Young but not so restless: trends in the age-specific rate of offending

Aim: To describe and discuss trends in age-specific rates of offending for property crime, robbery and serious assault. Method: Descriptive statistics and graphical displays. Results: The number of people apprehended by police for property crime and robbery has fallen sharply since around 2001 and is much lower now than it was 15 years ago. The decline has been most pronounced among adolescent and young adult offenders (aged 15-20 years). The rate at which people in this age group were apprehended for robbery first rose and fell between 1995 and 2004 and then rose and fell (again) between 2005 and 2012. The rate at which 21-24 year olds were apprehended for robbery declined between 1999 and 2012. A similar but less pronounced pattern is seen for 25-29 year olds. The rate at which people were apprehended for serious assault remained fairly stable for all age groups up until around 2003. Thereafter the rate rose rapidly for 15-20 year olds, peaking at around 2008 and then falling from 2009 to 2012. The rate at which older age groups have been apprehended by police for assault remained fairly steady since 1999 but over the last three years has slowly declined. Conclusion: It is impossible to be certain but there is good reason to expect a continuation of the downward trend in rates of property crime and robbery in NSW. The future course of trends in serious assault will likely depend on whether the current fall in alcohol misuse by young people continues

Optical properties and bioavailability of dissolved organic matter along a flow-path continuum from soil pore waters to the Kolyma River mainstem, East Siberia

The Kolyma River in northeast Siberia is among the six largest Arctic rivers and drains a region underlain by vast deposits of Holocene-aged peat and Pleistocene-aged loess known as yedoma, most of which is currently stored in ice-rich permafrost throughout the region. These peat and yedoma deposits are important sources of dissolved organic matter (DOM) to inland waters that in turn play a significant role in the transport and ultimate remineralization of organic carbon to CO2 and CH4 along the terrestrial flow-path continuum. The turnover and fate of terrigenous DOM during offshore transport largely depends upon the composition and amount of carbon released to inland and coastal waters. Here, we measured the ultraviolet-visible optical properties of chromophoric DOM (CDOM) from a geographically extensive collection of waters spanning soil pore waters, streams, rivers, and the Kolyma River mainstem throughout a  ∼  250 km transect of the northern Kolyma River basin. During the period of study, CDOM absorption coefficients were found to be robust proxies for the concentration of DOM, whereas additional CDOM parameters such as spectral slopes (S) were found to be useful indicators of DOM quality along the flow path. In particular, the spectral slope ratio (SR) of CDOM demonstrated statistically significant differences between all four water types and tracked changes in the concentration of bioavailable DOC, suggesting that this parameter may be suitable for clearly discriminating shifts in organic matter characteristics among water types along the full flow-path continuum across this landscape. However, despite our observations of downstream shifts in DOM composition, we found a relatively constant proportion of DOC that was bioavailable ( ∼  3–6 % of total DOC) regardless of relative water residence time along the flow path. This may be a consequence of two potential scenarios allowing for continual processing of organic material within the system, namely (a) aquatic microorganisms are acclimating to a downstream shift in DOM composition and/or (b) photodegradation is continually generating labile DOM for continued microbial processing of DOM along the flow-path continuum. Without such processes, we would otherwise expect to see a declining fraction of bioavailable DOC downstream with increasing residence time of water in the system. With ongoing and future permafrost degradation, peat and yedoma deposits throughout the northeast Siberian region will become more hydrologically active, providing greater amounts of DOM to fluvial networks and ultimately to the Arctic Ocean. The ability to rapidly and comprehensively monitor shifts in the quantity and quality of DOM across the landscape is therefore critical for understanding potential future feedbacks within the Arctic carbon cycle

Exception to the Going and Coming Rule: Special Hazard or Risk

In Littlefield v. Pillsbury Co., the Ohio Supreme Court specifically adopted the special hazard or risk exception to the going and coming rule. This exception extends workers\u27 compensation coverage to claims for injuries sustained in accidents occurring outside an employer\u27s premises, before or after work, if the injury occurs because of a hazard created by the employment

Volunteers and volunteering in leisure : social science perspectives

Leisure has been widely examined within the context of social science theory; however, little work has considered the range of social science disciplines and applied them to specific phenomena located within the leisure field. This paper adopts such an approach to conceptualise and examine volunteers and volunteering in leisure settings. In a disciplinary sense, therefore, the sociological view focuses upon the conceptualisation of volunteering as leisure, the psychological view seeks to understand motivations driving volunteering while the perspective of economists tends to complement these standpoints in terms of why people volunteer and further examines the value of volunteer contributions. Comparative analysis of the perspectives enunciated within these key disciplines provides a picture of the status of research relating to leisure volunteers and volunteering. The purposes of this paper are to identify gaps in current knowledge, drawing out conclusions and their implications for an improved understanding of this area as well as to enhance comprehension of disciplinary contributions to the study of leisure phenomena

Mapping acid groundwater in Western Australia’s wheatbelt

The extent of the area affected by deep drains in Western Australia (more than 11 000 km of drains installed as of 2002: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2002) and their continuing installation by land managers make understanding the distribution of naturally occurring acid groundwater a priority for land managers working toward sustainable agricultural production in the wheatbelt. This report describes development of a map of the likelihood of acid groundwater occurrence. It is meant to guide state agencies, natural resource management groups, landholders, and community stakeholders on where acid groundwater may occur

Measuring the speed of the conscious components of recognition memory: Remembering is faster than knowing.

