Utilization of counseling and supportive services by female victims of domestic abuse

Increasing attention to the high prevalence of domestic violence (DV) and its impact on women's physical and mental health has resulted in expanded services for abused women. Abused women appear to underutilize the formal counseling services available in many communities, however, and further research is needed to identify factors related to service utilization. In the present study, 1,746 women assaulted by a male intimate partner were identified from a larger pool of women interviewed by Pretrial Services following the arrest of their spouse/partner on domestic abuse charges. The women were selected for the current study if they reported prior physical assaults perpetrated by the same spouse/partner listed in the instant offense. In addition to describing previous physical assaults and psychological abuse by their current spouse/partner, women were also asked whether they had ever sought "formal counseling/supportive services" to address the abuse. Consistent with the prior literature, only a minority of the victims reported prior use of these services (14.9%). Additional analyses indicated that the likelihood of having accessed services varied as a function of victim demographic factors (race, relationship to the offender, income), characteristics of the prior DV (prior injury by partner, forced sexual activity, prior psychological abuse), and whether the victim's children witnessed the fighting. Limitations of the study and implications for service providers and the courts are discussed.     

Data Sets on International Migration

International migration figures prominently on the agenda of the United Nations. Solid migration data are crucial for supporting this global debate. This article describes the international migration data sets produced by the Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations. The Population Division’s Migration Section produces migrant stock estimates for the world’s countries by sex and, more recently, by age. The Section also produces a database containing annual data on inflows, outflows, and net flows of international migrants by country of origin for major destination countries. The Section maintains the Global Migration Database, containing the world’s most complete set of empirical statistics on the international migrant stock by country of birth, citizenship, sex, and age for more than 200 countries and territories for recent decades. The data and associated publications are available from the Migration Section’s Web site at http://www.unmigration.org .     

Signed Roman domination in graphs

In this paper we continue the study of Roman dominating functions in graphs. A signed Roman dominating function (SRDF) on a graph G=(V,E) is a function f:V→{?1,1,2} satisfying the conditions that (i) the sum of its function values over any closed neighborhood is at least one and (ii) for every vertex u for which f(u)=?1 is adjacent to at least one vertex v for which f(v)=2. The weight of a SRDF is the sum of its function values over all vertices. The signed Roman domination number of G is the minimum weight of a SRDF in G. We present various lower and upper bounds on the signed Roman domination number of a graph. Let G be a graph of order n and size m with no isolated vertex. We show that $\gamma _{\mathrm{sR}}(G) \ge\frac{3}{\sqrt{2}} \sqrt{n} - n$ and that γ _sR(G)≥(3n?4m)/2. In both cases, we characterize the graphs achieving equality in these bounds. If G is a bipartite graph of order n, then we show that $\gamma_{\mathrm{sR}}(G) \ge3\sqrt{n+1} - n - 3$ , and we characterize the extremal graphs.     

Conditioning of Marked Point Processes within a Bayesian Framework

Shale units with low permeability create barriers to fluid flow in a sandstone reservoir. A spatial stochastic model for the location of shale units in a reservoir is defined. The model is based on a marked point process formulation, where the marks are parameterized by random functions for the shape of a shale unit. This extends the traditional formulation in the sense that conditioning on the actual observations of the shale units is allowed in an arbitrary number of wells penetrating the reservoir. The marked point process for the shale units includes spatial interaction of units and allows a random number of units to be present. The model is defined in a Bayesian setting with prior pdfs assigned to size–shape parameters of shale units. The observations of shales in wells are associated with a likelihood function. The posterior pdf of the marked point process can only partially be developed analytically; the final solution must be determined by sampling using the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm. An example is presented, demonstrating the consequences of increasing the number of wells in which observations are made.     

Die Umstellung auf ökologische Landwirtschaft

Utilizing data from a recent postal survey of farmers in western Germany (n=657), this paper studies the influence of environmental concern on environmental behaviour in a rational choice context. The analyses reveal both an indirect and a direct effect of environmental concern. First, environmental concern increases the preference for environmentally friendly consequences leading to a higher expected utility of environmentally friendly alternatives. Second, even controlling for the influence of utility expectations, environmental concern increases the probability of environmentally friendly behaviour, indicating a direct influence over and above the indirect effect. The direct effect of environmental concern, however, can be observed only if environmentally friendly action alternatives are associated with higher behavioural cost than environmentally degrading alternatives. Apart from that, the effect of environmental attitudes is not moderated by utility considerations and the cost structure of the respective alternatives. In sum, these results do not lend support to the low cost hypothesis.     

On the upper total domination number of Cartesian products of graphs

In this paper we continue the investigation of total domination in Cartesian products of graphs first studied in (Henning, M.A., Rall, D.F. in Graphs Comb. 21:63–69, 2005). A set S of vertices in a graph G is a total dominating set of G if every vertex in G is adjacent to some vertex in S. The maximum cardinality of a minimal total dominating set of G is the upper total domination number of G, denoted by Γ _t (G). We prove that the product of the upper total domination numbers of any graphs G and H without isolated vertices is at most twice the upper total domination number of their Cartesian product; that is, Γ _t (G)Γ _t (H)≤2Γ _t (G □ H). Research of M.A. Henning supported in part by the South African National Research Foundation and the University of KwaZulu-Natal.     

Prosecution of women arrested for intimate partner abuse

Increasing arrests of women for domestic violence (DV) in the wake of mandatory arrest laws have generated significant concern among victim advocates, researchers, and practitioners. It is commonly believed that many, if not most, of the women arrested are victims who were acting in self-defense. Understanding how these cases are handled by prosecutors and judges is important if we wish to minimize the negative consequences of these errant arrests. The present study examines factors prosecutors in a large southern city considered when accepting or rejecting DV cases involving female defendants. The results indicate that almost one half (47%) of the cases involving women arrested for DV against a heterosexual intimate partner were rejected by prosecutors; another 16% were dismissed by a judge. Legal factors like a defendant's prior criminal arrests, use of a weapon, victim injury, and, most important, the type of arrest (i.e., dual vs. single arrest) all affected prosecutors' decisions to take these cases. Female defendants arrested for offending against a male intimate partner were treated more leniently than male defendants and women arrested for domestic offenses involving other types of relationships (i.e., familial, homosexual). The results highlight the need for a further study of officers' arrest decisions in cases involving heterosexual intimate partners.     

Disjunctive total domination in graphs

Let \(G\) be a graph with no isolated vertex. In this paper, we study a parameter that is a relaxation of arguably the most important domination parameter, namely the total domination number, \(\gamma _t(G)\). A set \(S\) of vertices in \(G\) is a disjunctive total dominating set of \(G\) if every vertex is adjacent to a vertex of \(S\) or has at least two vertices in \(S\) at distance \(2\) from it. The disjunctive total domination number, \(\gamma ^d_t(G)\), is the minimum cardinality of such a set. We observe that \(\gamma ^d_t(G) \le \gamma _t(G)\). We prove that if \(G\) is a connected graph of order \(n \ge 8\), then \(\gamma ^d_t(G) \le 2(n-1)/3\) and we characterize the extremal graphs. It is known that if \(G\) is a connected claw-free graph of order \(n\), then \(\gamma _t(G) \le 2n/3\) and this upper bound is tight for arbitrarily large \(n\). We show this upper bound can be improved significantly for the disjunctive total domination number. We show that if \(G\) is a connected claw-free graph of order \(n > 14\), then \(\gamma ^d_t(G) \le 4n/7\) and we characterize the graphs achieving equality in this bound.