bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Welfare State, Class, and Gender
Authors: Berlinguer Giovanni
Published: May 2005

If we compare the welfare state countries with others, from the point of view of both health and health services, the crisis concerns primarily the second group of countries. Nevertheless, difficulties arise also for welfare state policies. The problem is how to respond to neoconservative attacks on social and health rights, and how to change the bureaucratic and medicalized bias of the welfare state. The “golden era” of social insurance and health services, conceived as free access to funds to cope with all the growing needs of the population, is over. Limitations, controls, and priorities have to be established. In Italy and similar countries, the tendency is toward restricting health care for those who have greater needs, cutting funds for prevention, and creating greater inequalities. It is clear that the state must intervene to reduce social inequalities, but at the same time some existing differences (sexual, cultural, ethnic) have an intrinsic value that must be recognized. A policy of free-choice welfare is useful, and has nothing to do with the selective measures that are being introduced. Moreover, a key point has become the relationship between class and gender. The working class continues to be exploited, but new phenomena arise, connected with production and social reproduction and not limited to this sphere. It is true that gender includes social classes, but no social class may represent both sexes, or different ethnic groups, or gender itself.
Dramatic Greatness and Content: A Quantitative Study of Eighty-One Athenian and Shakespearean Plays
Authors: Simonton Dean Keith
Published: May 2005

Three hypotheses specified the possible direct and indirect determinants of a play's greatness and issue content. The sample consisted of eighty-one plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Shakespeare. Each play's dramatic greatness was operationalized using a citation measure. The Great Books Syntopicon was used to define nineteen issue content domains and general issue richness. Multiple regression analyses indicated that 1) dramatic greatness is a positive function of line quotability, which in turn is a positive function of issue richness, and 2) the particular issue or themes addressed in a play are affected both by the playwright's personal age and by the presence of civil unrest at the time of composition.
Constructing Cooperative Learning Systems in Engineering Technology
Authors: Betz Joseph A.
Published: May 2005

There has been a series of cultural and technological shifts in society that has changed the way students perceive value in information and knowledge when learning. As consumers, these students need to be shown explicitly that what they are learning is valuable. This article develops a theory and model for learning that creates an immediate and explicit value, use, and context to information and knowledge to increase student learning. In this model, information is a commodity that groups of students own and exchange for personal and group benefit creating items of social value. The computer information technology system is used to efficiently transport these items of social value, and to provide a use and simulate a context giving added value and meaning. Student learning occurs through the successful transfer, synthesis, and use of this information into knowledge in problem solving. Social solidarity from these exchanges facilitates student centered learning and peer review. Initial observations are presented along with recommendations for future work.
Body Symbolism and Cultural Aesthetics: The Use of Shell Beads and Ornaments by Delaware and Munsee Groups
Authors: Pietak Lynn Marie
Published: May 2005

The important role of wampum in trade relations, and other social contexts, among indigenous groups and Europeans in the coastal and interior New York state areas is well-documented. The use and meaning of ornaments of shell and wampum among neighboring groups, such as the Munsee and Delaware, however, has not been comprehensively examined. Recent research, which focused on how these two indigenous groups integrated Europan trade goods, also identified notable trends in their use of shell, which became increasingly accessible through trade during the post-contact era. These trends are best understood within the context of indigenous symbolic systems focused on the body.
The Physiological Measurement of Imagery: An Overview
Authors: Qualls Penelope J.
Published: May 2005

A substantial body of research indicates that physiological responses during imagery vary as a function of the nature of the image. A review of this research isolates a number of parameters that influence the magnitude of physiological changes during imaging and clearly demonstrates that images of different affective or emotional experiences are accompanied by different patterns of physiological responses. Physiological measures of imagery thus provide a powerful means of increasing our knowledge and understanding of imaginal processes. It is important, though, that imagery research does not rely exclusively upon physiological measures, for to do so fails to pay sufficient heed to the covert nature of imaging.
A Taxonomy of Student Engagement with Educational Software: An Exploration of Literate Thinking with Electronic Text
Authors: Bangert-Drowns Robert L. , Pyke Curtis
Published: May 2005

