The "GeneTrustee": a universal identification system that ensures privacy and confidentiality for human genetic databases

This article describes a generic model for access to samples and information in human genetic databases. The model utilises a "GeneTrustee", a third-party intermediary independent of the subjects and of the investigators or database custodians. The GeneTrustee model has been implemented successfully in various community genetics screening programs and has facilitated research access to genetic databases while protecting the privacy and confidentiality of research subjects. The GeneTrustee model could also be applied to various types of non-conventional genetic databases, including neonatal screening Guthrie card collections, and to forensic DNA samples.     

Black employment problems: New evidence,old questions

This article attempts to review and synthesize some new evidence on the employment problems of young blacks, especially relating to the issues of skill and spatial mismatch, racial discrimination, crime, and immigration. I also discuss various interpretations of these phenomena and highlight the fact that both shifts in demand (that is, employers and jobs) and the characteristics and responses of supply (that is, workers) in the labor market appear to be responsible for recent trends in employment and earnings among young blacks. This implies that government policy should focus directly on demand-side issues (such as job availability) in the short term, and especially on improving the adjustment of the black labor force to these shifts in demand over time.     

Public sector personnel management in three African countries: Current problems and possibilities

Following visits to three less developed countries (LDCs) in Sub-Saharan Africa (Tanzania, Kenya and Zimbabwe) to study public sector personnel systems, the author offers a review of personnel practice in Civil Service and parastatal organizations. In the main, despite a recognition that personnel issues were crucial to organizational success and thereby, ultimately, to economic development, the personnel function was found to be a largely reactive administrative operation, often combined with non-personnel ‘housekeeping’ roles and lacking a strategic role within the organization. Reasons for this restricted role are suggested and include a lack of alternative models of best personnel practice, the historical legacy of colonial administration, and the continuing need for administrative controls in the face of favouritism and corruption. Prospects for reform are considered in the light of current conditions and the view is advanced that changes in the personnel practices and policy are most desirable and urgent in the parastatal sector, and that a reformed parastatal sector might serve as a model for selective improvements to personnel management in the Civil Service.