Knowing When to Salute

Due to a strong “Can Do” spirit and a well-engrained, albeit simplistic, notion of civilian control over the military, senior military leaders are disinclined to publicly share their disagreement with emerging national security policy. Many senior officers mistakenly believe that there are no alternatives other than just silently executing, resigning, or retiring when confronted with bad policy formulation. There are, however, options available to senior uniformed leaders when confronted with policy formulation that they, in their professional opinion, believe is flawed. Depending on the degree to which the civilian authorities are receptive to military advice and the magnitude of the threat to national security involved in the policy, senior military leaders can choose among many alternatives to widen the policy debate.     

Presidential address: From the Great Society to continuous improvement government: Shifting from “does it work?” to “what would make it better?”

In the 1960s, various social programs were started (like Head Start) or dramatically expanded (like AFDC). Loosely, this period of expansion is called the Great Society. Too many Great Society social programs, unfortunately, have been disappointments—at least when compared to the high hopes of the '60s. Even if they “work,” most of us wish that they worked much better. Some people take such statements to mean that the Great Society's social programs should be defunded. Most Great Society programs, however, are surely here to stay, for they serve important social functions. How many of us really think there could be an America without a social safety net? It is now time to do the difficult and unglamorous work of systematic program improvement. Instead of testing program efficacy over and over again, we should engage in ongoing and evidence‐based efforts to increase program effectiveness (in both large and small ways). © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

外国留学生在中国主流大学的文化适应--超越留学生公寓

随着全球化的加剧,2004年在中国留学的外国留学生已经增到11万人,而且这一趋势在随后的几年内还会进一步增强.这就使得中国的大学面临着一个巨大的挑战,即如何在本地学生与外国学生平等互惠的条件下,使日益增长的外国留学生更好地适应中国主流大学的文化.面对这一问题,中国的大学需要在首次联系、校园、工作人员、教室、学生五个方面加强工作和投入,而对这些目标的实施,实际上就反映了21世纪跨文化交流的主要经验,即让学生比较容易发现到国外留学的机会,热情、友好地欢迎国外留学生,有严格的学术要求和原则,使外国留学生与本国学生之间在校园内外能密切的互动和交流,创造一个互惠互利的双赢局面.     

The elevated risk for non-lethal post-separation violence in Canada: a comparison of separated, divorced, and married women

The purpose of the study was to shed light on the potentially differing dynamics of violence against separated and divorced women by their ex-husbands and violence against married women by their current husbands. Using a nationally representative sample of 7,369 heterosexual women from Cycle 13 of Statistics Canada's General Social Survey, available risk markers were examined in the context of a nested ecological framework. Separated women reported nine times the prevalence of violence and divorced women reported about four times the prevalence of violence compared with married women. The strongest predictors of violence against married women, namely, patriarchal domination, sexual jealousy, and possessiveness, were not significant predictors of violence against separated and divorced women. This suggested that post-separation violence is a complex phenomenon the dynamics of which can be affected by much more than domination and ownership.     

A study of drug detection in a postmortem pediatric population

At The Office of the Cuyahoga County Coroner (CCCO), Cleveland, Ohio, it is customary to perform an autopsy and conduct toxicological testing on decedents less than 19 years of age. This study provides a retrospective evaluation of drugs detected in a pediatric postmortem population between the years 1998 and 2002 (n = 730). Demographic information, cause and manner of death, and toxicological results were examined. Blacks comprised 54% of cases, males 59%, and 48% were less than one year of age or stillborn. Forty-two percent of deaths were ruled natural, 27% accident, 13% undetermined, 5% suicide, and 2% homicide. Of the 640 cases subjected to comprehensive testing, 38% of the cases were positive for at least one compound. Resuscitative/treatment drugs were detected most frequently (56% of positive results), followed by illicit drugs (26%), ethanol (11%), carbon monoxide (8%), and antihistamines (6%). Eighty-seven cases contained more than one drug. The deaths of 47 individuals were drug related (6%). In this population, it is recommended that illicit drugs and ethanol are targeted for testing, especially when limited specimens are available for analysis.     

