Forming stable coalitions: The process matters

Players are assumed to rank each other as coalition partners. Two processes of coalition formation are defined and illustrated:

• Fallback (FB): Players seek coalition partners by descending lower and lower in their preference rankings until some majority coalition, all of whose members consider each other mutually acceptable, forms.
• Build-up (BU): Same descent as FB, except only majorities whose members rank each other highest form coalitions.

BU coalitions are stable in the sense that no member would prefer to be in another coalition, whereas FB coalitions, whose members need not rank each other highest, may not be stable. BU coalitions are bimodally distributed in a random society, with peaks around simple majority and unanimity; the distributions of majorities in the US Supreme Court and in the US House of Representatives follow this pattern. The dynamics of real-life coalition-formation processes are illustrated by two Supreme Court cases.

     

The Relationship between Life Satisfaction,Social Interest,and Frequency of Extracurricular Activities among Adolescent Students

The relationship between life satisfaction, social interest, and participation in extracurricular activities was assessed among adolescent students. A total of 321 high school adolescents (Grades 9–12) were administered a multidimensional measure of life satisfaction and a scale that assessed social interest. Adolescents were also asked to list the number of extracurricular activities that they participated in since their enrollment in high school. Higher social interest was significantly related to higher levels of overall satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with friends and family. Significant race differences were noted. Adolescents who participated in greater numbers of structured extracurricular activities reported higher school satisfaction. The relationship between social interest and actual participation in extracurricular activities was negligible. Implications of these findings, as well as suggestions for future research are provided.     

Concentrations of cocaine and its major metabolite benzoylecgonine in blood samples from apprehended drivers in Sweden

Cocaine and its major metabolite benzoylecgonine (BZE) were determined in blood samples from people arrested in Sweden for driving under the influence of drugs (DUID) over a 5-year period (2000-2004). Venous blood or urine if available, was subjected to a broad toxicological screening analysis for cannabis, cocaine metabolite, amphetamines, opiates and the major benzodiazepines. Verification and quantitative analysis of cocaine and BZE in blood was done by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) at limits of quantitation (LOQ) of 0.02mg/L for both substances. Over the study period 26,567 blood samples were analyzed and cocaine and/or BZE were verified in 795 cases (3%). The motorists using cocaine were predominantly men (>96%) with an average age of 28.3+/-7.1 years (+/-standard deviation, S.D.). The concentration of cocaine was below LOQ in 574 cases although BZE was determined at mean, median and highest concentrations of 0.19mg/L, 0.12mg/L and 1.3mg/L, respectively. In 221 cases, cocaine and BZE were together in the blood samples at mean and (median) concentrations of 0.076mg/L (0.05mg/L) and 0.859mg/L (0.70mg/L), respectively. The concentrations of BZE were always higher than the parent drug; mean BZE/cocaine ratio 14.2 (median 10.9) range 1-55. Cocaine and BZE were the only psychoactive substances reported in N=61 cases at mean (median) and highest concentrations of 0.095 (0.07) and 0.5mg/L for cocaine and 1.01 (0.70) and 3.1mg/L for BZE. Typical signs of drug influence noted by the arresting police officers included bloodshot and glossy eyes, agitation, difficulty in sitting still and incoherent speech.     

Sexual victimization and health-risk behaviors: a prospective analysis of college women

The present study utilizes the National College Health Risk Behavior Survey to examine the relationship between health-risk behaviors and sexual victimization among a sample of college women. A prospective design is utilized to examine the relationship between health-risk behaviors as measured at baseline and sexual victimization during a 3-month follow-up period. After controlling for age and parents' education, a history of adolescent sexual victimization was associated with the following health-risk behaviors as measured at pretest: increased likelihood of cigarette smoking, marijuana use, suicidal ideation, experience of physical violence within a dating relationship, use of diet pills and vomiting or laxatives to lose weight, multiple sexual partners, and early sexual intercourse. Prospectively, women's history of adolescent sexual victimization was the strongest predictor of sexual victimization during the 3-month follow-up. Implications of univariate associations between early sexual intercourse, suicidal ideation, and problematic weight loss behaviors and subsequent experience of sexual victimization are discussed.     

