The U.S. Federal Executive in an Era of Change

This article examines changes in the background characteristics, attitudes, and behavior patterns of high-level U.S. federal executives. It also considers the impact of the New Public Management (NPM) movement. The data indicate that despite intense struggles about the role of the public sector, top civil servants remain a well-educated, experienced, and highly motivated group, the members of which compare favorably to top executives in the private sector. The data also suggest that the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978 has been effective in producing a more politically responsive corps of career civil servants, and that administrators (both career and noncareer) are increasingly attuned to the more technical and legal aspects of their roles and less oriented to protecting particular interests or clientele groups. NPM-style changes are still in progress and remain controversial, but it appears that political leaders continue to have an excellent (and increasingly diverse) group of career people to work with and a system that—at least in part due to the CSRA reforms—is more responsive to them than before. The top part of the U.S. bureaucracy may have been bent and reshaped in many ways over the last thirty years, but, despite widely publicized fears, it has not broken.     

The social context of teenage childbearing: Effects on the infant's care-giving environment

The effects of maternal age and the social context on the home environment, and maternal behaviors of adolescent and older mothers, as well as the stability of the care-giving environment, were studied. Fifty low-middle socioeconomic status (SES), primiparous, Caucasian mothers and their fullterm healthy infants were included. At four months, support systems and life stress were assessed, as well as the home environment and maternal behaviors. At two years, a similar home visit was conducted in a subsample. Adolescent mothers had less education, lower SES, and a different child care support system. They also differed in the home environment and maternal behaviors at four months. Some of these differences disappeared when maternal education and SES, or child care support and life stress, were controlled. Moderate correlations were observed between four months and two years home environment and maternal verbalizations. Thus, a combination of maternal age and other social factors mediate the negative characteristics of the adolescent mother's care-giving environment, which is relatively stable during the infancy period.Received Ph. D. from Harvard University. Main research interests are sociocultural aspects of development, teenage pregnancy, and infant temperament.Received Ph. D. from University of California, Los Angeles. Main research interests are determinants of neonatal and infant development and statistical systems.Received Ph. D. from Brown University. Main research interests are mother-child interaction, and language acquisition in the hearing impaired.Received M. D. from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines. Main research interests are both animal and human studies during the perinatal period.     

Discounting the benefits and costs of environmental regulations

This paper develops a two-stage procedure for discounting the benefits and costs of environmental regulations that is a variant of the shadow price of capital approach. Under this approach, the capital costs imposed by a regulation are annualized using the marginal rate of return on capital and then both benefits and costs are discounted using the social rate of time preference. This approach yields results that differ significantly from those of conventional discounting when benefits occur with a substantial lag or when benefits are long term.     

The use of capillary electrophoresis in the detection of monomethylamine and benzoate ions in the forensic examination of explosives residues

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is used in the ATF Forensic Science Laboratories for the analysis of inorganic ions commonly encountered in post-blast residues including monomethylamine (MMA) and benzoate ions. Monomethylamine nitrate is found in Tovex, a water gel explosive. Sodium benzoate is added to Pyrodex, as a fuel and burn rate modifier. In the analysis of explosive residues, these ions are used as an indicator for the presence of Tovex and Pyrodex. Traditionally, these two ions, along with other ions of interest were analyzed by spot tests and ion chromatograph (IC). CE is currently being used in place of spot tests as a confirmation technique for IC.