Forensic Performance Analysis of Load‐Limiting Devices in Automotive Seat Belt Retractors

The introduction of frontal airbags and seatbelt pretensioners for front seat occupants provided an opportunity to address injuries caused by seatbelt loading by introducing load‐limiters, which were intended to reduce belt loading while maintaining proper restraint. Investigation and forensic analysis of real‐world crashes identified that the implementation of these devices, in some circumstances, increased the potential of injury. This paper focuses on the trade‐offs of load‐limiters, that is, the reduction loading to the occupant versus the corresponding increase in seatbelt webbing and occupant movement. If the additional webbing introduced is not controlled, the risk of injury to the occupant is increased and could result in more frequent and severe injuries rather than a reduction. This paper quantifies the webbing introduced by load‐limiter activation through forensic analysis of the seatbelt involved in real‐world crashes and testing and assesses its effect on the injuries sustained by the occupant.     

Radical Actions by Radical Farmers: Regional Revitalization in the Okitama Basin of Yamagata Prefecture

This report describes the ways in which a group of organic farmers in Yamagata Prefecture have been able to effect basic structural changes that contribute to the social transformative process of counter-hegemony. Members of the Okitama Farmers' League (OFL) have initiated a regional revitalization plan based on the concept of eco-circularity in which local household food wastes and other organic materials are converted into compost for use by area organic farmers. By forming organic farmers' collectives, members provide farm-related work in rural areas during the long winter months. The women farmers in the group have formed a support group for farm wives to fight collectively against female subordination within the household as well as to improve the overall position of women in the Okitama area. They are challenging the dominant culture's values and social assumptions, and are engaged in creating new cultural values and definitions of self in relation to others. The OFL offers a vision of a noneconomistic, democratized, and environmentally sustainable society centered on universal principles of human rights, social justice, and popular participation in the reformulation of the meanings attached to work, authority, culture, family, community, gender, and consumption.     

The future of professionalization and professionalism in public administration: Advancements,barriers, and prospects

This article examines the advancements, barriers, and prospects of the field of public administration as it seeks professionalism through professionalization. Overall, this essay delves into six broad areas of advancement and an equal number of obstacles. The milestones focus on the criteria of a profession and public administration's fulfillment of those standards, far-reaching credentialization, the expanding entry of women and minorities, the development of performance criteria, intergovernmental networking, and an expansion of associations. The impediments to the further evolution of the field toward professional development include the continuing value conflicts over the ultimate purposes of the field; the persistent politicization of the federal workforce; the inability of public servants to affect the uses of privatization; the erosion of national, state, and local governmental human-resource capacity; the confusion over the teaching of ethics and the promulgation of operational codes; and the prevalence of authoritarian administration without significant democratic inroads. The respective enumerations were not intended to suggest an exact symmetry between accomplishments and obstacles in the field--only that progress and deficiencies are prominent and substantial. Nor were these considered lists intended as exhaustive.

The central theme of this article is that, paradoxically, the prospects of this profession are encouraging because of the growing public need for its services despite persistent, widespread unpopularity. This research concludes that public administrators face an ambivalent future in which their emerging profession continues to prosper and expand amidst increasing alienation and frustration from the public whom they serve. This irony may not be alleviated until there is a socially and politically agreed-upon agenda for public servants to execute. If such a consensus is ever forged, then public administrators may become popular as well as professionally effective.     

Reflections on public administration's critical stage, 1937–1940: a structural synthesis

The central theme of this article is that the critical stage in the development of the field of public administration—the most concentrated burst—covered the period between 1937-1940. Although this occupation experienced times of diffuse but substantial activity around World War 1 and during the 1960s and 1970s, the most profound changes took place shortly before the second world war. What chiefly sets this period apart from earlier and later periods of fermentation centers not so much on the quantity of innovations but, rather, on their nature (that is, their structural genre) and on their breath (their institutional reach).

This article starts with a perspective so that it may be better understood why this particular time span was instrumental to the growth of public administration. It reviews the contributions of preceding and subsequent eras in the evolution of the field, the article presents a structural synthesis by examining organizational innovations in four areas at the national level: (1) the executive branch, (2) the judiciary, (3) Congress, and (4) the profession of public administration. The paper concludes by exploring the forces that, in our view, made this period the most productive one in this history of the occupation. Finally, the research for this article rests on a reservoir of publicly available primary and secondary materials relevant to this period.     

National trends in female arrests, 1960–1990: Assessment and recommendations for research

Trends in female criminality from 1960 to 1990 are examined. The main focus is UCR arrest statistics but other sources of evidence are also used. Major findings include the following: (1) relative to males, the profile of the female offender has not changed; and (2) the principal change in the female percentage of arrests involves the overall rise in property crime, especially minor thefts and frauds. The effects of broad-based legal and societal trends on female criminality are discussed and an agenda for research on the issue of female crime trends is proposed.     

Does Gender Modify the Effects of Race–ethnicity on Criminal Sanctioning? Sentences for Male and Female White, Black, and Hispanic Defendants

Using data from large urban courts for the years 1990–1996 and drawing from the “focal concerns” framework on case-process decision making, we examine the main and interactive effects of gender and race–ethnicity on sentence outcomes. The main focus of the present study is whether the effects of race–ethnicity (and gender) on sentence outcomes are similar or different across gender (and racial–ethnic) groups. Consistent with the findings of prior research, we find that female defendants receive more lenient sentences than male defendants and that black and Hispanic defendants receive less favorable treatment than white defendants. However, these main effects are strongly dependent on whether the sample is partitioned by gender or race–ethnicity. We find that race–ethnicity influences male but not female sentences. Conversely, gender strongly influences sentencing across all racial–ethnic groups. These findings are at odds with the traditional view that leniency in court sanctioning typically by-passes “women of color.” Instead, it appears that black and Hispanic female defendants actually benefit more from their “female” status than would be expected all else equal.

The UK and EU Foreign and Security Policy: An Optional Extra

Foreign and security policy were not areas in which Prime Minister Cameron was seeking to renegotiate the relationship between the UK and the European Union (EU), but security may be a key issue in the EU referendum. The untangling of Britain's foreign and security policy from the EU following a Brexit vote would be relatively uncomplicated. The EU's arrangements for collective foreign and security policy, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), are conducted on an intergovernmental basis which allows the UK to preserve independence in its diplomacy while allowing for the coordination of policy where interests are held in common with other member states. The UK retains substantial diplomatic and military capabilities which would allow it to continue to pursue a separate national foreign, security and defence policy in the case of either a ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain’ outcome.