Working in High School and Adaptation in the Transition to Young Adulthood among African American Youth

Researchers have found mixed support for documenting whether work is protective or harmful during adolescence. This study examined the association between work and problem behaviors among African American youth (N = 592; 53% female; M = 14.8 years, SD = .60) followed from mid-adolescence to young adulthood over eight Waves (90% response rate over the first four Waves and a 68% response rate across all eight Waves). We explored three competing operationalizations of work: work history (never worked, worked), work intensity (no work, 20 h or less, and 21 h or over), and work trajectories (never worked, episodic work, stopped working, late starter, and consistent worker). Non-working youth reported higher marijuana use during young adulthood than their working counterparts. Nonworkers reported lower self-acceptance during young adulthood than those working greater number of hours per week. Differences in work trajectories for cigarette use, depression, and anxiety during adolescence imply that when and for how long youth work are also important factors to explore. Our findings lend tentative support to the work benefits perspective and suggest that the association between work and problem behaviors may depend on the work measure used. We discuss the implications of employing different work measures in adolescent research.

The WTO, Science, and the Environment: Moving Towards Consistency

Governments are increasingly using taxes to address a varietyof environmental concerns. World Trade Organization (WTO) rulesrecognize that, like regulatory instruments, governments mayuse taxes for protectionist purposes. The rules are designedto prevent protectionist behaviour while allowing use of suchinstruments for genuine purposes such as environmental protection.Interestingly, however, there are some notable anomalies inthe rules arising from differential evidentiary requirementsin different situations. First, the rules are different dependingupon whether a country's measure aims to protect on one handhuman, animal, or plant health; or on the other, the environment.Second, the rules are stricter where a country's measure takesthe form of a regulation than where it takes the form of a tax.The article argues that there is no principled rationale forthe differential evidentiary requirements by instrument (regulationversus taxes) or area (health versus environment) but findsthat there may be both a historical and political economy explanation.It also discusses the desirability for consistency in WTO lawacross instruments and risk-related policy areas.     

Is Obtaining an Arrestee''s DNA a Valid Special Needs Search Under the Fourth Amendment? What Should (and Will) the Supreme Court Do?

A small number of states have enacted laws that authorize the taking and analysis of DNA from certain categories of arrestees. This article addresses the constitutionality, under the Fourth Amendment, of taking DNA samples from persons subject to arrest.     

Family as a commonsensical device and its place in law★

This paper is in five main parts. The first introduces membership categorisation analysis (MCA) as originally outlined by Harvey Sacks and, here, as a possible extension of semiotic analysis. MCA is broadly a contribution to discourse analysis in general and to conversation analysis in particular. The approach concerns membership categorisation devices such as family, the categories they can contain such as ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘child’, etc. and the category-bound activities or predicates commonsensically attachable to such categories. The second section looks at the legal background to family law in Australia and shows that its basic assumption is, by and large and with some exceptions, to work from categories (what people are) rather than from predicates (what they in fact do). In the third section, we examine a particular Family Court case (Re Patrick) which highlights the contestation between these approaches. Following this, we examine some recent shifts in the Australian states and territories towards more predicationally-based legislation and argue for their coherence in contemporary society and its increasingly flexible conceptions of what may constitute a family. Finally, we return to the question of semiotics generally and make a case for our MCA-based distinctions as contributions to a possible semiotics of law. In the beginning was the deed – Goethe     

The politics of preventing violent extremism: the case of Uganda*

Multilateral development actors have recently embraced the ‘PVE’ (preventing violent extremism) agenda. This includes consideration of PVE measures in countries like Uganda, where interpretations of non-state violence are contested and where the government has a history of strategic rent-seeking behaviour regarding counter-terrorism assistance. This article assesses the threat of terrorism and violent extremism in Uganda. We argue against a strategic reorientation towards PVE among development actors. Current and emerging threats do not justify a departure from existing development priorities. Importantly, consideration of the political context pertaining to PVE in Uganda commends a cautious approach.     

Living victims of strangulation: a 10-year review of cases in a metropolitan community

The prevalence of reported domestic violence or intimate partner violence has greatly increased, with approximately 1.5 million women violently assaulted annually in the United States by an intimate partner. Strangulation is often seen in violence against women, including domestic violence cases. Strangulation is defined as "a form of asphyxia characterized by closure of the blood vessels or air passages of the neck as a result of external pressure on the neck." This is a 10-year case review of 102 living victims of strangulation who underwent medicolegal evaluation at the Clinical Forensic Medicine Program at a State Medical Examiner's Office serving Southern Indiana and all of Kentucky. The majority of victims (79%) were strangled by an intimate partner, and manual strangulation was the most common method (83%). A total of 38 victims (38%) described a history of domestic violence, and the same number lost consciousness while being strangled. Nine (9%) women were pregnant at the time of the attack, while 13 (13%) had a history of being sexually abused in addition to being strangled. A paucity of cases involved only strangulation, as most of the victims were subjected to myriad forms of blunt force trauma which included not only the head and neck but also other bodily regions. This is a unique presentation of strangulation of living persons as most evidence of strangulation in the forensic literature has been derived from postmortem examinations of the victims. This comprehensive study discussing the examination of a living strangulation victim offers valuable insight into the mechanism and the physical findings involved in the strangulation process.     

STR Profiles from DNA Samples with "Undetected" or Low Quantifiler™ Results

Abstract:  Screening methods capable of identifying DNA samples that will not yield short tandem repeat (STR) profiles are desired. In the past, quantitation methods have not been sensitive enough for this purpose. In this study, low level DNA samples were used to assess whether Quantifiler™ has a minimum quantitation value below which STR profiles would consistently fail to be detected. Buccal swabs were obtained and the DNA extracted, quantified, and serially diluted to concentrations ranging from 0.002 to 0.250 ng/μL. Samples were analyzed once with Quantifiler™, followed by Profiler Plus™ amplification and capillary electrophoresis analysis. An absolute minimum value below which STR results were unobtainable could not be defined. From the 96 low level samples tested, STR loci (including one full profile) were successfully amplified and detected from 27% of the samples "undetected" by Quantifiler™. However, no STR alleles were detected in 73% of these "undetected" samples, indicating that Quantifiler™ data may be useful for predicting STR typing success.     

Information provision as agenda setting: A study of bureaucracy's role in higher education policy

Many drivers of agenda setting have been considered in political science, yet the bureaucracy has been largely absent from these discussions. This article challenges that tendency by arguing that bureaucracies provide information and analysis to legislatures early in the policy process, which then affects the bills that are introduced and eventually adopted. I further posit that institutional forms condition the information a bureaucracy can provide, leading to the central hypothesis that highly centralized agencies have more concentrated agendas than decentralized institutions and therefore less congruence with and influence on legislative agendas. Based on a large original dataset of bureaucratic information and proposed legislation concerning higher education policy from two states with archetypal institutional forms, I analyze what kinds of information shift the attention of lawmakers to higher education topics of interest within different institutional arrangements. The findings further our understanding of the impact of institutional factors on information processing by legislatures and the role of the bureaucracy in agenda setting.