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BackgroundOne of the most extensively tested risk assessment instruments in offenders with an intellectual disability (OIDs) is the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide (VRAG). The purpose of this prospective study was to test the ability of this instrument to predict institutional aggression in OIDs.MethodVRAG scores were collected for 52 OIDs, and staff registered aggressive incidents during a period of 6 months. Predictive accuracy was analysed using several performance indicators.ResultsThe VRAG was not able to significantly predict aggressive behaviour, although a trend towards significance was found for interpersonal physical aggression. Furthermore, the VRAG was only accurate in prospectively identifying low‐risk individuals.ConclusionCompared to other studies, demonstrating good predictive validity for institutional aggression in OIDs, the VRAG performed poorly in this study. The usefulness of this instrument in identifying high‐risk offenders is questioned. Until further evidence is available from studies using multiple performance indicators, clinicians have to be very careful in relying on the results of a risk assessment tool.

A key question in representation is how institutional settings bring about particular representational roles among legislators. In this regard, the strategic dilemma that representatives face of whether to represent all people in the district equally or, alternatively, to prioritize some area within the district, has been vastly understudied. Using innovative survey data collected in 12 European democracies, we demonstrate that a striking number of legislators favour representing the interests of their home town over the district as a whole and that the number of representatives elected by the district critically impacts their choice as to whom to represent. As district magnitude increases, an increasing number of legislators will not cater to district opinion but will prioritize the interests of a geographical sub-constituency. These findings have important implications for the study of political representation, challenging the conventional wisdom that – compared to single-seat districts – proportional representation tends not to provide geographical representation.

This article examines the impact of government funding on nonprofit participation in policy advocacy. Previous literature has proposed that government funding may either encourage or inhibit nonprofit involvement in policy advocacy. This study, using a meta-analysis of 38 existing studies with 218 effect sizes, finds a slight positive association between the level of government funding a nonprofit receives and the level of policy advocacy the nonprofit participates in. Government funding could be a weak catalyst, rather than an obstacle, for nonprofits to participate in the policy process. Furthermore, the study finds that this effect of government funding might be generalizable to non-U.S. countries. Government funding is also associated with nonprofits' increasing use of insider advocacy strategy. Overall, government funding seems not a key predictor of the level of nonprofit advocacy engagement. Nonprofit leaders should not consider government funding a barrier for them to fulfill their critical advocacy obligations.

Objective To assess the feasibility of a dynamic craniotomy procedure with the use of a novel reversibly expandable cranial bone flap fixation plate. The expandable plate allows outward bone flap migration with an increase in intracranial volume or intracranial pressure (ICP).
Methods Dynamic craniotomy intracranial hypertension compliance was evaluated in a skull model with progressive increase in intracranial volume and compared with the standard craniotomy with fixed plates.
Results Dynamic craniotomy provided significant control of ICP with increasing intracranial volume compared with the standard craniotomy. With an incremental increase in intracranial volume from 360 mL to 600 mL, the ICP increased from 2.6 to 91.9 mm Hg with the standard craniotomy, whereas with the dynamic craniotomy the ICP for similar intracranial volume increased from 2.5 to 25 mm Hg (p < 0.00001).
Conclusions The dynamic craniotomy procedure provides superior control of ICP with an abrupt intracranial volume increase when compared with the standard craniotomy.

AbstractThe prevalence of implicit intergroup bias in adults underscores the importance of knowing when during development such biases are most amenable to change. Although research suggests that implicit intergroup bias undergoes little change across development, no studies have directly examined whether developmental differences exist in the capacity for novel implicit associations to form or change. The present study examined this issue among children ages 5–12. Results from over 800 children provided evidence that novel implicit associations formed quickly, regardless of child age, association type (evaluative or non‐evaluative) or the target of the association (social or non‐social). Moreover, the magnitude of these changes was comparable across conditions. Coupled with similar findings among adults, these data underscore the importance of first impressions in shaping implicit intergroup bias and provide further evidence that the acquisition of implicit associations is governed by a domain‐general mechanism that may be fully in place by age 5.

Studies focusing on emerging adulthood suggest that young adults from marginalized populations are more likely to assume adult roles earlier or struggle to assume adult roles altogether, both of which increase the likelihood of a challenging transition to adulthood. Demographic profiles of young adults do not simultaneously consider multiple marginalized identities. This study examines how the transition into key adult statuses differs by the intersections of social statuses. We use data from the American Community Survey 2010 to provide population estimates of rates of young adults, ages 18–35, reaching five key adult role statuses (completing school, joining the labor force, establishing independent homes, marriage, or parenting) by race or immigration status, gender, and poverty status. Our analyses reveal complex patterns in the adoption of adult role statuses. The general trends suggest that nonpoor young adults "become adults" at increasingly higher rates than poor young adults throughout the transition period.

AbstractFour aspects of Donald Trump's hijack of the Republican party are examined. First, how he used unconventional techniques, usually associated with some 'reality' television programmes, to become the leading candidate in the pre‐primary debates. He could thereby develop 'momentum' before the primaries began despite his limited support among Republican activists. Second, how his insurgency differed from the party's takeover in 1964 by supporters of Barry Goldwater. Third, how the Republicans have replaced the Democrats since the early 1980s as the party with a less cohesive potential coalition among voters, with the result that internal party relations became more conflictual throughout the period. Finally, that internal conflict has been intensified by two factors in those decades: the prevalence of divided government, which has made it virtually impossible to impose a truly conservative agenda on federal government policy, and the impact of forty years of stagnating real incomes for many middle‐income Americans.