Three experiments investigated response times (RTs) for remember and know responses in recognition memory. RTs to remember responses were faster than RTs to know responses, regardless of whether the remember–know decision was preceded by an old/new decision (two-step procedure) or was made without a preceding old/new decision (one-step procedure). The finding of faster RTs for R responses was also found when remember–know decisions were made retrospectively. These findings are inconsistent with dual-process models of recognition memory, which predict that recollection is slower and more effortful than familiarity. Word frequency did not influence RTs, but remember responses were faster for words than for nonwords. We argue that the difference in RTs to remember and know responses reflects the time taken to make old/new decisions on the basis of the type of information activated at test

Food waste can be diverted from landfill and utilised via anaerobic digestion (AD) to produce biogas. The liquid by-product of AD is commonly referred to as digestate, and this can be an organic certifiable biofertilizer. Digestate in Europe is frequently used in agriculture, though is not commonly used in the urban retail market. Biochar is another organic matter which can adsorb and retain the nutrients, and also could decrease the adverse effects of high nitrogen content of soil

Soil information is critical for efficient and sustainable agricultural management. However, there is typically a hiatus between soil information which government agencies charged with supporting agriculture develop and deliver, and the information land managers can easily use for management in the paddock. This hiatus is largely due to (1) differences in the spatial scale of information needed by these different groups, and (2) communication-style inhibiting soil science information into management advice. We outline and evaluate a ‘three factor functional soil classification’ based on soil texture, depth, and gravel content for south-western WA, referred to as Profile Texture Classes (PTC)

Green and black tea for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease

Background: There is increasing evidence that both green and black tea are beneficial for cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention. Objectives: To determine the effects of green and black tea on the primary prevention of CVD. Search methods: We searched the following databases on 12 October 2012 without language restrictions: CENTRAL in The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE (OVID), EMBASE (OVID) and Web of Science (Thomson Reuters). We also searched trial registers, screened reference lists and contacted authors for additional information where necessary. Selection criteria: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) lasting at least three months involving healthy adults or those at high risk of CVD. Trials investigated the intake of green tea, black tea or tea extracts. The comparison group was no intervention, placebo or minimal intervention. The outcomes of interest were CVD clinical events and major CVD risk factors. Any trials involving multifactorial lifestyle interventions or focusing on weight loss were excluded to avoid confounding. Data collection and analysis: Two review authors independently selected trials for inclusion, abstracted data and assessed the risk of bias. Trials of green tea were analysed separately from trials of black tea. Main results: We identified 11 RCTs with a total of 821 participants, two trials awaiting classification and one ongoing trial. Seven trials examined a green tea intervention and four examined a black tea intervention. Dosage and form of both green and black tea differed between trials. The ongoing trial is examining the effects of green tea powder capsules. No studies reported cardiovascular events. Black tea was found to produce statistically significant reductions in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (mean difference (MD) -0.43 mmol/L, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.56 to -0.31) and blood pressure (systolic blood pressure (SBP): MD -1.85 mmHg, 95% CI -3.21 to -0.48. Diastolic blood pressure (DBP): MD -1.27 mmHg, 95% CI -3.06 to 0.53) over six months, stable to sensitivity analysis, but only a small number of trials contributed to each analysis and studies were at risk of bias. Green tea was also found to produce statistically significant reductions in total cholesterol (MD -0.62 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.77 to - 0.46), LDL cholesterol (MD -0.64 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.77 to -0.52) and blood pressure (SBP: MD -3.18 mmHg, 95% CI -5.25 to - 1.11; DBP: MD -3.42, 95% CI -4.54 to -2.30), but only a small number of studies contributed to each analysis, and results were not stable to sensitivity analysis. When both tea types were analysed together they showed favourable effects on LDL cholesterol (MD - 0.48 mmol/L, 95% CI -0.61 to -0.35) and blood pressure (SBP: MD -2.25 mmHg, 95% CI -3.39 to -1.11; DBP: MD -2.81 mmHg, 95% CI -3.77 to -1.86). Adverse events were measured in five trials and included a diagnosis of prostate cancer, hospitalisation for influenza, appendicitis and retinal detachment but these are unlikely to be directly attributable to the intervention. Authors' conclusions: There are very few long-term studies to date examining green or black tea for the primary prevention of CVD. The limited evidence suggests that tea has favourable effects on CVD risk factors, but due to the small number of trials contributing to each analysis the results should be treated with some caution and further high quality trials with longer-term follow-up are needed to confirm this

Nosocomial Endocarditis Caused by Corynebacterium amycolatum and Other Nondiphtheriae Corynebacteria

The nondiphtheriae corynebacteria are uncommon but increasingly recognized as important agents of community-acquired endocarditis in patients with underlying structural heart disease, as well as of prosthetic-valve endocarditis. We describe three cases of nondiphtheriae corynebacterial endocarditis, including the first reported case of endocarditis caused by Corynebacterium amycolatum, occurring over an 18-month period, all in association with indwelling intravascular devices

In Judgment of Victims: The Social Context of Rape

This study examines some of the linkages between the rape victims\u27 experience and community attitudes about rape, focusing on differences among three racial-ethnic groups. Public attitude data were collected from a stratified sample of 1,011 respondents; personal interviews were conducted with 335 Anglos, 336 Blacks and 340 Mexican Americans. Victim data were collected from in depth interviews with 61 female rape victims: 32 Anglos, 11 Blacks and 18 Mexican Americans. While the victim data suggest some degree of negative impact resulting from the rape experience for all victims, significant differences were found among the three racial-ethnic groups. Public attitude data suggest that public responses to rape are differentiated by certain age, sex and race-related categoric risks as well as certain attitudinal variations about sex roles. These findings are discussed in terms of how public attitudes may work to mitigate or exacerbate the negative effects of the rape experience for victims. Subsequently, an attempt is made to reconceptualize rape as an integrated composite of the public (extrinsic) and personal (intrinsic) experience of the victim