Law and Legal Studies

In Wicks v State Rail Authority (NSW) (2010) 84 ALJR 497 the High Court of Australia held that, among other things, plaintiffs (who establish that they suffer a recognised psychiatric illness as a result of the breach of duty of care owed to them by the defendant under s 32 of the Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW)) are entitled to recover damages for pure mental harm under s 30 if their psychiatric injury arose "wholly or partly from" a "series of shocking experiences" in the form of "a sudden and disturbing impression on the mind and feelings" in connection with witnessing at the scene "another person ('the victim') being killed, injured or put in peril by the act or omission of the defendant". The High Court construed the phrase "being ... injured or put in peril" to include plaintiffs who suffer pure mental harm by witnessing at the scene another person being injured through the process of suffering pure mental harm in the fo...

This paper posits three types of investors in today's financial markets: Universal Investors, Social Investors and Rational Investors. It argues that the Universal and Social Investor are theoretically inclined to seek returns that benefit society and the environment as a whole, while the tenets of modern portfolio theory lead the Rational Investor to seek returns based primarily on market price. Because of the dominance of modern portfolio theory, the actual practices of the Universal and Social Investor reproduce those of the Rational Investor in most regards today. However, Universal and Social Investors are now pioneering at least three investment practices that promote returns to the economy and society. These are engagement with corporate management, investments that benefit underserved communities, and the setting of social and environmental standards in selecting investments. These practices differ from those of the mainstream in that they deliberately take into account more than market price in seeking returns on investments. This paper argues that measuring the value of corporations to society solely on their stock price and their ability to raise that price is not only a narrow expression of the value of corporations to society, but a potentially dangerous one. It views Universal and Social Investors as having the potential to build on and improve upon the practices of Rational Investors by developing an expanded and more complete conception of investment returns and of corporations' role in providing those returns. This paper hypothesises that universal investors and socially responsible investors-two classes of investors whose investment practices are increasingly gaining recognition around the world-share a basic affinity for the promotion of a just and sustainable society. Although the two currently differ in certain regards, together they constitute a theoretically coherent model of investment that builds and improves upon the dominant investment theory and practice of rational investors, which focus primarily on market-based returns. Part One of this paper explores the theoretical affinities between universal and socially responsible investors and highlights their points of departure from certain aspects of modern portfolio theory. Part Two examines the emerging investment practices that characterise these investors and that distinguish them from their mainstream colleagues.

This paper explores the effects of deregulation and globalization on the dominant mode of corporate governance in Swedish public firms. The effects are multidimensional-the direction of change in corporate governance cannot be determined by simply examining whether a convergence towards the Anglo-American model is occurring. Dispersed ownership with management control has not proven to be a viable model of corporate governance for Swedish listed companies. Instead, the control models with the most rapid growth in the most recent decades are found outside the stock market, notably private equity and foreign ownership. After a major revival of the Swedish stock market its importance for the Swedish economy is again in decline. Instead of adjustments in pertinent institutions and practices to ensure effectiveness of the corporate governance of Swedish public firms under these new conditions, a great deal of endogenous adjustment of the ownership structure has taken place. A major lesson from this study is that unless institutional reform renders management entrenchment and/or board independence possible, convergence to the Anglo-American model cannot take place.

The Domestic Violence Project (DVP) began as an experiment but has become my favorite model for teaching law students about domestic violence work. The heart of the course is its emphasis on developing awareness of and compassion for the personally and emotionally challenging dimensions of domestic violence work. I achieve this (i) through an intensive and personal dialogue with students through written journals and responses; (ii) by inviting students to consider creative expression for their final project, and (iii) by teaching students about vicarious trauma and encouraging their understanding of it in themselves and other system players. Students seem to experience this course as an oasis of holistic professional and personal growth within the often dispiriting experience of law school.

