Does Spending Time in Public Settings Contribute to the Adolescent Risk of Violent Victimization?

Objectives

Using data from a nationally representative survey of adolescents in Finland this research examined the influence of spending time in public settings on the risk of physical assault and robbery victimization.

Methods

Binary and multinomial regression models were estimated to disaggregate associations between hours spent in public settings and characteristics of the victimization incident. The amount of causality/spuriousness in the association was examined using a method of situational decomposition.

Results

Our findings indicate that: (1) an active night life (any time after 6 pm) has a strong effect on victimization for boys, whereas much of the association between night life and victimization is spurious for girls; (2) after-school activity is not a risk factor; (3) adolescents who frequent public places at night increase their risk of victimization by people they know as well as strangers; and (4) much of the risk of night time activity in public settings is alcohol-related.

Conclusions

Our research suggests that a good deal of the risk associated with spending time in public settings is a function of the victim’s own risky behavior rather than inadvertent physical contact with motivated offenders in the absence of capable guardians. In addition, this lifestyle is significantly more victimogenic for males.     

Sibling Proactive and Reactive Aggression in Adolescence

We describe sibling proactive and reactive aggression in middle and late adolescence. Participants were 8th (n?=?303, M _age?=?13.74 years, SD?=?.59) and 12th (n?=?300, M _age?=?17.73 years, SD?=?.56) grade adolescents who completed an in-school survey. Findings revealed that these adolescents were significantly more likely to engage in reactive than proactive aggression with their closest-aged sibling. However, 8th grade adolescents reported greater aggression toward their closest-aged sibling than did 12th grade adolescents. In addition, sex composition of the sibling dyad moderated the association between sibling relationship quality (i.e., warmth and rivalry) and both proactive and reactive aggression indicating unique links for brother-brother and older sister-younger brother pairs.     

Two Ecological Models of Academic Achievement Among Diverse Students With and Without Disabilities in Transition

School experiences can have positive effects on student academic achievement, yet less is known about intermediary processes that contribute to these positive effects. We examined pathways between school experiences and academic achievement among 117 low-income urban students of color, many with disabilities, who transitioned to other schools following a school closure. Using structural equation modeling, we tested two ecological models that examined the relationships among self-reported school experiences, school support, academic self-efficacy, and school-reported academic achievement. The model in which the relationship between school experiences and academic achievement is mediated by both school support and academic self-efficacy, and that takes previous academic achievement into account, was an excellent fit with the data. The roles of contextual and individual factors as they relate to academic achievement, and the implications of these findings, are discussed.     

Which voting rule is most likely to choose the “best” candidate?

One criterion for evaluating voting rules is the frequency with which they select the best candidate. Using a spatial model of voting that is capable of simulating data with the same statistical structure as data from actual elections, we simulate elections for which we can define the best candidate. We use these simulated data to investigate the frequencies with which 14 voting rules chose this candidate as their winner. We find that the Black rule tends to perform better than the other rules, especially in elections with few voters. The Bucklin rule, the plurality rule, and the anti-plurality rule tend to perform worse than the other 11 rules, especially in elections with many voters.     

Can Small High Schools of Choice Improve Educational Prospects for Disadvantaged Students?

This paper provides rigorous evidence (for 12,130 participants in a series of naturally occurring randomized lotteries) that a large‐scale high school reform initiative (New York City's creation of 100+ small high schools of choice between 2002 and 2008) can markedly and consistently increase high school graduation rates (by 9.5 percentage points overall and for many different student subgroups) for a large population of educationally and economically disadvantaged students of color without increasing annual school operating costs. These findings are directly relevant to current debates by policymakers and practitioners about how to improve the educational prospects of disadvantaged students in the United States.     

Genetic polymorphism at three STR loci--CSF1PO, HUMTHO1 and TPOX, and the AMP-FLP locus D1S80 for the Chinese population in Hong Kong

Allele frequencies for three STR loci, namely, CSF1PO, HUMTHO1 and TPOX, and the AMP-FLP locus D1S80 were obtained from a sample of 351 unrelated Chinese in Hong Kong.     

Immunohistochemical investigation of pulmonary surfactant-associated protein A in fatal poisoning

To evaluate the immunohistochemical distribution of pulmonary surfactant-associated protein A (SP-A) in fatal poisoning in relation to the effects of drugs and poisons on respiratory function, 42 forensic autopsy cases were examined by scoring the staining intensity. The highest scores of SP-A staining, with dense granular deposits (aggregates) in the intra-alveolar space, were observed in fatalities from pancuronium bromide (muscle relaxant) injection and petroleum (butane) gas inhalation. Poisoning with organophosphate pesticides and arsenic (ingestion) showed a second grade SP-A score. However, The SP-A scores were relatively low in ethanol and sedative-hypnotic intoxication. Carbon monoxide intoxication showed a varied degree of SP-A score, and the aggregated SP-A score tended to be higher in cases of lower blood carboxyhemoglobin concentration. A varied SP-A score was also observed in methamphetamine fatalities, in which the score was relatively low in cases with a higher serum drug level. Increase of SP-A was not always associated with the intra-alveolar effusion or hemorrhages. The above-described observations suggested that the immunohistochemical score of SP-A may be a possible indication for intensity and duration of drug/poison-dependent respiratory distress.     

A biomechanical reconstruction of a wound caused by a glass shard--a case report

During the course of a criminal trial, an investigating pathologist is commonly asked how much force was required to produce an injury. This subjective opinion is based on the pathologist's previous experience of dealing with wounds inflicted with similar weapons. However, in the case of stab wounds inflicted by broken glass, it is unlikely that two glass fragments would be physically similar. In the case studied, two theories were examined: that a wound resulted from a thrown glass fragment or that it had been caused as a stab injury by the glass held in the bare hand. The investigation involved quantifying the energy required for human tissue penetration, comparison of sharpness, a biomechanical analysis of throwing actions and testing of the hypothesis that if the glass shard were used as a stabbing implement it would result in a cut to the hand.The investigation utilised a scientific methodology that reduced the need for speculative (though informed) opinion from the pathologist by producing quantitative results.     

Classification of prepaid cards based on multivariate treatment of data obtained by X-ray fluorescence analysis

Two hundred prepaid cards, which had been used in Nagoya-city's subway in Japan, and another 32 prepaid cards (11 were real turnpike cards, 20 were counterfeit cards and 1 was a white card) were evaluated by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) without any pre-treatment. A preliminary investigation was performed on 200 prepaid cards in order to find an identification method for the turnpike cards. By plotting the relative intensity of titanium versus that of iron obtained by XRF, the cards were clearly classified into seven groups. On the other hand, the cards could be divided into four groups by a multivariate analysis using the relative intensities of five elements such as chlorine, calcium or tin, titanium, iron and barium. Using these results to classify the Japanese turnpike cards, they were divided into three groups or two groups. One of three groups or two groups was the counterfeit card group.     

7-Locus Y chromosome haplotype profiling in a northern Spain population.

Allele and haplotype frequencies for 7 Y-specific STR loci (DYS19, DYS389-I, DYS389-II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393) had been determined in a sample of 107 unrelated males living in Cantabria, a region in northern Spain, by means of two multiplex PCRs.