Processes Linking Parents’ and Adolescents’ Religiousness and Adolescent Substance Use: Monitoring and Self-Control

Empirical evidence suggests that religiousness is related negatively to adolescent substance use; yet, we know little about how such protective effects might occur. The current study examined whether parents’ and adolescents’ religiousness are associated positively with parental, religious, and self-monitoring, which in turn are related to higher self-control, thereby related to lower adolescent substance use. Participants were 220 adolescents (45 % female) who were interviewed at ages 10–16 and again 2.4 years later. Structural equation modeling analyses suggested that higher adolescents’ religiousness at Time 1 was related to lower substance use at Time 2 indirectly through religious monitoring, self-monitoring, and self-control. Higher parents’ religiousness at Time 1 was associated with higher parental monitoring at Time 2, which in turn was related to lower adolescent substance use at Time 2 directly and indirectly through higher adolescent self-control. The results illustrate that adolescents with high awareness of being monitored by God are likely to show high self-control abilities and, consequently, low substance use. The findings further suggest that adolescents’ religiousness as well as their religious environments (e.g., familial context) can facilitate desirable developmental outcomes.     

Structural Home Environment Effects on Developmental Trajectories of Self-Control and Adolescent Risk Taking

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Extant literature has demonstrated that self-control is critical for health and adjustment in adolescence. Questions remain regarding whether there are...     

Autobiography,biography and Ford Madox Ford's women

Abstract

The focus in this article is the creation of self and other in the life writing of women associated with famous men. The central texts are the ‘autobiographies’ of the English novelist, Violet Hunt, and the Australian painter, Stella Bowen, both of whom were the partners of the writer, Ford Madox Ford, Hunt from 1908 to 1918, Bowen from 1918 to 1928. The ways in which biography is concealed in autobiography and autobiography in biography and the similarities in representations and storylines in both texts are explored.     

EXEMPT PROPRIETARY COMPANY ANNUAL REPORTING REQUIREMENTS: PUBUC INTEREST OR BUREAUCRATIC EMPIRE-BUILDING?

Abstract: Australian small business enterprises, operated as exempt proprietary companies, are exposed to numerous statutory requirements. The Corporations Law Simplification Taskforce has proposed a number of changes with the stated objective of minimising the statutory burdens faced by small business. One of the recommendations of the taskforce is that most exempt proprietary companies be exempted from the requirement to supply key financial data in annual returns lodged with the Australian Securities Commission. This paper provides a review of the existing statutory responsibility for exempt proprietary companies to prepare annual returns including key financial data and lodge them with the ASC. A common justification offered for the introduction and continued maintenance of annual reporting requirements has been the protection of the public interest. The “public choice” theory of regulation provides alternative explanations for the regulation, including the promotion of producer interests or the promotion of the interests of the regulatory agency responsible for the administration of the legislation, the Australian Securities Commission, and other government departments such as Attorney-General's, Finance and Treasury. The existence of alternative explanations raises the possibility that the regulation is not motivated exclusively by the public interest. Indirect evidence of the usefulness of the annual reporting requirements was gathered with a consideration of the quality of the key financial data disclosed in annual returns. More than 40% of the annual returns lodged by a sample of exempt proprietary companies, during the years 1986 to 1989, contained key financial data which was inconsistent with being extracted from a properly prepared balance sheet (where assets minus liabilities equal shareholders' equity). The possibility that the maintenance of annual reporting requirements is not in the public interest, and the limited reliability of key financial data disclosures made, offers some support for the recent recommendations of the Corporations Law Simplification Taskforce that annual reporting requirements for small business enterprises be modified.     

Pulmonary arterial fibromuscular dysplasia: a rare cause of fulminant lung hemorrhage

Arterial fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) represents a collection of noninflammatory and nonatherosclerotic vascular diseases with a poorly understood etiology. Classically occurring in renal and cerebral arteries, this entity has also been reported in coronary, carotid, and other medium and small arteries. One case occurring in the pulmonary vasculature has been reported. Fatal hemothorax and lung hemorrhage have multiple causes, including other vascular malformations and connective tissue disorders; however, cases of pulmonary FMD are exceedingly rare. We report what appears to be the second such association, occurring in a 69-year-old man. The patient presented with a 3-week history of increasing dyspnea, fatigue, and productive cough; 3 days of increasing back and chest pain; and syncope. Chest radiograph showed a "white-out" of the left lung. The patient died shortly after admission from a fulminant respiratory disease of undetermined etiology. At autopsy he was found to have a massive left hemothorax resulting from an unsuspected pulmonary arterial fibromuscular dysplasia.     

The evaluation of the extent of transporting or "tracking" an identifiable ignitable liquid (gasoline) throughout fire scenes during the investigative process

Tests have determined that boots or shoes of individuals at a fire scene do not transport sufficient contaminants ("tracking") through the fire scene to produce a positive laboratory result for the presence of gasoline in a fire scene that was not present at the time of the fire. Questions about the validity of forensic laboratory results have been raised on the basis that low-level gasoline residues detected in the laboratory samples could have been the result of transporting the residue by footwear contaminated from the fire scene ("tracking"). The data collected in this study establish that "tracking" does not lead to false-positive laboratory results. Canines trained and experienced in the detection of trace ignitable liquid residues were also utilized in this study. The canine results confirmed that properly trained canines show a higher sensitivity than do standard ASTM laboratory techniques for fire debris analysis. In a few cases, canines responded to contamination, but laboratory testing (which is the definitive indicator) did not produce positive results.