Adolescent conceptions of the homeland: A cross-cultural study

Irish (135) and United States (123) subjects, aged from 8 to 17 years, wrote essays on their respective homelands. A content analysis revealed that American subjects, as they grow older, identify the homeland increasingly with its political ideals, while Irish subjects identify theirs with certain psychological ideals which they associate with the rural culture and landscape. Irish essays tended to be longer and more varied, and they showed a higher level of affective development. Profiles of the homeland on 7 semantic differential scales showed the break-up of a halo effect in the Irish sample. Adolescents in both countries showed a transition from concrete to abstract topics with age. The implications of these findings for research on the adolescent self-image are discussed.     

Perceived fairness of drug-testing policies: An application of Leventhal’s principles of procedural justice

Employees rate the fairness of organizational policies by applying principles of distributive and procedural justice. Using Leventhal’s (1980) Principles of Procedural Justice, the current study surveyed 279 upper-level college and graduate students to determine the impact each principle has on support for drugtesting policies. The results support the hypothesis that drug-testing programs that violate these principles are viewed as unfair.     

HIV/AIDS in prisons: recent developments

In a report released on 20 November 2002, entitled Action on HIV/AIDS in Prisons: Too Little, Too Late--A Report Card, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network concluded that despite repeated studies and nearly ten years of recommendations for urgent and pragmatic action, the response of Canadian governments to HIV/AIDS, HCV, and injection drug use in prisons remains inadequate. Only a few weeks later, the House of Commons Special Committee on Non-Medical Use of Drugs released its report, which contained a number of recommendations to the Correctional Service of Canada. Although the Committee avoided talking about needle exchange programs in prisons, it did recommend them! Meanwhile, in Ireland, not even condoms or bleach are provided.     

A critique on the concept of "brain death"

Since the concept of "brain death" was introduced in medical terminology, enough evidence has come to light to show that the concept is based on an unclear and incoherent theory. The "brain death" concept suffers by internal inconsistencies in both the tests-criterion and the criterion-definition relationships. It is also evident that there are residual vegetative functions in "brain dead" patients. Since the content of consciousness is inaccessible in these patients who are in a profound coma, the diagnosis of "brain death" is based on an unproved hypothesis. A critical evaluation of the role and the limitations of the confirmatory tests in the diagnosis of "brain death" is attempted. Finally it is pointed out that a holistic approach to the problem of "brain death" in humans should necessarily include the inspection of the content of consciousness.     

Estimating Aggregate Policy Reform Effects: New Baselines for Registration, Participation, and Representation

Statistical models are often extended to explore the aggregateimpact of policy reforms. After discussing these techniquesand the incorporation of prediction uncertainty, this articleexamines the effects of registration reform in an analytic frameworkthat explicitly considers the two stages that defined electoralparticipation throughout the 20th century in the United States—registrationand then voting. Using selection bias techniques, the effectsof counterfactual registration reform conditions are exploredon the aggregate level of participation and the nature of representationin the electoral process. These offer a richer baseline of theimpact of policy changes than previous work by directly exploringthe expected level of dropoff in going to the polls by new registrants.Results indicate that the dropoff between registration and votingwould be expected to increase as more individuals become registered.In addition, while turnout due to reforms among projected "newregistrants" shows potentially larger biases than those amongexisting registrants, because of the different bases of registrationthe changes would still lead to a modest reduction in the disparitybetween actual group sizes and their role in elections.     

Windows of Opportunity: Window Subseries Empirical Variance Estimators in International Relations

We show that temporal, spatial, and dyadic dependencies amongobservations complicate the estimation of covariance structuresin panel databases. Ignoring these dependencies results in covarianceestimates that are often too small and inferences that may bemore confident about empirical patterns than is justified bythe data. In this article, we detail the development of a nonparametricapproach, window subseries empirical variance estimators (WSEV),that can more fully capture the impact of these dependencieson the covariance structure. We illustrate this approach ina simulation as well as with a statistical model of internationalconflict similar to many applications in the international relationsliterature.     

The use of SEM/EDS analysis to distinguish dental and osseus tissue from other materials

With increasing frequency, relatively small, fragmentary evidence thought to be osseous or dental tissue of human origin is submitted to the forensic laboratory for DNA analysis with the request for positive identification. Prior to performing DNA analysis, however, it is prudent to first perform a presumptive test or "screen" to determine whether the questioned material may be eliminated from further consideration. When material is shown not to be consistent with bone/teeth, DNA testing is not performed. When such determinations cannot be made from gross morphological features, elemental analysis can be indicative. This presumptive test is made possible by applying scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) in conjunction with an X-ray spectral database recently developed by the FBI laboratory. This database includes spectra for many different materials including known examples of bone and tooth from many different contexts and representing the full range of taphonomic conditions. Results of SEM/EDS analysis of evidence can be compared to these standards to determine if they are consistent with bone and/or tooth and, if not, then what the material might represent. Analysis suggests that although the proportions and amounts of calcium and phosphorus are particularly important in differentiating bone and tooth from other materials, other minor differences in spectral profile can also provide significant discrimination. Analysis enables bone and tooth to be successfully distinguished from other materials in most cases. Exceptions appear to be ivory, mineral apatite, and perhaps some types of corals.