Qualitative Differences Among Rural and Urban Intimate Violence Victimization Experiences and Consequences: A Pilot Study

Relatively little is known about rural women's intimate violence experiences in comparison to urban women's experiences, partly because of the difficulty in accessing rural women. This pilot study used a protective order sample of 23 women (15 urban and 8 rural), which provides an access point that is relatively similar for comparisons across rural and urban areas. The number of participants is low and, therefore, results are preliminary. However, several significant findings emerged. Rural women reported significantly less social support, less education, less income, more physical abuse in the preceding year, more childhood physical and sexual abuse, and worse overall health and mental health, as well as encountering abuse earlier in the relationship. Both groups reported higher rates of illegal drug and cigarette use than those among the general population. The findings highlight some overall important themes in examining rural and urban intimate violence victims by suggesting that rural and urban intimate violence victims have different victimization experiences and service needs. Implications for further research and intervention are discussed.     

The school failure as tutor: An exploratory approach

This paper describes a pilot program in the use of high school near dropouts as tutors for young children. The work is set in the context of adolescent developmental tasks and draws its rationale from the general human tendency to reach mastery by turning passivity into activity. We ask whether adolescents who have experienced a decade of school failure and misery might use the opportunity for a new form of more active contact with the schools to master old failures. We reasoned that the very area of failure, where these adolescents show apparent uninterest through truancy and minimal work, must be a highly emotionally charged one (albeit negatively) precisely because it is an area of failure. After describing the setting and the rationale, we analyze the experience for several tutors from the point of view of their relationship to (1) the tutees, (2) the tutor-supervisor, (3) the group of adolescent tutors, and (4) the social system of the elementary school.Received Ph.D. from Department of Social Relations, Harvard University, 1956. Main current research interest is in the developmental process.This work was conducted while on the staff of the Department of Psychiatry, Bronx Municipal Hospital Center. Currently Instructor, Department of Psychiatry, Montefiore Hospital, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Received Ph.D. from School of Education, New York University, 1971. Main current interest is in early childhood development.     

THE IMAGE OF THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR: THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PRESS*

The theme of this conference is "the image of the public administrator". This puts me immediately on the spot, since I suspect that many public servants believe that if that image is less flattering than they would like it to be, the fault lies largely with the press. This notion, which is also popular in the professions, is at once comforting and dangerous. It is comforting because it is always a relief to find that it is someone else's fault that one is unloved. It is dangerous because it encourages a retreat back into complacency.     

THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT*

I was invited to give an address on the topic “The Changing Role of the Public Service”. With the agreement of the organizers I have changed my title to “The Role of the Public Service in a Changing Environment”. That is a small change—but it is a significant one. Our role has not really changed. It is easy in the public service, as elsewhere, to be preoccupied with contemporary challenges, and to imagine that these are new and different. But that says more about the way memory discounts the past than anything else—the latest problem or challenge is always the worst. When I joined the Treasury in 1952 the economy had just come through the Korean War boom and was in the process of adjusting to Fadden's so-called “horror” budget. The world financial system was in disarray owing to the “shortage” of US dollars. The Arbitration Court in the two or three previous years had made some awards of great concern as to their inflationary consequences. I found the Treasury was a hive of frantic activity. Looking back from the perspective of today I merely note, as the French put it, that the more things change the more things stay the same.     

Effects of a state law on rates of restraint on a child and adolescent unit

Rates of restraint and seclusion on a child and adolescent unit were evaluated before and after the implementation of a restrictive state law which was designed to reduce the monthly rates of restraint. Overall, the total number of hours in restraint, corrected for mean daily census, decreased significantly. The average number of patients in chemical restraint stayed about the same. There was a significant increase in number of patients, number of episodes, and hours of mechanical restraint as expected. Rates of seclusion dropped to zero as mandated. A new category of physical restraint was defined by law and was used to limited extent.     

Color separation in forensic image processing

In forensic image processing, it is often important to be able to separate a feature from an interfering background or foreground, or to demonstrate colors within an image to be different from each other. In this study, a color deconvolution algorithm that could accomplish this task is described, and it is applied to color separation problems in document and fingerprint examination. Subtle color differences (sometimes invisible to the naked eye) are found to be sufficient, which is demonstrated successfully for several cases where color differences were shown to exist, or where colors were removed from the foreground or background. The software is available for free in the form of an Adobe Photoshop-compatible plug-in.