Although autosomal DNA testing has been available for a number of years, its use to reconstruct genetic profiles of people that lived centuries in the past is relatively recent and there are no published cases where it was employed to verify a kinship relation, likely to be an alleged paternity, that occurred one and a half century ago. DNA testing has already been employed to study the ancestry and posterity of Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter-day Saint (Mormon) movement. Thanks to information found on the paternally inherited Y chromosome, a number of alleged paternities have been disproved, but obviously this analysis is not effective for alleged daughters. Likewise, his reconstructed mitogenome sequence, reported here for the first time, provides information about his maternal ancestry, but is useless in any paternity questions due to the strict maternal inheritance. Among all the children attributed to Joseph Smith Jr., Josephine Lyon, born in 1844, is perhaps the most frequently mentioned. In the current study, 56 individuals, mostly direct descendants of Joseph Smith Jr. and Josephine Lyon, had their autosomal DNA tested to verify Josephine's biological paternity. Nearly 600,000 autosomal SNPs from each subject were typed and detailed genealogical data were compiled. The absence of shared DNA between Josephine's grandson and Joseph Smith Jr.'s five great-grandchildren together with various amounts of autosomal DNA shared by the same individual with four other relatives of Windsor Lyon is a clear indication that Josephine was not related to the Smith, but to the Lyon's family. These inferences were also verified using kinship analyses and likelihood ratio calculations.

The World Health Organization encourages a “gender transformative” paradigm for preventing violence against women and girls. Gender transformative interventions engage men and boys to reflect critically on—and then to challenge and change—gender-inequitable attitudes and behaviors. To interpret the mixed findings of research evaluating such programs, we review the “social norms” model that informs the paradigm. We bolster the paradigmatic conceptualization of social norms through insights about how exposure to trauma shapes gendered patterns of victimization and perpetration, about gendered violence from research on homophobic bullying, and about transforming local regimes of gender accountability.

While more research is emerging on women’s capacity for successful resistance and the benefits of self-defense training for women, “resistance” to the idea of women’s resistance remains high. In this note, I describe the importance of bringing true accounts of successful resistance to both academic and lay communities, and the benefits to women of recounting their own experiences of successful resistance to violence and harassment. Such accounts provide new scripts for women’s options in responding to violence, mark attempted but thwarted rape as a visible event, and remind women of their own agency in the face of assault.

This paper will evaluate the obstacles faced by victim-survivors of historical abuse, particularly victim-survivors of forced labour in Magdalene Laundries in Ireland and the stolen wages of Australian Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, in a post-colonial transitional justice framework. First, the paper identifies challenges in contextualising comparative interdisciplinary historical research in terms of transitional justice. Second, the paper considers the economic contribution of unpaid labour in the Australian and Irish contexts and, third, goes on to examine the historical denial of rights and redress in both settings. The paper then evaluates the different challenges in responding to legacies of historical abuse, especially unpaid wages in both states. A final section concludes with the argument that redress provided in both instances represents a form of paternalism perpetuating the colonial approach to governance, rather than the provision of the legal rights of citizens...

In June 2007 there were 210 people under 50 years of age living in residential aged care in Victoria, Australia, most of whom had acquired brain injuries. There are an average of 21 deaths per year in this group yet very little is known about the causes of such deaths. While the Coroners Act 2008 (Vic) requires mandatory reporting of "unexpected" and "accidental" deaths, anecdotal evidence and data from the Coroner's Office suggest that most deaths of people under 50 years of age in residential aged care are not reported. This research presents the cases of three "preventable" deaths, none of which was reported to the coroner and all of which have implications for systemic reform. It concludes that cross-sectoral solutions to meet the complex needs of people under 50 years of age with disabilities in residential aged care are urgently needed as well as monitoring to help us to understand better the needs of young people in residential aged care.

