Intergenerational continuities and discontinuities in intimate partner violence: a two-generational prospective study

This study focuses on intergenerational continuity in violent partner relationships. We investigate whether exposure to caregiver intimate partner violence (IPV) during adolescence leads to increased involvement in IPV during early adulthood (age 21-23) and adulthood (age 29-31). We also investigate whether this relationship differs by gender. Although there is theoretical and empirical support for intergenerational continuity of relationship violence, there are few prospective studies of this issue. We use data from the Rochester Youth Development Study (RYDS), a longitudinal study of the development of antisocial behavior in a community sample of 1,000 urban youth followed from age 14 to adulthood. The original sample includes 73% men and 85% African American or Hispanic youth. Measures come from a combination of interviews and official records. The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) is used to assess IPV and severe IPV in the youth and parent generations. Analyses controlled for child physical abuse, race/ethnicity as well as parent education, family stability, and poverty. In multivariate models, adolescent exposure to caregiver severe IPV resulted in significantly increased risk of relationship violence in early adulthood (age 21-23). Furthermore, there is an indirect effect of adolescent exposure to severe IPV on later adult involvement in IPV (age 29-31), mediated by involvement in a violent relationship in early adulthood. These results were largely invariant by gender. However, we observed a direct pathway between IPV exposure and adult IPV for women (marginally significant) suggesting that adolescent exposure to caregiver IPV may set in motion women-specific processes.     

Political fragmentation, party ideology and public expenditures

In this paper we propose an original model of competition for effective political power between majority and opposition coalitions. The model indicates that the electoral margin of the majority and the fragmentation of both coalitions are key variables that determine their effective political power. We estimate the model in the case of the French départements. Our econometric results support the model and show that the per capita social expenditures in the French départements depend on the effective political power of the majority.     

TRAINING,SKILLS, AND PRACTICES OF PARENTING COORDINATORS: FLORIDA STATEWIDE STUDY

This report details findings from the nation's first statewide study on parenting coordination. A survey was presented to all known practicing parenting coordinators (PCs) in Florida (N = 207), with 67 (32%) responding. Data concerning PC demographics, how PCs do their work, and how they perceive their clients at different stages of the parenting coordination process suggest substantial similarity between mental health and family law professionals in almost every realm of questioning. Study limitations, implications for further research, and practice considerations are discussed.     

Fracture patterns on the infant porcine skull following severe blunt impact

The objective of this study was to document patterns of fracture on infant porcine skulls aged 2-28 days (n = 57) because of a single, high energy blunt impact to the parietal bone with rigid (nondeformable) and compliant (deformable) interfaces. Fracture patterns were mapped using Geographic Information System software. For the same generated impact force, the rigid interface produced more fractures than the compliant interface for all ages. This study also showed that this increased level of impact energy versus an earlier study using a lower energy resulted in new sites of fracture initiation and also caused previously defined fractures that propagate into an adjacent bone. Several unique characteristics of bone and diastatic fracture were documented as a function of specimen age, impact energy, and interface. These data describe some baseline characteristics of skull fracture using an animal model that may help guide future studies from forensic case files.     

Elite Preferences in a Consolidating Democracy: The Brazilian Legislative Surveys, 1990–2009

This article examines key ideological, economic, and institutional preferences of the Brazilian political elite in the first 25 years of the country's present democratic regime. Introducing the unified dataset of the Brazilian Legislative Surveys, it examines several crucial dimensions of politicians' attitudes, including elite placement on a traditional left‐right scale, preferences concerning the fundamental economic model, direct comparisons of the recent Cardoso and Lula governments, and orientations toward Brazil's global and regional projection. On many of the central issues, attitudes have remained stable, but on the dimensions that have seen notable change, nearly all the change has been in the direction of decreasing polarization. In contrast to the experience of some neighboring countries, the Brazilian case demonstrates that the sustained practice of democracy can lead to attitudinal convergence and macro‐political stability, even when the initial political and socioeconomic conditions appear daunting.     

Improving eyewitness identification accuracy by screening out those who say they don't know

Improving eyewitness identification evidence remains a key priority for research. Basic laboratory research has consistently demonstrated that allowing participants to withhold answers about which they are unsure leads to improved accuracy. Surprisingly, this approach has not been the subject of comprehensive investigation in the eyewitness identification literature. In this article, we explored the utility of allowing uncertain witnesses to opt out of an identification decision, by providing an explicit don't know option. Further, we contrasted the rate of use of this explicit option with the frequency that participants spontaneously withheld a decision when asked to respond in their own words. Four hundred and twenty participants witnessed a mock crime video before being presented with a showup of the perpetrator or an innocent suspect. Participants were tested either immediately or after a 3-week delay, with one of the three report options: Participants either made their choice in their own words (spontaneous report), chose between identifying and rejecting the showup (forced-report), or chose between identification, rejection and don't know (free-report). Only 2.2% of witnesses spontaneously used a don't know response, compared to 19.3% who used it when the option was explicit. Compared with the forced-report decisions, free-report decisions were more accurate, more diagnostic of the suspect's guilt or innocence, and came at no cost to the number of correct decisions rendered. These data suggest that utilisation of an explicit don't know option may be of practical value.     

Turbulent Stasis: Comparative Reflections upon Intercommunal Violence and Territoriality in the Israel/Palestine Conflict

From (at least) the Balfour Declaration of 1917 right down to the present day, the Zionist-Palestinian conflict has been sculpted by external forces. But never entirely so: grassroots patterns of confrontation have also been vital. This article therefore adopts a “bottom-up” approach to the evolution of the conflict since the early twentieth century.     

How U.S. decision-makers assessed their control of multilateral organizations, 1957–1982

Although quantitative studies have identified relationships between the interests of powerful, wealthy states and the lending patterns of international financial institutions, they do not illuminate influence processes that give rise to these patterns. Three closely held internal assessments by the U.S. government of its influence over decisions in various international organizations are now declassified; they provide information about internal processes unlikely to be obtained through interviews of current officials or observation of public behavior. Their findings overlap to some degree academic research on this phenomenon, but also reveal hitherto unsuspected facets of U.S. diplomacy as well as candid internal assessments of U.S. successes and failures.     

The role of competition in health care: a Western European perspective

The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice 2004 report Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition expresses a clear allegiance to competition as the organizing principle for health care. In Europe, by contrast, the key organizing principle of health care systems is solidarity. Solidarity means that all have access to health care based on medical needs, regardless of ability to pay. This is not to say that competition is not important in Europe, but competition must take place within the context of solidarity. This article critiques the report from a European perspective, describes the role of competition in Europe (focusing in particular on European Union law), and suggests that the United States could learn from the European perspective.