Are Gambling Related Cognitions in Adolescence Multidimensional?: Factor Structure of the Gambling Related Cognitions Scale

The present study examined the factor structure of the Gambling Related Cognitions Scale (GRCS); (Raylu and Oei in Addiction 99:757–769, 2004) in a large sample of adolescents (N = 1,490) between the ages of 16 and 18 years (630 males, 860 females) attending several high schools in central Ontario. Problem gambling was measured using the DSM-IV-J (Fisher in J Gambl Stud 8:263–285, 1992). A 5-factor GRCS model was found to have the best fit to the data, and gambling-related cognitions were found to be powerful predictors of disordered gambling among adolescents. However, strong associations among GRCS subscales, as well as the small amount of variance in problem gambling accounted for by specific GRCS subscales, call into question the multidimensionality of the GRCS when used with adolescents.     

中国与斯拉夫传统工艺的“美”和“实用性”

18世纪以来西欧国家开始对艺术与工艺进行划分,将艺术归为“审美”,工艺归为“实用”的范畴.这种分类概念移植到不同文化意识中未必能完全符合真理.在中国古代美学理念中“美”和“用”和谐统一,这与斯拉夫人对传统工艺的理解极为相似.东斯拉夫文化拥有悠久的手工艺传统.俄罗斯不同门类的技术大师遗留下来的大量作品是斯拉夫民族精神创作的结晶,包含着深刻的思想内容与丰富的象征意义.     

Gambling Behaviour in Adolescents with Learning Disorders

The present study examined the prevalence of disordered gambling behaviours in a community-based sample of adolescents (N = 532) living in eastern central Ontario. Of particular interest was examining the hypothesis that adolescents with learning disorders are at elevated risk for disordered gambling. Rates of disordered gambling in male adolescents with learning disorders were found to be significantly higher than adolescents without learning problems, even after controlling for negative affectivity and ADHD symptomatology. The implications for treatment and intervention of gambling problems in adolescence are discussed.     

Internally Displaced Persons in Pursuit for Access to Justice: Ukraine

The article focuses on Eastern European region and, specifically, access to justice for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine, who currently form ninth largest group of such forced migrants in the world. It explains the roots and causes of the Ukrainian internal displacement; institutional and legal framework, Ukrainian IDPs operate in; their internal structure, needs and vulnerabilities. Examining access to justice, its dimensions and key components in universal and regional context, it then applies this framework to Ukrainian IDPs’ situation. Facing challenges starting from legal recognition of their IDP status to discrimination in social‐economic sphere, having a limited right to vote and no legal responsibility for violation of their specific rights and freedoms, Ukrainian IDPs have no other recourse but to pursue justice in the national courts. However, justice as result is not often achievable due to a barrier, which arguably, as a matter of policy, has been overlooked.     

Greater Synergy and Improved Collaboration: Do Complex Partnerships Deliver on the Promise in Countries Emerging From Armed Conflict?

Complex or multi-stakeholder partnerships—those that include several actors of different types, i.e. public, private or civic—are becoming increasingly popular in different contexts and across policy domains. This is also the case in countries emerging from armed conflict, where many donors are actively promoting partnerships of different kinds that are seen as a solution to a number of concerns from efficiency and effectiveness to empowerment, trust building and local ownership. However, the actual evidence supporting these assumptions remains scarce. This article focuses on several core characteristics of intra-partnership dynamics through original empirical research on complex partnerships operating in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and the DRC. It concludes by showing that real existing complex partnerships in countries emerging from armed conflict demonstrate compositional characteristics typically attributed to complex partnerships but not the modes of governance expected of such partnerships, failing to exploit their added value as a result.     

Absolute Income,Relative Income,and Happiness

This paper uses data from the World Values Survey to investigate how an individual’s self-reported happiness is related to (i) the level of her income in absolute terms, and (ii) the level of her income relative to other people in her country. The main findings are that (i) both absolute and relative income are positively and significantly correlated with happiness, (ii) quantitatively, changes in relative income have much larger effects on happiness than do changes in absolute income, and (iii) the effects on happiness of both absolute and relative income are small when compared to the effects several non-pecuniary factors.

New Algorithms for Evaluating the Log-Likelihood Function Derivatives in the AI-REML Method

In this study, we propose several improvements of the Average Information Restricted Maximum Likelihood algorithms for estimating the variance components for genetic mapping of quantitative traits. The improved methods are applicable when two variance components are to be estimated. The improvements are related to the algebraic part of the methods and utilize the properties of the underlying matrix structures.

In contrast to previously developed algorithms, the explicit computation of a matrix inverse is replaced by the solution of a linear system of equations with multiple right-hand sides, based on a particular matrix decomposition. The computational costs of the proposed algorithms are analyzed and compared.