Readers of the information age increasingly resort to “texts” that are stored, organized, and accessed electronically and rely on symbol systems other than alphanumeric. In schools, multimedia software and hypertexts are increasingly common documents from which students learn. This study sought to document instances of “high” literacy, literate thinking, among elementary school students as they worked with common computer software in the course of their normal school day. Seven distinct forms of engagement emerged to categorize students' work, and these were arranged in order of complexity: disengagement, unsystematic engagement, frustrated engagement, structure-dependent engagement, self-regulated interest, critical engagement, and literate thinking. The taxonomy of student engagement is described with examples. It clarifies other researchers' conceptualizations of high literacy and engagement and integrates them with notions of intrinsic motivation, volition, and self-regulated learning. It also implies new ways for teachers to assess and scaffold student-software interactions to optimize student learning with electronic texts.
Psychiatric Consultation to the Non-Physician Staff of an Outpatient Oncology Clinic
Authors: Craig Thomas J.
Published: May 2005

Biweekly patient-centered conferences with the non-physician staff of an oncology clinic revealed the unique pressures experienced by these personnel and the key role they play in the psychosocial management of chronically ill patients. The introduction of behavioral science principles through these conferences was useful in promoting improved staff morale and more appropriate patient management and suggests a model for the development of a comprehensive health delivery system.
Computer Comment Files and Writing Evaluation
Authors: King Paul E. , Behnke Ralph R.
Published: May 2005

The computer's ability to store and process large volumes of material can be very helpful in writing criticism and evaluation. By using this technological capability, evaluative decisions made by an instructor can be processed quickly and transformed into typewritten commentary. This article describes a method for storing anticipated instructional comments in computer memory and retrieving those comments for the purpose of providing both evaluative and reinforcing feedback to students. In this manner, the computer aids the instructor by improving the speed of encoding those comments into written form.
Let the Numbers Speak
Authors: Lewontin Richard , Levins Richard
Published: May 2005

Although it is often claimed that statistical techniques are ways of letting the objective data speak for themselves, in both the contrast and correlational modes of statistical inference, all the real work is done by the a priori decisions imported into the analysis—which categories are to be used to create contrasting populations, which categories are to be measured, which categories are to be held constant while others are compared, and which is cause and which is effect? The authors explore here the problem of directionality of causation and the relationship between cause and effect, on the one hand, and dependent and independent variables, on the other. In systems of any complexity there are feedbacks–negative and positive feedbacks forming loops, embedded in larger contexts and subject to influences that can impinge on the loop at any point, such that the same pair of variables may show positive correlations in some situations and negative correlations in others.
Primary Care in the United States
Authors: Starfield Barbara
Published: May 2005

In the United States many of the cardinal features of primary care are absent. Medical practitioners usually do not provide services to a defined panel of patients and are not distributed according to the extent or type of health needs in the population or to population size. Findings from research indicate the benefits of longitudinally, comprehensiveness, first contact care, and coordination. Some of the new developments in the organization and financing of services may facilitate the attainment of some of these characteristics, but the implementation of even a rudimentary primary care system will require a greater commitment to the training of primary care personnel and better deployment of resources. In the absence of a societal commitment to a health system based upon levels of care and community orientation, a research agenda to determine the benefits and costs of various alternative approaches is suggested.
Accident Insurance, Sickness, and Science: New Zealand's No-Fault System
Authors: Dew Kevin
Published: May 2005

This article explores the process of seeking compensation for occupational illness under a no-fault accident insurance scheme. The author uses two case studies—firefighters who attended a fire at a chemical storage depot and timbermill workers who worked with pentachlorophenol—to illustrate how science can be used to deny compensation to sick and dying workers. The results of the studies suggest that a no-fault accident compensation scheme, considered to be a victory for workers, offers no guarantee of just outcomes for working people. And science can be co-opted and used to support business and state interests against workers; this ideological support is increasingly hidden behind the development of “objective” systems of assessing compensation claims.
Suicide among Physicians
Authors: Ross Mathew
Published: May 2005

A review of the international literature of the past 75 years of suicide among physicians indicates that (1) suicide among physicians is high, (2) suicide among female physicians is higher than among male physicians, (3) physician suicide varies from country to country, with the highest rate among the Danes, the next among British and the next among U.S.A. physicians, (4) there is a high incidence of psychiatric morbidity, alcoholism and drug addiction among physicians who suicide, (5) as in suicides among other groups, there are significant variable correlates of age, gender, medical school affiliation, geographic residence, type of medical practice and specialty, the state of physical and emotional health, the use of alcohol and drugs, and professional and psychosocial factors, and (6) preventive action is both possible and desirable.
Investigation of Alleged Health Incidents Associated with Land Application of Sewage Sludges
Authors: Harrison Ellen Z. , Oakes Summer Rayne
Published: May 2005

