Retention and retirement: The case of the U.S. military

The military retirement system provides an immediate, lifetime, inflation-protected annuity to personnel who complete 20 or more years of service. The cost of this system has risen substantially in the past 15 years, and the system's actuarial costs now comprise almost one-third of total military manpower costs. Because of its importance in the total military compensation system, the military retirement system exerts a significant influence on the age structure of the force and on personnel turnover patterns. This article evaluates the relative efficiency of the current retirement system by comparing it with two recently proposed alternatives, one by a presidential commission and one by the Department of Defense. It estimates the impact of these proposed alternatives on the military personnel force structure and on manpower costs. It is concluded that these alternatives would provide a force as capable as today's force at significantly lower cost.Order of authorship determined alphabetically. This paper presents results of analysis conducted while Enns and Nelson were associated with the Department of Defense and Warner was on the staff at the Center for Naval Analyses. The views presented herein are those of the authors.     

Practice and Privilege: Social Change and the Structure of Large Law Firms

Despite dramatic changes in size and specialization, large law firms have remained remarkably unchanged in other respects. Introducing research on major Chicago law firms, this article examines how large law firms have changed so much by changing so little. It proposes a theory of law firm growth emphasizing the relationship between changes in the market for sophisticated legal services and changes in the approach law firms have taken to organizing their practices. The author discusses the organizational structure of large law firms, giving particular attention to the various roles that lawyers play in such firms. After speculating on trends affecting large law firms, he points to implications of these trends for law and social change.     

Barcelona 2002: law, ethics, and human rights. Juggling individual and collective concerns with respect to HIV/AIDS policies

Efforts to prevent the spread of HIV infection sometimes give rise to tensions between individual and collective rights. This article, based on a presentation by Nelson Varas-Díaz (abstract TuOrG1171), explores these tensions in the context of the laws and policies of eight Latin American countries: Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Puerto Rico. The article describes five elements of the response to HIV/AIDS in which tensions between individual and collective rights have surfaced: the participation of people living with HIV/AIDS on national commissions; the ability of HIV-positive persons to access antiretroviral medications; HIV-antibody testing practices; the confidentiality of health information; and the rights and duties of people living with HIV/AIDS. The article concludes that the success of programs designed to prevent the spread of HIV infection depends on the ability of societies and governments to balance the tensions between individual and collective rights.     

Ontario court recognizes constitutional equality rights of people "in receipt of social assistance"

On 13 May 2002, the Ontario Court of Appeal released its unanimous decision in the Falkiner case, which declared the definition of "spouse" in Ontario's social assistance legislation to be unconstitutional because it discriminates on the basis of sex, marital status, and receipt of social assistance. The case is significant for people living with HIV/AIDS, given that a high proportion live on social assistance and thus face discrimination.     

Characterization and validation studies of powerPlex 2.1, a nine-locus short tandem repeat (STR) multiplex system and penta D monoplex

In order to increase the power of discrimination for human identification purposes, a nine-locus short tandem repeat (STR) multiplex, the GenePrint PowerPlex 2.1 system (PowerPlex 2.1) developed by Promega Corporation and a separate pentanucleotide-repeat locus, Penta D, were tested. This megaplex system includes the highly polymorphic loci FGA, TPOX, D8S1179, vWA, Penta E, D18S51, D21S11, TH01, and D3S1358 and may be used in combination with the eight-locus STR multiplex, the GenePrint PowerPlex 1.1 system (PowerPlex 1.1) that has been previously developed. Three of the loci, TPOX, TH01 and vWA, have been included in both systems for quality control purposes. As with PowerPlex 1.1, PowerPlex 2.1 is also based on a two-color detection of fluorescent-labeled DNA products amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and provides a valuable tool for accurate and rapid allele determination. The primer sequences used in the PowerPlex 2.1/Penta D system are also presented in this report. To meet the "Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories" (FBI), we tested the efficiency and reproducibility of the PowerPlex 2.1/PentaD system by several validation studies that were conducted as a joint project among seven laboratories. Validation tests included concordance studies, sensitivity, and species specificity determination, as well as performance in forensic and environmentally impacted samples. The results produced from these tests demonstrated the consistency and reliability of the PowerPlex 2.1/Penta D system.     

Toward a Psychology of Framing Effects

Framing is the process by which a communication source constructs and defines a social or political issue for its audience. While many observers of political communication and the mass media have discussed framing, few have explicitly described how framing affects public opinion. In this paper we offer a theory of framing effects, with a specific focus on the psychological mechanisms by which framing influences political attitudes. We discuss important conceptual differences between framing and traditional theories of persuasion that focus on belief change. We outline a set of hypotheses about the interaction between framing and audience sophistication, and test these in an experiment. The results support our argument that framing is not merely persuasion, as it is traditionally conceived. We close by reflecting on the various routes by which political communications can influence attitudes.     

Targeting housing assistance

This article examines the current system for targeting federal rental housing assistance, a rationed program rather than an entitlement, to households with the greatest need. It describes the current systems for eligibility and for ranking households on waiting lists, and then analyzes relative needs for assistance among different groups of households. We conclude that the main policy objective should be to maintain the present system against the leakages that are starting to occur. We also recommend that assistance be targeted more heavily to families than at present and less to the elderly, and that nonelderly single persons be made fully eligible for assistance.