In Person

Paul Jones is with Jones & Co., a multi-lingual law firmin Toronto, Canada. He found time in his busy schedule to respondto questions posed by JIPLP. How did you first become interested in IP? I began as a commercial lawyer doing franchising, which ledto an interest in trade marks. Later I had a small client whowas threatened with litigation     

Still Just Rhetoric? Judicial Discretion and Due Process

Judicial discretion is crucial in determining whether, in practice, those accused of crimes experience the protection of due process safeguards during the trial process. In this article, two examples of evidential rules and their judicial interpretation are examined. They are assessed in the context of the common critique that discretion is utilised primarily to the effect of denying due process protections in practice. This analysis takes place in the particular context of the punitive turn in the politics of criminal justice. A detailed examination of the interpretation of s114(1)(d) and s101(1)(d) in conjunction with s101(3) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, regulating the admission of hearsay and bad character evidence, is carried out in order to gain insight into the modern role of judicial discretion. Conclusions are drawn by proposing some theoretical models of the relationship between statutory content, the interpretation of those provisions and the effects of these on the experience of defendants in criminal trials.     

The Predicament of Writing Political History: The Challenge of the Tacit

Political histories composed by contemporaries (or near contemporaries) are affected by the predicament of confronting the tacit in a past. Three case studies of famous writers of histories of politics in their own times are used to suggest an additional epistemology for political history which relies rather less on representations than has been common since the “Linguistic Turn” privileged the propositional thrall of discourses. My extra element attends to the tacit in human lives: affects and effects in context of the lived‐in and lived‐around of politics. My three case studies suggest that histories of politics and policies by contemporaries and near‐contemporaries do not simply amount to a re‐representation (broadly defined) of past representations (broadly defined). A wide angle is adopted; three case studies treat renowned political historians, ancient, mediæval and modern: Procopius in the mid‐sixth, Commynes in the late‐fifteenth, and A.J.P. Taylor in the mid‐twentieth centuries. Each of these “great” historians of politics was driven to discount the lived‐out‐loud of politics they narrated in, or close to, their own times. The predicament and the response is more general, I believe: all historians of politics have to try to situate and narrate things once taken‐for‐granted. That predicament prompted each of my three — and still prompts historians — to have to transcend “representationalism”. The three cases show how and why history writing about politics also needs to attend to the habitual and tacit in a past, the ubiquitous things seldom represented. A controversial foundation for such an “extra” epistemology is then suggested: Dasein, the being‐of‐being, a key concept of Martin Heidegger's. The writing of political history by contemporaries (or near‐contemporaries) is then conceived as also a (ethnography‐like) study of past life‐worlds‐in‐being. This extra foundation for (very‐old and still current!) writing practices about power and politics emphasises metonyms over metaphors. Surprises discerned from contexts are emphasised over propositions peddled in representations. The metonyms disclosed by my three case studies, which I think apply in most writing about politics by contemporaries or near contemporaries, had to be inferred from contexts, rather than read as discourses. The tacit is elicited by contemporaries from (1) records and recollects of predicaments and situations, and from (2) reading actions as texts. Histories of politics are really about things people once felt and did, more than what they said, in their there‐and‐then.     

Online Obsessive Relational Intrusion: Further Concerns About Facebook

Use of online social networking sites such as Facebook has burgeoned in the last 5 years. We examine these sites as facilitators of Online Obsessive Relational Intrusion (o-ORI)—a much-talked about, but relatively un-researched online phenomenon. We draw parallels between the types of behaviors conducted online and those identified in the literature on relational intrusion and its more extreme relative, stalking. We present a frequency analysis of students’ behavior on Facebook and find evidence of relational intrusion from both offenders and targets. The behaviors can be classified into five different categories, including: primary contact attempts, secondary contact attempts (i.e., contacting others connected to the target), monitoring or surveillance, expressions, and invitations. We conclude that Facebook facilitates behaviors that are indicative of obsessive relational intrusion and that such behaviors have implications for users’ privacy and security.