Gay,Lesbian, and Bisexual Youths: Separation-Individuation,Parental Attitudes,Identity Consolidation,and Well-Being

The study examines separation-individuation during adolescence and young adulthood for gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths, and evaluates the consequences of parent-youth relationships for well-being and sexual orientation identity development. Seventy-two youths completed interview and questionnaire measures of relatedness, autonomy, and conflictual independence in relation to mothers and fathers, along with self-reports of parent attitudes, identity consolidation, and well-being. When youths perceived that their parents had relatively accepting attitudes regarding sexual orientation they demonstrated closer relatedness and greater conflictual independence with parents, but not greater autonomy. Both accepting parental attitudes and greater separation-individuation predicted more positive well-being for the youths, though only parental attitudes predicted greater consolidation of sexual orientation identity. Although mothers were generally closer and more supportive than fathers, relationships with both parents were important, independent predictors of personal adjustment. The discussion proposes mutual influences among separation-individuation, perceived acceptance by parents, identity consolidation and well-being.     

Data on the PCR Turkish population based loci: LDLR, GYPA, HBGG, D7S8, and Gc

Allele and genotype frequencies for the five PCR-based loci were analyzed in 157 unrelated Turkish individuals. The five PCR-based loci included LDLR, GYPA, HBGG, D7S8, and Gc. The results of the chi-square and exact tests showed that the genotype distribution at the LDLR, GYPA, D7S8, and Gc loci did not significantly differ from the Hardy-Weinberg Expectation (HWE). However, the genotype distribution at the HBGG locus did not conform to HWE. Moreover, the genotype frequencies calculated in this study were compared with the published genotype frequencies of US African American and US Caucasian populations. The Turkish population was significantly different at the HBGG locus from the US Caucasian population. However, there were highly significant differences at the LDLR, HBGG, and Gc loci between the Turkish and African American populations.     

Swiss Caucasian population data for 13 STR loci using AmpFISTR profiler plus and cofiler PCR amplification kits.

Allele and genotype frequencies for the 13 core STR loci (D3S1358, VWA, FGA, D8S1179, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820, THO1, TPOX, CSF1PO, and D16S539) were determined in a Swiss Caucasian population sample (n = 206) using two commercially available multiplex PCR kits (AmpFISTR Profiler Plus and AmpFISTR Cofiler) and subsequent electrophoresis on an ABI PRISM CE 310 Genetic Analyzer instrument. All loci meet Hardy-Weinberg expectations. In addition, there is little evidence for association of alleles among the 13 loci. The allelic frequency data can be used in forensic analyses and paternity tests to estimate the frequency of a multiple STR locus DNA profile in the Swiss population.     

The organization of influence on the EC's common agricultural policy: A network approach

Abstract The common agricultural policy of the EC with its market regulations is decided at EC level by a multilevel system of government, in which the Commission and the parliamentary parties of the European Parliament play the supranational role and the national ministries of agriculture act as parts of the intergovernmental system of the Council of Ministers. National interest groups have thereby three major access routes to the EC system, first through their national governments, or second indirectly, transmitted by their European peak organizations, or third directly to the supranational EC actors. The network approach is applied to study empirically the densities of access through these various routes. The links between actors in the agricultural policy domain are conceptualized as links for the exchange of resources, the most important resource of a policy domain being the final control of policy decisions. The political actors of the governance system originally hold full control of this valuable resource which they exchange for influence resources possessed by the interest groups, as public support or expert knowledge. Empirically, answers to the network questions depend on the type of resource and the viewpoint of the interviewed actors. An index is developed which indicates the resource flows between actors and the distribution of equilibrium control of policy decisions. It is shown that the national ministers of agriculture depend very much on the support and expertise of their national farmers' lobby, whereas the Commission relies more on contacts within the political sector itself. Multilevel systems need a lot of political coordination, so that the political actors within such systems, especially at the supranational level, seem to deal first of all with each other and not so much with the demand side of politics, compared to the national ministers of agriculture.