Community notification: perceptions of its effectiveness in preventing child sexual abuse

Megan's law, a law designed to protect children from sexual abuse, enables law enforcement to notify communities when convicted sex offenders reside in their neighborhoods. Although there is vast support for the law, little is known about the perceived efficacy of the law. Community members', law enforcement officials', and law students' attitudes toward community notification and other child abuse prevention measures were investigated. The groups significantly differed in support of Megan's Law and surrounding issues, such as whether all criminals should be subject to community notification. Also, perceptions of the efficacy and the degree to which offenders' rights are violated differed according to whether community notification tactics were typical or extreme.     

Decision theory,linear partial information and statistical dominance

The paper deals with decision making under conditions of linear partial information, i.e. when probabilities of states of nature are not known precisely, but are subject to linear constraints. Conditions ensuring strict and weak statistical dominance of one strategy over another are derived. It is also shown that weak dominance in terms of payoffs is equivalent to weak dominance in terms of regrets. The new results are more general than those obtained by Fishburn and by Kmietowicz and Pearman for weak and strict ranking of probabilities, and include them as special cases. The new results can be employed in practical decision making in several ways.     

Long-term low-dose dehydroepiandrosterone replacement therapy in aging males with partial androgen deficiency

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) age-related withdrawal is very likely to be involved in the aging process and the onset of age-related diseases, giving rise to the question of whether preventing or compensating the decline of these steroids may have endocrine and clinical benefits. The aim of the present trial was to evaluate the endocrine, neuroendocrine and clinical consequences of a long-term (1 year), low-dose (25?mg/day) replacement therapy in a group of aging men who presented the clinical characteristics of partial androgen deficiency (PADAM). Circulating DHEA, DHEAS, androstenedione, total testosterone and free testosterone, dihydrotestosterone (DHT), progesterone, 17-hydroxyprogesterone, allopregnanolone, estrone, estradiol, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), cortisol, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) levels were evaluated monthly to assess the endocrine effects of the therapy, while β-endorphin values were used as a marker of the neuroendocrine effects. A Kupperman questionnaire was performed to evaluate the subjective symptoms before and after treatment.

The results showed a great modification of the endocrine profile; with the exception of cortisol levels, which remained unchanged, DHEA, DHEAS, androstenedione, total and free testosterone, DHT, progesterone, 17-hydroxyprogesterone, estrone, estradiol, GH, IGF-1 and β-endorphin levels increased significantly with respect to baseline values, while FSH, LH and SHBG levels showed a significant decrease. The Kupperman score indicated a progressive improvement in mood, fatigue and joint pain.

In conclusion, the present study demonstrates that 25?mg/day of DHEA is able to cause significant changes in the hormonal profile and clinical symptoms and can counteract the age-related decline of endocrine and neuroendocrine functions. Restoring DHEA levels to young adult values seems to benefit the age-related decline in physiological functions but, however promising, placebo-controlled trials are required to confirm these preliminary results.     

Konfliktmoderation mit Gruppen

One professional form of conflict resolution known as ‘mediation’ has itself established globally as an accepted alternative to litigation within the past four decades—albeit most notably for dyadic conflict between two individuals. Conflicts involving a higher number of parties both within and between social groups in organizations or public communities are far more complex and much tougher to be defined than in dyadic settings. They require an expanded repertoire of intervention techniques and more advanced competencies of neutrals as—in addition to the resolution efforts—the conflicting parties’ group dynamics demands attention and participative facilitation. Moreover, this type of conflict is difficult to study. An action strategy for professional group-based conflict resolution is exemplified and contrasted to dyadic mediation of conflict. Based on the analysis, problems for future research are outlined.