Relation of Antisocial and Psychopathic Traits to Suicide-related Behavior Among Offenders

Offenders with antisocial traits are relatively likely to attempt suicide, largely because they are more likely to have high negative emotionality and low constraint. Among 682 male offenders, we tested whether negative emotionality, low constraint, and also substance use problems mediated any relationship between antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and psychopathy on the one hand, and suicide-related behavior (SRB) and ideation on the other. ASPD and the impulsivity/lifestyle features of psychopathy weakly predicted SRB. High negative emotionality and low constraint (but not substance use) mediated the relation between ASPD and SRB. Impulsivity/lifestyle features of psychopathy retained an independent predictive effect. Self-report psychopathy measures added unique predictive variance to the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised. We discuss implications for suicide risk assessment and prevention.

Utility of the Revised Level of Service Inventory (LSI-R) in Predicting Recidivism After Long-Term Incarceration

Assessing an inmate’s risk for recidivism may become more challenging as the length of incarceration increases. Although the population of Long-Term Inmates (LTIs) is burgeoning, no risk assessment tools have been specifically validated for this group. Based on a sample of 1,144 inmates released in a state without parole, we examine the utility of the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) in assessing risk of general and violent felony recidivism for LTIs (n = 555). Results indicate that (a) the LSI-R moderately predicts general, but not necessarily violent, recidivism, and (b) this predictive utility is not moderated by LTI status, and is based in part on ostensibly dynamic risk factors. Implications for informing parole decision-making and risk management for LTIs are discussed.

Intimate partner violence among male and female Russian university students

This article reports data from three Russian sites of the International Dating Violence Study. Using a sample of 338 university students (54% female) from three Russian university sites, four different types of partner violence are examined: physical assault, physical injury, sexual coercion, and psychological aggression. High prevalence rates were found for all types of violence, aggression, and coercion. Consistent with previous research, male and female students were about equally likely to be victims and perpetrators of all violent and aggressive actions. Recommendations for prevention are made in the conclusions.     

Part One of the Employment Act 2008: 'Better' Dispute Resolution?

This article will analyse Part One of the Employment Act 2008on employment dispute resolution and in particular the repealof the statutory workplace dispute resolution procedures onlyfour years after Regulations implemented them. It will beginby considering the background of increasing tribunal caseloadthat led to their introduction in the first place. Later sectionswill examine the replacement of these statutory procedures withwhat Ministers described as the triple package of a new AdvisoryConciliation and Arbitration Service (‘ACAS’) helpline,increased ACAS conciliation and a revised ACAS Code. The languageof repeal and the Act's reintroduction of the Polkey line ofcases might suggest that dismissal law is merely reverting backto its pre October 2004 position. This article will, however,conclude that Part One does not just ‘simplify’dismissal law, or ‘return’ the law to September2004 or indeed to any other time frame. Instead, it weakenskey procedural protections for employees potentially by conflatingthe 2002 Act's different tests of ‘automatically’unfair and ‘ordinarily’ unfair dismissals, for example.Lowering standards of procedural justice is significant in itselfbut this takes added importance for dismissed employees as tribunalsrarely investigate the substantive fairness of dismissals.     

The forensic evaluation of burned skeletal remains: A synthesis

In recent years, research and case experience have greatly augmented knowledge regarding the effects of extreme heat on skeletal remains. As a result of this effort, enhanced interpretation is now possible on such issues as the extent of recovery, reconstruction, trauma, individual identification, size reduction, thermal effects on histological structures, color variation, the determination if remains were burned with or without soft tissue, DNA recovery and residual weight. The rapidly growing literature in this area of forensic science includes experimental research that elucidates the dynamics of the thermal impact on skeletal structure and morphology.