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This study examined adolescent peer-on-peer sexual assault victimization occurring within and outside school. The sample consisted of 1,086 7th through 12th grade students, with a mean age of 15. Most of the respondents were White (54%) or Black (45%), and approximately half of respondents were female (54%). A modified version of the Sexual Experiences Survey was used to assess opposite sex sexual victimization in 7th through 12th grade students. Rates of peer sexual assault were high, ranging from 26% of high school boys to 51% of high school girls. School was the most common location of peer sexual victimization. Characteristics of assault varied by location, including type of victimization, victims' grade level, relationship to the perpetrator, type of coercion, and how upsetting the assault was. Distinctions between sexual assault occurring in and out of school are conceptualized with literature on developmental changes in heterosexual relationships and aggression.

Microconchids have been described from the classic Pennsylvanian locality at Joggins, Nova Scotia. These encrusting tentaculitoid tubeworms have previously been mentioned and described from Joggins under the polychaete genus Spirorbis. Detailed morphological and microstructural investigation revealed that they belong to the species Microconchus carbonarius Murchison, confirming the previous tentative assignment (as Spirorbis carbonarius) made by Sir J. William Dawson in the nineteenth century. The occurrence of the same species in Upper Carboniferous deposits of England provides evidence supporting a connection between England and Nova Scotia in the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian). Migration of the species could have been possible via brackish seas connecting both areas during maximum sea level during the Pennsylvanian. The species inhabited retrograding poorly drained coastal plain and open-water brackish environments, encrusting bivalve shells and plant remains in both sandstone and limestone deposits. Their high density (up to 19 individuals/cm2) may have resulted from their aggregative behaviour, high fecundity, and a lack of any competition with other skeleton-bearing encrusters. The large number (34%) of regenerated tubes indicates that microconchids were often preyed upon by associated animals, most probably fishes, which could graze on their dense encrusting aggregations. Des microconchides sont decrits qui proviennent de la localite pennsylvanienne classique de Joggins (Nouvelle- Ecosse). Ces vers a tube tentaculitoides incrustants ont deja ete mentionnes pour cette localite et decrits comme appartenant au genre des polychetes Spirorbis. Une etude morphologique et microstructurale detaillee a revele qu'ils appartiennent a l'espece Microconchus carbonarius Murchison, ce qui confirme leur affectation preliminaire anterieure (a Spirorbis carbonarius) par Sir J. William Dawson, au 19e siecle. La presence de la meme espece dans des depots du Carbonifere superieur d'Angleterre appuie l'existence d'un lien entre l'Angleterre et la Nouvelle-Ecosse au Carbonifere tardif (Pennsylvanien). La migration de l'espece pourrait avoir ete possible par l'intermediaire de mers saumatres reliant les deux regions, en periode de niveau maximum de la mer au Pennsylvanien. L'espece habitait des milieux de plaine cotiere mal drainee en retrogradation et d'eaux saumatres libres, des coquilles de bivalves et des restes de plantes s'incrustant dans des depots de gres et de calcaire. Leur densite elevee (jusqu'a 19 individus au [cm.sup.2]) pourrait etre le fait de leur comportement gregaire, leur grande fecondite et l'absence de toute concurrence avec d'autres especes incrustantes a squelette. Le grand nombre (34 %) de tubes regeneres indique que les microconchides etaient souvent la proie d'animaux associes, fort probablement des poissons, qui pouvaient brouter leurs denses agregations incrustantes. [Traduit par la Redaction], Introduction The Joggins Fossil Cliffs UNESCO World Heritage Site in Nova Scotia, Canada (Fig. 1), is one of the thickest successions of a Carboniferous coal basin in the world (Boon [...]

Coprolites offer insights into the diets of the animals that produced them, and thereby also provide a unique perspective of the paleoenvironments and paleoecosystems that existed during their deposition. Late [...]

Objective: The purpose of this study was to document the prevalence and describe the characteristics of alcohol-related sexual assault among middle and high school students. Method: A Web-based, self-administered survey was used to collect data on 7th- through 12th-grade students (n = 1,037) in a large metropolitan area in the Midwest. A modified version of the Sexual Experiences Survey was used to ask students about their sexual victimization experiences so as to examine the involvement of alcohol within specific assault events. The sample was equally distributed by biological gender and ethnicity (white vs black) and was, on average (SD), 14 (2) years of age. Results: Findings from the study indicate that alcohol was involved in approximately 12%-20% of the assault cases, depending on age and gender of the respondent. For females, the presence of alcohol during assault differed significantly based on the location at which the assault occurred, ranging from 6% (at the survivor's home) to 29% (at parties or someone else's home). Furthermore, alcohol-related assault among females was more likely to involve physical force than non-alcohol-related assault. Conclusions: Results are discussed in light of the risk factors of alcohol-related assault among adolescents as well as the nature of social contexts that fosters alcohol-related sexual assault among both adolescents and college students., SEXUAL ASSAULT, WHICH REFERS TO any form of unwanted sexual contact obtained through violent or nonviolent means, has profound ramification in the lives of its victims in terms of their [...]

One hundredSelenichnites rossendalensis(excavations), sometimes with associated trackways, have been found at Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Nova Scotia, Canada; Pennsylvanian). The majority of theSelenichnitesfound in this study contain only one lunate cast and some are distinguished by linear ridges that project behind a single lunate cast. A detailed investigation of the morphology and orientation of theseSelenichnites—attributable to xiphosurans, relatives of modern horseshoe crabs (Limulus polyphemus)—yields an understanding of xiphosuran digging behavior. Statistical analysis of 96 lunate casts from two populations ofSelenichnitesseparated by several hundred thousand years shows, with 99% confidence, that the prosomas (heads) of the younger population are smaller. Further study of the wealth ofSelenichnitesat Joggins will be useful to determine which factors control xiphosuran body-size changes and the timescale on which those changes can be seen manifest in a population. The smallest knownSelenichnites(7 mm wide) is also reported. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Grey, M., Finkel, Z.V., Pufahl, P.K. & Reid, L.M. 2012: Evolutionary mode of the ostracod, Velatomorpha altilis, at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs UNESCO World Heritage Site. Lethaia, Vol. 45, pp. 615-623. The estuarine ostracod Velatomorpha altilis was analysed for size and shape changes over a 2-3 million-year interval within a portion of the Joggins Fossil Cliffs World Heritage Site. This represents one of a very few number of studies focused on evolutionary trends within marginal environments and contributes to a growing body of research that attempts to link evolutionary patterns with processes. We measured nearly 400 ostracod specimens and used a quantitative model-based test to assess mode of evolution. Samples of ostracods were also analysed for their stable oxygen and carbon isotopic compositions in an attempt to supplement paleoenvironmental interpretations. Stasis was the strongly supported model for mode of evolution in both size and shape metrics, lending support to previous hypotheses that organisms from fluctuating, and therefore stressed, environments, should exhibit stasis because they are genetically well adapted to environmental change over geological time-scales. Stable isotopic compositions indicate samples were diagenetically altered and thus do not preserve a primary signature of paleoenvironmental conditions. Future work should look to other marginal organisms to test whether stasis is indeed a trend in these types of environments. □ Carboniferous, estuarine ostracod, environment, evolutionary mode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]