The American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) attack on Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia beginning on 24 March 1999, represented the culmination of years of tension, hostility, and growing genocidal fervor in an already violence-wracked region. The Kosovo crisis and subsequent NATO air war against Yugoslavia teemed with issues central to the fields of genocide studies, world politics, and contemporary foreign policy. The Kosovo conflict raises for us today any number of fundamental questions, including but not limited to: 9 Did the actions by Serb forces under the direction of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic constitute genocide as put forth in the UN Convention? If so, what was the moral obligation/national interest equation that compelled intervention by the U.S. and its allies? 9 Was "humanitarian intervention" justified and legal, particularly given the lack of formal UN sanction? 9 How should humanitarian war be waged? and; 9 What is the state of normative evolution in world politics on the issue of genocide prevention and punishment since the UN Genocide Convention of I948?

Mandatory and preferred arrest policies may be resulting in a backlash for victims who are arrested along with their batterers. Little prior research has explored why officers engage in dual arrests. The current study examines the rationales employed by officers to justify dual arrests in a preferred arrest jurisdiction. Content analysis of thought protocols of police officers (n = 24) who reported they would arrest both parties was undertaken. Officers justified arrest of both parties, citing that such was required by law and the desire to force both parties to obtain counseling for their relationship. Implications for policy development are examined.

The death penalty remains a contentious issue even though it has been abolished in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, European Union member nations and some Asian countries such as Cambodia, East Timor and Nepal. Many argue that the irrevocability of the death penalty, in the face of potential erroneous convictions, can never justify its imposition. The Philippines, the first Asian country that abolished the death penalty in 1987, held the record for the most number of mandatory death offenses (30 offenses) and death eligible offenses (22 offenses) after it was reimposed in 1994. Majority of death penalty convictions were decided based on testimonial evidence. While such cases undergo automatic review by the Supreme Court, the appellate process in the Philippines is not structured to accept post-conviction evidence, including DNA evidence. Because of the compelling nature of post-conviction DNA evidence in overturning death penalty convictions in the United States, different groups advocated its use in the Philippines. In one such case, People v Reynaldo de Villa, the defendant was charged with raping his 13-year-old niece that supposedly led to birth of a female child, a situation commonly known as 'criminal paternity'. This paper reports the results of the first post-conviction DNA test using 16 Short Tandem Repeat (STR) DNA markers in a criminal paternity case (People v Reynaldo de Villa) and discusses the implications of these results in the Philippine criminal justice system.

Efforts to increase men and boys' engagement in preventing violence against women are expanding worldwide. Systematic understandings of the strategies organizations use to recruit men and boys as well to deepen and sustain engagement are missing from the literature. This study presents descriptive findings from in-depth interviews with 29 representatives of organizations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and North and South America that engage men and boys in preventing violence against women and girls.

This article offers detailed preliminary data and analysis that focuses specifically on the structures, actors and, most importantly, financial management of the UK cocaine market. Over a five month period we gained access and conducted in-depth interviews with four active criminal entrepreneurs involved in powder cocaine supply in the UK . Bearing in mind they were active in the market at the time of interview, and were accessed via the first author’s personal network without any connection to an institutional setting, the research provides valuable in-depth accounts that shed light on some of the financial aspects of the cocaine market in ways that might have been more difficult to capture if the entrepreneurs had been accessed via the criminal justice system (e.g. Matrix Knowledge Group, 2007) or drug treatment facilities (e.g. Moyle and Coomber, 2015). Furthermore, alongside a review of relevant literature and open sources, in-depth interviews were undertaken with a range of exp...

The teaching of law to non-lawyers can involve an unreceptive audience, particularly when the subject is health and safety. The author works with prospective rural practice chartered surveyors who are likely to be professionally involved with the two highest risk working environments in the UK : construction 1 and agriculture. 2 Unlike construction, the agricultural industry has failed to reduce annual fatalities in the past quarter of a century and continues to account for around 20% of workplace deaths, whilst employing under 2% of the workforce. 3 This paper explores the use of court cases, as an introduction to studies, to pique student interest, enhance legal skills and, importantly, to attempt to influence life-long behaviour for those with future responsibilities in these areas. Students are also exposed to the field work of the Health and Safety Executive.

