Baby makers Inc

The in vitro fertilization business is taking off. But is it ripe for abuse?     

India’s South-South Cooperation in Human Resource Development

ABSTRACT

The article reviews several of the main modalities of India’s human resources’ involvement with other developing economies, and especially those in Africa. These involve the provision of long-term scholarships and short-term professional training awards. Comparison is made, in the case of international students, between the scholarship and privately funded categories, and also between those from Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries. Comparable data on such assisted foreign student flows are also offered in respect of South Africa. Other modalities of India’s HRD engagement with Africa are analysed, including those associated with the India-African Forum Summits (IAFS). India also does capacity building through non-state actors, notably nongovernment organisations and the private sector. Furthermore, it promotes cultural diplomacy through its Indian Cultural Centres and Chairs of Indian Studies, though these are not restricted to developing economies. Although attention is paid to the Commonwealth dimension in these comparisons, it is acknowledged that the classification of students and countries as Commonwealth may not be as widespread or meaningful today as 60 years ago.     

The Racial Bureaucracy: African Americans and the Federal Government in the Era of Segregated Race Relations

This article employs archival research to examine how the segregationist order was introduced and maintained in the Federal civil service between the 1890s and 1945. In the article a racial bureaucracy is defined by two characteristics. First, one group of employees was placed in a subordinate position to others, both formally and informally, as a consequence of their "race." Second, physical working conditions and daily routines were constructed around the segregation of one group of employees because of their race and, furthermore, advancement and promotion within the bureaucracy was delimited by race. This framework is used first, critically to assess two common views of the composition of the US federal government (the local race state thesis and the weak state thesis), and second, to illustrate how segregation impinged directly upon African American employees in a range of agencies and positions.     

Some Lessons from Using PFI for School Building Projects

This article describes some lessons gained from observing the developments of PFI projects for provision of school buildings. The research, which was primarily based on participant observation methodology, aims to identify key issues relevant to the effective management of such projects. It also attempts to investigate ways in which the PFI process may be changing in this area. Issues covered in the research include motivation, staffing, ownership of the asset, innovation, local democracy and various financial matters. It is observed that some changes in practice in employing the PFI in this area have tended to move it back in the direction of conventional procurement.     

TRAINING,SKILLS, AND PRACTICES OF PARENTING COORDINATORS: FLORIDA STATEWIDE STUDY

This report details findings from the nation's first statewide study on parenting coordination. A survey was presented to all known practicing parenting coordinators (PCs) in Florida (N = 207), with 67 (32%) responding. Data concerning PC demographics, how PCs do their work, and how they perceive their clients at different stages of the parenting coordination process suggest substantial similarity between mental health and family law professionals in almost every realm of questioning. Study limitations, implications for further research, and practice considerations are discussed.     

Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference

Kosuke Imai Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 e-mail: kimai{at}princeton.edu Gary King Department of Government, Harvard University, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 Elizabeth A. Stuart Departments of Mental Health and Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 North Broadway, Room 804, Baltimore, MD 21205 e-mail: estuart{at}jhsph.edu e-mail: king{at}harvard.edu (corresponding author) Although published works rarely include causal estimates frommore than a few model specifications, authors usually choosethe presented estimates from numerous trial runs readers neversee. Given the often large variation in estimates across choicesof control variables, functional forms, and other modeling assumptions,how can researchers ensure that the few estimates presentedare accurate or representative? How do readers know that publicationsare not merely demonstrations that it is possible to find aspecification that fits the author's favorite hypothesis? Andhow do we evaluate or even define statistical properties likeunbiasedness or mean squared error when no unique model or estimatoreven exists? Matching methods, which offer the promise of causalinference with fewer assumptions, constitute one possible wayforward, but crucial results in this fast-growing methodologicalliterature are often grossly misinterpreted. We explain howto avoid these misinterpretations and propose a unified approachthat makes it possible for researchers to preprocess data withmatching (such as with the easy-to-use software we offer) andthen to apply the best parametric techniques they would haveused anyway. This procedure makes parametric models producemore accurate and considerably less model-dependent causal inferences. Authors' note: Our thanks to Dan Carpenter and Jeff Koch fordata; Alberto Abadie, Neal Beck, Sam Cook, Alexis Diamond, BenHansen, Guido Imbens, Olivia Lau, Gabe Lenz, Paul Rosenbaum,Don Rubin, and Jas Sekhon for many helpful comments; and theNational Institutes of Aging (P01 AG17625-01), the NationalInstitute of Mental Health (MH066247), the National ScienceFoundation (SES-0318275, IIS-9874747, SES-0550873), and thePrinceton University Committee on Research in the Humanitiesand Social Sciences for research support. Software to implementthe methods in this paper is available at http://GKing.Harvard.edu/matchitand a replication data file is available as Ho et al. (2006).