Making the Case for Evaluation Partnerships in Child Protection Mediation Programs: Insights from a Case Study

Many jurisdictions have instituted child protection mediation programs (CPM) for the purposes of reducing the length of children's stays in out‐of‐home care and decreasing court system burden, and numerous studies have shown promising results. However, important implementation and sustainability problems persist. This article presents a case study's findings and retrospectively interprets underlying reasons for challenges the program faced in implementation. Study implications call for a more structured planning process, including early partnership with experienced court‐based evaluators to develop successful marketing and recruitment strategies that may encourage stakeholder endorsement and foster sustainability.     

Dynamic Characteristics of Signatures: Effects of Writer Style on Genuine and Simulated Signatures

The aims of this study were to determine if computer‐measured dynamic features (duration, size, velocity, jerk, and pen pressure) differ between genuine and simulated signatures. Sixty subjects (3 equal groups of 3 signature styles) each provided 10 naturally written (genuine) signatures. Each of these subjects then provided 15 simulations of each of three model signatures. The genuine (N = 600) and simulated (N = 2700) signatures were collected using a digitizing tablet. MovAlyzeR^® software was used to estimate kinematic parameters for each pen stroke. Stroke duration, velocity, and pen pressure were found to discriminate between genuine and simulated signatures regardless of the simulator's own style of signature or the style of signature being simulated. However, there was a significant interaction between style and condition for size and jerk (a measure of smoothness). The results of this study, based on quantitative analysis and dynamic handwriting features, indicate that the style of the simulator's own signature and the style of signature being simulated can impact the characteristics of handwriting movements for simulations. Writer style characteristics might therefore need to be taken into consideration as potentially significant when evaluating signature features with a view to forming opinions regarding authenticity.     

Direct and Indirect Xenophobic Attacks: Unpacking Portfolios of Identity

Political Behavior - Political threats are typically conceptualized by scholars as targeting particular groups of people. We call for also conceptualizing threats as political attacks directed...     

A CROSS-PACIFIC BRIDGE

<正>Sino-American educational relations need more impetus Despite mounting tensions in geopolitics and the global economic arena,Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent meeting with U.S.President Donald Trump was not just a boon for the leaders of the world’s largest economies,it also signaled a tailwind for students who are investing time in forming links between the two countries.     

Cocaine fatality: an unexplained blood concentration in a fatal overdose

A case is presented of a 26-year-old female who died as a result of cocaine intoxication. A blood cocaine concentration of 330 mg/l, about 1.5 times greater than the highest concentration previously reported, was found. Blood benzoylecgonine and ecgonine methyl ester concentrations were 50 and 18 mg/l, respectively. The unusually high blood concentrations of cocaine and the metabolites are suggestive of a massive administration, however, the history suggests a series of recreational uses. The manner of death was undetermined.     

A fentanyl fatality involving midazolam

A case is presented of a 35-year-old black African male anesthesiology resident, found dead in his apartment. At the scene a syringe, butterfly intravenous line and a bottle of Versed (Midazolam) were recovered. A comprehensive screen for common drugs of abuse and therapeutic agents failed to detect any drugs in blood and urine. The blood ethanol concentration was 0.06 g/dl. A GC/MS SIM assay for midazolam was developed. A sub-therapeutic midazolam blood concentration of 7.5 ng/ml was detected and concentrations (ng/ml or ng/g) in bile, urine, and liver were 3.3, 7.5, and 96, respectively. The syringe fluid was then analyzed and found to contain only fentanyl, midazolam was absent. The blood fentanyl concentration was 4.9 ng/ml which is consistent with those reported in fentanyl fatalities. Fentanyl concentrations (ng/ml or ng/g) in bile, urine, and liver were 8.8, 5.0, and 5.9, respectively. The cause of death was ruled to be fentanyl intoxication and the manner of death undetermined.     

Bupropion and alcohol fatal intoxication: case report.

A fatality due to the ingestion of bupropion and ethanol is presented. Bupropion and its metabolites were extracted from several tissues and identified using gas chromatography with nitrogenphosphorus and mass spectrometry detection. The concentrations of bupropion, hydroxybupropion and the erythroamino and threoamino alcohol metabolites in heart blood were 4.2, 5.0, 0.6 and 4.6 mg/l, respectively. The heart blood ethanol concentration was 0.27 g/dl. In addition, bupropion was distributed as follows: subclavian blood, 6.2 mg/l; bile, 1.4 mg/l; kidney, 2.4 mg/l; liver, 1.0 mg/kg; stomach contents, 16 mg and urine, 37 mg/l.     

Do Sanctions Always Stigmatize? The Effects of Economic Sanctions on Foreign Aid

A prevalent view among both scholars and policymakers is that economic sanctions stigmatize and isolate their targets. According to this perspective, the stigma associated with economic sanctions should signal to foreign aid donors that they should be more cautious and restrained in providing assistance to sanctioned states. We test this signaling-based theory via a large-n analysis of the impact that sanctions imposed by the United States and those supported by the United Nations (UN) had on the aid flows of 133 recipient states from 1960–2000. Contrary to expectations, our results indicate that being subject to sanctions supported by the UN does not have a negative effect on target states’ aid flows, and being sanctioned by the United States actually has a positive effect on them. We explore two potential explanations for our puzzling findings based upon donor self-interest and donor altruism via a scoping analysis of eight sanctions cases in which target states received greater than expected aid flows. Our findings suggest that theories based upon donor self-interest represent the most promising explanation for why individual donors may increase their aid to sanctioned states.     

Support seeking,system avoidance,and citizenship: Social safety net usage after incarceration

Scholars have long described the American penal state and welfare state as joined by a common logic of social marginalization. But researchers have only recently begun to explore how the individuals who pass through the carceral system also interact with welfare state programs. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, in this article, I explore how formerly incarcerated individuals make claims on the welfare state and how participation varies across social programs and states, as well as by race, drawing on theories of social welfare rights-claiming and system avoidance. In so doing, I provide the first nationwide estimates of the extent to which previously incarcerated adults use social safety net resources. I find that participation in welfare programs varies with incarceration history, program structure, and race. Rather than finding patterns consistent with system avoidance, I find that previously incarcerated White Americans seem to engage in active rights claiming, participating in public assistance programs more than similarly eligible never-incarcerated counterparts. All formerly incarcerated individuals, however, have limited access to more generous social insurance programs, and the shift to an increasingly employment-based social safety net seems likely to further limit access to the welfare state for the growing population of Americans leaving prison.