listings. This results in a highly localized network structure with a few key vendors accounting for most transactions.

Conclusions

The results indicate that vendors’ trustworthiness is a better predictor of vendor selection than product diversity or affordability. These results illuminate the internal market dynamics that sustain digital drug markets and highlight the importance of examining how new anonymizing technologies shape global drug distribution networks.

     

Deaths caused by carbon monoxide poisoning in an open environment (outdoors)

Three deaths as a result of inhalation of carbon monoxide from the exhaust fumes of automobiles are reported. All deaths occurred outside and not in a structure. The individuals were white males, ages 24 to 26 years. Blood carboxyhemoglobin concentrations ranged from 58 (in a decomposing body) to 81%. The three cases illustrate the fact that even in the outdoors death from carbon monoxide inhalation can occur if an individual is in close proximity to a rich source of carbon monoxide.     

The Application of the Polyvagal Theory to High Conflict Co‐Parenting Cases

Families, litigants, lawyers, advisors embroiled in cases of complex divorce with child contact issues, manage many stressors at once. Participants involved with these types of cases are often exhausted and burned‐out from the long‐term battles of prolonged litigation. The inability to problem‐solve or even communicate effectively reflects the chaos and traumatic stress of the experience and can be seen as a hallmark of this population. When people are consistently stressed, there is a breakdown of communication skills that can create an immunity to receiving help from any direction. Often all parties involved appear to be both hyper‐alert to potential threat, and hyper‐reactive to one another: no one feels safe. Stephen Porges' Polyvagal Theory is premised on the idea that neuroception plays a key role in the nervous system's ability to assess danger in the environment. Neuroception is a neurophysiological response that does not involve cognitive processing. When cognitive processing is not involved, the result may lead to misinterpretation of, and an inability to accurately assess situations: executive functioning including rational thinking and communication skills are lost to physiological response. Rather than evaluating families and individuals involved in the aforementioned complex divorce cases through the lens of pathology, Polyvagal Theory explains their behavior as an adaptive stress reaction. Utilizing Polyvagal Theory offers a promising path to treatment with these families and diminishing the poor communication and the heightened emotion, assisting practitioners in understanding the impact of neurobiological response in managing stress and trauma. Applying Polyvagal Theory to court involved populations can help both litigants and practitioners recognize the role of the autonomic nervous system, providing the opportunity to understand, to self‐regulate, and to improve communication and decision making.     

Do Municipal Mergers Improve Technical Efficiency? An Empirical Analysis of the 2008 Queensland Municipal Merger Program

Municipal mergers remain an important instrument of local government policy in numerous countries, including Australia, despite some concerns surrounding its efficacy. We consider the claim that amalgamations enhance the technical efficiency of the merged entities by examining the 2008 Queensland compulsory consolidation program that reduced the number of local authorities from 157 to 73 councils. To test the claim, we conduct locally inter‐temporal data envelopment analysis over the period 2003–2013 inclusive. Our evidence suggests that (1) in the financial year preceding the mergers, there was no statistically significant difference in the typical efficiency scores of amalgamated and non‐amalgamated councils and (2) 2 years following the mergers, the typical technical efficiency score of the amalgamated councils was well below the non‐amalgamated cohort. We argue this may be attributed to increased spending on staffing expenses, although comparatively larger operational expenditure also served to diminish efficiency.     

The quest for legitimacy in independent Kosovo: the unfulfilled promise of diversity and minority rights

When Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, it did so not as a nation-state, but as a “state of communities,” self-defining as multiethnic, diverse, and committed to extensive rights for minorities. In this paper, this choice is understood as a response to a dual legitimation problem. Kosovo experienced both an external legitimation challenge, regarding its contested statehood internationally, and an internal one, vis-à-vis its Serb minority. The focus on diversity and minority rights was expected to confer legitimacy on the state both externally and internally. International state-builders and the domestic political elite in post-conflict Kosovo both pursued this strategy. However, it inadvertently created an additional internal legitimation challenge, this time from within Kosovo’s majority Albanian population. This dynamic is illustrated by the opposition movement “Lëvizja Vetëvendosje” (Self-Determination Movement), which rejects the framing of Kosovo as first and foremost a multiethnic state. The movement’s counter-narrative represents an additional internal legitimation challenge to the new state. This paper thus finds that internationally endorsed “diversity management” through minority rights did not deliver as a panacea for the legitimacy dilemmas of the post-conflict polity. On the contrary, the “state of communities” continues to be contested by both majority and minority groups in Kosovo.