Casinos and banking: Organized crime in the Bahamas

The symbiotic relationships among gambling casinos, offshore banks and professional criminals are complex. In numerous contemporary cases, professional criminals from the United States and elsewhere are known to utilize both casinos and financial institutions to launder money and to hide large amounts of illicitly acquired money. Long before recent revelations of such activities became known in the Caribbean and the U. S., developers in the Bahamas had started the process of bringing casinos and banks together to serve underworld interests. This paper traces the developments of that process and shows how American organized crime interests penetrated the Bahamas by using gambling and banking to gain a firm foothold.     

A preliminary study of a traumatic injury prevention program

Abstract

This study examined the long-term impact of a five component spinal cord injury prevention program presented to adolescents. A sample of 445 teenagers who attended a junior high school in which an educational intervention was presented three years earlier and a control group of 379 students who had not been exposed to the intervention completed a questionnaire assessing their safety knowledge, attitudes, and self-reported behaviors. Total scores on the questionnaire between treatment and control groups differed significantly. Students in the treatment group reported significantly more frequent seat belt use, stronger belief that seat belts were important to their safety, lower likelihood of riding with friends who had been drinking, higher rates of friends' use of seat belts, greater awareness of the age group most likely to be injured, and increased knowledge that they could prevent spinal cord injury.     

Facial expressions of singers influence perceived pitch relations

In four experiments, we examined whether facial expressions used while singing carry musical information that can be “read” by viewers. In Experiment 1, participants saw silent video recordings of sung melodic intervals and judged the size of the interval they imagined the performers to be singing. Participants discriminated interval sizes on the basis of facial expression and discriminated large from small intervals when only head movements were visible. Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed that facial expressions influenced judgments even when the auditory signal was available. When matched with the facial expressions used to perform a large interval, audio recordings of sung intervals were judged as being larger than when matched with the facial expressions used to perform a small interval. The effect was not diminished when a secondary task was introduced, suggesting that audio-visual integration is not dependent on attention. Experiment 4 confirmed that the secondary task reduced participants’ ability to make judgments that require conscious attention. The results provide the first evidence that facial expressions influence perceived pitch relations.     

National Origin and Behavioural Problems of Toddlers: The Role of Family Risk Factors and Maternal Immigration Characteristics

In many societies the prevalence of behavioural problems in school-aged children varies by national origin. We examined the association between national origin and behavioural problems in 1½-year-old children. Data on maternal national origin and the Child Behavior Checklist for toddlers (n?=?4943) from a population-based cohort in the Netherlands were used. Children from various non-Dutch backgrounds all had a significantly higher mean behavioural problem score. After adjustment for family risk factors, like family income and maternal psychopathology, the differences attenuated, but remained statistically significant. Non-Dutch mothers with immigration risk factors, such as older age at immigration or no good Dutch language skills, reported significantly more behavioural problems in their offspring. In conclusion, the present study indicated more behavioural problems in immigrant toddlers from various backgrounds. Researchers and policymakers aiming to tackle disparities in behavioural problems should take into account that risks associated with national origin are intertwined with unfavourable family and immigration characteristics.     

Expressing gratitude to a partner leads to more relationship maintenance behavior

We proposed that expressing gratitude would increase positive perception of a relationship partner, thereby increasing comfort in expressing relationship concerns, which is a form of relationship maintenance. Study 1 (n = 159) showed a relationship between naturally occurring expressions of gratitude and comfort in voicing relationship concerns. Study 2 (n = 178) provided longitudinal evidence for direction of effects because Time 1 gratitude expression predicted Time 2 comfort in voicing relationship concerns, controlling for baseline comfort in voicing relationship concerns. Study 3 (n = 225) showed that expressing gratitude to a friend did increase voicing relationship concerns, compared with positive thought and neutral control conditions. In Study 4 (n = 74), we explored the mechanism through a longitudinal, experimental design and found that participants assigned to express gratitude reported higher comfort voicing concerns and more positive perception of partner than did control participants. Moreover, positive perception of partner mediated the relationship between condition and comfort in voicing relationship concerns.     

Is there semantic interference in delayed naming?

The semantic interference effect in the picture-word interference task is interpreted as an index of lexical competition in prominent speech production models. Janssen, Schirm, Mahon, and Caramazza (2008) challenged this interpretation on the basis of experiments with a novel version of this task, which introduced a task-switching component. Participants either named the picture or read the word, depending on the word's color. Janssen et al. reported semantic interference in picture naming, regardless of whether the word appeared simultaneously with the picture (immediate naming) or 1,000 ms after the picture (delayed naming). Because picture name retrieval is completed in less than 1,000 ms, the finding in delayed naming was taken as evidence against the lexical competition account. In 3 sets of experiments conducted in German and English, we tested for semantic effects in Janssen et al.'s task-switching version and in the standard picture-word interference task. Using identical materials, we obtained sizeable interference effects in the standard task (Experiments 2, 4, and 6) but no effects in the task-switching version (Experiments 1, 3, and 5). When the word reading trials of the task-switching version were replaced with no-go trials (Experiment 7), semantic interference reemerged in immediate naming but was still absent in delayed naming. The experiments question the reliability of Janssen et al.'s critical finding and suggest that theoretical inferences about the origin of semantic effects in the standard picture-word interference task based on results from the task-switching version used by Janssen et al. are difficult to draw.     

Gender differences in the development and adult outcome of co-occurring depression and delinquency in adolescence

Using a dual trajectory modeling approach, we examined co-occurring trajectories of depression and delinquency from age 11 to age 18 and their relation to adult outcome six years later in a community sample of 1423 (674 boys) adolescents. We also examined the effects of childhood externalizing, internalizing, and social problems on trajectory membership for depression and delinquency. The results showed that although more girls than boys were likely to follow high-level, co-occurring trajectories on depression and delinquency, the adult outcome of adolescents following high-level trajectories on both domains was poorer for boys than for girls. However, the combination of decreasing depression symptoms and increasing delinquency symptoms across adolescence was related with poorer adult outcomes for girls compared to boys. Finally, whereas boys' high-level co-occurring trajectory of depression and delinquency was predicted by childhood aggression, girls' equivalent trajectory was predicted by childhood depression and delinquency. The findings support the "gender paradox" effect (Loeber & Keenan, 1994) stating that in disorders with an unequal gender ratio, members of the gender with the lower prevalence rate tend to be more seriously affected in terms of comorbidity and poor outcome.     

Assessing decision making in young adult romantic relationships

Romantic relationships among young adults are rich with ambiguity and without a clear, universal progression emphasizing the need for active decision making. Lack of active decision making in romantic relationships can lead to increases in constraints (e.g. pregnancy, shared living space or finances) that promote the continuation of relationships that would have otherwise ended, leading to increased risk of relationship distress. Because there is no available assessment of thoughtfulness regarding relationship decisions, the authors of the present studies report data on the development of one such scale, the Relationship Deciding Scale (RDS). Study 1 (N = 995) reveals the factor structure of the RDS and provides reliability data for the emergent subscales. In Study 2 (N = 963), the obtained three-factor structure (Relationship Confidence, Knowledge of Warning Signs, and Deciding) is tested via confirmatory factor analysis, demonstrates convergent and discriminant validity, and is shown to predict relationship characteristics 14 weeks later. Study 3 (N = 805) shows the sensitivity of the three factors to change through examination of the influence of a semester-long intervention targeted at increasing decision making in relationships. Use of this scale for identifying and intervening with couples or individuals who lack active decision making in relationships may decrease their risk for future relationship distress.