Bubble,Bubble,Oil and Trouble

<正>They were racing through Beijing's busy traffic,actually racing,weaving in and out between cars until coming to a halt in front of a traffic light.The vehicle was a small white utility van,with large English lettering painted on the side panel.As our bus edged forward and came parallel with the van,while in an adjacent lane,I could see inside this anxious van two Chinese men laughing and chatting.Were they trying to flee from someone?What was the great rush?Was there an appointment to be kept that demanded the execution of emergency maneuvers in morning traffic?Then I looked again at the characters adorning their vehicle.Their extreme haste suddenly became explicable:The characters read,"Re-Conditioned Oil for Cooking Needs!""Food safety is now a global concern.Even in the United States where strict food supervision and management of safety exist,accidents still occur.Although food safety issues are difficult to eliminate,the United     

Recidivism and Psychiatric Symptom Outcomes in a Juvenile Mental Health Court

Few researchers have examined outcomes in Juvenile Mental Health Courts. Recidivism rates were assessed among 108 predominantly African American (95.3%) youth. Ages ranged from 12 to 18 (M = 15.85, SD = 1.45). Substantially fewer re‐convictions, along with re‐arrests, were exhibited among the treatment group (n = 54) compared to the control group (n = 54) after one year of participation or probation supervision. Psychiatric symptomatology among 21 youth was assessed pre‐ and post‐ intervention using the Comprehensive Behavior Rating Scales‐Self Report. Cohen's d effect sizes indicated substantial reductions in mental health symptoms (.33 ≥ d ≤ .88). Results are consistent with the previous studies of problem‐solving court efficacy.     

The new Voteview.com: preserving and continuing Keith Poole’s infrastructure for scholars,students and observers of Congress

For the last 40 years, Keith Poole has developed and curated a trove of basic data and measurements related to the United States Congress. He has made these resources freely available through his widely-used Voteview.com website since 1995. At Poole’s Voteview.com, scholars, students, journalists, and the broader public could download gold-standard historical and current roll-call voting data, member rosters, NOMINATE scores, and measures and visualizations of party cohesion and polarization, among many other useful things. In this article, we describe how we are preserving and continuing these vast public-goods contributions through the new Voteview.com. Developed and housed at UCLA, the new Voteview.com carries on the creation of basic roll-call data infrastructure, including the assignment of Poole’s widely-used ICPSR number-like identifiers to new members, data on every roll-call vote ever taken, NOMINATE scores and other standard roll-call vote-based measures such as party-loyalty scores. In addition to serving as a platform for the continuation and dissemination of this basic data infrastructure, the new Voteview.com also provides powerful tools for exploring the history of roll-call voting, the US Congress, and American politics and political history through a simple search interface and interactive visualizations.     

Risks, Costs and Alternatives in EC Environmental Legislation: The Case of 'REACH'

European Community standards of environmental law are commonly framed in terms of the risks of activities to human health and the environment. Under this cover of uni-dimensional concern, considerations of an activity's benefits, regulatory costs and the availability of alternatives play a crucial role in the regulatory practice. The REACH proposal is a first and ambitious attempt to bring these other dimensions to the fore and give them shape. This article analyses this approach, identifies its merits and flaws, and develops a scheme that makes the complex calculus practicable. It is submitted that the scheme is applicable also in other areas of EC environmental law.     

Using Patent Data to Assess the Value of Pharmaceutical Innovation

Though many more patents emerge from industry sources, drug-related patents generated in the non-profit setting appear to have greater importance than patents arising from the commercial sector, which helps demonstrate the value non-profit research institutions can have in driving drug development.     

Business surveys and inflation forecasting in China

We use business survey data collected by the People’s Bank of China for inflation forecasting. Some survey indicators lead to enhanced forecasting performance relative to the univariate benchmark model, especially for a period of moderate inflation. However, the estimated models do not do a good job of tracking the recent pickup in Chinese inflation, due to increases in food prices.     

The DNA field experiment: a randomized trial of the cost-effectiveness of using DNA to solve property crimes

We report the results of a prospective, randomized study of the impact and cost-effectiveness of DNA evidence in investigating property crimes, mainly residential burglary. Biological evidence was collected at up to 500 crime scenes in five U.S. cities between 2005 and 2007, and cases were randomly assigned to the treatment and control groups in equal numbers. DNA processing was added to traditional investigation in the treatment group. A suspect was identified in 31% of treatment cases and 13% of control cases. A suspect was arrested in 22% of treatment cases and 10% of control cases. Across the five sites, each additional arrest—an arrest that would not have occurred without DNA processing—cost slightly more than US14,000. In the most cost-effective sites, an additional arrest cost less than US14,000. In the most cost-effective sites, an additional arrest cost less than US4,000. Expanding the use of DNA as an investigative tool has profound implications. Since DNA-led investigations are more costly than business-as-usual, substantial investments will be required to expand the capacity of crime laboratories, police, and prosecutors to use this investigative tool efficiently. In time, such a change may also impact the types of crimes of cases processed in the criminal justice system.     

Democracy as a coalition of cultures

Aaron Wildavsky was until his recent death Class of 1940 Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and a member of the Survey Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. A brief appreciation of his life and work follows.