bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Innovations in Experimental Design in Attitude Surveys
Authors: Sniderman Paul M. , Grob Douglas B.
Published: July 2002

In the last decade a revolution has occurred in the design of public opinion surveys. The principal breakthrough has been to combine the distinctive external validity advantages of the representative public opinion survey with the decisive internal validity strengths of the fully randomized, multifaceted experiment. The availability of computer-driven multifactorial, multivalent designs has encouraged a reorientation from narrowly methodological concerns to broader substantive issues. After a season in which the principal emphasis in survey-based experimentation was on standardization of measurement and methodological refinements, the emphasis now is on substantive discoveries and on innovation—new technology, new procedures, and new objectives. In this chapter, we survey the integration of experimental design and large-scale, representative, general population samples. After highlighting the limitations of the classic split-ballot experiment, we distinguish between nondirective and directive experimental variations, and, among the directive, between postdecisional and predecisional. We introduce a tripartite analytical scheme, sorting experimental variations as a function of whether they manipulate (i) the formulation of a choice, (ii) the context of choice, or (iii) the characteristics of the chooser. Finally we give an account of the experimental style now characteristic of general population attitude surveys, underlining its low emotional intensity and low cognitive demands, attributing both to features of (i) the interview site, (ii) the sample, (iii) the mode of interviewing, and (iv) considerations of ethics.
From Marxism to Postcommunism: Socialist Desires and East European Rejections
Authors: Kennedy Michael D. , Galtz Naomi
Published: July 2002

In this review of the relationship between marxism and East European transformations since 1989, we consider why Eastern Europe is so important to marxism and how marxists have addressed its transformations. We also point to similar analyses of these transformations generated by nonmarxists, and we review exemplary East European interpretations of marxism to demonstrate that the principal challenge in developing marxism in Eastern Europe lies outside its traditional substantive foci and methodological practices. We propose that in order for marxism to maintain itself as an integrated project without ignoring or dismissing Eastern Europe, it must do more than address questions of class and capitalist formation, problems that can be analyzed in parallel fashion without commitment to the normative aspect of socialism. It must also address directly the region's experience with, and rejection of, “really existing socialism,” rather than dismissing these and thereby allowing socialism to function as an ontologically absent but epistemologically structuring desire. In order for marxism to develop further in East European studies, we suggest it must find a way to rearticulate socialism's transcendent project within East European lifeworlds, a task grounded as much in discursive analyses of ideologies and identities as in the political economy of transformations.
Adult Child–Parent Relationships
Authors: Lye Diane N.
Published: July 2002

In this essay I review recent studies of adult child–parent relationships, with an emphasis on studies using nationally representative samples. Adult children and their parents have frequent contact and emotionally satisfying relationships, but exchanges of practical and financial assistance are uncommon. Continuing relationships between adult children and their parents depend on women's work as kinkeepers. Parental divorce greatly weakens adult children's relationships with their fathers and also tends to weaken relationships with mothers. Adult child–parent relationships are not stronger in black families than in white families. The most pressing need for future research is the development of new theoretical formulations.
The First Injustice: Socioeconomic Disparities, Health Services Technology, and Infant Mortality
Authors: Gortmaker Steven L. , Wise Paul H.
Published: July 2002

Infant mortality has long been viewed as a synoptic indicator of the health and social condition of a population. In this article we examine critically the structure of this reflective capacity with a particular emphasis on how new health care technologies may have altered traditional pathways of social influence. The infant mortality rate is a composite of a series of component rates, each with its own relationship to social factors. Advances in health care have reduced dramatically the risk of mortality for the critically ill newborn, thereby elevating the importance of access to this care in shaping absolute and disparate infant mortality rates. These advances in health services technology have also had the effect of concentrating infant mortality among extremely premature and low birth-weight infants, a group tied directly to social factors operating through maternal influences and the general well-being of women.

In this manner, current patterns of infant mortality in the United States provide a useful illustration of the dynamic interaction of underlying social forces and technological innovation in determining trends in health outcomes. We review the implications of this perspective for sociological research into disparate infant mortality, including the social and economic structure of societies, access to health services, the potential for prenatal intervention, women's health status, and racial and ethnic disparities.
The Measurement of Age, Age Structuring, and the Life Course
Authors: Settersten Richard A. , Mayer Karl Ulrich
Published: July 2002

The measurement of age, age structuring, and the life course has become more problematic as the study of human lives has moved toward more detailed analyses and explanations. As we seek to better understand the course of human lives in contemporary and changing societies, the effective empirical measurement of its key concepts simultaneously becomes more pressing and more complicated. We first review the critical concepts of, and measurement strategies associated with, age and age structuring—including a discussion of different types of age, subjective age identification, age norms and age expectations, critical life events, life phases, and life review. We then discuss state-of-the-art methods for measuring the life course, especially through life history and event matrices, and we close the chapter with some comments on the organization, analysis, and modeling of data.
THE GENDER SYSTEM AND INTERACTION
Authors: Ridgeway Cecilia L. , Smith-Lovin Lynn
Published: July 2002

