Transnational Governance Arrangements: Legitimate Alternatives to Regulating Nanotechnologies?

In recent years, the development and the use of engineered nanomaterials have generated many debates on whether these materials should be part of the new or existing regulatory frameworks. The uncertainty, lack of scientific knowledge and rapid expansion of products containing nanomaterials have added even more to the regulatory dilemma with policy makers and public/private actors contenting periods of both under and over regulation. Responding to these regulatory challenges, as well as to the global reach of nanotechnology research and industrial needs, governance arrangements beyond the state have addressed the challenge head-on. This article focuses on the governance arrangements of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which has led to the development of numerous “horizontal anticipatory standards” with an important role in setting the foundation for science, technology and market development. During the course of its operation ISO has broadened its scope to address not only technical issues related to the concept and the size of nanomaterials but also broader aspects of the technology, including health, environment and safety issues. The increasing relevance of the ISO to regulate economic relations and achieve certain public policy goals has given rise to many concerns about its legitimacy. The important questions are whether these governance arrangements may be deemed as being legitimate and where this legitimacy is derived from? What are the main sources of legitimacy at the transnational level and how we can apply them to analyse nanotechnology standardization? This article provides concise answers to these questions. It focuses at the normative concepts of democratic and scientific legitimacy and explores the institutional structures and processes by which nanotechnology standards are established.     

Evaluation of a Parent‐Based Intervention for At‐Risk Adolescents

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a parent‐based intervention, the Parent Project, among 84 parents of at‐risk youth. Results indicated improvements in child management, family involvement, parent–child affective quality, substance use rules communication, and parental self‐efficacy at a 10‐week follow‐up.     

Early social deprivation negatively affects social skill acquisition in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

In a highly social species like chimpanzees, the process by which individuals become attuned to their social environment may be of vital importance to their chances of survival. Typically, this socialization process, defined by all acquisition experiences and fine-tuning efforts of social interaction patterns during ontogeny, occurs in large part through parental investment. In this study, we investigated whether maternal presence enhances the socialization process in chimpanzees by comparing the social interactions of orphaned and mother-reared individuals at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage Trust in Zambia. As response variables, we selected social interactions during which an elaborate level of fine-tuning is assumed to be necessary for sustaining the interaction and preventing escalation: social play. Comparing orphaned (n = 8) to sex- and age-matched mother-reared juvenile chimpanzees (n = 9), we hypothesized that the orphaned juveniles would play less frequently than the mother-reared and would be less equipped for fine-tuning social play (which we assayed by rates of aggression) because of the lack of a safe and facilitating social environment provided by the mother. First, contrary to our hypothesis, results showed that the orphaned juveniles engaged in social play more frequently than the mother-reared juveniles, although for significantly shorter amounts of time. Second, in support of our hypothesis, results showed that social play of the orphaned juveniles more often resulted in aggression than social play of the mother-reared juveniles. In conjunction, these results may indicate that, just like in humans, chimpanzee mothers provide their offspring with adequate social skills that might be of pivotal importance for future challenges like successful group-living and securing competitive fitness advantages.     

Past and Future Episodic Thinking in Middle Childhood

The abilities of past and future episodic thinking develop hand in hand across the preschool years and are intimately connected in adults. Little is known, however, about the development of episodic thinking in middle childhood and how it is influenced by sociocultural factors. In the present study, one hundred sixty-seven 7- to 10-year-old children from European American and Chinese cultural backgrounds were interviewed individually about temporally near and distant past and future events. The child data were further contrasted with adult data in Wang, Hou, Tang, and Wiprovnick (2011 Wang , Q. , Hou , Y. , Tang , H. , &; Wiprovnick , A. ( 2011 ). Traveling backward and forward in time: Culture and gender in the episodic specificity of past and future events . Memory , 19 , 103 – 109 . doi: 10.1080/09658211.2010.537279 [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). European American children generated more specific details than did Chinese children in both past and future events. Children of the two cultures relied similarly on general knowledge in their episodic thinking, and yet, they did so to a greater extent when compared with adults. In addition, similar to adults, children exhibited consistency in episodic specificity between past- and future-event construction, and they generated more specific details in past events compared with future events and in near events compared with distant events. The findings provide important insights for the development of episodic thinking in middle childhood and beyond.     

Poor vigilance affects attentional orienting triggered by central uninformative gaze and arrow cues

Behaviour and neuroimaging studies have shown that poor vigilance (PV) due to sleep deprivation (SD) negatively affects exogenously cued selective attention. In the current study, we assessed the impact of PV due to both partial SD and night-time hours on reflexive attentional orienting triggered by central un-informative eye-gaze and arrow cues. Subjective mood and interference performance in emotional Stroop task were also investigated. Twenty healthy participants performed spatial cueing tasks using central directional arrow and eye-gaze as a cue to orient attention. The target was a word written in different coloured inks. The participant’s task was to identify the colour of the ink while ignoring the semantic content of the word (with negative or neutral emotional valence). The experiment took place on 2 days. On the first day, each participant performed a 10-min training session of the spatial cueing task. On the second day, half of participants performed the task once at 4:30 p.m. (BSL) and once at 6:30 a.m. (PV), whereas the other half performed the task in the reversed order. Results showed that mean reaction times on the spatial cueing tasks were worsened by PV, although gaze paradigm was more resistant to this effect as compared to the arrow paradigm. Moreover, PV negatively affects attentional orienting triggered by both central un-informative gaze and arrow cues. Finally, prolonged wakefulness affects self-reported mood but does not influence interference control in emotional Stroop task.     

Factors Influencing Ethical Intentions Among Future Accounting Professionals in the Caribbean

Ethical decision-making is an important function among accountants. This paper sought to determine the factors influencing the ethical intentions of future accounting professionals. Specifically, this study tested the applicability of the theory of reasoned action (TRA), theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the extended model of the theory of planned behavior (ETPB) in predicting accounting students’ intentions to act unethically (breaching confidentiality and charging expenses). Data was collected via a survey questionnaire from 298 accounting students at a Caribbean university. Results revealed that the independent variables (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and moral obligation) significantly predicted students’ intentions to breach confidentiality and charge personal expenses. Our findings show that the ETPB is a good predictor of ethical intentions among future accounting professionals.