The Influence of a Juvenile's Abuse History on Support for Sex Offender Registration.

We investigated whether and how a juvenile's history of experiencing sexual abuse affects public perceptions of juvenile sex offenders in a series of 5 studies. When asked about juvenile sex offenders in an abstract manner (Studies 1 and 2), the more participants (community members and undergraduates) believed that a history of being sexually abused as a child causes later sexually abusive behavior, the less likely they were to support sex offender registration for juveniles. Yet when participants considered specific sexual offenses, a juvenile's history of sexual abuse was not considered to be a mitigating factor.

Participation in decision making as a property of complex adaptive systems: developing and testing a measure.

Objectives. To (1) describe participation in decision-making as a systems-level property of complex adaptive systems and (2) present empirical evidence of reliability and validity of a corresponding measure. Method.

Comparing the reliability of voluntary and evoked muscle actions.

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study was to quantify the test-retest reliability, intertrial variability and correlations between variables calculated during voluntary and evoked muscle actions.

Methods: During three separate trials of isometric leg extension muscle actions with 14 men [mean age (± SD) = 21.9 (± 3.

The differential contributions of teen drinking homophily to new and existing friendships: An empirical assessment of assortative and proximity selection mechanisms.

Alcohol use is pervasive in adolescence. Though most research is concerned with how friends influence drinking, alcohol is also important for connecting teens to one another. Prior studies have not distinguished between new friendship creation, and existing friendship durability, however.

The role of drinking in new and existing friendships across high school settings.

We use 9 Add Health high schools with longitudinal network data to assess whether adolescent drinkers choose friends who drink, prefer friends whose friends drink, if selection differs between new and existing friendships, and between schools. Utilizing dynamic social network models that control for friend influences on individual alcohol use, the results show that drinkers do not strongly prefer friends who drink. Instead, they favor close friends whose friends' drink, suggesting that alcohol matters for selection on the social groups and environments that friends connect each other to.

The Small School Friendship Dynamics of Adolescent Depressive Symptoms.

Adolescence is a time when depressive symptoms and friendships both intensify. We ask whether friendships change in response to depressive symptoms, whether individual distress is influenced by friends' distress, and whether these processes vary by gender. To answer these questions we use longitudinal Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analysis (SIENA) models to study how changes in friendships and depressive symptoms intertwine with each other among all adolescents, boy-only, and female-only networks in seven smaller K-12th grade Add Health schools.

Adolescent Violent Victimization and Precocious Union Formation.

This article bridges scholarship in criminology and family sociology by extending arguments about "precocious exits" from adolescence to consider early union formation as a salient outcome of violent victimization for youths. Research indicates that early union formation is associated with several negative outcomes; yet the absence of attention to union formation as a consequence of violent victimization is noteworthy. We address this gap by drawing on life course theory and data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the effect of violent victimization ("street" violence) on the timing of first co-residential union formation-differentiating between marriage and cohabitation-in young adulthood.

Marijuana use development over the course of adolescence among North American Indigenous youth.

This study investigated the links between marijuana use trajectories and marijuana abuse/dependence (DSM-IV) using five waves of data from 718 North American Indigenous adolescents between 10 and 17years from eight reservations sharing a common language and culture. Growth mixture models indicated that 15% of youth began using by 11-12years of age and that another 20% began shortly thereafter. These early users had odds of abuse/dependence 6.

Oral hygiene knowledge and practice among Dinka and Nuer from Sudan to the U.S.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine knowledge and use of oral hygiene methods for refugees from Sudan now living in the U.S. prior to conducting elective implant surgery.

Informative Retesting.

In situations where individuals are screened for an infectious disease or other binary characteristic and where resources for testing are limited, group testing can offer substantial benefits. Group testing, where subjects are tested in groups (pools) initially, has been successfully applied to problems in blood bank screening, public health, drug discovery, genetics, and many other areas. In these applications, often the goal is to identify each individual as positive or negative using initial group tests and subsequent retests of individuals within positive groups.

The role of cysteine oxidation in DJ-1 function and dysfunction.

DJ-1 is a member of the large and functionally diverse DJ-1/PfpI superfamily and has homologs in nearly all organisms. Because of its connection to parkinsonism and cancer, human DJ-1 has been intensely studied for over a decade. The current view is that DJ-1 is a multifunctional oxidative stress response protein that defends cells against reactive oxygen species and mitochondrial damage, although the details of its biochemical function remain unclear.

Effects of thermal processing on the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) detection of milk residues in a model food matrix.

Food products and ingredients are frequently tested for the presence of undeclared allergenic food residues (including milk) using commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs). However, little is understood about the efficacy of these kits with thermally processed foods. This study evaluated the performance of three milk ELISA kits with a model food processed by several methods.

Patterns of nonresident father contact.

