Parental Denigration: A Form of Conflict that Typically Backfires

Parental denigration is a phenomenon characterized by disparaging comments made by one parent about the other parent in front of their children. It is an emerging area of research with implications that could either follow a parental alienation perspective or a conflict perspective. In two prior studies of 648 and 994 young adults, denigration was found to be (1) measured reliably and perhaps validly; (2) reciprocally occurring; (3) related to children feeling more distant from both parents, particularly the more frequent denigrator; and (4) associated with various measures of maladjustment. These results held in married and divorced families, for mothers and fathers, in group and individual analyses, across own and sibling reports, and across studies. In a new study, parents also showed agreement in reported denigration, with divorced (particularly litigating) parents appearing motivated to underreport their own denigration behaviors and overreport their co‐parent's denigration behaviors. Across all three studies, results consistently aligned with a conflict perspective and indicated that denigrating one's co‐parent appears to boomerang and hurt the parent's own relationship with the children rather than distance children from the co‐parent.     

The value of manufacturing extension programs in America

This article reviews the importance of manufacturing to the U.S. economy, presents indicators of performance for the U.S. manufacturing sector, examines the lagging performance of small and midsize manufacturing establishments, and supports manufacturing extension initiatives as a means for improving small firm performance and spurring U.S. economic growth. Dan Luria of the Industrial Technology Institute, Jack Russell of the Modernization Forum, Carol Lessure of the Modernization Forum and Chris Heye of Nexus Associates contributed to the development of this paper.     

City Managers View Intergovernmental Relations

This report presents the findings of a national survey of citymanagers concerning intergovernmental relations. Key aspectsof intergovernmental relations covered in the survey are theadministration of the grant system, effects of federal grantson local government decisionmaking, types of federal aid, imagesof federal administrators, intergovernmental service agreements,comparison of state and federal government, and city managerinvolvement in intergovernmental relations.     

MOR1 receptor mRNA expression in human brains of drug-related fatalities-a real-time PCR quantification

The expression of the human micro-opiate receptor (MOR1) in post mortem human brain tissue was examined using real-time PCR technology. Tissue samples from 11 fatalities due to opiate overdose and five normal subjects with different causes of death were analysed in order to elucidate whether chronic opiate abuse is followed by a regulation of MOR1 expression. In each case nine selected brain regions (thalamus, caudate nucleus, hypothalamus, ventral tegmentum, hippocampus, amygdala, frontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, putamen) were evaluated. The MOR1-mRNA level was determined relative to the housekeeping gene beta2-microglobulin. While in most regions the MOR mRNA levels in the brain of addicts were not different from the control group-with varying levels between 0 and 15% of housekeeping gene level-in the brains of three drug-related fatalities an enormous increase was encountered in the thalamus where the MOR-mRNA level amounted for up to 10,000% of the measured housekeeping gene level. The results obtained by toxicological hair analysis in the group of drug-related fatalities indicate that the enormous thalamic MOR1-expression is primarily found in individuals who died from acute heroin overdose but did not show signs of a substantial chronic administration of the drug. Further studies have to be performed to evaluate if the observed MOR1-mRNA up-regulation in the thalamus in a subpopulation of acute lethal intoxications mirrors a state of functional hypersensitivity associated with the occurrence of death.     

Maeve Kelly and new Irish women writing

Until quite recently, the Irish woman in Irish fiction has been largely the creation of male Irish writers, and—with few exceptions—a general archetype of a religious, disappointed and passive woman has prevailed. However, in the last few years, there has been a sudden and exciting emergence of new Irish women writing, and with this, a marked change in the image of Irish women in this new fiction. Maeve Kelly is an outstanding example of this new type of female writer, and there is a very interesting development in the Irish women she portrays in her short stories. The passive martyr has given way to a woman who actively struggles against her environment.The work of these new women writers reflects the changed position of Irish women in Irish society today.     

Analysis of LSD in human body fluids and hair samples applying ImmunElute columns

Immunoaffinity extraction units (LSD ImmunElute) are commercially available for the analysis of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) in urine. The ImmunElute resin contains immobilized monoclonal antibodies to LSD. We applied the ImmunElute procedure to serum and also to human hair samples. For hair analysis the samples were first extracted with methanol under sonication. The extracts were then purified using the ImmunElute resin. LSD analysis was carried out with HPLC and fluorescence detection. The immunoaffinity extraction provides highly purified extracts for chromatographic analysis. The limit of detection (signal-to-noise ratio = 3) has been determined to be < 50 pg regardless of which sample material was used. The procedure was applied to authentic hair samples from drug abusers (n = 11). One of these samples tested positive with an amount of 110 pg LSD in 112 mg extracted hair corresponding to a concentration of 1 pg/mg.     

Regierungsbildung in Mehrebenensystemen: Zur Erklärung der Koalitionsbildung in den deutschen Bundesländern

The German federal governmental system is conceptualized as a full-fledged two-level system, in which the Länder governments participate in federal policy decisions via the second chamber Bundesrat and in which the stakes of state coalition building are high for the federal parties. Our research question is whether we can find systematic empirical evidence for an influence of federal on state parties to build state governments whose party composition is concordant with federal politics, containing either exclusively federal governmental or non-governmental parties. We answer this question by indirect evidence. We show that such concordant majority coalitions occur above average even if important coalition predictors are controlled as minimal winning coalitions or participation of dominant and/or central players. We predict the 182 actual Land governments which were formed in the period from 1949 to 2003 compared to the possible governments in each situation.