Broadcasters' response to the children's television act

The Children's Television Act of 1990 (CTA) represents the culmination of more than 25 years of controversy and debate about the public policies needed to insure that broadcasters provide adequate service to the child audience, consistent with their public interest obligations. In approving the Act, the Congress expected to accomplish significant increases in the educational and informational programming available to children on broadcast television. How well has this law worked to achieve that goal? This study seeks to answer that question by examining the children's programming reports contained in recent license renewal files submitted to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).     

Envisioning Public Child Welfare Agencies as Learning Organizations: Applying Beer's Viable System Model to Title IV-E Program Evaluation

The idea of a learning organization emerges from organizational cybernetics and results in agency staff having the means to use their skills and expertise to meet the needs of the organization's clients. Relevant to Title IV-E training programs, such organizational processes would maximize the use of knowledge and skills the graduates bring back to the agency. This article uses focus group data to explore how Title IV-E graduates perceive the potentialities of their agency as a learning organization. This analysis results in recommendations to improve organizational performance without impinging on existing agency resource constraints.     

Crime scene investigations using portable,non-destructive space exploration technology

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASAs) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) have teamed up to explore the use of NASA developed technologies to help criminal justice agencies and professionals solve crimes. The objective of the program is to produce instruments and communication networks that have application within both NASA's space program and NIJ programs with state and local forensic laboratories. A working group of NASA scientists and law enforcement professionals has been established to develop and implement a feasibility demonstration program. Specifically, the group has focused its efforts on identifying gunpowder and primer residue, blood, and semen at crime scenes. Non-destructive elemental composition identification methods are carried out using portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) systems. These systems are similar to those being developed for planetary exploration programs. A breadboard model of a portable XRF system has been constructed for these tests using room temperature silicon and cadmium-zinc telluride (CZT) detectors. Preliminary tests have been completed with gunshot residue (GSR), blood-spatter and semen samples. Many of the element composition lines have been identified. Studies to determine the minimum detectable limits needed for the analyses of GSR, blood and semen in the crime scene environment have been initiated and preliminary results obtained. Furthermore, a database made up of the inorganic composition of GSR is being developed. Using data obtained from the open literature of the elemental composition of barium (Ba) and antimony (Sb) in handswipes of GSR, we believe that there may be a unique GSR signature based on the Sb to Ba ratio.     

Reactions to incongruous negative life events

We hypothesized that incongruous misfortunes generate stronger affective reactions and perceptions of injustice than do equally severe and equally probable congruous misfortunes. Incongruous misfortunes are defined as ones that bring to mind thoughts or images of the misfortune either happening to a different person or happening to the same person by a different means. In a series of studies, victims of incongruous negative life events (e.g., wartime casualties of “friendly” five) were expected to experience stronger reactions of regret, shock, outrage, and perceived injustice than victims of more congruous versions of the same events. Differences between reactions to incongruous misfortunes and subjectively improbable misfortunes are explored.