The changing pattern of domestic cannabis cultivation in the UK and its impact on the cannabis market

With improvements in both technology and information cannabis is being increasingly grown indoors for domestic use, rather than being imported. This study examines 50 cannabis farms detected by an English police force, and examines the characteristics of the 61 suspects associated with them. The study highlights a UK pattern in domestic cultivation, that is moving away from large scale commercial cultivation, at times co-ordinated by South East Asian organised crime groups, to increased cultivation within residential premises by British citizens. Offenders range from those who have no prior criminal history to those who are serious and persistent offenders. The ramifications for law enforcement agencies and policy formers are discussed

Can the triarchic model of psychopathy predict youth offender recidivism?

The triarchic model of psychopathy is one of the most influential models of psychopathy developed in recent years. The current aim is to investigate the utility of a self-report measure of the triarchic model of psychopathy in predicting criminal recidivism among a sample of incarcerated juvenile offenders. Male youth participants (N=228, M=16.38 years, SD=1.26 years) from the Detention Centers managed nation-wide by the Ministry of Justice of Portugal were followed during a two-year period and categorized as recidivists or non-recidivists. The Area Under the Curve (AUC) results showed that only the Disinhibition dimension of the triarchic model of psychopathy was able to significantly predict general recidivism. The binary logistic regression models controlling for relevant variables (e.g. age of first detention, past frequency of crimes, conduct disorder symptoms) found that the boldness, meanness, and disinhibition dimensions failed to predict general or violent recidivism. The overall findings suggest that the triarchic model of psychopathy demonstrates limited utility in terms of predicting recidivism among juvenile offenders.This work was partially supported by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology [grant number UID/PSI/01662/201

The moderating effect of brand orientation on inter-firm market orientation and performance

While prior research has shown that market and brand orientation are key contributors to successful business performance, research to date has not fully explored how inter firm collaboration for these two key orientations can enhance business performance. The purpose of the paper is to investigate the relationship between inter-firm market and performance; to test for the moderating role of brand orientation in that relationship. A total of 169 completed pairs of surveys were collected of small and medium enterprises operating internationally in a variety of industries in Switzerland. The results show that inter-firm market and brand orientation are two antecedents of marketing and financial performance. The impact of inter-firm market on marketing and financial performance is significant when the brand orientation is favorable. This study extends previous research by examining the moderating role of brand orientation on inter firm market orientation, which is important, especially for firms wanting to increase their brand reputation by entering into partnerships with other firms. Further research is indicated, to identify the key moderators of the driving force of inter-firm market in relation to business performance and the reason why maintaining a strong brand presence is important in the international marketplace

Factor Analysis of the CES-D 12 among a Community Sample of Black Men

The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale is one of the most widely used measures for assessing depression in population-based research. Little is known about the varying range of symptomatology expressed by Black men, who report higher chronicity and disability of their depressive symptoms compared to men of other racial and ethnic backgrounds. This study assessed the dimensional structure of the CES-D 12-item scale using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in a community-based sample of Black men (n = 683). Two latent factors emerged from the scale that best fit the data: interpersonal negative affect (INA) and diminished positive affect (DPA). The item “I felt like everything I did was an effort” was removed from the final measure, resulting in an 11-item scale. The total score for the revised CES-D-11 displayed acceptable internal consistency on both latent factors (Cronbach’s α = 0.83 [INA] and 0.73 [DPA]) and model fit (χ 2 = 165.58, TLI = 0.967, CFI = 0.974, RMSEA = 0.065). Results differ from CES-D factor analyses in other demographic groups, including studies with other male subpopulations, such that depressed mood and interpersonal problems factors are merged as a unidimensional construct. Findings suggest that the “effort” item from the CES-D 12 should be interpreted with caution among Black men. Future studies should continue to disentangle the divergent pathways in which Black men express depressed mood

Sex differences in mathematics and reading achievement are inversely related: within- and across-nation assessment of 10 years of PISA data

We analyzed one decade of data collected by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), including the mathematics and reading performance of nearly 1.5 million 15 year olds in 75 countries. Across nations, boys scored higher than girls in mathematics, but lower than girls in reading. The sex difference in reading was three times as large as in mathematics. There was considerable variation in the extent of the sex differences between nations. There are countries without a sex difference in mathematics performance, and in some countries girls scored higher than boys. Boys scored lower in reading in all nations in all four PISA assessments (2000, 2003, 2006, 2009). Contrary to several previous studies, we found no evidence that the sex differences were related to nations’ gender equality indicators. Further, paradoxically, sex differences in mathematics were consistently and strongly inversely correlated with sex differences in reading: Countries with a smaller sex difference in mathematics had a larger sex difference in reading and vice versa. We demonstrate that this was not merely a between-nation, but also a within-nation effect. This effect is related to relative changes in these sex differences across the performance continuum: We did not find a sex difference in mathematics among the lowest performing students, but this is where the sex difference in reading was largest. In contrast, the sex difference in mathematics was largest among the higher performing students, and this is where the sex difference in reading was smallest. The implication is that if policy makers decide that changes in these sex differences are desired, different approaches will be needed to achieve this for reading and mathematics. Interventions that focus on high-achieving girls in mathematics and on low achieving boys in reading are likely to yield the strongest educational benefits

ABCD Neurocognitive Prediction Challenge 2019: Predicting individual fluid intelligence scores from structural MRI using probabilistic segmentation and kernel ridge regression

We applied several regression and deep learning methods to predict fluid intelligence scores from T1-weighted MRI scans as part of the ABCD Neurocognitive Prediction Challenge (ABCD-NP-Challenge) 2019. We used voxel intensities and probabilistic tissue-type labels derived from these as features to train the models. The best predictive performance (lowest mean-squared error) came from Kernel Ridge Regression (KRR; $\lambda=10$), which produced a mean-squared error of 69.7204 on the validation set and 92.1298 on the test set. This placed our group in the fifth position on the validation leader board and first place on the final (test) leader board.Comment: Winning entry in the ABCD Neurocognitive Prediction Challenge at MICCAI 2019. 7 pages plus references, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Women and Illegal Activities: Gender Differences and Women's Willingness to Comply Over Time

In recent years the topics of illegal activities such as corruption or tax evasion have attracted a great deal of attention. However, there is still a lack of substantial empirical evidence about the determinants of compliance. The aim of this paper is to investigate empirically whether women are more willing to be compliant than men and whether we observe (among women and in general) differences in attitudes among similar age groups in different time periods (cohort effect) or changing attitudes of the same cohorts over time (age effect) using data from eight Western European countries from the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey that span the period from 1981 to 1999. The results reveal higher willingness to comply among women and an age rather than a cohort effect. Working Paper 06-5

Towards a rhizomatic understanding of the desistance journey

Although the ‘desistance as a (zigzag) journey’ metaphor has proved useful in terms of translating theory into practice, this article makes the case that it is insufficient for conveying the truly complex, social, unpredictable and ‘messy’ process of desistance from crime. The article uses what we know about the process of desistance to discuss the utility of Deleuze and Guattari’s (2013) rhizomatic theory in recasting the desistance journey metaphor. In doing so it is suggested that the desistance journey should be understood in terms of its endless and multiplicitous nature, a symbol of metamorphosis, and it argues that our focus should be on understanding the ‘desister as nomad’. This, the article concludes, holds important ramifications for the way in which we understand and implement desistance-focused practice in the criminal justice system