▪ Abstract  The gender system includes processes that both define males and females as different in socially significant ways and justify inequality on the basis of that difference. Gender is different from other forms of social inequality in that men and women interact extensively within families and households and in other role relations. This high rate of contact between men and women raises important questions about how interaction creates experiences that confirm, or potentially could undermine, the beliefs about gender difference and inequality that underlie the gender system. Any theory of gender difference and inequality must accommodate three basic findings from research on interaction. (a). People perceive gender differences to be pervasive in interaction. (b). Studies of interaction among peers with equal power and status show few gender differences in behavior. (c). Most interactions between men and women occur in the structural context of roles or status relationships that are unequal. These status and power differences create very real interaction effects, which are often confounded with gender. Beliefs about gender difference combine with structurally unequal relationships to perpetuate status beliefs, leading men and women to recreate the gender system in everyday interaction. Only peer interactions that are not driven by cultural beliefs about the general competence of men and women or interactions in which women are status- or power-advantaged over men are likely to undermine the gender system.
POLITICS AND INSTITUTIONALISM: Explaining Durability and Change
Authors: Clemens Elisabeth S. , Cook James M.
Published: July 2002

▪ Abstract  From the complex literatures on “institutionalisms” in political science and sociology, various components of institutional change are identified: mutability, contradiction, multiplicity, containment and diffusion, learning and innovation, and mediation. This exercise results in a number of clear prescriptions for the analysis of politics and institutional change: disaggregate institutions into schemas and resources; decompose institutional durability into processes of reproduction, disruption, and response to disruption; and, above all, appreciate the multiplicity and heterogeneity of the institutions that make up the social world. Recent empirical work on identities, interests, alternatives, and political innovation illustrates how political scientists and sociologists have begun to document the consequences of institutional contradiction and multiplicity and to trace the workings of institutional containment, diffusion, and mediation.
Cohabitation in the United States: An Appraisal of Research Themes, Findings, and Implications
Authors: Smock Pamela J.
Published: July 2002

Cohabitation has risen dramatically in the United States in a very short time. So, too, has the amount of sociological research devoted to the topic. In the span of a bit more than a decade, family sociologists and demographers have produced a large and rich body of research, ranging from documentation of cohabitation to assessment of its various consequences and implications. I first review basic descriptive findings about cohabitation as well as common explanations for its striking increase over recent decades. I next identify the central questions motivating most of the extant research and provide an assessment of past research as a whole. Finally, I speculate about themes that will be central to future research on cohabitation and consider the implications of cohabitation for gender equality in the United States and social science research on families.
Losartan-Dependent Regression of Myocardial Fibrosis Is Associated With Reduction of Left Ventricular Chamber Stiffness in Hypertensive Patients
Authors: Díez Javier , Querejeta Ramón , López Begoña , González Arantxa , Larman Mariano , Martínez Ubago José L.
Published: July 2002

Background

—

This study was designed to investigate whether myocardial collagen content is related to myocardial stiffness in patients with essential hypertension.

Methods and Results

—

The study was performed in 34 patients with hypertensive heart disease. Nineteen of these patients were also evaluated after 12 months of treatment with losartan. Transvenous endomyocardial biopsies of the interventricular septum were performed to quantify collagen volume fraction (CVF). Left ventricular (LV) chamber stiffness (K
LV
) was determined from the deceleration time of the early mitral filling wave as measured by Doppler echocardiography. Histological analysis at baseline revealed the presence of 2 subgroups of patients: 8 with severe fibrosis and 26 with nonsevere fibrosis. Values of CVF and K
LV
were significantly higher in the 2 subgroups of hypertensives than in normotensives. In addition, compared with patients with nonsevere fibrosis, patients with severe fibrosis exhibited significantly increased values of CVF and K
LV
. After treatment, CVF and K
LV
decreased significantly in patients with severe fibrosis (n=7). None of these parameters changed significantly after treatment in patients with nonsevere fibrosis (n=12). CVF was directly correlated with K
LV
(
r
=0.415,
P
<0.02) in all hypertensives.