The majority of U.S. sewage sludges are disposed by application to land for use as a soil amendment. Class B sludges, containing a complex mix of chemical and biological contaminants, comprise the majority. Residents near land application sites report illness. Symptoms of more than 328 people involved in 39 incidents in 15 states are described. Investigation and tracking of the incidents by agencies is poor. Only one of 10 EPA regions provided substantial information on the incidents in their region. Investigations, when conducted, focused on compliance with regulations. No substantial health-related investigations were conducted by federal, state, or local officials. A system for tracking and investigation is needed. Analysis of the limited data suggests that surface-applied Class B sludges present the greatest risk and should be eliminated. However, even under less risky application scenarios, the potential for off-site movement of chemicals, pathogens, and biological agents suggests that their use should be eliminated.
Do Death Attitudes of Nurses and Physicians Differ?
Authors: Campbell Thomas W. , Abernethy Virginia , Waterhouse Gloria J.
Published: May 2005

Physicians and nurses are often portrayed as differing in their attitudes about death. Evidence is presented that professional role rather than gender may account for the observed differences. It is suggested that the defensive styles typically utilized by nurses and physicians contribute to the attitudinal differential, and that this, in turn, perhaps underlies the tension sometimes seen around the care of terminal patients.
Loss-Grief Addiction Model
Authors: Beechem Michael H. , Prewitt Jone , Scholar Joe
Published: May 2005

This group study features a loss-grief inventory in the treatment of ninety-eight substance abusers in a public outpatient treatment facility. The inventory serves as both assessment and treatment tools. That is, the inventory helps the counselor and the client to identify unresolved loss-grief issues which may contribute to the addiction; it also serves as a treatment tool to assist the client through the grieving process. In identifying losses, the client has three time categories from which to choose: 1) pre-addiction losses; 2) losses associated with the addiction; and 3) losses associated with entering treatment. An additional feature of the inventory illustrates a simplified procedure to compute the client's unresolved loss-grief level through use of a 5-point Likert scale.
College Students' Attitudes toward Death Today as Compared to the 1930s
Authors: Lester David , Becker Deanne M.
Published: May 2005

A questionnaire on attitudes toward death first administered to college students in 1935 was administered to college students in 1991. The students in 1991 showed much greater concern with and anxiety over death than students in 1935.
A Critique of Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England
Authors:   Radical Statistics Health Group
Published: May 2005

Priorities for Health and Personal Social Services in England was prepared by the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) as a basis for consultation about its intended policies during the period 1975–1976 to 1979–1980. The decision of the DHSS to engage in consultation with interested parties is, of course, to be welcomed. However, the Priorities document leaves much to be desired both in terms of the quality and quantity of information provided and in its treatment of the pressing issues affecting the health and personal social services. Many of the areas labeled as priorities show no increase in the proportion of the budget devoted to them; some, in fact, show a definite reduction. Other so-called “growth areas” show such low rates of expansion that they will barely keep pace with the needs of the increasing number of elderly in the population.

Many Area Health Authorities are reducing services in acute specialties, despite long waiting lists and the fact that over 80 percent of admissions of elderly patients are to acute wards. Thus, such cuts are likely to increase even further the demand for geriatric facilities. Many of the areas designated for expansion by the DHSS are largely under the financial control of local government, which is in many cases reducing these services. The most rapid rise in expenditure will be on pharmaceuticals. This will account for the largest increase within the primary care system, leaving little room for any improvements in the service.

In an associated document, Prevention and Health: Everybody's Business, the DHSS attempts to demonstrate that specific preventive measures have been the most important factors in major changes of disease patterns and ignores the importance of secular changes. There is no discussion of the relationship between social structure and both disease and delivery of care; instead, the focus is on individuals changing their life-style as a result of being provided with the appropriate information. There is already evidence that this approach yields poor results and that alternative strategies are needed. Unfortunately, the DHSS seems unable to provide leadership for their development.

These two documents give little hope that genuinely new initiatives will come from the DHSS. Whatever the initial intentions behind their publication, it now seems unlikely that “consultation” will prove to be anything more than a smokescreen behind which cutbacks in services can occur. True consultation implies availability of accurate information about the health and personal social services, together with a program of public education far more comprehensive than that which is currently envisaged.
Algorithms for Resource Allocation of Substance Abuse Prevention Funds Based on Composite Risk-Factor Index Score: A Case Study on State of Florida—Part 2
Authors: Kim Sehwan , Wurster Leslie , Williams Charles , Hepler Nancy
Published: May 2005

