CURRENT RESEARCH ON CHILDREN'S POSTDIVORCE ADJUSTMENT

This article reviews the current research on the effects of marital conflict, parental adjustment, custody, and access on children following divorce. Evidence from research demonstrates that significantly more adjustment problems confront children, especially boys, of divorced parents compared to those in never-divorced families. However, when assessed in years following the divorce, these children are functioning in normal limits and do not appear "disturbed," although the media report the opposite. The article discusses an important British study finding that marital conflict and not the divorce affect children and that divorce may mitigate some of the more destructive effects. The analysis of research dealing with joint custody brings together both current and ongoing studies. A surprising finding in one study was that mothers who share custody are more satisfied than those having sole custody and whose children see their father periodically. However, both groups expressed more satisfaction with their residential arrangement than did sole-custody mothers whose children had no paternal contact. Court-ordered joint custody was less satisfactory than when the parents voluntarily agreed to that arrangement, and spouses reporting high levels of marital conflict tended to do less well in joint custody arrangements than did families with less conflict.     

Preparing for major incidents

Major incidents occurred, occur and will still occur all over the world, at any place at any time. Such an event is not always handled like it should and could be. The reason for this is not necessarily a deficiency in preplanning or the non-existence of procedures or guidelines. A possible solution to make things work more fluidly could be the creation of a genuine vision and mission statement on disaster handling followed by the alignment of all involved services within the statement. This would be a real challenge for all authorities and services involved in the planning phase and the preparation for major incidents.     

A note on the feasibility of a monetary area in the East Asia

After the constitution of the European Monetary Union (EMU), a new scope for monetary coordiantion is emerging in other regional areas. The standard approach to theoretically analyse the feasibility of a monetary union is the optimum currency areas (OCA) approach. Although this approach has been claimed to be non-operative, recent studies using synchronisation measures have shown a high potential applicability. This paper provides an empirical application of the OCA theory to a hypothetical East Asian monetary union centred on Japan’s currency. We find that despite the increasing synchronisation of macroeconomic determinants of a monetary area during 1980–2001, the perspective of an Asian currency union is still not economically feasible.

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Microchip-based cell lysis and DNA extraction from sperm cells for application to forensic analysis

The current backlog of casework is among the most significant challenges facing crime laboratories at this time. While the development of next-generation microchip-based technology for expedited forensic casework analysis offers one solution to this problem, this will require the adaptation of manual, large-volume, benchtop chemistry to small volume microfluidic devices. Analysis of evidentiary materials from rape kits where semen or sperm cells are commonly found represents a unique set of challenges for on-chip cell lysis and DNA extraction that must be addressed for successful application. The work presented here details the development of a microdevice capable of DNA extraction directly from sperm cells for application to the analysis of sexual assault evidence. A variety of chemical lysing agents are assessed for inclusion in the extraction protocol and a method for DNA purification from sperm cells is described. Suitability of the extracted DNA for short tandem repeat (STR) analysis is assessed and genetic profiles shown. Finally, on-chip cell lysis methods are evaluated, with results from fluorescence visualization of cell rupture and DNA extraction from an integrated cell lysis and purification with subsequent STR amplification presented. A method for on-chip cell lysis and DNA purification is described, with considerations toward inclusion in an integrated microdevice capable of both differential cell sorting and DNA extraction. The results of this work demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating microchip-based cell lysis and DNA extraction into forensic casework analysis.