Conclusions

—

These findings show a strong association between myocardial collagen content and LV chamber stiffness in patients with essential hypertension. Our results also suggest that the ability of losartan to induce regression of severe myocardial fibrosis is associated with diminution of myocardial stiffness in hypertensive patients.
In Vivo Imaging of Proteolytic Activity in Atherosclerosis
Authors: Chen Jiqiu , Tung Ching-Hsuan , Mahmood Umar , Ntziachristos Vasilis , Gyurko Robert , Fishman Mark C. , Huang Paul L. , Weissleder Ralph
Published: July 2002

Background

—

Atherosclerotic plaque rupture, the most important cause of acute cardiovascular incidents, has been strongly associated with vascular inflammation. On the basis of the hypothesis that the inflammatory response and proteolysis lead to plaque rupture, we have examined the role of cathepsin B as a model proteolytic enzyme.

Methods and Results

—

Using western-type diet–fed apoE and apoE/endothelial NO synthase double knockout mice as models of atherosclerosis, we show (1) that cathepsin B is upregulated in atherosclerotic lesions characterized by high degrees of inflammation compared with normal aorta or silent lesions,(2) that intravenously injectable novel cathepsin B imaging beacons are highly activated within active atherosclerotic lesions and colocalize with cathepsin B immunoreactivity, and(3) that cathepsin B activity in atherosclerotic lesions can be imaged in whole animals by using a novel near-infrared tomographic imaging system.

Conclusions

—

These studies indicate that cathepsin B, and potentially other proteases, may serve as a biomarker for vulnerable plaques when probed with beacons. The tomographic in vivo imaging method as well as catheter-based optical sensing methods could be readily adapted to screening and potentially to the molecular profiling of a number of proteases in vulnerable plaque in vivo.
Platelet Phagocytosis and Processing of β-Amyloid Precursor Protein as a Mechanism of Macrophage Activation in Atherosclerosis
Authors: De Meyer Guido R.Y. , De Cleen Dieter M.M. , Cooper Susan , Knaapen Michiel W.M. , Jans Dominique M. , Martinet Wim , Herman Arnold G. , Bult Hidde , Kockx Mark M.
Published: July 2002

In human occluded saphenous vein grafts, we previously demonstrated cytotoxic foam cells, presumably derived from macrophages engulfing platelets. In the present study, we investigated whether platelet phagocytosis occurs in human atherosclerotic plaques, whether this activates macrophages, and whether the platelet constituent, amyloid precursor protein (APP), was involved. Immunohistochemistry documented the presence of APP, β-amyloid peptide (Aβ, cleaved from APP), and platelets (CD9), along with inducible NO synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2, two markers of macrophage activation, around microvessels in advanced human carotid artery plaques (n=18). Aβ colocalized with iNOS-expressing macrophages that were often surrounded by platelets. In vitro, murine J774 and human THP-1 macrophages were incubated with or without washed human platelets. Coincubation of macrophages and platelets led to platelet phagocytosis (electron and confocal microscopy) and formation of lipid-, APP-, and Aβ-containing foam cells. These expressed iNOS mRNA (reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction) and protein and produced nitrite and tumor necrosis factor-α (ELISA). Macrophage pretreatment with 4-(2-aminoethyl)benzenesulfonyl fluoride, a protease inhibitor, reduced APP processing and inhibited NO biosynthesis induced by platelet phagocytosis but not by lipopolysaccharides. Human atherosclerotic plaques and J774 and THP-1 macrophages contained mRNA of the APP-cleaving enzyme β-secretase. This is the first demonstration of Aβ, a peptide extensively studied in Alzheimer’s disease, in human atherosclerotic plaques. It was present in activated iNOS-expressing perivascular macrophages that had phagocytized platelets. In vitro studies indicate that platelet phagocytosis leads to macrophage activation and suggest that platelet-derived APP is proteolytically processed to Aβ, resulting in iNOS induction. This represents a novel mechanism for macrophage activation in atherosclerosis.
Societal Costs of Vascular Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults
Authors: Rockwood Kenneth , Brown Murray , Merry Heather , Sketris Ingrid , Fisk John
Published: July 2002

Background and Purpose

—

The construct of vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) includes many whose care is or will be costly. Nevertheless, estimates of these costs are not well described. We therefore set out to estimate the societal costs of VCI in elderly people.

Methods

—

In a secondary analysis of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging, a representative cohort study, Canadian dollar costs using a societal perspective were estimated by standard methods.

Results

—

The total annual per-patient societal costs for VCI by severity were $15 022 for those with mild disease, $14 468 for those with mild to moderate disease, $20 063 for those with moderate disease, and $34 515 for those with severe disease. The most expensive component per individual was the cost of institutional long-term care. Although severe impairment was associated with higher costs, the extent of institutionalization at all levels of severity and less drug use among those more severely impaired mitigated a severity-cost gradient.

