Rail Safety: Targeting Oversight and Assessing Results

Rail safety has emerged as a significant issue in the past two years as a result of two major factors: a statistical lack of improvement in rail safety in the past decade, and a catalytic event in the form of a major derailment involving loss of life at Graniteville, South Carolina, in January 2005. The convergence of long-term leveling of rail safety indicators and the shock of a major rail accident prompted the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask the Government Accountability Office to assess the oversight role of the Federal Railroad Administration, the modal agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation charged with overseeing rail safety. The report is a reminder of the continuing importance of regulatory activities and the general movement in federal management toward greater use of data and performance measures since the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993.     

Models of E‐Government: Are They Correct? An Empirical Assessment

Research into e-government is relatively new. Nevertheless, much contemporary thinking and writing about e-government is driven by normative models that appeared less than a decade ago. The authors present empirical evidence from three surveys of local e-government in the United States to test whether these models are accurate or useful for understanding the actual development of e-government. They find that local e-government is mainly informational, with a few transactions but virtually no indication of the high-level functions predicted in the models. Thus, the models do not accurately describe or predict the development of e-government, at least among American local governments. These models, though intellectually interesting, are purely speculative, having been developed without linkage to the literature about information technology and government. The authors offer grounded observations about e-government that will useful to scholars and practitioners alike.     

The Interstate Sprawl System

The Interstate Sprawl System is an article about the role of automobile transportation in the culture and civilization of the USA. After demonstrating that all previous civilizations in history have gathered around trading ports, where land values rise as the proximity to the port increases, it analyses the changes wrought by the grid system of transportation brought on by the automobile in the USA, where land values remain fairly constant and no core trading centers can be found. These changes include the decimation of the old port cities as well as the urbanization of rural lands. The article concludes with an appeal to encourage inter-city rapid rail as the obvious antidote to the problem.

Rereading the Public: Isolationism and Internationalism Revisited

This is the first installment in what we hope will be a recurring series of Forums in ISP. In each segment we intend to provide an outlet for peer-reviewed dialogue and debate on important topics in the field and to allow our readers to discuss material previously printed in the pages of ISP. Below are two comments on "Challenging U.S. Policymakers' Image of an Isolationist Public" by Steven Kull and Clay Ramsay published in ISP 1:1. Both comments raise a number of important issues pertaining to the relationship of public opinion and foreign policy, and also address more general questions of domestic impact on foreign policy outputs and several significant methodological questions about approaches to polling. The Forum begins first with comments by Richard Clark and Kenneth Dautrich, is followed by comments from Shoon Murray, and concludes with a response from Kull and Ramsay.     

Fatal motorcycle accidents and alcohol

A series of fatal motorcycle accidents from a 7-year period (1977-1983) has been analyzed. Of the fatalities 30 were operators of the motorcycle, 11 pillion passengers and 8 counterparts. Of 41 operators 37% were sober at the time of accident, 66% had measurable blood alcohol concentration (BAC); 59% above 0.08%. In all cases where a pillion passenger was killed, the operator of the motorcycle had a BAC greater than 0.08%. Of the killed counterparts 2 were non-intoxicated, 2 had a BAC greater than 0.08%, and 4 were not tested. The results advocate that the law should restrict alcohol consumption by pillion passengers as well as by the motorcycle operator. Suggestions made to extend the data base needed for developing appropriate alcohol countermeasures by collecting sociodemographic data on drivers killed or seriously injured should be supported.     

A simplified procedure for simultaneous detection of salivary proteins and its application in paternity testing

An alternative simplified procedure for the genetic analysis of salivary protein complex (SPC) which eliminates the need for a specific concentrated parotid sample is proposed. After the technique is applied isoelectric focusing and protein detection is carried out by silver staining. The chance of exclusion of non-fathers for these systems in our population is 0.161711 for Pr, 0.07948 for Db, 0.07836 for Pa and 0.00995 for PIF. The total exclusion rate for these systems is 0.30042.     

Political Parties and Women’s Rights in Turkey

Abstract

Political parties are important political actors, but they are seldom studied in relation to human rights. This article examines the human rights discourse of political parties in Turkey by focusing on women’s rights. The content analysis of party programmes issued by major political parties between 1923 and 2007 reveals significant differences and changes in parties’ approach to women, ranging from no mentioning of women to addressing women’s issues from a feminist perspective. Women’s rights and issues, once neglected practically by all political parties, have gained attention during the last few decades, largely due to women’s activism. While conservative, religious, and Turkish nationalist parties started to display a dualist approach that combines traditionalism with gender equality, social democrat, socialist, and pro-Kurdish parties increasingly employ feminist terminology and analysis.