Family Environment Characteristics and Mental Health Outcomes for Youth in Foster Care: Traditional and Group-Care Placements

Journal of Family Violence - Foster care is meant to provide a safe, temporary out-of-home placement for children exposed to maltreatment, yet little is known about how youth and foster caregivers...     

Intimacy and the life cycle in the marital relationships of the Scottish elite during the long eighteenth century

Traditionally marriage has been treated as one step in the life cycle, between youth and old age, singleness and widowhood. Yet an approach to the life cycle that treats marriage as a single step in a person's life is overly simplistic. During the eighteenth century many marriages were of considerable longevity during which time couples aged together and power dynamics within the home were frequently renegotiated to reflect changing circumstances. This study explores how intimacy developed and changed over the life cycle of marriage and what this meant for power, through a study of the correspondence of two elite Scottish couples.     

Psychopathy,intelligence and emotional responding in a non-forensic sample: an experimental investigation

This study examined the relationships between psychopathy (primary and secondary), intelligence and emotional responding in a sample of 50 university students, using a task measuring autonomic responses to 40 pictorial stimuli (20 neutral and 20 emotionally provoking). Results indicated no significant direct relationship between primary or secondary psychopathy and emotional response, or primary or secondary psychopathy and intelligence. However, a significant moderating effect of intelligence on the association between both psychopathy factors and emotional response was observed, indicating those scoring higher on psychopathy but with lower intelligence portray the expected emotional responses to the affective stimuli (primary: β?=??.56, p?β?=?.80, p?<?.001). These findings indicate abnormal reactivity to emotional stimuli in lower intelligence, higher psychopathic individuals, and suggest differing roles for the two facets of psychopathy in affective responsiveness deviations.     

Positive identification of the principal component of a white powder as scopolamine by quantitative one-dimensional and two-dimensional NMR techniques

An unidentified white powder collected as evidence in an intelligence investigation was characterized exclusively by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis. A small fraction of the powder dissolved in D2O was subjected to a series of one- and two-dimensional techniques which were used to elucidate the molecular structure of the powder's major component and positively identify it as the scopolamine biotoxin. Quantitative one-dimensional experiments identified individual proton and carbon atom sites, and conventional 14N spectroscopy detected a single nitrogen atom site. Heteronuclear single quantum coherence data correlated all protons to their directly bonded carbon atom, and together with the quantitative spectra, were used to determine the number of protons directly bonded to each carbon atom. The presence of a methyl, carboxyl, and a benzyl group was also identified from these data. Correlation spectroscopy detected a three proton and a nine proton JH,H network, representing a CH2CH moiety and seven carbon atom ring, respectively. These five elements were assembled into an almost complete molecular structure by using long-range, J-coupled, 1H-13C pairs detected by heteronuclear multiple bond correlation (HMBC) spectroscopy and 1H-1H dipolar-coupled pairs found from nuclear Overhauser effect spectroscopy (NOESY) data. Additional oxygen atom sites were inferred from 1H-13C correlation intensities in the HMBC spectra along with 1H and 13C chemical shift values, or directly from NOESY correlations. Only a single oxygen atom site could not be inferred from NMR data, but its presence was inferred from comparisons to target analyte structures to complete the structure of the scopolamine molecule. To confirm these results, an ethanol/H2O solution of the powder was analyzed by direct infusion into an ion trap mass spectrometer. A prominent base signal was observed at m/z 304.1 amu, corresponding to the protonated molecular ion of scopolamine. Subsequently, the ion was selected and subjected to collision-induced dissociation, producing characteristic major MS/MS fragments at m/z 138.1 and 156.1. Comparisons of 1H and 13C chemical shift values and JH,H values measured from our NMR data were found to agree very favorably with previously reported values for scopolamine in D2O.     

Inaction,under-reaction action and incapacity: communication breakdown in Italy’s vaccination governance

This article explores why governments do not respond to public compliance problems in a timely manner with appropriate instruments, and the consequences of their failure to do so. Utilising a case study of Italian vaccination policy, the article considers counterfactuals and the challenges of governing health policy in an age of disinformation. It counterposes two methods of governing vaccination compliance: discipline, which uses public institutions to inculcate the population with favourable attitudes and practices, and modulation, which uses access to public institutions as a form of control. The Italian government ineffectively employed discipline for a number of years. Epistemological and organisational constraints stymied its efforts to tackle a significant childhood vaccination compliance problem. With a loss of control over the information environment, vaccinations were not served well by exogenous crises, the sensationalism of the news cycle and online misinformation. Hampered by austerity, lack of capacity and epistemic shortcomings, the Italian government did not protect the public legitimacy of the vaccination programme. Instead of employing communications to reassure a hesitant population, they focused on systemic and delivery issues, until it was too late to do anything except make vaccinations mandatory (using modulation). The apparent short-term success of this measure in generating population compliance does not foreclose the need for ongoing governance of vaccine confidence through effective discipline. This is evident for the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, with many Italians still indicating that they would not accept a vaccine despite the devastation that the disease has wrought throughout their country.

     

Developing Outcome Measures for Criminal Justice Information Sharing: A Study of a Multi-Jurisdictional Officer Notification System for Policing Sex Offenders in Southern California

Information-sharing efforts are broadly assumed by criminal justice and security practitioners to be effective, yet their impact on policing performance has not been thoroughly studied. This paper develops measures for an information-sharing system in a population of sex offenders in Southern California. We compared interagency involvement and policing outcomes for registered sex offenders with (n = 3,919) and without (n = 581) records pertaining to their sex offender status in the Officer Notification System (ONS) of ARJIS. To account for differences in criminal activity, offenders were matched on each of four focal incidents (citations, field interviews, crime cases, and arrests) and compared on outcomes that followed the focal incident. Compared to controls, sex offenders with ONS records were 75 % more likely to be involved with multiple agencies, 92 % more likely to have a citation following a crime case, 34 % more likely to have multiple crime cases (i.e., a crime case following an initial crime case), 44 % more likely to have a field interview following a citation, over 2 times more likely to have a field interview following a crime case, and 20-30 % more likely to have an arrest after a crime case, citation, or field interview. Novel measures of information sharing revealed links between the sharing of information about sex offender registrant status and the frequency and timing of police incidents and inter-agency involvement.     

Early Signs of Fracture Repair in the Human Rib Cage: Implications for Forensic Casework

The decomposed body of a woman discovered beneath a collapsed structure was examined at the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory. Despite a mix of rib fractures with and without indications of healing, it is most likely that all fractures occurred as a result of a single, compressive event. Signs of intramembranous, and possibly direct, fracture healing at the incomplete fractures without signs of endochondral ossification at the complete fractures suggest the individual died very shortly—but not immediately—after injury. Given the case circumstances, the findings inform immediate cause of death. This case study highlights that differential healing as a result of a single event is possible. Further, it illustrates the importance of careful examination of micro‐discontinuities/cracks that can occur in association with major fractures. Fracture healing and dating data are discussed, as is the possible need for critical evaluation of the antemortem/perimortem boundary.