An integrated lab-on-a-chip system has been developed and successfully utilized for real-time forensic short tandem repeat (STR) analysis. The microdevice comprises a 160-nL polymerase chain reaction reactor with an on-chip heater and a temperature sensor for thermal cycling, microvalves for fluidic manipulation, a co-injector for sizing standard injection, and a 7-cm-long separation channel for capillary electrophoretic analysis. A 9-plex autosomal STR typing system consisting of amelogenin and eight combined DNA index system (CODIS) core STR loci has been constructed and optimized for this real-time human identification study. Reproducible STR profiles of control DNA samples are obtained in 2h and 30min with <or=0.8bp allele typing accuracy. The minimal amount of DNA required for a complete DNA profile is 100 copies. To critically evaluate the capabilities of our portable microsystem as well as its compatibility with crime scene investigation processes, real-time STR analyses were carried out at a mock crime scene prepared by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office (PBSO). Blood stain sample collection, DNA extraction, and STR analyses on the portable microsystem were conducted in the field, and a successful "mock" CODIS hit was generated on the suspect's sample within 6h. This demonstration of on-site STR analysis establishes the feasibility of real-time DNA typing to identify the contributor of probative biological evidence at a crime scene and for real-time human identification.

Transitional justice is a growing field that responds to dilemmas over how successor regimes deal with (or should deal with) the human rights abuses of their authoritarian predecessors. In coming to terms with the past and establishing terms and conditions for the future, transitional justice encompasses accountability and responsibility, as well as healing, reconciliation, truth and conflict resolution. This special issue grew out of a two-day symposium held in Coolangatta, Australia, in November 2014, organised by the Socio-Legal Centre, Griffith Law School, Griffith University, Australia. The symposium brought together experts concerned with transitional justice studies to consider new ways in which gender needs be rethought and perhaps reinterpreted, in the context of societies that deal with massive human rights abuse. The symposium was an intense and close engagement, where scholars from the fields of human rights, transitional justice, anthropology, psychology, and peace and conflict studies presented their work and received constructive feedback from their colleagues. Five papers that were part of the symposium proceedings are featured in this special issue, covering a broad spectrum of interrelated topics, and highlighting debates in the field of transitional justice that are often overlooked and underdeveloped in the literature. In accordance with the theme of the symposium, the articles in this special issue are unified by the topic of 'Engendering Transitional Justice' and the crosscutting themes of 'Silence, Absence and Repair'. The themes that emerged during the symposium add new facets to the already diverse spheres of research pertaining to gender and transitional justice, which, although occupying a growing space in academia, still remain under-theorised and under-researched. Given the advances-and the setbacks-that have occurred in the realm of gender perspectives in transitional justice during the last decade, there is a need to take stock of how far the field has progressed. By gathering reflections from scholars working within a variety of processes aimed at gender justice, this issue addresses some conceptual

This article examines the legal regulation of active voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide in Australia. The Dying with Dignity Bill 2009 (Tas), which was recently defeated by the Tasmanian Parliament, is discussed, as well as other jurisdictions&#39; past and present legislative developments in this context. The recent case law is also considered to ascertain how &quot;mercy killing&quot; or assisted suicide cases are dealt with by the criminal justice system, with particular reference to the case of R v Justins [2008] NSWSC 1194. This is followed by a critical evaluation of the key arguments for and against euthanasia. The article concludes by examining the significance of the Tasmanian Bill and the implications of such legislation.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of the Ponzi schemes and revocation of licences of some financial institutions in Ghana on financial threat. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a quantitative research approach. Convenient sampling method was used to select 435 individuals from three regions in Ghana. Standardize questionnaire developed by the researcher was used as the main data collection instrument. The binary logistic regression was used to test the relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variables. Findings The results of the study showed a positive relationship between financial threat and job loss, general health, information search and loss of investment. However, negative relationship was identified between financial threat and total debt, stress, economic hardship and anxiety. Findings from this study imply that job loss, general health, information search and loss of investment are major factors that determined ...