We used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY79) from 1979 to 2002 and the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (CNLSY) from 1986 to 2002 to describe the number, shape, and population frequencies of U.S. nonresident father contact trajectories over a 14-year period using growth mixture models.

Crystal structure of dicamba monooxygenase: a Rieske nonheme oxygenase that catalyzes oxidative demethylation.

Dicamba (3,6-dichloro-2-methoxybenzoic acid) is a widely used herbicide that is efficiently degraded by soil microbes. These microbes use a novel Rieske nonheme oxygenase, dicamba monooxygenase (DMO), to catalyze the oxidative demethylation of dicamba to 3,6-dichlorosalicylic acid (DCSA) and formaldehyde. We have determined the crystal structures of DMO in the free state, bound to its substrate dicamba, and bound to the product DCSA at 2.

In situ measurement of three-dimensional ion densities in focused femtosecond pulses.

We image spatial distributions of Xeq+ ions in the focus of a laser beam of ultrashort, intense pulses in all three dimensions, with a resolution of approximately 3 microm and approximately 12 microm in the two transverse directions. This allows for studying ionization processes without spatially averaging ion yields. Our in situ ion imaging is also useful to analyze focal intensity profiles and to investigate the transverse modal purity of tightly focused beams of complex light.

Structural impact of three Parkinsonism-associated missense mutations on human DJ-1.

A number of missense mutations in the oxidative stress response protein DJ-1 are implicated in rare forms of familial Parkinsonism. The best-characterized Parkinsonian DJ-1 missense mutation, L166P, disrupts homodimerization and results in a poorly folded protein. The molecular basis by which the other Parkinsonism-associated mutations disrupt the function of DJ-1, however, is incompletely understood.

Ultrashort intense-field optical vortices produced with laser-etched mirrors.

We introduce a simple and practical method to create ultrashort intense optical vortices for applications involving high-intensity lasers. Our method utilizes femtosecond laser pulses to laser etch grating lines into laser-quality gold mirrors. These grating lines holographically encode an optical vortex.

Efficient angular dispersion compensation in holographic generation of intense ultrashort paraxial beam modes.

We experimentally demonstrate that small misalignments of the pulse stretcher or compressor of our chirped-pulse-amplification laser can precompensate for angular chirp when producing ultrashort paraxial beam modes with holographic gratings. Using this approach we can eliminate one of the two gratings needed in our 2f-2f setup [Mariyenko, Opt. Express 13, 7599 (2005)].

Two Sides of the Same Coin? The Relations between Prosocial and Physically Aggressive Behaviors.

The direct and indirect relations between six types of prosocial behavior and physical aggression were examined. Data were gathered from 252 college students (M age = 21.67 years; 184 women) who completed measures of sympathy, prosocial behavior, and physical aggression.

Application of Coulomb wave function discrete variable representation to atomic systems in strong laser fields.

We present an efficient and accurate grid method for solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation for an atomic system interacting with an intense laser pulse. Instead of the usual finite difference (FD) method, the radial coordinate is discretized using the discrete variable representation (DVR) constructed from Coulomb wave functions. For an accurate description of the ionization dynamics of atomic systems, the Coulomb wave function discrete variable representation (CWDVR) method needs three to ten times fewer grid points than the FD method.

Remote bond breaking by interacting temporary anion states.

The cross section for bond breaking at the site of a dissociative temporary negative ion state through the dissociative electron attachment process can be considerably enhanced by the presence of a second longer-lived temporary negative ion state elsewhere in the molecule, even one quite remote from the first. In a series of chloroalkenes possessing both C-Cl and C==C bonds separated by various distances, we show that the cross sections are determined by the lifetime of the lower anion state created by the mixing of the anion states of these two moieties, with the wave function's coefficients giving the probability that the electron is located at the dissociative site. Furthermore, the lifetime of the composite anion state can be expressed in terms of these same coefficients and the lifetimes of the unmixed resonances.

Using photography to cross generational, linguistic, and cultural barriers to develop useful survey instruments.

Photographs are used as a research tool by anthropologists and as a technique to empower special populations, advocacy groups, and policy makers. This case describes how photography was used to develop a survey to study alcohol expectancies among Thai adolescents. A multi-cultural research team faced generational, linguistic, and cultural barriers in understanding Thai adolescent alcohol use well enough to write useful questions about alcohol expectancies.

Aspidoderid nematodes from bolivian armadillos, with the description of a new species of Lauroia (Heterakoidea: Aspidoderidae).

One nine-banded armadillo (Dasypus novemcinctus) and 1 yellow armadillo (Euphractus sexcinctus) were necropsied in the field during an expedition to collect parasites of mammals in Bolivia. A total of 205 Aspidodera binansata Railliet and Henry, 1913 (Heterakoidea: Aspidoderidae), and 40 specimens of Lauroia bolivari n. sp.