ABSTRACTObjectivesDespite a multitude of risk factors, children with cystic fibrosis (CF) have lower reported dental caries prevalence. A potential explanation is preventive dental care use, but no studies to date have examined dental use for children with CF.MethodologyIowa Medicaid data were analyzed for children age 3 to 17 years (N = 156,268). Poisson regression models were used to compare utilization rates for any dental care and also for specific categories of dental care, by CF status.ResultsChildren with CF were significantly less likely to use any dental care than children without CF (incident rate ratio: 0.819, 95% CI: 0.80 to 0.84, p < .001). There were no significant differences in use across specific categories of dental care.ConclusionsMedicaid‐enrolled children with CF are less likely to use dental care than children without CF. These findings suggest that use of dental care use is an unlikely explanation for lower purported caries rates among children with CF.

Various deliberative practices have been argued to constitute viable supplements to traditional representative decision making. At the same time, doubts have been raised as to whether ordinary citizens want to be involved in such demanding forms of political participation. This question has been difficult to resolve since few citizens have had the chance to take part in genuine deliberative practices. For this reason, we examine how participation in a deliberative mini-public affected attitudes towards discursive participation as a supplement to representative decision making. Moreover, we investigate how group composition and individual-level factors affect these developments. Our data come from an experimental deliberative forum on the issue of immigration arranged in Finland in 2012. The results suggest that the participants grew more positive towards the use of deliberative practices regardless of individual socio-demographic resources, whereas the effects of prior political engagement depend on the composition of the group the participants were assigned to.

Paradoxically, many dictators agree to institutionalized succession rules even though these rules could regulate their removal from office. This study shows that succession rules, like other pseudo-democratic institutions in authoritarian regimes, provide survival benefits for dictators. Specifically, they protect dictators from coup attempts because they reduce elites' incentives to try to grab power preemptively via forceful means. By assuaging the ambition of some elites who have more to gain with patience than with plotting, institutionalized succession rules hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters, which ultimately reduce a leader's risk of confronting coups. Based on a variety of statistical models, including instrumental variables regression that addresses potential endogeneity between succession rules and coup attempts, the empirical evidence supports the authors' hypothesis that institutions governing leadership succession reduce the likelihood that dictators confront coups. This study clarifies one of the ways in which institutions in dictatorships help autocratic leaders survive.

This article considers the role of social movement allies in Congress in advancing proenvironmental legislation. We argue that compared to sponsors of legislation who hold moderate views, sponsors with extreme ideological positions will be less likely to produce legislation desired by the environmental movement. We also argue that protest and organizational advocacy by constituents will increase the rate at which sponsors enact environmental legislation. Using event history techniques that follow over 12,000 environmental bills from 1973–1996, we find support for the argument that environmental bills are more successful when sponsored by legislators who have environmental voting records closer to the median voter in Congress, compared to bills sponsored by representatives holding more extreme positions. We also find that the number of environmental lobbyist organizations has a positive effect on the speed of enactment of environmental legislation, but that protest by constituents does not affect the speed of the bill's passage.

Observing substantial variations in Senate confirmation durations, existing studies have tried to explain when the Senate takes more or less time to confirm presidential nominees. However, they have largely ignored the president's incentives to nominate someone who he expects will be delayed and do not specify conditions under which delay occurs. To improve on existing literature, I develop a dynamic model of presidential appointments in which the Senate decides whether to delay as well as whether to confirm the nominee. The model shows that the president rationally chooses a nominee who he expects the Senate will delay if the status quo belongs to a certain interval in a one-dimensional policy space. Moreover, the president sometimes chooses a nominee who may fail to gain confirmation after a delay. Finally, the effects of important factors on expected confirmation duration are analyzed: most interestingly, as presidential popularity increases, the Senate takes longer to confirm the nominee.

A transnational feminist policy analysis of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act: Noyori‐Corbett C., Moxley D.P. A transnational feminist policy analysis of the Trafficking Victims Protection ActAlthough originally the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) sought to prosecute traffickers, protect victims, and prevent trafficking, the most essential aim of the act involving prevention, especially in victims' countries of origin, has not been dominant in combating trafficking. The authors used a transnational feminist framework of policy analysis to reveal the TVPA's limitations in addressing the diminished status of poor women in the developing world. Using five key questions emanating from transnational feminism, the authors illuminate the extent to which the act is unresponsive to the economic realities that make women in developing countries vulnerable to human trafficking. Based on their analysis, the authors offer considerations for the future re‐authorization of the Act, emphasizing a shift from a paradigm involving the criminalization of victims to one embodying prevention.

All major legislation in the House necessitates a special rule from the Rules Committee before it can be brought to the chamber floor. These rules often strictly limit floor amendments to bills considered by the House. Scholars of political parties have argued that the House majority party can bias policy output away from the floor median through its usage of restrictive rules. In this article, we argue that in order to secure the passage of restrictive rules, the majority often makes concessions to centrist legislators through the amending process. We examine this theory using a newly collected data set that includes all amendments considered by the Rules Committee during the construction of structured rules in the 109th, 110th, and 111th Congresses (2005–2010). Our results are mixed, but they do suggest that moderate members of the majority party often receive concessions via amendments for their support of the majority party's agenda‐setting regime.

Stroke in midlife is a life altering, challenging experience for the whole family thereby necessitating a family approach to intervention. The aim of this study was to describe the experiences of 17 family members living in Sweden, including seven adult stroke patients (six males; one female) under the age of 65 who participated in a series of three nurse-led family conversations that were offered in each family's home. These Family Health Conversations (FamHC) were guided by the conceptual lens of Family System Nursing. Individual, semi-structured, evaluative interviews conducted with each participant one month after the FamHC were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. The FamHC were described by family members as a unique conversation that they had not previously experienced in health care contexts. Family members described possibilities for relational sharing and meaningful conversations as well as changes in family functioning that support the suitability of FamHC for family stroke care.