Family Subsystems Predicting Adolescents’ Perceptions of Sibling Relationship Quality Over Time

This study examined associations between parents’ relationship conflict and parent–adolescent triangulation, and changes in adolescents’ perceptions of sibling affection and hostility. The goal was to learn whether conflict in parents’ relationships spills over to siblings’ relationships, or whether siblings compensate by becoming less hostile and more affectionate. Using a subsample (N = 400) from the Flourishing Families Project (FFP), we found a trend for mother–adolescent triangulation predicting an increase in sibling hostility across 2 years. Fathers’ reports of relationship conflict were related to increased levels of initial sibling hostility, but predicted a marginal decrease in hostility over time. Findings support increased understanding of parenting dynamics associated with changes in sibling relationship quality, and have the potential to inform clinical practice.     

EFFECTS OF WELFARE REFORM ON WOMEN'S VOTING PARTICIPATION

This study investigates the effects of welfare reform in the United States in the 1990s on voting among low‐income women. Using the November Current Population Surveys with the added Voting and Registration Supplement for the years 1990 through 2004 and exploiting changes in welfare policy across states and over time, we estimate the causal effects of welfare reform on women's voting registration and voting participation during the period in which welfare reform unfolded. During this time period, voter turnout was decreasing in the United States. We find robust evidence that welfare reform led to smaller declines in voting (about 3 to 4 percentage points, which translates to about 10% relative to the baseline mean) for women who were exposed to welfare reform compared to several different comparison groups of similar women who were much less exposed. The robust findings suggest that welfare reform had prosocial effects on civic participation, as characterized by voting. The effects were largely confined to presidential elections, were stronger in Democratic than Republican states, were stronger in states with stronger work incentive policies, and appeared to operate through employment, education, and income. (JEL D72, H53, I38, J21)     

Reasons for Seeking Help for a Gambling Problem: The Experiences of Gamblers Who Have Sought Specialist Assistance and the Perceptions of Those Who Have Not

This paper presents reasons for help-seeking data as reported by users of a national gambling helpline (help-seekers, HS, n = 125) as well as data pertaining to perceived reasons for seeking help as reported by gamblers recruited from the general population (non-help-seekers, NHS, n = 104). All data were collected via a structured, multi-modal survey. Participants in both groups considered help-seeking to be motivated by multiple factors (mean of 6.8 and 10.6 responses, respectively). Responses indicative of financial concern were most frequently reported by both HS and NHS participants (82 & 90%, respectively). Over a third of HS participants (35%) also identified financial concern as their primary reason for seeking help and 50% of NHS participants perceived financial concern to be the primary motivator for seeking help in a problem gambling context. Common types of secondary influence (other than financial concern) included psychological distress (HS & NHS participants), problem prevention (HS participants), rational thought (HS participants), physical health issues (HS participants), and relationship issues (NHS participants). The implications for promoting greater or earlier help-seeking activity amongst problem gamblers are discussed.

From ‘temporary migrants’ to ‘permanent residents’: Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States

Literature on international migration from India in the past has focused on the formation and development of ‘Indian diasporas’; that is, Indians who have moved to various parts of the world and maintain socio-economic, cultural and political lives in India as well as other countries. However, little attention has been paid toward ‘temporary migrants’ who have migrated to different countries with a temporary visa and in the course of time extended their visas to become ‘permanent residents’. Temporary migration from India has become a common trend over the last two decades, especially since the acceleration of globalisation and the developments in the fields of information and communication technologies. Although it is argued that this type of migration took place in the past – for instance, Indians migrated to British, French, Dutch and Portuguese colonies during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries as indentured labourers for a period of three to five years and later extended their stays – what is new about the current trend is the new state policies of different host countries and the socio-economic and cultural background of the immigrants. This paper is an exploratory study of this contemporary phenomena of movement from ‘temporary migrant’ to ‘permanent resident’, a phenomena which has not been given much attention by academicians and policy makers in India. The present paper outlines this trend with an illustration of Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States.     

Group-based Criminal Trajectory Analysis Using Cross-validation Criteria

In this article, we discuss the challenge of determining the number of classes in a family of finite mixture models with the intent of improving the specification of latent class models for criminal trajectories. We argue that the traditional method of using either the Proc Traj or Mplus package to compute and maximize the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) is problematic: Proc Traj and Mplus do not always compute the MLE (and hence the BIC) accurately, and furthermore, BIC on its own does not always indicate a reasonable-seeming number of groups even when computed correctly. As an alternative, we propose the new freely available software package, crimCV, written in the R-programming language, and the methodology of cross-validation error (CVE) to determine the number of classes in a fair and reasonable way. In this article, we apply the new methodology to two samples of N = 378 and N = 386 male juvenile offenders whose criminal behavior was tracked from late childhood/early adolescence into adulthood. We show how using CVE, as implemented with crimCV, can provide valuable insight for determining the number of latent classes in these cases. These results suggest that cross-validation may represent a promising alternative to AIC or BIC for determining an optimal number of classes in finite mixture models, and in particular for setting, the number of latent classes in group-based trajectory analysis.     

The management of sex offenders in the community: from policy to practice

This paper provides an overview of the most significant public policy initiatives that apply to known sexual offenders who live in the community. It is argued that while registration schemes, community notification, and offender residency restrictions have become a prominent feature of contemporary sex offender policy, the evidence base supporting their implementation is, at best, limited. There is a need to develop policies which are more tailored to the needs of individual offenders and which are explicitly designed to manage risk. Policies which mandate and facilitate interagency and partnership working represent one way in which individualised and research‐informed approaches can be developed. It is suggested that the implementation of this type of approach may ultimately lead to more effective community responses to preventing sexual reoffending than those which rely solely on monitoring and supervision.     

Conflicting violations of transitivity and where they may lead us

The literature contains evidence from some studies of asymmetric patterns of choice cycles in the direction consistent with regret theory, and evidence from other studies of asymmetries in the opposite direction. This article reports an experiment showing that both patterns occur within the same sample of respondents operating in the same experimental environment. We discuss the implications for modelling behaviour in such environments.     

电影制作和发行过程中的安全漏洞分析

电影产业主要关心的一个问题是非法的（即未经授权的）电影复制行为。尽管非法的电影拷贝已经借助便携式物理媒介而得到传播,但低成本的高速宽带连接和P2P文件共享网络则能提供极其高效的传播媒介。本文对电影的制作和发行过程进行了简要分析,并指出了一些潜在的安全漏洞,这些漏洞使得非法电影拷贝能够被那些试图再次传播之的人所获取。     

Exploitation Strategy and Performance of Contract Manufacturing Exporters: The Mediating Roles of Exploration Strategy and Marketing Capability

Contract manufacturing exporters (CMEs) receive a meagre share of global value chain returns, primarily because of the mundane and exploitative nature of the activities they perform in their dependency relationships with lead firms. We posit that CMEs can enhance their performance by capitalizing on their exploitation strategy. Exploitation strategy triggers exploration strategy which requires building marketing capabilities for enhanced performance. Based on data from 154 Vietnamese CMEs, we find significant indirect only mediation effects of: 1) exploration strategy between exploitation strategy and export performance; and 2) marketing capability between exploration strategy and export performance. Further, we find significant indirect only serial mediation of exploration strategy and marketing capability between exploitation strategy and export performance. The findings are also supported and contextualized based on illustrative quotes from face to face semi-structured interviews with senior managers of 10 Vietnamese CMEs. The findings suggest that CMEs' that consciously capitalize on the exploitation strategy by seeking exploration opportunities while building their marketing capability exhibit enhanced performance.