The problems and pitfalls of quantitative methods in urban analysis

The utilization of quantitative methods in urban analysis is a complicated endeavor faced with many serious problems. The purpose of this paper is to inventory and explain the problems and pitfalls in their utilization. Three types of problems are catalogued: conceptual/technical, administrative and societal. Within the first two categories, the problems are further dimensioned as either analytical or decisional in nature.The place of quantitative methods in urban analysis is discussed first. Problems and pitfalls are then defined, catalogued and ordered sequentially as they confront the urban analyst and policy-maker. An assessment of quantitative methods in urban policy-making is presented and the organizational factors necessary for implementing successful quantitative urban analysis programs indicated.Throughout a general perspective is maintained and specific examples are employed to punctuate general propositions.A modified version of this was presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of The Operation Research Society of America, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 1972.     

The estimation of stature on the basis of measurements of the femur

The study aims to establish the relationship between body height and the greatest length of the femur. The motive for undertaking these examinations was the lack in the literature of studies that allow -- with reference to the current population of Central Europe -- the reconstruction of height while alive based on measurements of a skeleton. It was decided to examine isolated bones from human remains undergoing forensic autopsy, and belonging to individuals of both sexes whose growth processes had stopped. Examinations were conducted on 91 human bodies from the contemporary Polish population. The research points to a very close relationship between the length of a dead body and the measured greatest length of the femur. This relationship was expressed in nine coefficients of correlation calculated for both sexes.     

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Jeffrey D. Sachs & Katharina Pistor (eds), The Rule of Law and Economic Reform in Russia. Boulder: Westview Press, 1997, ix + 214 pp., £16.00.

Igor Chernyshev (with a contribution by Guy Standing) Statistics for Emerging Labour Markets in Transition Economies: A Technical Guide on Sources, Methods, Classifications and Policies. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xv + 171 pp., £45.00.

Soren Rinder Bollerup & Christian Dons Christensen, Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Causes and Consequences of the National Revivals and Conflicts in the Late‐Twentieth‐Century Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xx + 308 pp., £45.00.

Jane I. Dawson, Eco‐Nationalism: Anti‐Nuclear Activism and National Identity in Russia, Lithuania and Ukraine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996, xii + 221 pp., $49.95 h/b, $16.95 p/b.

Mehdi Mozaffari (ed.), Security Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States: The Southern Belt. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xlv + 234 pp., £42.50.

Fred Wehling, Irresolute Princes: Kremlin Decisionmaking in Middle East Crises, 1967–1973. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, 225 pp., £40.00.

Roland Dannreuther, The Soviet Union and the PLO. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, ix + 222 pp., £45.00.

William T. Lee, The ABM Treaty Charade: A Study in Elite Illusion and Delusion. Washington, DC: Council for Social and Economic Studies, 1997, 165 pp.

Willie Thompson, The Communist Movement Since 1945. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, 262 pp., £13.99.

Robert Service, A History of Twentieth‐Century Russia. London: Allen Lane, 1997, xxxiv + 654 pp., £.25.00.

R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Yeltsin Era. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, viii + 264 pp., £15.99.

Paul R. Josephson, New Atlantis Revisited. Akademgorodok, the Siberian City of Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997, xxii + 351 pp., £27.50.

Andrei Sinyavsky, The Russian Intelligentsia. Translated by Lynn Visson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, x + 98 pp.

Vera Tolz, Russian Academicians and the Revolution: Combining Professionalism and Politics. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xiv + 236 pp., £45.00.

Peter Waldron, Between Two Revolutions. Stolypin and the Politics of Renewal in Russia. London: UCL press, 1998, viii + 220 pp., £40.00.

Aleksandr B. Kamenskii, The Russian Empire in the Eighteenth Century. Searching for a Place in the World, trans. David Griffiths. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997, xii + 308 pp., $65.95 h/b, $24.95 p/b.

Mark Brzezinski, The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1998, xi + 254 pp., £45.00.

Anita J. Pra?mowska, Britain and Poland, 1939–1943: The Betrayed Ally. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, xi + 233 pp.

Mette Bryld & Erik Kulavig (eds), Soviet Civilization between Past and Present. Odense: Odense University Press, 1998, 193 pp., Kr. 225.00.

Graham Roberts, The Last Soviet Avant‐Garde: OBERIU—Fact, Fiction, Metafiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xiii + 274 pp., £40.00.     

Ideology and the construction of nationality: The Canadian elections of 1993

Canada is one nation, but it is in many ways two communities, one Francophone and the other Anglophone. We employ a formal model of ideology and analyze how nationality is constructed in people's minds. The magnitude of the changes in expressed preferences in terms of ideology depends on the salience of the new issue, the extent to which it confirms with the existing ideological cleavage, and the difference between the perceived status quo on the new dimension and the voter's most preferred alternative. Using data from the 1993 Canadian National Election Study, we consider the relative importance of different policy dimensions in explaining voting decisions among educated Canadians. The issue of Quebec sovereignty, alone, is shown to have significant power for predicting vote choice. A plausible explanation, confirmed here by regression analysis, is that Quebec sovereignty stands for other issues in voters' conception of Canadian politics.     

A new look at equity and outcomes as determinants of satisfaction in close personal relationships

This research reexamined the previously established relation between allocation of resources and satisfaction in close relationships. Using self-report data from two different samples, undergraduate students and married couples, we replicated and extended the procedure employed in past studies to assess the relative strength of equity, equality, and own outcomes as predictors of relationship satisfaction. As expected the two samples differed in the relative strength of the correlates of satisfaction. The married couples revealed different predictors of satisfaction depending upon which of two forms their relationship had taken. Those who reported being in an identity (communal) relationship were most satisfied when they provided high inputs to enhance their partner's outcomes, whereas those in an exchange relation were more responsive to the outcomes they received. The dating students, whether they reported being in an identity or exchange relation, were most satisfied when their own outcomes were maximized. The results also suggested methodological limitations in the earlier studies that had compared the relative association with satisfaction of an unreliable measure of equity with minimal variance and a highly reliable measure of outcomes with considerably greater variance. The previously established strong association between the person's satisfaction and their own outcomes in a close relationship was found to be dependent upon the nature of the sample and the relative reliability of the correlates employed in the regression analyses.     

A generalized Tullock contest

We construct a generalized Tullock contest under complete information where contingent upon winning or losing, the payoff of a player is a linear function of prizes, own effort, and the effort of the rival. This structure nests a number of existing contests in the literature and can be used to analyze new types of contests. We characterize the unique symmetric equilibrium and show that small parameter modifications may lead to substantially different types of contests and hence different equilibrium effort levels.