Portfolio of drawings from the National Liberation Front

Abstract

Young women's participation in industry in Taiwan has increased phenomenally since the mid- 1960s due to the development of light industry for export, notably the textile and electronics industries. The number of women employed as workers in manufacturing increased 3.2 times in the decade 1965 to 1974, while the total population of women over 15 years of age increased 37.5 percent. Table 1 shows the shift in employment by age category, from 1965 to 1977. Most notably, the percentage of employed young women occupied in manufacturing has nearly tripled, and the average age of women in agriculture has increased by almost six years. Of course as the large cohorts born in the early 1950s reached their teens and early twenties, the numbers of young women available for employment swelled. This younger generation has received education of at least primary school level, and a majority have also completed also junior or senior high school; employment as a salaried worker in industry or commerce after junior high school graduation has become a predominant life pattern for young women. In contrast, most women of the previous generation received primary or less education, and now remain in farm households, in family businesses, in petty own-account sales, or do putting-out work such as knitting and finishing while they care for their families. The modern occupations of unmarried women are most succinctly shown in data from the island-wide sample survey carried out by the Taiwan Provincial Family Planning Institute in late 1971. Although the sample included women aged 18 to 29, 90 percent of the unmarried women were under 23 years old (Table 2).     

Evaluation of the Cozart RapiScan drug test system for opiates and cocaine in oral fluid

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of the Cozart^® RapiScan (CRS) drug test system for detecting opiates and cocaine in oral fluid. Oral fluid samples were collected using the Cozart^® RapiScan collection system from 358 donors who were receiving treatment for their addiction and were monitored for drug misuse. A further 103 oral fluid samples were collected from volunteer donors who were not drug users. The samples were analyzed in the laboratory using the two-panel Cozart^® RapiScan cartridge for opiates and cocaine and confirmed using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). The samples were stored frozen at −20 °C until analysis by GC–MS. The overall accuracy of the CRS for both opiates and cocaine was 100%. Samples spiked at 50% above and below the cut-off consistently gave negative and positive results respectively. A total of 88 samples were positive for various opiates and 111 samples were positive for cocaine and/or its metabolites. The CRS for opiates and cocaine in oral fluid, using a cut-off of 30 ng/mL morphine or benzoylecgonine equivalents in neat oral fluid, had overall efficiencies of 98% and 99%, respectively, versus GC–MS. A series of potential adulterants of oral fluid were evaluated and shown not to alter the outcome of the test result.     

Niches of agency: managing state-region relations through law in Russia

State-region relations involve negotiations over the power to (re)-constitute local spaces. While in federal states, power-sharing ostensibly gives regions a role over many space-making decisions, power asymmetries affect this role. Where centralization trends may erode regional agency, law can provide an important tool by which regions can assert influence. We examine a case where, in response to a proposed Russian federal law highly unpopular with a regional population, the region's government sought to ameliorate its potential impacts by using opportunities to co-produce the law, amending regional legislation, and strategically implementing other federal and regional laws to protect its territory.     

Soviet Economy: A Welcome Addition to an Important Field of Study

The results of the inaugural meeting of a panel on the Soviet economy, convened by the editors of Soviet Economy, are summarized. The panel noted that 1985 economic performance had been fairly good by recent Soviet standards, although the external trade balance had deteriorated sharply. Turning to the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (FYPXII) and the annual plan for 1986, the panel noted the clearly taut nature of both plans, and the apparent inconsistencies between them. The consensus was that the FYPXII targets would be very difficult to achieve, although outsiders may find it hard to judge due to the inherent ambiguities in measuring quality changes, and the potential for significant hidden inflation in growth statistics. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 124).