Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Contracts are breached every day, oftentimes leaving bitter feelings between the parties. The law aims to rectify the wrong of the breach by offering a few remedies. One of those remedies, and the focus of attention of this paper, is the remedy of specific performance. Under many systems of law specific performance is the default remedy for breach.
Much ink has been spilt in the theoretical analysis of this remedy. Some try to justify it in deontological terms while others push for and against it from the perspective of economic efficiency. However important those views are, they lack – and usually admit so – empirical data.
Through the paradigm of law in action this research aims to take a fresh look into the ways contracts are preformed after litigation. The research is built on a two-tiered analysis: first, a comprehensive content analysis of court cases reveals the characteristics of judgments awarding specific performance. Second, a set of interviews with parties after litigation explores the obstacles and hurdles parties face in achieving performance of the court order.
Some of the economic analyses suggest that the parties will bargain around the court order rather than perform it. The interviews provide data on the frequency of such bargains and when those fail, on the frequency and quality of the performance of the court orders. The latter question offers a look into the under-explored scenarios where failure to negotiate results in (coerced) cooperation. The research aims at evaluating the problematic nature of semi non-consensual co-operations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Over the past 10 years, various adolescent substance abuse and prevention researchers have called for specific lines of empirical inquiry. One such call includes an increase in research on substance use among rural adolescents, including assessing the validity of the drug-sequencing hypothesis outlined in Kandel's Stage Theory for this sub-population. Other researchers have argued for determining if risk factors for various aspects of adolescent drug use, including initiation, are drug-specific or universal in kind and saliency. An emphasis also has been placed on the concept of developmental contextualism, with researchers promulgating the need to determine whether risk factors vary in kind or saliency according to different stages of adolescent development.

This presentation serves as a synopsis of proposed dissertation research designed to answer each of these respective calls and address gaps in the literature. Specifically, an empirical test of Kandel's drug sequencing hypothesis and a comprehensive quantitative examination of predictors of adolescent soft drug initiation is proposed. Of particular interest is determining whether risk factors are drug-specific, and if they differ in kind and saliency by stage of adolescent development. Data is derived from the 2004 Primary Prevention Awareness, Attitude, and Use Survey (PPAAUS), a tri-annual cross-sectional survey administered to 6th, 9th, and 12th grade students in a rural Pennsylvania school district. Discussion will center on the research questions, hypotheses, and associated statistical models proposed. A dual cross-validation scheme designed to assess the stability of quantitative findings also will be presented and discussed in terms of underlying rationale and methodology.

Publication Type: Individual Poster
Abstract: Background and Aims
The present study took place within a larger international framework of Dartington’s Matching Needs and Services. It aimed to explore the needs of children in an emergency care unit in Lisbon, who were either abandoned or taken from their families by Child Protective Services. Recent studies highlight the main problems within this kind of institutional response, which our methodological approach aims to change (e.g., Bullock, Little, & Milham, 1993; Casas, 1993; Casas, & Aznar, 1993; Valle, 1998), including the lack of differentiation in the services according to different types of situation and specific needs of the each child.

Methods
We analysed a sample of 100 children, previously assessed through the Dartington´s program tools of Matching Needs and Services. Children were aged 0 to 6 years old, of both sexes, with most younger than 2-years-old.
These tools assessed risk and protective factors in 5 dimensions: living situation, family/social relationships, social behavior, physical and psychological health, education and employment.
Based on their theoretical relevance, statistical frequency distribution and correlational matrix, a set of 30 variables was selected and used to perform a cluster analysis that yielded a four-cluster solution.

Key Results
Therefore, 4 groups of children with similar needs were identified and could be characterized as follows: (1; N= 29) Group of children with history of emotional, physical or sexual ill-treatment and neglect, with a variety of parental problems; (2; N=16) Group of neglected children with positive affective relationships with their mothers in single-parent families; (3; N=35) Group of older children with family relationships with mother, father or extended families from financially impoverished and developmentally inadequate conditions; and (4; N= 20) Group of abandoned newborns. Although significant impairment to physical, psychological and emotional/social development was present for all groups, analyses of variance revealed additional differences among the groups.

Conclusions
Group 4 (group of abandoned newborns) was chosen for a targeted intervention because the children it comprises meet adoption criteria. Specifically, these children have no chance to return to their families and are under full responsibility of the institution until the adoption process is concluded. A new service will be designed for this group in order to adequately respond to these children’s needs, presenting inclusion and exclusion criteria, and specific strategic and outcome goals. Implications will be drawn for social policies regarding infant emergency care.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The type and quality of and adolescent's friendships can vary across many dimensions with each friendship having its own unique context, features, and norms. The primary purpose of this study will be to use the Add Health social network data to explore how different definitions of the term 'friend' impact the adolescent/peer delinquency association. The term friend(s) is defined as an adolescent's nominated egocentric friendship group, the first nominated friend (i.e. the best friend), and the rest of the friendship group excluding the best friend. First, we assess the relationship between an adolescent's delinquency and that of the three specified definitions of the term friend(s). Second, our analysis tests the hypothesis that the delinquency of an adolescent's best friend and the rest of the group each have a unique and significant association with his or her delinquency. Lastly, we examine if the effect of the best friend's delinquency depends upon its similarity to the delinquency of the rest of the friendship group. Each of these questions will be explored across three delinquency definitions: a general delinquency index, smoking, and fighting.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study stems from attempting to operationalize income inequality in predicting health outcomes at the cross-national level. The Gini Coefficient has long been used as a population based measure to indicate relative income inequality for the entire unit of analysis. A new trigonometric measure is suggested to further dissect population specific ownership of income without separating population brackets into dummy variables. The new method suggests isolating clustered inflection points on the Lorenz curve and comparing radians across populations.