Understanding the Association Between Maltreatment History and Adolescent Risk Behavior by Examining Popularity Motivations and Peer Group Control

The purpose of the present study was to examine how peer group processes of pressure and control and individual motivations for popularity would add to, and moderate the relationship between, childhood maltreatment and risky behavior in adolescence. A total of 1558 youth (804 girls) from three high schools in Ontario, Canada (M age = 15.02 years, SD = .86) reported on their alcohol use, delinquent behavior, childhood experiences of physical and emotional maltreatment and neglect, peer group processes involving control and individual popularity motivations. Regression analyses showed that, beyond the significant contributions of childhood maltreatment, peer group control predicted risky alcohol use and delinquent behavior. Peer group control and popularity motivations exacerbated the negative effect of physical maltreatment on delinquent behavior. Boys’ experiences of peer group control were more strongly linked to alcohol use and delinquent behavior than girls’. These results suggest that there is a significant window of opportunity during adolescence where the peer group context can exacerbate or buffer childhood experiences.

Familial Correlates of Overt and Relational Aggression between Young Adolescent Siblings

Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group structural equation modeling were used to test correlates of overt and relational aggression between young adolescent siblings across four groups (i.e., male/male, male/female, female/male, and female/female sibling pairs), using 433 predominately European American families. Similar patterns of associations were found across groups when distinguished by gender composition. Family environment emerged as an important factor in explaining internalizing problems as well as overt/relational aggression for both younger and older siblings. While perceived maternal psychological control was significantly positively related to overt/relational aggression and internalizing problems for younger siblings, it was significantly positively associated with only relational aggression for older siblings. Findings also provided partial support for the positive linkages between young adolescents’ aggression and their own and siblings’ internalizing problems above and beyond the aforementioned family and maternal variables. Results of the current study extend the understanding of adolescent aggression to a new relational context, or among siblings, and highlight the role of family factors in promoting or buffering the impact of aggression on internalizing behaviors.

Prospecting for (Campaign) Gold

Campaigns and political parties are faced with the immensely important practical challenge of financing their efforts. Raising money is instrumental to all other aims. In recent years, this task has been complicated by the need to enlist ever greater numbers of contributors to raise ever larger sums of money. At the same time, fundraising burdens are eased a bit because contributors flock together. That is, campaign contributing is a spatially dependent phenomenon, associated with affluence and the presence of networks. Accordingly, geospatial tools provide a helpful method for understanding and predicting where contributions can be most successfully mined.     

One hundred seventy two deaths involving the use of oxycodone in Palm Beach County

Oxycodone is a potent semi-synthetic narcotic prescribed for the management of pain. Previous investigators have reported that the abuse of oxycodone is most frequently seen in conjunction with the abuse of other drugs, although fatalities have been reported with oxycodone alone. We undertook a retrospective review of cases investigated by the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office in which postmortem toxicologic studies indicated the presence of oxycodone. A total of 172 consecutive cases were studied, including 18 in which death was attributed to oxycodone toxicity, 117 to combined drug toxicity, 23 to trauma, 9 to natural causes and 5 to another drug or drugs. The postmortem blood concentrations of oxycodone overlapped among the groups. The mean blood oxycodone concentration among the cases of oxycodone toxicity was 0.69 mg/L, combined drug toxicity 0.72 mg/L and trauma 0.62 mg/L. Concentrations were lower in cases of deaths attributed to natural causes and to another drug or drugs (mean each 0.087 mg/L). Benzodiazepines, detected in 96 cases, were the most common co-intoxicants in the cases of combined drug toxicity, followed by cocaine, which was found in 41. The most frequently encountered benzodiazepine was alprazolam. This study confirms that deaths in which oxycodone is a factor are most commonly cases of combined drug toxicity. The high incidence of alprazolam as a co-intoxicant has not been previously recognized.     

Navigating tissue banking regulation: conceptual frameworks for researchers, administrators, regulators and policy-makers

In the "post-genomic" age of biomedical research, researchers often wish to utilise collections of human tissue. This type of research raises many ethical and legal issues and anyone wishing to use such collections is faced with an enormously complex set of regulatory requirements, many of which are still ambiguous, reflecting ongoing ethical and legal debate. Whilst there is no way of entirely avoiding such regulatory complexity and ambiguity, conceptual frameworks can assist those who wish to use, administer, authorise and generate policy on tissue banking research. Two conceptual frameworks are described here: a taxonomy of tissue banking practices, aimed at assisting those who need to ensure that tissue banks meet ethical and legal requirements; and a "syncretic" approach to policy-making, for those who wish to generate new policy, or streamline existing policy relating to tissue banking research.     

The Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations: An Exploratory Method for Discrete Multivariate Analyses of Crime Data

Derived from comparative approaches in both qualitative and quantitative research, the current study describes a simple exploratory technique for the multivariate analysis of categorical data. This technique is referred to as the conjunctive analysis of case configurations. After describing the logic and underlying assumptions of this conjunctive method, it is applied and illustrated in the study of the federal sentencing of drug offenders. The relative value of this conjunctive approach for purposes of exploratory data analysis and its overall utility as a method for confirmatory research are also discussed.