Japanese youth consumption: A cultural and a social (r)evolution crossing borders

This paper deals with the issue of Japanese youth as the social group that is (r)evolutionising the consumption trends in their society by a cultural change in values and lifestyles. These changes are reflected in new ways of social relations, work, gender issues and mainly consumption patterns. Japanese youth is creating a pop culture of their own that is spreading around East and South-East Asia, affecting their consumption trends as well. Such influence confers a new identity to the region that will be a key issue for marketers in the 21^st century.The author thanks the help of the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Technology through the R&D Project BS02003-07810, that enables the funding of this ongoing research.     

The MMPI-2 L scale as a tool in police selection

The MMPI has been used extensively in the selection of law enforcement personnel. Because police officer candidates have been preselected, however, individuals with obvious mental disturbance have been screened out of the candidate pool before evaluation. It is necessary to search for more subtle variables to serve as predictors of unsatisfactory future performance. The L scale is a subtle variable which can suggest potential for problematic behavior. The value of the L scale in the selection process is discussed. Authors' Note: William U. Weiss, Ph.D., is professor of psychology. The University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Av., Evansville, IN 47722. Robert Davis, Ph.D., is executive vice-president and director of science, research, and development, for Matrix, Inc., and Cary Rostow, Ph.D., is president of Matrix, Inc., Baton Rouge, LA. Sarah Kinsman was a psychology major at the University of Evansville at the time this research was conducted.     

Multi-resolution image fusion technique and its application to forensic science

Image fusion is a process of combining two or more images into an image. It can extract features from source images, and provide more information than one image can. Multi-resolution analysis plays an important role in image processing, it provides a technique to decompose an image and extract information from coarse to fine scales. In some practical forensic examinations (such as the cartridge image check), we cannot obtain all information from just one image; on the contrary, we need information from images with difference light sources (or light ways). In this paper, we apply an image fusion method based on multi-resolution analysis to forensic science. Synthetic and real images (such as images from closed-up photography and flash photography) are used to show the capability of the multi-resolution image fusion technique.     

Strain,Negative Emotions,and Deviant Coping Among African Americans: A Test of General Strain Theory

Although previous research on Agnew's (1992) general strain theory (GST) tends to yield significant effects of strain on negative emotions as well as deviance and crime, results tend to be mixed with regard to (1) the effects of negative emotions on deviance and crime and (2) conditioning factors that Agnew suggests affect the selection of coping strategies. To address these issues, we test hypotheses, derived from GST, about the relationships among strain, negative emotions, and deviant coping by analyzing data from a nationally representative sample of African American adults. Ordinary least squares regression results generally support our hypotheses. First, fully mediating the effects of strain on deviant coping, negative emotions have consistently significant effects on deviance, regardless of whether we use composite or separate measures of inner- and outer-directed emotions and deviance. Interestingly, as hypothesized, the same-directed effects of negative emotions on deviant coping are larger than the opposite-directed ones. Second, while self-esteem and self-efficacy as conditioning factors generally fail to receive empirical support, religiosity is found to significantly buffer the effects of negative emotions on deviance. Implications of our findings for further development of GST are discussed.