We live in a world where technological corporations hold unprecedented power and influence. Technological solutions to social, political, and economic challenges are rampant. In the Global South, technology that is developed with Western perspectives, values, and interests is imported with little regulation or critical scrutiny. This work examines how Western tech monopolies, with their desire to dominate, control and influence social, political, and cultural discourse, share common characteristics with traditional colonialism. However, while traditional colonialism is driven by political and government forces, algorithmic colonialism is driven by corporate agendas. While the former used brute force domination, colonialism in the age of AI takes the form of 'state-of-the-art algorithms' and 'AI driven solutions' to social problems. Not only is Westerndeveloped AI unfit for African problems, the West's algorithmic invasion simultaneously impoverishes development of local products while also leaving the continent dependent on Western software and infrastructure. By drawing examples from various parts of the continent, this paper illustrates how the AI invasion of Africa echoes colonial era exploitation. This paper then concludes by outlining a vision of AI rooted in local community needs and interests.

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to formulate and propose a fraud investigation plan that forensic accountants can use to investigate financial frauds. In particular, the paper sets out the structure and rationale of the fraud investigation plan that both forensic accountants and fraud examiners can use in their investigation of false accounting and theft charges. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses the material facts from the Polly Peck International fraud as a prototype case upon which to build an investigation plan and detail potential areas of investigation to establish evidence for a criminal trial. Findings The findings revealed that the case can be used to provide insights on evidence gathering techniques and test particular models of fraud detection. The concealment and conversion evidence gathering techniques provide fodder on how to gather and triangulate both direct and circumstantial evidence that can be used to avoid mistrials in courts. Practical implication...

This study aims to examine the determinants of premarital sexual intercourse and its consequences to age at first marriage. Survival analysis were applied on the 2012 IDHS where 11% of them reported that they had premarital sexual intercourse. The prevalence rate of premarital sex based on married females and males aged 15-24 years is higher than the published prevalence rate based on unmarried ones. Premarital sexual intercourse is more likely among males, lower educated people, and rural residents. Females, more educated people and rural residents enter first marriage sooner following intercourse initiation than their corresponding counterparts. People who engage with premarital sexual intercourse enter first marriage later than their counterparts. The long time span to first marriage following premarital sexual intercourse initiation needs to be addressed and considered in the current policy which is to accommodate comprehensive sexual reproductive health (SRH) services to unmarried adolescents as their rights of SRH.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) techniques in the Palestinian construction industry. It also seeks to identify some of the drivers and barriers to the greater use of particular ADR techniques. Design/methodology/approach In this study, 12 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with senior ADR practitioners comprising nine construction professionals, two eminent lawyers and a retired judge. Findings This research has explored the practices of mediation, adjudication and expert evaluation in the Palestinian construction industry and has identified deficiencies in implementation and the roles that the cultural and legal contexts play in this. The research findings cast some doubt on the results of previous studies asserting the widespread use of construction mediation. Originality/value This paper contributes to knowledge by bringing new insight into the practice of particular ADR techniques in the Palestinian construct...

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Recent work on justice in the distribution of educational opportunities has focused on two phenomena. The first is the shift in the United States from an "equality" to an "adequacy" standard of fair educational opportunity. Instead of making the state provide equal educational inputs to rich and poor children, advocates for the disadvantaged, courts, and policy makers have been trying to make the state educate all students to at least an adequate threshold of achievement. 1 The second is the fact that education is not just an intrinsic good for the individual but an important instrumental good with positional features. It opens up access to the most rewarding careers and leadership positions in society in virtue of endowing individuals with relatively superior qualifications. Because such high payoffs are attached to an individual's relative academic achievement in the competition for rewarding careers, one person's gain in educational achievement is another's loss of socioeconomic prospects. This consideration has led many egalitarians to reject adequacy standards for educational opportunity and insist that the stateand even parents-should constrain their educational investments in children according to an equality standard. Only so, it is argued, can individuals have genuinely fair opportunities, and only so can the state avoid unjustly injuring the already disadvantaged by effectively closing

