Marijuana But Not Alcohol Use During Adolescence Mediates the Association Between Transmissible Risk for Substance Use Disorder and Number of Lifetime Violent Offenses

Aim

This study determined the extent to which alcohol and marijuana use during adolescence mediates the relation between transmissible risk for substance use disorder (SUD) and lifetime number of different types of violent offenses.

Methods

The transmissible liability index was administered to 359 10-12 year old youths who were tracked to 22 years of age. Past year frequency of alcohol and marijuana consumption was longitudinally tracked to age 22 at which time lifetime violent offenses was recorded.

Results

Rate of increase in marijuana use mediated the association between transmissible risk and lifetime number of different types of violent offenses. No association was found between past year frequency of alcohol use and violent offenses.

Conclusions

Prevention directed at lowering the psychological characteristics associated with transmissible risk for SUD may also reduce violent offending.     

Frauds and fakes in the Australian aboriginal art market

This article examines the topic of problematic art in the Australian Aboriginal art market. For Aboriginal people art plays an important social, economic and political role. It has also become a major source of income for many. Thus when the integrity of that art is challenged by allegations of fraud and deception it is imperative to explore the veracity of these claims and the responses made to them. In the article particular attention is devoted to those responses made through both the Australian criminal and civil systems of justice. This analysis shows that there are special problems associated with establishing the authenticity of Aboriginal works of art which tend to hamper the prosecution of fraud cases while a dearth of expertise and interest in art fraud at large among Australian law enforcement bodies is a further barrier to effective action. The conclusion is reached that at present the Australian legal system is poorly equipped to deal with frauds and fakes in the Indigenous art market—a situation which will take time and more imaginative solutions to remedy.     

Local cohesion and radical right support: The case of the Swiss People’s Party

Radical right parties have become effective electoral competitors in many parts of Western Europe yet failed to achieve success in others. Much recent scholarship seeks to understand variation in radical right support. Here, we argue that local social cohesion boosts these parties’ vote shares. We use Swiss census data at the municipal level to measure local cohesion, drawing on indicators of residents’ commuting patterns, linguistic similarities and home ownership. Regression analysis shows that social cohesion is a positive predictor of local level support for the Swiss People’s Party, but not for any other major party. Hierarchical logit models combining aggregate cohesion measures with survey data demonstrate this contextual effect on individuals’ vote choices.     

Distribution of HLA-DQA1, polymarker, CSF1PO, vWA, TH01, TPOX, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, and D5S818 alleles in East Bengali and West Punjabi populations from Indo-Pak Subcontinent

Blood samples were collected from 115 individuals residing in the Pakistani state of West Punjab and 81 Bengali individuals residing in the state of East Bengal, India. These samples were analyzed for the loci HLA-DQA1, PM (LDLR, GYPA, HBGG, D7S8, and GC) and eight short tandem repeats: CSF1PO, TPOX, THO1, vWA, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, and D5S818. Departures from Hardy-Weinberg (HWE) were observed in Punjabi population at LDLR, THO1, D13S317, D5S818, and D16S539 and at CSF1PO and THO1 in Bengali population.     

Improper claim dependency invalidates US Lipitor patent

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has confirmedthat a patent claim may be invalidated for what was previouslyconsidered to be a minor technical defect: in essence, a dependentclaim is invalid if it is not a subset of the claim from whichit purports to depend. While Ranbaxy succeeded on this point,its generic Lipitor product was still held to have infringedPfizer's enantiomer patent, which expires on 24 March 2010,with pediatric exclusivity.     

Broad claim scope invalidates formulation patent despite 'powerful arguments' to the contrary

A lack of narrow dependent claims, which focus on the technicaladvance of the invention, meant that the main claim was heldinvalid as being obvious.     

Pluralism and the Hobbesian Logic of Negative Constitutionalism

According to an essentially Hobbesian account of political order, the claims of cultural and national minorities within a state to some form of constitutional or institutional recognition are morally suspect and politically undesirable. Underlying this Hobbesian logic is a particular understanding of the relation between law and politics. 'Negative constitutionalism' is focused primarily on limiting the damage government can do. However the pursuit of constitutional minimalism runs up against the challenges presented by deeply diverse political communities. By investigating the manner in which Hobbes has been invoked in arguments concerning the relation between the rule of law and the 'politics of recognition', I argue (i) that the distinction between the rule of law and politics is fundamentally unstable, and (ii) that in invoking Hobbes, modern theorists have missed an important element of Hobbes's own argument—namely, his appreciation of this instability. As an example, I examine the way Hobbes is used in some of John Gray's recent writings on pluralism and liberalism.     

The Austrian Parliamentary Election of 1995

The unexpectedly early Austrian elections of 1995 resulted in the first setback for Jor Haider's dynamic far-right 'Freieitlichen' movement since he became party leader in 1986. The Austrian Social Democrats managed to overcome early inertia and mobilise the collective fear of many Austrians about the political and economic future and increase their parliamentary strength. Nevertheless, after the elections they used their strengthened position to introduce a programme of sharp cuts in the traditionally generous welfare budget which had been previously demanded by their opponents.