The purpose of Part 2 is to develop a model for resource allocation of state prevention funds to be distributed to its substate jurisdictions based on the relative need for prevention services measured in terms of composite risk-factor index (COMRISK) scores computed for each county. The risk factors are extracted from an extensive review of risk and protective factors addressed in the prevention literature. Based on twenty-two risk and protective factors identified, we were able to explain 71.3 percent of the total variation in student drug using behavior observed at the individual level. By aggregating individual COMRISK scores to the county level, we were able to determine aggregated COMRISK index scores at the county level. By determining the proportion of each county's share of the total statewide COMRISK and by weighting the latter proportion by the population size of each county, we have devised Prevention Needs Index (PNI) score based on the risks for each county. Finally, the county's share of PNI score as a proportion of the total statewide PNI score is computed. The latter proportion is then multiplied by the total amount of prevention resources available at the state. In this way, we were able to develop an alternative resource allocation model solely based on risk and protective factors for determining prevention needs of each county, independent of composite index score of drug use (COMDRUG) presented in Part 1. A comparison of three models for resource allocation has shown a significant amount of similarity of the total funds computed for each county. Accordingly, no preference is made among the resource allocation models suggested, although it is emphasized that the final decision concerning the level of funding must be made on the selection of the resource allocation algorithms rather than the suggested amount of funding computed for each county.
Fluvial Sherd Abrasion and the Interpretation of Surface Remains on Southwestern Bajadas
Authors: Skibo James M.
Published: May 2005

Sherds abraded by fluvial processes are frequently encountered during archaeological surveys, but are most often ignored or misinterpreted. Analysis of sherds within the Ruelas drainage in southern Arizona, and experimental replication of fluvial abrasion, demonstrate how these data can be used in the study of prehistoric land use and settlement location. Under simulated conditions of fluvial transport, sherds are found to abrade in a three-stage sequence. The sherds collected along the Ruelas drainage are placed into the stages of abrasion and a progression of abrasion with increasing distance from the mountains is demonstrated. The origins of these sherds are attributed to sites located farther upstream rather than along the mid-bajada banks of the Ruelas drainage. Experimentation with fluvial sherd abrasion also permits specification of the attributes of transported sherds, contributing to proper field and laboratory identification and thus more accurate inferences about the post-depositional history of surface remains.
Interactive Television Experiment in Reston, Virginia
Authors: Volk John L.
Published: May 2005

For the past two years, the MITRE Corporation has been demonstrating an interactive television system in Reston, Virginia. This system allows homes in Reston to interact with a computer at the MITRE Corporation eleven miles from the city. The computer manages the acquisition of a variety of data on call from any of the homes in Reston, including games, financial news, educational materials, and a few dozen other services that demonstrate the potential of this new medium. The demonstration also enables home users to utilize the minicomputers as calculating machines, using home keyboards similar to those used on currently popular fifty dollar hand calculators.

This is the only true interactive system operating today in the sense that personal services are provided to individual homes, rather than simply providing a response mechanism in the home to a program which is publicly broadcasted.

This paper will describe the Reston demonstration. It will show how the system is put together, what the results have been to date, and what the plans are for the future.
Depression, Medical Illness, and Interleukin-1β in Older Cardiac Patients
Authors: Lyness Jeffrey M. , Moynihan Jan A. , Williford Daniel J. , Cox Christopher , Caine Eric D.
Published: May 2005

Objective:

A model has been proposed in which atherosclerosis contributes to depression in later life by the effects of cytokines on central monoamine systems. We collected pilot data to test the hypothesis that interleukin-1 (IL-1) is associated with depression in a cardiac patient group.

Method:

Thirty-seven subjects completed research evaluations that included depression diagnosis (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R), depressive symptom severity (Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression), medical illness burden (Cumulative Illness Rating Scale), and serum IL-1 level measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay.

Results:

Serum IL-1 level was not significantly associated with depressive symptom severity or depression diagnosis, whether or not controlled for medical illness burden, age, and gender. IL-1 level was significantly correlated with medical illness burden.

