Investigating the personality construct of self-control as defined in the General Theory of Crime : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Over the decades, "self-control" has generated much theoretical debate and research across the disciplines of human science. Although intuitively understood, the concept of self-control remains slippery as it can he viewed from various perspectives. As a consequence, it has been defined and measured in different ways which are not all consistent with one another. Self-control, or the lack thereof, has been implicated in criminality, psychopathology and various deviant behaviours. The General Theory of Crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990) has attracted much interest and continues to be a major influence in understanding crime and deviance. At the core of this theory is the construct of self-control. Although the authors argue that their theory denies the existence of "an enduring criminal disposition", their definition of self-control appears fully compatible with the concept of "trait" as used in personality psychology. However, there have been few attempts to establish explicit connections between personality traits and the self-control construct as defined in the General Theory of Crime. This research investigated the personality construct of self-control as defined in The General Theory of Crime. The sample consisted of 63 faculty staff members and 126 young students located at the Albany, Palmerston North and Wellington campuses of Massey University. Quantitative data were collected via a postal survey questionnaire comprising scales measuring individual differences relating to (a) personality (Francis, Brown & Philipchalk (1992) Abbreviated form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire), (b) self-control (Grasmick, Tittle, Bursik & Arneklev (1993) Self-Control Scale), (c) imprudent behaviours (an adaptation of Marcus (2003) Retrospective Behavioural Scale), and (d) impulsivity (Dickman (1990) Functional and Dysfunctional Impulsivity Inventory). Results from the present study indicated that incorporating personality variables into a model of self-control explained more of the variance, strengthened the prediction of imprudent behaviours and indicated better goodness –of-fit statistics. Furthermore, the components of self-control, as defined in the general theory of crime, were better explained by the conceptually distinct latent constructs of Dysfunctional and Functional impulsivity. Limitations of this research and recommendations for further research are considered

Cruise Report 64-S-5 Shrimp

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An Unstructured Mesh Convergent Reaction-Diffusion Master Equation for Reversible Reactions

The convergent reaction-diffusion master equation (CRDME) was recently developed to provide a lattice particle-based stochastic reaction-diffusion model that is a convergent approximation in the lattice spacing to an underlying spatially-continuous particle dynamics model. The CRDME was designed to be identical to the popular lattice reaction-diffusion master equation (RDME) model for systems with only linear reactions, while overcoming the RDME's loss of bimolecular reaction effects as the lattice spacing is taken to zero. In our original work we developed the CRDME to handle bimolecular association reactions on Cartesian grids. In this work we develop several extensions to the CRDME to facilitate the modeling of cellular processes within realistic biological domains. Foremost, we extend the CRDME to handle reversible bimolecular reactions on unstructured grids. Here we develop a generalized CRDME through discretization of the spatially continuous volume reactivity model, extending the CRDME to encompass a larger variety of particle-particle interactions. Finally, we conclude by examining several numerical examples to demonstrate the convergence and accuracy of the CRDME in approximating the volume reactivity model.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figures. Accepted, J. Comp. Phys. (2018

Report on Mini-conference on Sludge Disposal Alternatives in the Ocean off Southern California, 8 September 1976

The purpose of the conference was to review the status of our capability to predict the environmental effects of the disposal of digested sewage sludge in the ocean off the coast of Southern California. At present, the ocean disposal of sewage sludge is prohibited by State and Federal regulations. Ocean disposal of sludge, however, is a complex of many alternative combinations of what, where and how; and the environmental consequences of all such combinations have not yet been determined. There is, in fact, some evidence that at least one environmentally sound mode of sludge disposal in the ocean off the Southern California coast may exist. This is the trapping of sludge in the sediments of deep, nearshore ocean basins. such as the Santa Monica Basin. Details of this method are given in Section 3.3. p. 12. It is the philosophy of the Environmental Quality Laboratory to study and evaluate policy alternatives but not to be an advocate of one alternative or another. Some of the policies studied may be contrary to existing laws or regulations, but it is believed that there is a better chance for improvement in the laws or regulations if alternatives currently outside them are also studied. The conference was sponsored by the Environmental Quality Laboratory in the belief that sufficient information is now available to begin making reasonable estimates of the environmental consequences of existing or alternative ocean disposal methods in order to compare them to land-based disposal methods. The purpose of this report is not to publish the actual proceedings of the conference. but rather to act as a communications aid. It is intended to publicize the issues that were raised at the conference, to give the names and addresses of people who are involved in these issues, and to present abstracts and literature citations. The schedule of the conference is presented in the next section. It is followed by a section containing abstracts of current research by conference attendees along with reference lists supplied by them. The fourth section is a summary of the afternoon discussion sessions. The final section is a list of conference attendees with their mailing addresses