Intervention Induced Changes on Parenting Practices,Youth Self-Pride and Sexual Norms to Reduce HIV-Related Behaviors Among Rural African American Youths

AIDS is the leading killer of African Americans between the ages of 25 and 44, many of whom became infected when they were teenagers or young adults. The disparity in HIV infection rate among African Americans youth residing in rural Southern regions of the United States suggests that there is an urgent need to identify ways to promote early preventive intervention to reduce HIV-related risk behavior. The Strong African American Families (SAAF) program, a preventive intervention for rural African American parents and their 11-year-olds, was specially designed to deter early sexual onset and the initiation and escalation of alcohol and drug use among rural African American preadolescents. A clustered-randomized prevention trial was conducted, contrasting families who took part in SAAF with control families. The trial, which included 332 families, indicated that intervention-induced changes occurred in intervention-targeted parenting, which in turn facilitated changes in youths’ internal protective processes and positive sexual norms. Long-term follow up assessments when youth were 17 years old revealed that intervention-induced changes in parenting practices mediated the effect of intervention-group influences on changes in the onset and escalation of risky sexual behaviors over 65 months through its positive influence on adolescents’ self-pride and their sexual norms. The findings underscore the powerful effects of parenting practices among rural African American families that over time serve a protective role in reducing youth’s risk behavior, including HIV vulnerable behaviors.     

Characteristics of men and women completing cognitive/behavioral spouse abuse treatment

Although abuse in relationships is widespread and often escalates without intervention, the scant extant data indicate that people in abusive relationships often fail to complete treatment programs. We compared demographic characteristics, Male-Female Relations Inventory scores (MFRI), and selected MilIon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory I (MCMI-I) scale scores of men and women who did and did not complete an 8-session 4-week cognitive/behavioral group treatment program. The 16 completer men had lower scores on MCMI-I scales related to drug abuse as compared with the 18 noncompleter men. Court-referred men completed more often than other men. The 23 completer women also had lower scores on MCMI-I scales related to drug abuse than the 17 noncompleter women. Fewer of the completer women were employed and fewer had children than the noncompleter women. Scores on the MFRI were not different for completer or noncompleter men or women. Implications for interventions are discussed.     

War Narratives: Framing Our Understanding of the War on Terror

Unlike past American wars, the current war on terror has not been associated with a centrally proffered narrative providing some guidance and orientation for those administering government services under state-of-war conditions. War is as much a cultural endeavor as it is a military undertaking, and the absence of a clear sensemaking narrative was detected in this study of public administrators from three agencies with varying proximity to the conflict. Q-methodology was used to explore the way individuals processed the war narratives put forth by the Bush administration and reported in the media immediately following the September 11 attacks. Though no distinct state-of-war narratives were found among the public administrators in this study, there are clear indications that latent narratives reflecting local political and organizational task environments have emerged.     

Transformations in Discourse,Figure

This review essay critically maps the Anglophone reception of Lyotard's Discourse, Figure onto the text's own two-part organization. Earlier deconstructive readings tended to focus on the critique of structuralism presented in Discourse, Figure’s first half, under-emphasizing (and even criticizing) the post-Freudian philosophy of desire developed by Lyotard in the text's latter stages. This essay instead presents Lyotard's first major work not as two separable or opposed parts, but as a coherent trajectory responding to a specific philosophical problem, namely, the Hegelian account of sense-perception and signification as outlined in Hyppolite's Logic and Existence. In so doing, this review essay seeks to isolate key references and clarify the stakes for future readings of Lyotard's text.     

Evaluation of Internal Standards for the Analysis of Ignitable Liquids in Fire Debris

Abstract:  An evaluation of eight compounds for use as an internal standard in fire debris analysis was conducted. Tests were conducted on tetrachloroethylene, chlorobenzene, n-octylbenzene, 3-phenyltolune, and deuterated compounds toluene-d8, styrene-d8, naphthalene-d8, and diphenyl-d10 to measure the extraction efficiency of each compound in the presence of an interfering volatile compound (carbon disulfide). Other tests were conducted to evaluate whether or not the presence of an ignitable liquid or pyrolysis/combustion products from fire debris would interfere with the identification of these compounds when used as an internal standard. The results showed that while any of the eight compounds could be used as an internal standard in fire debris analysis, the more volatile compounds (toluene-d8, tetrachloroethylene, chlorobenzene, and styrene-d8) showed better extraction efficiencies at room temperature than when heated to 60°C. Each of the less volatile compounds (naphthalene-d8, diphenyl-d10, n-octylbenzene, and 3-phenyltolune) performed well during extraction at 60°C, while naphthalene-d8 showed better extraction efficiency in the presence of competing volatiles when extracted at room temperature.