Since 2000, there has been a flurry of policy activity to address the problem of human trafficking. A wide consensus has formed in most of the international community on the nature of the problem. However, there is considerable disagreement among scholars and activists over definitions and how best to address the problem. A content analysis of relevant articles in The New York Times and Washington Post between 1980 and 2006 reveals that media coverage has relied mostly on official sources and is framed in a way that has mirrored the dominant view of trafficking. This has helped legitimize the consensus among policymakers while marginalizing alternative views that also might be critical of official policy. This analysis also shows that articles initiated by investigative journalists are more likely to break away from the official frame and report alternative views than articles generated from traditional news beats.

We survey empirical studies examining privatisation's effects in developing economies. Most of these studies find that privatisation yields improvements in the operating and financial performance of divested firms, and only a handful document outright performance declines after privatisation. Almost all studies that examine post-privatisation changes in output, efficiency, profitability, capital investment spending and leverage document significant increases in the first four measures and significant declines in leverage. The studies examined here are far less unanimous regarding the impact of privatisation on employment levels in privatised firms. Studies that explicitly address the sources of post-privatisation performance improvement using data from multiple non-transition economies tend to find stronger efficiency gains for firms in regulated industries, in firms that restructure operations after privatisation, and in countries providing greater amounts of shareholder protection.

Exploring the appointment of directors of different professional backgrounds, levels of independence, age, gender and ethnicity, this paper develops a taxonomy describing what is meant by diversity on the board and its implications for decision-making. Board configuration is considered in terms of empirical evidence highlighting the criteria used in appointing directors and the associated implications of social capital for board dynamics. Issues raised include the influence of these on board performance and the ability of individual directors to make an effective contribution as board members. The conclusions highlight the various mythologies associated with the value of board diversity.

Molecular genetic markers have numerous potential applications in environmental forensics if DNA can be isolated from &#39;difficult&#39; non-human biological material such as hairs, feathers, or wood. The identification of the origin of wood is particularly important in order to identify illegally harvested and traded timber and wood products. We describe success rates of DNA isolation from wood based on a simple, previously published extraction protocol. The protocol was used to isolate DNA from a total of 406 wood samples, mainly of the important tropical tree family Dipterocarpaceae. The reliability of the extraction method was confirmed by comparing fragment sizes and sequences after isolation of DNA from leaves and wood of the same trees. We observed the success of amplification of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) fragments of different lengths by means of PCR, investigated key factors influencing PCR, and conducted inhibitor tests for a subset of the samples. The average rate of succe...

Prior to digitalisation, the vertical structure of the market for recorded music could be described as a large number of artists [composers, lyricists and musicians] supplying creative expressions to a small number of larger record labels and publishers who funded, produced, and marketed the resulting recorded music to subsequently sell these works to consumers through a fragmented retail sector. We argue that digitalisation has led to a new structure in which the retail segment has also become concentrated. Such a structure, with successive oligopolistic segments, can lead to higher consumer prices through double marginalisation. We further question whether a combination of disintermediation of the record labels function combined with “self-publishing” by artists, will lead to the demise of powerful firms in the record label segment, thus shifting market power from the record label and publisher segment to the retail segment, rather than increasing the number of segments with marke...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the aftermath of the 2006-07 financial crisis and attempts to identify a range of causes that were responsible for it and are likely to trigger similar events in the future. The analytical tradition established by the study of white-collar crime provides the background for such an examination, which avails itself of some conceptualisations derived from classical economic thought. Design/methodology/approach Explanations of financial crime can resort to general theories based on allegedly universal values. They can posit the existence of criminaloids, namely, individuals who indulge in illegal practices, or ‘honest fraud’, while not deeming themselves culpable. Anomie and control theory in criminology have highlighted how the causes of financial crime are associated with general criminogenic contexts or with individual propensities or mindsets. This paper adds to the existing perspectives a number of variables that can provide a more nu...