Conclusions

—

The societal costs of VCI are not inconsiderable. In contrast to Alzheimer disease, there is no clear gradient relating cost to severity. Unpaid caregiver costs are an important aspect of societal costs, even in those with only mild impairment.
“Let's Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics
Authors: Risse Thomas
Published: July 2002

This article introduces a mode of social action and interaction that has so far been largely overlooked in the U.S.-dominated international relations debate between rational choice and social constructivism that focuses mainly on the differences between instrumental rationality and norm-guided behavior. Drawing on insights from a theoretical debate within the Germanspeaking international relations community, I suggest that actors have a third mode of social action at their disposal: arguing and deliberating about the validity claims inherent in any communicative statement about identities, interests, and the state of the world. Arguing and truth-seeking behavior presuppose that actors no longer hold fixed interests during their communicative interaction but are open to persuasion, challenges, and counterchallenges geared toward reaching a reasoned consensus. The preconditions for argumentative rationality, particularly a “common lifeworld” and the mutual recognition of speakers as equals in a nonhierarchical relationship, are more common in international relations than is usually assumed. Arguing processes are more likely to occur the more actors are uncertain about their interests and even identities, the less they know about the situation in which they find themselves and the underlying “rules of the game,” and the more apparently irreconcilable differences prevent them from reaching an optimal rather than a merely satisfactory solution for a widely perceived problem (“problem solving”). Moreover, arguing is likely to increase the influence of the materially less powerful, be it small states or nonstate actors such as INGOs. I illustrate these claims empirically with two plausibility probes. The first concerns the East–West talks leading to a negotiated settlement of the Cold War in Europe and German unification within NATO. The second case focuses on the implementation of international human rights norms into domestic practices of Third World states.
The Politics of Dispute Settlement Design: Explaining Legalism in Regional Trade Pacts
Authors: Smith James McCall
Published: July 2002

Dispute settlement mechanisms in international trade vary dramatically from one agreement to another. Some mechanisms are highly legalistic, with standing tribunals that resemble national courts in their powers and procedures. Others are diplomatic, requiring only that the disputing countries make a good-faith effort to resolve their differences through consultations. In this article I seek to account for the tremendous variation in institutional design across a set of more than sixty post-1957 regional trade pacts. In contrast to accounts that emphasize the transaction costs of collective action or the functional requirements of deep integration, I find that the level of legalism in each agreement is strongly related to the level of economic asymmetry, in interaction with the proposed depth of liberalization, among member countries.
Winners and Losers in the Global Economy
Authors: Kapstein Ethan B.
Published: July 2002

During the 1980s, economists began to observe a trend of rising income inequality in the advanced industrial economies. At the same time, the data revealed that these economies were becoming increasingly exposed to imports of manufactured goods from developing countries. The question that follows is whether these outcomes are causally related, as economic theory suggests is possible.

The literature under review represents the current thinking on that question. These studies, all by mainstream economists, accept that free trade makes for good policy, since it results in efficiency gains that are enjoyed by consumers. But these scholars also recognize that free trade can alter the returns to the factors of production, creating new patterns of winners and losers.

Although this body of literature provides an impressive display of technical skills and formal economic reasoning, and on the whole gives convincing evidence that trade is only one culprit among many in explaining the problems facing blue-collar workers, it still sheds relatively little light on thepolitical economyof the outcome. That is, it tells us little about the role that political, economic, and labor market institutions might play in shaping factor returns. This deeper understanding requires that we take a fresh look at existing institutions and the material interests and ideas underpinning them. Only then will we discover why societies have allowed a certain group of citizens—mainly the least skilled and least educated—to fall by the economic wayside.
Legalization as Strategy: The Asia-Pacific Case
Authors: Kahler Miles
Published: July 2002

The Asia-Pacific region offers an example of low legalization of regional institutions and perhaps an explicit aversion to legalization. An examination of three key regional institutions—ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), and the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum)—confirms a regional process of institution building without legalization. Recent developments in these institutions permit some discrimination among competing explanations for low legalization. On the one hand, ASEAN has embraced a legalized dispute-settlement mechanism; Asian governments have also employed legalized global institutions. On the other hand, the ARF and APEC continue to resist clear-cut legal obligations and third-party dispute resolution. This pattern suggests that legalization is best viewed as driven by the demands of economic integration and as a strategic response by governments in particular institutional settings. These explanations undermine alternatives based on domestic legal culture and uniformly high sovereignty costs. The Asian economic crisis has reopened a debate over regional institutions, which may fix on legalization as part of a new regional institutional design.
The Rational Design of International Institutions
Authors: Koremenos Barbara , Lipson Charles , Snidal Duncan
Published: July 2002

