A comparison of adolescent inpatients with and without substance abuse using the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory

We compared clinical syndromes, expressed concerns, and personality styles of adolescent inpatients with substance use disorders (SUD; n=44) vs. without substance use disorders (non-SUD; n=61) using the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory. The two groups did not differ with regard to age, sex, ethnicity, functional severity, or the frequency of other major psychiatric disorders, and were drawn from the same overall sample population. SUD subjects showed significantly higher levels of delinquent predisposition and lower levels of anxiety. Consistent with these syndromal findings, we found that SUD subjects were characterized by higher levels of unruliness and social insensitivity and lower levels of submissiveness. Our findings suggest that, in severely disturbed adolescents who require psychiatric hospitalization, externalizing phenomena are closely associated with SUD. Our findings also suggest that internalizing problems also exist in SUD, although not at levels greater than that observed in non-SUD inpatients.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Research interests include eating and weight disorders, addictive behaviors, behavioral medicine, psychological assessment, and psychiatric comorbidity.Received Psy.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Hartford. Research interests include psychological assessment, adolescent psychopathology, and psychiatric comorbidity.Received B.A. in Psychology from Swarthmore College. Research interests include perception, developmental psychopathology, and psychosis proneness.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychiatry from DePaul University. Research interests include the assessment and treatment of substance abusing psychiatric populations.     

Review of analytical techniques for arson residues

Arson is a serious crime that affects society through cost, property damage, and loss of life. It is important that the methods and technologies applied by fire investigators in detection of evidence and subsequent analyses have a high degree of reliability, sensitivity, and be subject to rigorous quality control and assurance. There have been considerable advances in the field of arson investigation since the 1950s. Classification of ignitable liquids has been updated to include many new categories due to developments in the petroleum industry. Techniques such as steam or vacuum distillation and gas chromatography (GC) with flame ionization detection that may have been considered acceptable--even a benchmark--40 years ago, are nowadays generally disfavored, to the extent that their implementation may almost be considered as ignorance in the field. The advent of readily available mass spectrometric techniques has revolutionized the field of fire debris analysis, increasing the degree of sensitivity and discrimination possible considerably. Multi-dimensional GC--particularly GC x GC--while not yet widely applied, is rapidly gaining recognition as an important technique. This comprehensive review focuses on techniques and practices used in fire investigation, from scene investigation to analysis.     

Understanding rib fracture patterns: incomplete and buckle fractures

Reconstructing traumatic thoracic events, especially when soft tissues are absent, requires an advanced understanding of ribcage fracture patterns. The morphology and orientation of ribs complicate the fracture pattern, as a single blow often causes multiple fractures at various locations. Furthermore, fracture types observed in ribs are not explained easily by current bone biomechanic literature. Using evidential skeletal material archived at the Regional Forensic Center, Memphis, the ribs of 43 blunt force trauma cases were analyzed. A total of 195 incomplete fractures and 63 buckle fractures were noted. Incomplete fractures, previously thought to be common in children but rare in adults, were found among individuals ranging in age from 21-76 years. A buckle fracture, failure resulting from compressive instability, has been undefined previously in bone trauma literature but was repeatedly observed in this sample. This study elucidates recognizable rib fracture patterns while emphasizing gross bone examination for force and mechanical factors.     

Providing rural credit in southern India: A comparison of commercial banks and cooperatives

This paper contrasts the recent experiences of two different institutions in providing credit and savings facilities in the countryside of Tamil Nadu, southern India. Ever since the late-1960s, there has been a rising demand for credit to finance investment in agriculture. This has been reinforced by Government policy over the last two decades, and especially since 1980, to provide credit both to priority activities, including agriculture, and to disadvantaged rural groups. Part of that policy has been to encourage the commercial banks to offer services in the countryside, alongside the previously well-developed network of cooperatives offering formal rural credit. The commercial banks have had considerable success in expanding their network of branches, and in increasing bank deposits and loans in rural areas. Operating as corporate bureaucracies, the banks have been able to expand without being crippled in the process. On the other hand, their institutional strength has meant that Government credit policy has been implemented cautiously. The agricultural credit cooperatives, no newcomers to the countryside, have still to fulfil their long-declared function of providing short-term credit for crop production to the majority of agricultural households. Loan recovery by the cooperatives has been weak. The cooperatives have suffered partly from the internal contradictions inherent in any cooperative structure imposed upon the peasantry, from major flaws in the organizational structure of Tamil Nadu cooperatives, as well as from the increasing appropiation of the cooperatives for party political ends. The contrasting experiences of the two different institutions in providing rural credit illustrate how policy applied through different institutions can produce quite different outcomes. They also demonstrate how changes in the socio-political environment, neither immediately obvious nor predictable, can critically affect policy results.