Smart cities have attracted an extensive and emerging interest from both science and industry with an increasing number of international examples emerging from all over the world. However, despite the significant role that smart cities can play to deal with recent urban challenges, the concept has been being criticized for not being able to realize its potential and for being a vendor hype. This paper reviews different conceptualization, benchmarks and evaluations of the smart city concept. Eight different classes of smart city conceptualization models have been discovered, which structure the unified conceptualization model and concern smart city facilities (i.e., energy, water, IoT etc.), services (i.e., health, education etc.), governance, planning and management, architecture, data and people. Benchmarking though is still ambiguous and different perspectives are followed by the researchers that measure -and recently monitor- various factors, which somehow exceed typical technolo...

Based on British legislation, the duties of directors are stated in the New Zealand Companies Act 1993. However, "good" governance is not defined within the Act. Considering the relative importance attached by boards to a variety of governance tasks, this paper evaluates directors' perceptions of the current contribution of fellow board members to different aspects of governance practice. This evaluation is discussed in relation to the influence of board tasks and functions on actions that may be regarded as being in the interests of the company as defined by the Act. The evaluation illustrates the strategic orientation of the board, highlighting the extent to which individual directors and the board as a whole can actually influence key outcomes and, thereby, their governance contribution. The paper reports responses to findings based on a study involving 3000 directors and presents suggestions for enhancing board processes as well as possible changes in expectations that could be encapsulated in legislation.

The current study examined the relative contribution of family structural openness versus communication openness in the adjustment of adopted children. Seventy-three adopted children, placed predominately in inracial families within 18 months of their birth, were the focus of the study. Parental ratings of family structural openness and children's ratings of communication openness served as the primary predictor variables and children's ratings of their self-esteem and parental ratings of children's behavior problems were the outcome measures. Although family structural openness and communication openness were positively correlated, only communication openness independently predicted children's adjustment. The findings are consistent with research suggesting that family process variables generally are more predictive of children's psychological adjustment than family structural variables. Im-David Brodzinsky is affiliated with

In 2014, Indonesia implemented a new, nationwide, subsidised universalcoverage health insurance program, under which poor Indonesians do not pay to become members and others pay a relatively low fee. This program has created a national debate about the effectiveness of the ownership of health insurance in increasing the use of health services-particularly among the poor-given the limitations in their quantity and quality. Using membership data on different health insurance programs from the 2007 rounds of Susenas and Riskesdas, this article researches the impact of having health insurance on health service utilisation, by controlling the levels of quality and quantity of health services in the area. We argue that having health insurance increases health service utilisation by approximately eight percentage points when people feel sick (or by approximately five percentage points if we include those who do not feel sick).

Research Question/Issue: In this paper we identify and discuss the relationship between corporate governance and risk management of high technology firms, with publicly listed Australian biotechnology companies as a case in point. We present a governance structure that better manages the numerous complex risks such companies face. Research Findings/Insights: Audit committees are traditionally responsible for oversight of auditing matters relating to the company's financial systems and risk management relating to financial reporting. While the audit committee needs to have a full understanding of the risk management system in order to be able to assess the overall risk profile of the company we illustrate that the complex risk and regulatory environment high technology firms face may necessitate the creation of a separate risk management committee to interface with and assist the board and audit committee. Theoretical/Academic Implications: We provide evidence that the traditional governance model is inadequate in today's complex business environment, particularly for high technology companies. By analyzing the legislative, industry, and complex risk environment faced by these firms, we posit that the traditional model may need to change to meet the demands of a wider definition of governance that specifically incorporates risk management. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Against a backdrop of corporate collapse, increasing corporate regulation and reporting, risk management and oversight has been a recent addition to the role of the board. It is not inconceivable that capital market regulators may require reporting on risk management and the creation of a separate risk management in the future.