Why do international institutions vary so widely in terms of such key institutional features as membership, scope, and flexibility? We argue that international actors are goal-seeking agents who make specific institutional design choices to solve the particular cooperation problems they face in different issue-areas. In this article we introduce the theoretical framework of the Rational Design project. We identify five important features of institutions—membership, scope, centralization, control, and flexibility—and explain their variation in terms of four independent variables that characterize different cooperation problems: distribution, number of actors, enforcement, and uncertainty. We draw on rational choice theory to develop a series of empirically falsifiable conjectures that explain this institutional variation. The authors of the articles in this special issue ofInternational Organizationevaluate the conjectures in specific issue-areas and the overall Rational Design approach.
The Optimal Design of International Trade Institutions: Uncertainty and Escape
Authors: Rosendorff B. Peter , Milner Helen V.
Published: July 2002

International institutions that include an escape clause generate more durable and stable cooperative international regimes and are easier to achieve ex ante. The escape clause is endogenous in a model of repeated trade-barrier setting in the presence of symmetric, two-sided, political uncertainty. They permit, along the equilibrium path, countries to temporarily deviate from their obligations in periods of excessive, unexpected political pressure at some prenegotiated cost. The architects of international agreements optimally choose a cost so that escape clauses are neither too cheap to use (encouraging frequent recourse, effectively reducing the benefits of cooperation) nor too expensive (making their use rare and increasing the chance of systemic breakdown). The international institution's crucial role is to provide information, verifying that the self-enforcing penalty has been paid (voluntarily), rather than to coerce payment. Escape clauses also make agreements easier to reach initially. Their flexibility reassures states that the division of the long-term gains from the agreement is not immutable.
Multilateralizing Trade and Payments in Postwar Europe
Authors: Oatley Thomas H.
Published: July 2002

Europe's postwar shift to multilateral trade and payments arrangements was complicated by three factors. Distributional problems and uncertainty about the state of the world made European governments reluctant to adopt multilateral arrangements without financial support from the United States. An enforcement problem made U.S. policymakers reluctant to finance a European multilateral trading system. The severity of these problems was reduced by institutional designs that combined flexibility, centralization, and particular decision rules. Centralization and flexibility reduced uncertainty and softened distributive conflict. Centralization and particular decision rules solved the enforcement problem that U.S. policymakers faced.
Institutions for Flying: How States Built a Market in International Aviation Services
Authors: Richards John E.
Published: July 2002

In the aftermath of World War II, states created a complex set of bilateral and multilateral institutions to govern international aviation markets. National governments concluded bilateral agreements to regulate airport entry and capacity and delegated to the airlines, through the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the authority to set fares and the terms of service in international markets. The resulting mixture of public and private institutions produced a de facto cartel that lasted for more than thirty years. Consistent with the Rational Design framework put forth by Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, I argue that the institutions states created reflect the bargaining and incentive problems generated by international aviation markets. This case provides support for four of the Rational Design conjectures and slightly contradicts three others.
Loosening the Ties that Bind: A Learning Model of Agreement Flexibility
Authors: Koremenos Barbara
Published: July 2002

How can states credibly make and keep agreements when they are uncertain about the distributional implications of their cooperation? They can do so by incorporating the proper degree of flexibility into their agreements. I develop a formal model in which an agreement characterized by uncertainty may be renegotiated to incorporate new information. The uncertainty is related to the division of gains under the agreement, with the parties resolving this uncertainty over time as they gain experience with the agreement. The greater the agreement uncertainty, the more likely states will want to limit the duration of the agreement and incorporate renegotiation. Working against renegotiation is noise—that is, variation in outcomes not resulting from the agreement. The greater the noise, the more difficult it is to learn how an agreement is actually working; hence, incorporating limited duration and renegotiation provisions becomes less valuable. In a detailed case study, I demonstrate that the form of uncertainty in my model corresponds to that experienced by the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, who adopted the solution my model predicts.
Globalization and Welfare Compensation: Disentangling the Ties that Bind
Authors: Burgoon Brian
Published: July 2002

Three perspectives dominate debate over the relationship between globalization and the welfare state in industrialized countries: that globalization constrains the welfare that hitherto legitimated openness, that globalization still sparks demands for welfare while opening few forces to flee or fight against it, and that openness has little effect on welfare. A closer look at the “globalization” and “welfare” aggregates on which most scholars focus, however, reveals varying politics connecting different elements of globalization and welfare that may help reconcile this debate. First, compared to general trade openness, low-wage competition may spark stronger pressure to expand and less pressure to constrain welfare compensation. Second, all kinds of openness affect vulnerable and thriving groups in ways that differ across social policies, especially training and relocation benefits compared to benefits for youth dependents and the elderly. Consequently, different faces of openness may spark predictably different politics that spur some aspects of welfare, retrench others, and have little effect on still others. Panel data for eighteen OECD countries supports this argument.
Moral Authority as a Power Resource
Authors: Hall Rodney Bruce
Published: July 2002

