Higher education facing the challenges of the information age

It is claimed that traditional higher education has become obsolete. It was justified as long as knowledge was concentrated in the hands of a few experts and in not-easily accessed libraries. However today, the three pillars of higher education - the production of new knowledge, teaching, and the preservation of knowledge - can easily be and more efficiently replaced by electronic means. One can learn whatever and wherever one wants. This can make the diffusion of knowledge far more affordable, more democratic, and less elitist. However, there are a number of social, psychological and societal factors that need to be taken into consideration, serving as counter-forces to the rush to provide electronic replacements to higher education. These factors cast strong doubts on the true value and efficacy of virtual higher education. The solution may lie neither in the wholesale abolishment of institutions of higher education nor in ignoring the opportunities afforded by novel information technologies, but rather in pursuing differentiation between virtual universities and regular ones such that each will excel in its own way. Similarly, we will have to think of differentiation within our institutions so that we come to harvest the new technological opportunities to improve existing higher education. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Using similarity judgments to conduct a mugshot album search

Mugshot searches fail because the witness must be shown too many photos. Current methods to reduce the number rely too heavily on verbal reports of individual features. This research reports three tests of a new system that augments the presently used tools by having the witness choose photos that are subjectively similar to the target. Each photo thus chosen increases the ranking of every photo in the album that is similar to it, as determined by a similarity network in which the album photos are embedded. Because the ranking of the target itself is usually thus increased, it is soon displayed. The tests used familiar targets, an incidental one, and unfamiliar videoed ones. From 76% to 84% of the “witnesses” reached the target, having viewed 2.4 to 8.5 times fewer photos than they would have had they simply leafed through photos as is traditionally done.     

Measuring media oriented terrorism

Although long established, media oriented terrorist events have not been conceptualized or measured in a coherent manner. To forward the empirical study of media oriented terrorism, a measure that can be applied to terrorist events or to terrorist groups was developed and employed to compare terrorist activity for twenty terrorist groups and two hundred terrorist events. The media orientation measure taps into five factors of media orientation and successfully differentiates high from low media orientated events and active and inactive media oriented terrorist groups. The single most important factor regarding any group's individual media orientation level was their base of operation. Terrorist groups that were engaged in regional struggles were found to be less media oriented. Despite the news value of death and injury, the terrorist group with the highest fatality and injury averages ranked ninth in its media orientation score indicating that death and injury was not a necessary indicator of media orientation. Scores further suggest that media savvy well-known terrorist groups did not pursue media oriented activity as a constant strategy.     

Japanese and American Perspectives on East Asian Regionalism

Regular convening of East Asian summits and rising concernsabout the American dollar have heightened interest in Asiancooperation. Japan will necessarily play a central role in regionalendeavors, and the United States must at least acquiesce ifregional coordination is to progress. Among American accounts,the most theoretically elaborate and systematically comparativeanalysis is A World of Regions, while Remapping East Asia providesthe most authoritative overview of recent developments. Japanese-languagestudies of East Asian regionalism agree that regional cooperationis far less institutionalized and rule-based in East Asia thanin Europe, but they include a wider range of opinion about thedesirability and feasibility of cooperation. Skeptics on theright warn that efforts to create a regional community wouldweaken the United States–Japan alliance, undermine universalvalues, and cede regional leadership to China. Optimists onthe left counter that regional cooperation holds out the onlyhope for ameliorating nationalist conflicts. Most numerous arecentrists arguing for active cooperation on economics and theenvironment, but only cautious moves on politics and security.Despite their caution, Japanese authors convey a sense thatchanges to the American-led global and regional order are occurringand likely will continue.     

The stages of managed care regulation: developing better rules

The managed care industry is at a crossroads. Belief in the ability of market forces alone to create an environment fostering quality health care at lower cost is eroding. Regulators across the country are confronted with a growing consumer backlash against managed care. As a result, states have passed managed care reform legislation at unprecedented rates. In doing so, states are confronted with a patchwork of federal intervention and preemption. We examine the stages of these recent state and federal developments and evaluate them in terms of the traditional objectives of a reasonably functioning health care system: quality care, access, and cost containment.     

I Respectfully Dissent: Consensus, Agendas, and Policymaking on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1888–1999

Scholars have been intrigued by the abrupt change in the rate of nonconsensual opinions that the Supreme Court has published over time, which substantially increased beginning with the battles concerning the court's New Deal transition in the 1930s. Notwithstanding, none of the prior studies on this topic has made any link, whether theoretical or empirical, between the Supreme Court's issuance of these special opinions and the justices’ policy preferences. We utilize fractional cointegration to examine the relationship between consensus, agendas, and decisionmaking on the Supreme Court. We find that there is a systematic interrelation between the justices’ policy preferences and their issuance of nonconsensual opinions that is dependent upon the policy agenda before the court. In turn, this connection influences the court's policy outcomes, demonstrating that the justices’ behavior regarding nonconsensual opinion writing is a classic example of judicial policymaking.