Estimating Individual Contributions to Complex DNA SNP Mixtures.,

High‐throughput sequencing (HTS) of large panels of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provides an alternative or complimentary approach to short tandem repeats (STRs) panels for the analysis of complex DNA mixture forensic samples. For STRs, methods to estimate individual contribution concentrations compare capillary electrophoresis peak heights, peak areas, or HTS allele read counts within a mixture. This article introduces three approaches (mean, median, and slope methods) for estimating individual DNA contributions to forensic mixtures for HTS/massively parallel sequencing (MPS) SNP panels. For SNPs, the major:minor allele ratios or counts, unique to each contributor, were compared to estimate contributor proportion within the mixture using the mean, median, and slope intercept for these alleles. The estimates for these three methods were typically within 5% of planned experimental contributions for defined mixtures.     

Trends in Women's Gun Ownership, 1973–2002

In recent years controversy has arisen over whether the rate of women's gun ownership has increased over time. While media reports claimed a rising trend in women's gun ownership, existing scholarly studies found stable rates over time. This paper investigates the issue using the 1973–2002 General Social Survey data. Our bivariate analysis reveals a declining trend in female gun ownership, especially in recent years. The logistic regression results indicate that holding relevant variables constant, the probability of female gun ownership decreases over time. Comparisons are also made with men. Similar results for male gun ownership are obtained. Possible explanations and implications of findings are discussed.     

Peasant leadership and the Pugachev revolt

This paper examines the leadership of the Pugachev revolt, the vast peasant uprising which took place in Russia between 1773 and 1775. It is also concerned with certain general issues, particularly those concerning the raising and subsequent sustaining of large‐scale peasant movements in ‘pre‐industrial’ societies where peasant organisations beyond village level are lacking. The Pugachev revolt had peculiarities which are of intrinsic interest, but it also provides significant parallels and contrasts to other peasant uprisings (not only in seventeenth‐ and eighteenth‐century Russia) and generally serves to highlight the problems of the articulation of rural protest in backward societies.     

Early Adolescents’ Social Standing in Peer Groups: Behavioral Correlates of Stability and Change

Sociometric nominations, social cognitive maps, and self-report questionnaires were completed in consecutive years by 327 students (56% girls) followed longitudinally from grade 7 to grade 8 to examine the stability of social standing in peer groups and correlates of changes in social standing. Social preference, perceived popularity, network centrality, and leadership were moderately stable from grade 7 to grade 8. Alcohol use and relational aggression in grade 7 predicted changes in social preference and centrality, respectively, between grade 7 and grade 8, but these effects were moderated by gender and ethnicity. Changes in social standing from grade 7 to grade 8 were unrelated to grade 8 physical aggression, relational aggression, and alcohol use after controlling for the grade 7 corollaries of these behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding links between social standing and problem behaviors during adolescence.