Nearly half a century has passed since Harold D. Lasswell and Abraham Kaplan generated a treatise on political theory that advocated analysis of power as a framework for analysis of political process. Fully half a century has passed since Hans J. Morgenthau confidently assured us of the universality, in politics as in nature, of the principle of the balance of power and defined the interests of states in terms of power. More than half a century has passed since Edward Hallett Carr set out to disabuse institutionalists and “idealists” of what he regarded as their utopian illusions and asserted a fundamental precept of the realist critique of prewar institutionalism, that politics is “in one sense always power politics.”3 The central role of power as an analytic construct in classical realist, structural realist, and structural neorealist scholarship has been so pervasive that the assertion requires no further elaboration. Still, the notion of “power” in the discipline and its usefulness as an analytic construct remain “essentially contested.”
Asset Specificity and the Political Behavior of Firms: Lobbying for Subsidies in Norway
Authors: Alt James E. , Carlsen Fredrik , Heum Per , Johansen Kåre
Published: July 2002

Previous research into endogenous trade policy has described extensively the political incentives of firms with specific assets, but no studies have shown directly that firms behave as predicted. We adopt insights from transaction costs economics to develop measures of asset specificity and to investigate how variation in these measures affects the political behavior of firms. In particular, we examine the lobbying choices of Norwegian firms in the 1980s. Given available subsidy funds from Norway's oil boom and some government decisions in the 1970s, firms with more specific assets faced potentially greater losses from adjusting to new activities in the face of competitive pressures and thus had greater incentives to lobby for subsidies to protect themselves. Joint contacting of Parliament and government on behalf of firm interests by representatives of both management and labor should be particularly likely where firms had specific assets. Data analysis shows that asset specificity, as indicated by R&D intensity and job immobility, predicts joint contacting independently of plausible alternative explanatory variables like firm size and export orientation.
Do Democratic Institutions Constrain or Inform? Contrasting Two Institutional Perspectives on Democracy and War
Authors: Schultz Kenneth A.
Published: July 2002

How do domestic political institutions affect the way states interact in international crises? In the last decade we have witnessed an explosion of interest in this question, thanks largely to the well-known claim that democratic states do not fight wars with one another. Work on the “democratic peace” has generated a number of theoretical arguments about how practices, values, and institutions associated with democracy might generate distinctive outcomes. Although the level of interest in this topic has focused much-needed attention on the interaction between domestic and international politics, the proliferation of competing explanations for a single observation is not entirely desirable. Progress in this area requires that researchers devise tests not only to support different causal stories but also to discriminate between them.
Piecing Together the Democratic Peace: The CSCE, Norms, and the “Construction” of Security in Post–Cold War Europe
Authors: Flynn Gregory , Farrell Henry
Published: July 2002

The end of the Cold War has profoundly transformed Europe's security situation. Although traditional security issues remain important, the most immediate threats to security since 1989 have originated not from relations between states, but from instability and conflict within states that has threatened to spill over into the interstate arena. States' efforts to shape and control this new security environment have resulted in a unique hybrid arrangement containing elements of traditional alliances, great power concerts, state and community building, and collective security.
Personal Wealth in South Australia
Authors: Shanahan Martin P.
Published: July 2002

Probate and succession-duty records are a rich source of information about the living standards and material wealth of past communities. According to these records, the small, mainly rural, and comparatively egalitarian population of South Australia held a diverse array of personal assets at the beginning of the twentieth century. Despite the strong British influence on the former colony's culture, however, South Australia's distribution of wealth before World War I was more similar to that of the United States fifty years earlier than to that of contemporary Great Britain.
The Garden of Chances: A Visual Ecosystem
Authors: Hutzler Guillaume , Gortais Bernard , Drogoul Alexis
Published: July 2002

The Garden of Chances is a computer-generated artwork that makes a link between the realworld climate and a virtual garden of abstract, colored shapes. When the artwork is functioning all day long and all year round, the spectator can see the evolution of the climate as the time passes. The software has been developed as a simulation of a real ecosystem and it relies on multi-agent techniques. In this article, the authors present the basic principles of the software and explain how they use it as a tool to explore both art processes and multi-agent issues of emergence and interpretation.
Visions Shared: A Firsthand Look into Synesthesia and Art
Authors: Steen Carol
Published: July 2002

