How Economic Stress Impacts Risky Sex among African American Adolescents

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Given the potential for unintended pregnancy and exposure to sexually transmitted infections, both of which can have long-term deleterious health consequences,...     

金融衍生工具的法律风险及其监管的国际比较

作为20世纪70年代以来金融创新的核心成果,金融衍生交易比其他商业交易活动面临更大的法律风险。金融衍生工具的法律风险包括品种风险、对手风险、交易风险和处置风险。各国的经济文化背景、立法背景的不同,导致各国金融衍生工具法律风险的表现各异,监管方法也有所区别。与美国主要对品种风险的进行监管的思路不同,英国侧重在对手风险的监管。国际金融衍生工具的交易风险则主要通过国际机构的国际主协议来加以控制。     

Assessing psychopathy in young people: the validity of the Psychopathic Checklist: Youth Version for a sample of Spanish offenders

In this study, we assessed the validity of the Psychopathic Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) in a Spanish sample of juvenile court-involved youths. Although recent Anglo-Saxon literature on the topic supports the usefulness of psychopathic traits in adolescent offenders for predicting recidivism and future violence, little is still known about their predictive ability for other cultures. The results of this study suggest that the PCL:YV possesses adequate concurrent criterion-related validity (by using self-reported version of Antisocial Process Screening Device) and retrospective validity (particularly as regards the antisocial, but also the affective–interpersonal domain). Specifically, retrospective validity was confirmed by positive correlations with history of truancy at school, poor parenting, parental delinquency, self-reported antisocial behaviour and illicit behaviour patterns including violent offences recorded in official files; however, careful analysis revealed that the Lifestyle and Antisocial factors are the main dimensions related to past offences, whether violent or otherwise. In conclusion, the PCL:YV is a convenient instrument for assessing psychopathy, and, hence, the risk of criminality, in youths.     

Taking loan sharking into account: a case study of Chinese vest-pocket lenders in Holland

Chinese organized crime has long been accused of playing an active role in the illicit usury world, except that there are no known empirical studies depicting how it is actually done. A rare opportunity arose when a Dutch police agency seized one set of financial records documenting detailed transactions of a loan shark working incognito inside a Dutch casino. A detailed analysis of these accounting records suggests that the Chinese loan sharks work with a wide range of clients, primarily Chinese but also non-Chinese. Exorbitant interests were levied on the loans and large volumes of cash were loaned out, with the vast majority accounts in good standing. The bookkeeping records revealed a rather smooth business transaction environment, where some customers were acquaintances from connected social networks, while others were not. Although the seized records left some questions unanswered, the case provided a rarepeek into a secretive financial world that has remained largely unknown to the research community.     

Government Support Programs and Private Investments in PPP Markets

ABSTRACT:

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become an important tool for investing in and developing public infrastructure and services. However, many developing countries have failed to attract sufficient private investment from the PPP market. This article uses data from 4,484 PPP projects across 130 developing countries to investigate if and how distinct types of government support can attract more private investment. Results showed that capital, revenue, and in-kind subsidies directly provided from governments attract more private capital, while indirect supports through government guarantee policies do not. The institutional quality of a country enhances the positive relationship between direct government support and private PPP investments. Further, risk allocation plays a mediating role between government supports and private investment.     

Lessons from the Third World for Understanding American Criminal Justice

This paper argues for and attempts to demonstrate the case for including materials related to the operation of Third World criminal justice in courses dealing with American criminal justice system. The author argues that an examination of the contexts and processes of criminal justice in Third World nations increases one's ability to understand and critique the history and operations of our criminal justice enterprises. The Third World context offers laboratories for testing assumptions about American criminal justice without the implicitly pervasive ideological overtones we come to accept unquestionably in our own system simply because it is the one in which we operate.

Within the context of poverty, “dual societies,” chronic political instability, the struggle for economic development, and colonialism, the Third World offers an opportunity to study the interaction and impact of law, politics, economics, social control, and social change on the development and operations of criminal justice. Using examples from the literature of anthropology, law and social change, and political and economic development, the author attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of this interdisciplinary approach and the Third World context in teaching about the criminal justice system.     

遗传性心律失常猝死的分子解剖研究现状及展望

遗传性心律失常所致猝死的死因鉴定是法医病理学领域亟待解决的难题之一。近年来心律失常易感基因/突变的发现和高通量组学技术的推广,使得利用分子遗传学方法筛查猝死的遗传学病因（即＂分子解剖＂）成为可能。本文通过汇总心律失常分子遗传研究的进展,综述传统遗传分析和近期全基因组关联性研究（GWAS）筛查的结果,为心源性猝死的＂分子解剖＂研究提供候选基因列表;并进一步比较针对不明原因猝死所开展的回顾性＂分子解剖＂筛查的结果,探讨新技术在该领域的应用前景。这一综述有助于更好的认识心律失常所致猝死的分子机制,并为借助新一代遗传分析技术进行分子解剖提供有益参考。     

The Optimization of Electrophoresis on a Glass Microfluidic Chip and its Application in Forensic Science

Microfluidic chips offer significant speed, cost, and sensitivity advantages, but numerous parameters must be optimized to provide microchip electrophoresis detection. Experiments were conducted to study the factors, including sieving matrices (the concentration and type), surface modification, analysis temperature, and electric field strengths, which all impact the effectiveness of microchip electrophoresis detection of DNA samples. Our results showed that the best resolution for ssDNA was observed using 4.5% w/v (7 M urea) lab‐fabricated LPA gel, dynamic wall coating of the microchannel, electrophoresis temperatures between 55 and 60°C, and electrical fields between 350 and 450 V/cm on the microchip‐based capillary electrophoresis (μCE) system. One base‐pair resolution could be achieved in the 19‐cm‐length microchannel. Furthermore, both 9947A standard genomic DNA and DNA extracted from blood spots were demonstrated to be successfully separated with well‐resolved DNA peaks in 8 min. Therefore, the microchip electrophoresis system demonstrated good potential for rapid forensic DNA analysis.     

Nash bargaining solutions for international climate agreements under different sets of bargaining weights

Bargaining is a tool to share collaborative gains and to facilitate reaching agreement. To improve incentives to join an international climate agreement (ICA), the Nash bargaining solution can be used to distribute cooperative gains across signatories. In this paper, we examine how the formation of ICAs and their mitigation efficiency are impacted by the use of the Nash bargaining solution. In a Nash bargaining game with heterogeneous players, bargaining powers are unequal and may be driven by different characteristics of the players. We employ different sets of asymmetric bargaining weights in order to examine the effectiveness of climate coalitions that emerge as stable agreements. Using the Nash bargaining solution, we obtain results from the stability of coalition model (STACO). We find that the Nash bargaining solution can improve the participation incentives and performances of ICAs as compared to agreements that do not redistribute gains from cooperation, but its capacity to overcome free-riding incentives is limited. However, if Nash bargaining accounts for outside options of players, we find larger stable coalitions and higher global abatement levels. In fact, Nash bargaining with outside options can stabilise the largest coalitions that can possibly be stable in our game.     

《就业促进法》中平等就业的制度困境

平等就业既是不歧视国际劳工标准所贯彻的法律精神,也是禁止就业歧视的权利支点。一个体系完整、制度健全和功能完备的禁止就业歧视法律制度,必然依赖于一个成熟的平等就业权利支撑体系。《就业促进法》的平等就业是一大“亮点”,但面临重重困境。其中,加强政府促进平等就业的职责,划清政府与人力资源市场的界限,回归平等就业权并健全平等就业权利制度,改革平等就业权利救济机制并强化法律责任,是《就业促进法》中平等就业走出困境的必由之路。