International disaster identification report. Investigative and dental aspects

This meeting, held in October 1980 in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, was a very serious effort to begin international cooperation in a much needed area: disaster investigation and identification. Under the leadership of Col. Arie van den Bos of the Royal Police of the Netherlands, the work was accomplished with representatives and observers from many major countries represented. Efforts were made to solve the enigma of international cooperation. A plane crash of an airline of a major country in a distant country can be properly investigated only with the cooperation of the carrier and the country in which the tragedy occurred. The International Academy of Legal Medicine and Social Medicine devoted a 3-day program to the study of this problem during their last international meeting in Lyon, France, and it will be discussed further in Vienna in 1982 under the leadership of Prof. Wilhelm Holczabek. The experience of Norwegian investigators is mentioned as an example of the type of problems encountered with foreign nationals involved in a crash in the country, or a disaster involving a ship or a oil platform where foreign nationals are working, or in a tragedy such as the propylene explosion in Tarragona, Spain, which resulted in more than 200 tourists from many countries dying in the fire, many bodies burned beyond recognition.     

THE STATUTORY CORPORATION—A NOTE ON THE THEORY OF AUTONOMY

Readers of this journal, especially those who watch developments affecting the machinery of government in Canberra, will no doubt have noticed the rehabilitation of the concept of statutory independence—a notion that, in some academic circles, had been virtually written off as having little or no relevance in the real world, where the general tendency has been towards an extension of government control and co-ordination of bureaucratic systems. Although it is much too early to evaluate, with suitable scholarly detachment, the significance of the administrative changes initiated since December, 1972, it seems a safe observation that for a small group of government agencies at least, the Labor Government has committed itself to the idea of independence. This much is clear from its declared aim of giving the Australian Broadcasting Commission more autonomy and the decision, recently announced, to reconstitute the Postmaster-General's Department into two separate statutory corporations.     

‘New feminist materialisms’

This review essay discusses and contextualizes four recent publications in and on ‘new feminist materialism’. The discussion of the three edited volumes and one monograph demonstrates what the new feminist materialism wants to provoke in different (inter)disciplines, and the contextualization is aimed at dealing with the question of what is ‘new’ in new feminist materialism. Ultimately, the essay boils down to exploring the theoretical tools that scholars from diverse (inter)disciplinary fields, continents and generations have developed for dealing with agential matter rather than (gendered) passive matter. The contextualization exercise wants to show how the new materialism is not a paradigm shift or a rewriting of, for instance, the linguistic turn. These two seemingly opposite epistemological tools are both grounded in an epistemology of recognition, whereas the new materialism wants to move away from such linguisticism. Experimenting with the tool of the ‘quantum leap’, the essay ends with openings for future (epistemic) research on and of the material turn.     

The Role of Family Obligations and School Adjustment in Explaining the Immigrant Paradox

This study examined the role of family obligations and school adjustment in explaining immigrant adolescents’ adaptation. Despite a relatively low socio-economic status, immigrant adolescents have been found to have a pattern of adaptation superior to that of national adolescents. Immigrant adolescents’ strong sense of family obligations and positive school adjustment have been used to explain these positive adaptation outcomes. Using self-reports in a sample of 277 national adolescents (45.5% female) and a sample of 175 non-western immigrant adolescents (58.9% female), both samples with a mean age of 15 years, it was found that despite a lower socio-economic status, the adaptation of immigrant adolescents was as good as the nationals’ adaptation. Immigrant adolescents scored higher on family obligations and school adjustment. Family obligations and school adjustment were found positively related to adaptation outcomes in the national and the immigrant adolescent sample. Findings suggest that, in underprivileged environments, a strong sense of family obligations may help immigrants as well as national adolescents achieve a positive pattern of adaptation.     

Economic development and parental status homogamy: A study of 19th century France

This study investigates the claim that industrialization led to a decrease of parental status homogamy. Contrary to previous research industrialization is not indicated by historical time, nor measured as a macro-development, but instead brides and bridegrooms who are more involved in the industrial labour market are compared with those who are less involved. The theory of preferences, third parties and meeting opportunities is used to derive the hypotheses that young persons (1) with an industrial occupation, (2) who are intergenerationally mobile, and (3) with formal training marry more often outside their parental status group. Hypotheses are tested using the Tra-dataset on France for the period 1803–1899. Brides and bridegrooms working in an industrial occupation and intergenerationally mobile bridegrooms are indeed found to marry less homogamously with respect to parental status.     

When Weak Groups are Strong: How Low Cohesion Groups Allow Individuals to Act According to Their Personal Absence Tolerance Norms

The study described in this article took place in a commercial production organization and a non-profit social welfare organization (N = 377 and N = 582, respectively). The study investigates how group cohesiveness and absence tolerance separately and in tandem are related to company registered absenteeism rates. As predicted, results support the hypotheses that absence tolerance is positively related with absenteeism and interacts with low group cohesion to result in absenteeism. Contrasting earlier studies that found highly cohesive groups to interact with absence tolerance, results of this study are the first to show that low group cohesiveness interacts significantly with absence tolerance. That is, low cohesive groups counterintuitively are related to the lowest levels of voluntary sickness absence together with intolerant views toward absence. This interaction effect is found independently in two different organizations.     

Recalled peritraumatic reactions, self-reported PTSD, and the impact of malingering and fantasy proneness in victims of interpersonal violence who have applied for state compensation

The present study explores the associations between three types of peritraumatic reactions (dissociation, distress, and tonic immobility) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in a sample of 125 victims of interpersonal violence who had applied for compensation with the Dutch Victim Compensation Fund (DCVF). In addition, the confounding roles of malingering and fantasy proneness are examined. Results indicate that tonic immobility did not predict PTSD symptom levels when adjusting for other forms of peritraumatic reactions, whereas peritraumatic dissociation and distress did. However, after the effects of malingering and fantasy proneness had been controlled for, malingering is the only factor associated with increased PTSD symptomatology. Implications for policy practice as well as study strengths and limitations are discussed.