The author discusses her experiences as an artist and synesthete. She describes her synesthetic perceptions—her experiences of touch, sound and other sensory input in the form of often strikingly colorful visions. She explains the development of her awareness of her synesthesia and of methods and preferred techniques for communicating these experiences through painting and sculpture, thus allowing her to express what would otherwise not be fully expressible. The author finds that art inspired by synesthesia may convey information of significance to everyone, observing that more general aspects of perception may be illuminated by the study of synesthesia.
Synesthesia and the Arts
Authors: Berman Greta
Published: July 2002

The term “synesthesia” has often been used metaphorically rather than accurately. Ongoing scientific research shows the condition to be “real,” rather than imagined. The author focuses her discussion on the effects of colorsound synesthesia, or “chromesthesia,” and on a selection of composers and visual artists. The composers discussed include Alexander Scriabin, Olivier Messiaen and Michael Torke. Visual artists discussed include Robert Delaunay and David Hockney.
Quantifier Float andWh-Movement in an Irish English
Authors: McCloskey James
Published: July 2002

The English of northwestern Ireland allows quantifier float of a previously undocumented kind in wh-questions. The quantifier all, though construed with a fronted wh-pronoun, may appear in a position considerably to the right of that pronoun. It is argued that all so stranded marks a position through which a wh-phrase has passed or in which a wh-phrase originates. The construction then provides visible evidence for intermediate derivational stages. This evidence is used to develop a new argument for successive cyclicity and to argue for overt object shift in English and for an origin site for subjects strictly within VP and below the object shift position.
The Grammatical Ingredients of Counterfactuality
Authors: Iatridou Sabine
Published: July 2002

Counterfactual constructions convey the meaning that the speaker believes a certain proposition not to hold. This article investigates the morphosyntactic composition of counterfactual conditionals and counterfactual wishes and the question of how the form of counterfactuals is related to their meaning. Across languages, there are combinations of tense, mood, and aspect morphemes that are used repeatedly in the expression of counterfactuality. I discuss the role of all three components.
Scope Inversion under the Rise-Fall Contour in German
Authors: Krifka Manfred
Published: July 2002

A well-known but ill-explained fact about German is scope inversion under a rise-fall accent contour. The scope inversion in this reading can be derived from general principles of scope assignment and focus marking in German. In particular, focus is assigned to preverbal constituents, leading to syntactic configurations that result in ambiguous interpretations. This explanation must be couched in a framework of derivational economy that favors shorter derivations. The relevant comparison class is defined with respect to phonological form, not, as has been suggested for English, with respect to identity of semantic interpretation; this may be a general property of “free” word order languages.
The Syntax of Quantifiers and Quantifier Float
Authors: Benmamoun Elabbas
Published: July 2002

The Arabic quantifier kull displays a Q___NP and NP___Q alternation. Shlonsky (1991) argues that in both patterns Q heads a QP projection with the NP as a complement that may undergo movement to [Spec, QP] or beyond to yield the NP___Q pattern and Q-float structures. On the contrary, I argue on the basis of evidence from reconstruction, Case, and agreement that the two patterns are radically different. In the Q___NP pattern Q is indeed the head of a QP projection that contains the NP. In the NP___Q pattern, however, Q heads a QP adjunct that modifies the NP and in some cases the VP.
Treatment of Epsilon Moves in Subset Construction
Authors: Noord Gertjan van
Published: July 2002

The paper discusses the problem of determinizing finite-state automata containing large numbers of ε-moves. Experiments with finite-state approximations of natural language grammars often give rise to very large automata with a very large number of ε-moves. The paper identifies and compares a number of subset construction algorithms that treat ε-moves. Experiments have been performed which indicate that the algorithms differ considerably in practice, both with respect to the size of the resulting deterministic automaton, and with respect to practical efficiency. Furthermore, the experiments suggest that the average number of ε-moves per state can be used to predict which algorithm is likely to be the fastest for a given input automaton.
Tickling Expectations: Neural Processing in Anticipation of a Sensory Stimulus
Authors: Carlsson Katrina , Petrovic Predrag , Skare Stefan , Petersson Karl Magnus , Ingvar Martin
Published: July 2002

Predictions of the near future can optimize the accuracy and speed of sensory processing as well as of behavioral responses. Previous experience and contextual cues are essential elements in the generation of a subjective prediction. Using a blocked fMRI paradigm, we investigated the pattern of neural activation in anticipation of a sensory stimulus and during the processing of the somatosensory stimulus itself. Tickling was chosen as the somatosensory stimulus rather than simple touch in order to increase the probability to get a high degree of anticipation. The location and nature of the stimulus were well defined to the subject. The state of anticipation was initiated by attributing an uncertainty regarding the time of stimulus onset. The network of activation and deactivation during anticipation of the expected stimulus was similar to that engaged during the actual sensory stimulation. The areas that were activated during both states included the contralateral primary sensory cortex, bilateral areas in the inferior parietal lobules, the putative area SII, the right anterior cingulate cortex and areas in the right prefrontal cortex. Similarly, common decreases were observed in areas of sensorimotor cortex located outside the area representing the target of stimulus, i.e., areas that process information which is irrelevant to the attended process. The overlapping pattern of change, during the somatosensory stimulation and the anticipation, furthers the idea that predictions are subserved by a neuronal network similar to that which subserves the processing of actual sensory input. Moreover, this study indicates that activation of primary somatosensory cortex can be obtained without intra-modal sensory input. These findings suggest that anticipation may invoke a tonic top-down regulation of neural activity.
Syntactic Gender and Semantic Expectancy: ERPs Reveal Early Autonomy and Late Interaction
Authors: Gunter Thomas C. , Friederici Angela D. , Schriefers Herbert
Published: July 2002

