Establishing Correspondence in Wood: The Challenge and Some Solutions?

Establishing correspondence between the upper portion of a white birch sapling, a suspected weapon, and a potential source from a stand of trees was posed to one of us (GMC). A bending force shattered the sapling, precluding physical matching. Three white birch saplings were taken from the same stand of trees in a similar manner. Correspondence was achieved by measuring the width of the annual rings along four radii from a disk cut above and below the break. The regression coefficient of the data from the two disks from the same sapling was r² = 0.95. Regressing the upper disk against the lower disk of two other saplings resulted in r² values of 0.26 and 0.17, respectively. The various characteristics that are confined to a wood stem as part of its normal process of growth can be used to eliminate candidate saplings and establish correspondence between two pieces of wood.     

Notes on contributors

This paper examines the impact of development, including the impact of government and donor programmes, on ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia. Through an examination of government policy, it considers arguments that mainstream development strategies tend to generate conflicts between states and ethnic minorities and that such strategies are, at times, ethnocidal in their destructive effects on the latter. In looking at more recent government policy in the region, it considers the concept of ethno-development (ie development policies that are sensitive to the needs of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples and where possible controlled by them), and assesses the extent to which such a pattern of development is emerging in the region. Since the late 1980s, it argues, governments across the region have made greater efforts to acknowledge the distinct identities of both ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples, while donors have begun to fund projects to address their needs. In many cases, these initiatives have brought tangible benefits to the groups concerned. Yet in other respects progress to date has been modest and ethnodevelopment, the paper argues, remains confined to a limited number of initiatives in the context of a broader pattern of disadvantage and domination.     

Interpersonal Factors in the Risk for Sexual Victimization and its Recurrence during Adolescence

Being a victim of sexual aggression from a peer is a common experience among adolescents and poses a significant risk for various forms of psychopathology. Unfortunately, little is known concerning specific interpersonal factors that increase an adolescent’s risk for experiencing sexual aggression. The current study assessed the contribution made by several interpersonal factors both for the first and repeated experience of becoming a victim of sexual aggression from a peer. Data were collected annually from a longitudinal sample of 200 adolescents over a period of 4 years and were analyzed using multiple-spell, discrete-time survival analysis. Approximately 46% of the adolescents reported experiencing some form of sexual aggression by the end of wave 4. Further, 65% of victims reported experiencing a repeat incident of aggression. Females were at higher risk both for initial and repeated victimization, as were adolescents with more sexual experience and higher levels of rejection sensitivity. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future prevention efforts.

The Importance of Trust in Government for Public Administration: The Case of Zoning

Many scholars argue that citizens with higher levels of political trust are more likely to grant bureaucratic discretion to public administrators than citizens with lower levels of trust. Trust, therefore, can relieve the tension between managerial flexibility and political accountability in the modern administrative state. Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence showing that trust is actually associated with citizens' willingness to cede policy-making power to government. This article tests theories about political trust and citizen competence using the case of zoning. Trust in local government is found to be an important predictor of support for zoning, but trust in state government and trust in national government have no effect. These findings suggest that trust affects policy choice and helps determine how much power citizens grant to local administrators.