Parent-adolescent congruence on decision-making and its relation to adolescent adjustment

Much attention has been paid to the nature of parent-adolescent relationships, with a frequent conclusion being that it is a time of marked disagreement between parents and their adolescents. However, other literature suggests that this time is not inherently conflictual. The purpose of this study was to examine agreement and disagreement between mothers, fathers, and adolescents on specific issues. Then, adolescent adjustment was assessed, and the degree to which it was a function of congruence with parents was examined. A modified version of the Issues Checklist was used to measure intrafamily agreement; the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist and the Harter Scale of Child's Actual Competence were completed by adolescents' social studies teachers to assess adolescent functioning. Relative to their parents, adolescents reported that they should make more decisions alone, while both mothers and fathers reported that decisions should be made jointly among all family members. Only father-adolescent congruence was found consistently to be related to adolescent functioning. Possible explanations for the present results and relevant issues pertaining to family agreement are discussed.     

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ alpha oligonucleotide typing on biological evidence samples: casework experience.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method of specific gene amplification was used in casework to synthesize millions of copies of the polymorphic second exon of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DQ alpha (or DQA1) locus from a variety of evidence samples. The HLA-DQ alpha allelic variants in the amplified deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) were determined in a rapid non-radioactive test by hybridization to sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes in both the dot-blot and reverse dot-blot formats. This genetic typing system has been subjected to blind proficiency testing; the performance of this test in the analysis of experimentally mixed samples was also evaluated. As of August 1990, over 250 cases have been tested and more than 2000 individual evidence (bloodstains, semen stains, individual hairs, bone fragments, and tissue sections) and reference samples have been analyzed. The first 198 of these cases are summarized in this paper; in 65% of the cases with conclusive results a suspect was included, and in 35%, all suspects were excluded. Individual cases as well as some of the general issues relating to forensic science analysis and this genetic typing system are discussed. The high rate of exclusion reported here combined with the ability of PCR to type old evidence samples suggests the relevance of this genetic test for postconviction review; two cases in which the convicted suspect was excluded are discussed.     

Is technology transfer to subsistence farmers doubling nothing?

Editors Note: This commentary touches on an aspect of technology transfer to the Third World that often is neglected: Can the technology recipients afford to use it? Although the authors focus on the economics of shrimp production by subsistence farmers, affordability is one of the major concomitant issues of transfer from developed to developing countries.     

Finding audiences, changing beliefs: the structure of research use in Canadian health policy

The impact of research information depends on its ability to change beliefs or policy assumptions within the relevant audiences. As a hybrid of American and British systems, Canada's chosen decision-making structure for policy-making and its legislative framework for health insurance make these audiences unclear and not readily accessible. This factor and historical characteristics of the research community which made them only partially responsive to the values of decisionmakers provide an explanation for the limited past use of research information in Canadian health policy. More recently, improved responsiveness by researchers and an emerging definition of the audiences by legislative policymakers are bringing about a gradual increase in the potential impact of research at the levels of administrative and clinical policy. Because of continuing decision-making constraints on legislative policy, however, impact at this level is predicted to remain diffuse, with only cautious acceptance of the changes in beliefs implied by research.     

Chronic disease and disadvantage: the new politics of HIV infection

HIV infection is now perceived as the end stage of a chronic disease that is spreading most rapidly among blacks and Hispanics. The politics of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s were dominated by four interacting factors: fear and fascination; who had the disease and to whom it seemed to be spreading; the endemic problems of United States social policy; and the impact on policy of advances in scientific knowledge. This paper analyzes the political history of each of these factors and describes the dominant policies of the federal government and the states regarding HIV in the areas of surveillance, prevention, research, and financing. Four uncertainties will have a profound influence on the future politics of the HIV epidemic: how the states and the federal government will address the general problems of paying for the care of people with chronic diseases and providing access to care for the uninsured and the underinsured; the number and distribution of the sexual behaviors that transmit infection with HIV and the effectiveness of policies to persuade people to modify these behaviors; precisely who uses addictive drugs and the effectiveness of measures to change their behavior; and the natural history of the virus.     

Chinese democracy: The lessons of failure

China's experiments with democracy in this century were few in number, short in duration, and limited in their democratic characteristics. Democratic institutions malfunctioned in numerous ways. Nine sets of causes for the failure of Chinese democracy can be suggested: ideology, internal and external war, military intervention, Chinese political culture, underdevelopment, a peasant mass, flaws in the design of Chinese constitutions, moral failures by democratic politicians, or the lack of transactional benefits for military‐based elites in the process of democratic transition. Each of these factors is reviewed critically with an eye to its possible lessons.