This experiment explored the effect of semantic expectancy on the processing of grammatical gender, and vice versa, in German using event-related-potentials (ERPs). Subjects were presented with correct sentences and sentences containing an article-noun gender agreement violation. The cloze probability of the nouns was either high or low. ERPs were measured on the nouns. The low-cloze nouns evoked a larger N400 than the high-cloze nouns. Gender violations elicited a left-anterior negativity (LAN, 300-600 msec) for all nouns. An additional P600 component was found only in high-cloze nouns. The N400 was independent of the gender mismatch variable; the LAN was independent of the semantic variable, whereas an interaction of the two variables was found in the P600. This finding indicates that syntactic and semantic processes are autonomous during an early processing stage, whereas these information types interact during a later processing phase.
Neural Mechanisms of Visual Attention: Object-Based Selection of a Region in Space
Authors: Arrington Catherine M. , Carr Thomas H. , Mayer Andrew R. , Rao Stephen M.
Published: July 2002

Objects play an important role in guiding spatial attention through a cluttered visual environment. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (ER-fMRI) to measure brain activity during cued discrimination tasks requiring subjects to orient attention either to a region bounded by an object (object-based spatial attention) or to an unbounded region of space (location-based spatial attention) in anticipation of an upcoming target. Comparison between the two tasks revealed greater activation when attention selected a region bounded by an object. This activation was strongly lateralized to the left hemisphere and formed a widely distributed network including (a) attentional structures in parietal and temporal cortex and thalamus, (b) ventral-stream object processing structures in occipital, inferior-temporal, and parahippocampal cortex, and (c) control structures in medial-and dorsolateral-prefrontal cortex. These results suggest that object-based spatial selection is achieved by imposing additional constraints over and above those processes already operating to achieve selection of an unbounded region. In addition, ER-fMRI methodology allowed a comparison of validly versus invalidly cued trials, thereby delineating brain structures involved in the reorientation of attention after its initial deployment proved incorrect. All areas of activation that differentiated between these two trial types resulted from greater activity during the invalid trials. This outcome suggests that all brain areas involved in attentional orienting and task performance in response to valid cues are also involved on invalid trials. During invalid trials, additional brain regions are recruited when a perceiver recovers from invalid cueing and reorients attention to a target appearing at an uncued location. Activated brain areas specific to attentional reorientation were strongly right-lateralized and included posterior temporal and inferior parietal regions previously implicated in visual attention processes, as well as prefrontal regions that likely subserve control processes, particularly related to inhibition of inappropriate responding.
Inferior Temporal Neurons Show Greater Sensitivity to Nonaccidental than to Metric Shape Differences
Authors: Vogels Rufin , Biederman Irving , Bar Moshe , Lorincz Andras
Published: July 2002

It has long been known that macaque inferior temporal (IT) neurons tend to fire more strongly to some shapes than to others, and that different IT neurons can show markedly different shape preferences. Beyond the discovery that these preferences can be elicited by features of moderate complexity, no general principle of (nonface) object recognition had emerged by which this enormous variation in selectivity could be understood. Psychophysical, as well as computational work, suggests that one such principle is the difference between viewpoint-invariant, nonaccidental (NAP) and view-dependent, metric shape properties (MPs). We measured the responses of single IT neurons to objects differing in either a NAP (namely, a change in a geon) or an MP of a single part, shown at two orientations in depth. The cells were more sensitive to changes in NAPs than in MPs, even though the image variation (as assessed by wavelet-like measures) produced by the former were smaller than the latter. The magnitude of the response modulation from the rotation itself was, on average, similar to that produced by the NAP differences, although the image changes from the rotation were much greater than that produced by NAP differences. Multidimensional scaling of the neural responses indicated a NAP/MP dimension, independent of an orientation dimension. The present results thus demonstrate that a significant portion of the neural code of IT cells represents differences in NAPs rather than MPs. This code may enable immediate recognition of novel objects at new views.