Conclusions:

We did not confirm our study hypothesis. The correlation of IL-1 level with medical illness burden likely reflects its release as part of the “sickness response” in a wide variety of disease states. Further research using a larger sample size and a non-cardiac comparison group is warranted.
Structural Aspects of Visual Art Design and Their Relation to Broader Sociocultural Contexts
Authors: Abramson J.
Published: May 2005

This article outlines the results of a research project focused on certain cross-cultural consistencies in the visual arts and the implications of these for our understanding of art's broader sociocultural and historical contexts. The consistencies examined were for the most part structural, involving design and composition. The resulting data were used to construct a new model categorizing art styles typologically; i.e., according to specified structural features in their design behaviors and repertoires. Sorting criteria were broad enough to classify all art styles yet specific enough to strictly define categories and to be predictive for feature complexes in particular styles. The taxonomy resulting from art style categorization by design-structure corresponded to previous style groupings assembled according to art function and sociocultural context, but appeared to be more precise and quantifiable. Evidence suggested that the structural features defining such art style classes can also typologically categorize cultures. The array of classes and class memberships resulting from trial cultural sortings by these features corresponded to those produced by structurally typing art styles according to the same features. That is, the structural distinctions defining the art style classes turned out to be particular examples of a pattern actually organizing phenomena at levels much broader or more basic than the visual arts. In this article, the issues giving rise to a new model, the model itself, and an accompanying theory accounting for the model are briefly presented. The data assemblage involved is also described, though for reasons of space not actually included, in this article. Representative data samplings and detailed discussions of conclusions and models deriving from the data are presented in a forthcoming book ( Visual Art Design Structures and Their Sociocultural Contexts).
An Unusual Ocular Complication of Thioridazine
Authors: Giannini A. James , Mahar Paul J.
Published: May 2005

A unique case of thioridazine-dependent discoloration of vision or “chromatopsia” is presented. This case merits its unique status because of the particular tint of the discoloration, the relative rapidity of onset of this symptom, and the low dosage of thioridazine that was involved.
Spiritualism and Suicide
Authors: Lester David
Published: May 2005

Spiritualism is a religion whose beliefs incude the idea that the spirit of deceased persons moves to a spirit world, and that it is possible to communicate with these deceased spirits occasionally, through living persons known as mediums. Data involving the use of spiritualists, regardless of whether one accepts their beliefs or not, may be of interest to students of suicidal behavior. This paper explores the views of spiritualists towards suicide and their potential use for the study of suicide.
From Online Documentation to Intuitive Interfaces: Technical Communicators Join the Design Team
Authors: Haselkorn Mark P.
Published: May 2005

As user advocate, usability tester, screen designer, and online documentation specialist, the technical communicator is now playing a role in all phases of product development, from initial design to final support. How has this expanded role come about? What kinds of decisions is the technical communicator responsible for? How must the technical communicator interact with other team members, especially in the exciting, interdisciplinary area of “external design”? This article examines the rapidly growing role for technical communicators in the computer industry as members of the external design team.
Rethinking the Western Construction of the Welfare State
Authors: Walker Alan , Wong Chack-Kie
Published: May 2005

This article employs case studies of China and Hong Kong to question the western ethnocentric construction of the welfare state that predominates in comparative social policy research. The authors argue that welfare regimes, and particularly the “welfare state,” have been constructed as capitalist-democratic projects and that this has the damaging effect of excluding from analyses not only several advanced capitalist societies in the Asian-Pacific area but also the world's most populous country. If welfare state regimes can only coexist with western political democracies, then China and Hong Kong are excluded automatically. A similar result occurs if the traditional social administration approach is adopted whereby a “welfare state” is defined in terms only of direct state provision. The authors argue that such assumptions are untenable if state welfare is to be analyzed as a universal phenomenon. Instead of being trapped within an ethnocentric welfare statism, what social policy requires is a global political economy perspective that facilitates comparisons of the meaning of welfare and the state's role in producing it north, south, east and west.
A Computer-Aided Instructional Environment
Authors: Henderson Peter B.
Published: May 2005

A computer-aided instructional environment which is based primarily upon the direct manipulation paradigm to promote learning by doing, or discovery learning is described. This environment has been implemented and used in an introductory computer science course to teach algorithmic problem-solving. It has been developed as a modular software system which is easily adapted for a wide range of instructional activities and student populations. It provides a simple, adaptable, and conceptually uniform approach to the development of a class of practical CAI systems. Several important characteristics of this computer-aided instructional environment include guiding students toward understanding a concept without being too obtrusive, introducing example tasks and subtasks so students can discover concepts on their own by generalizing from examples, providing meaningful graphical and/or verbal feedback to students, recognizing and gently correcting misconceptions, and knowing when to terminate a tutoring session.
Information Technology and Organizational Change
Authors: Carlson Patricia A.
Published: May 2005

The profession of technical communication is in transition. While a few might argue that we are in danger of being swallowed up by large, institutional realignments, it seems more likely that the future workplace (as characterized by Senge, among others) will put communication, culture, and collaboration at the center of work. However, in order for the profession to exploit these opportunities, we must understand the impact of integrated information technology (IT) on organizations. I summarize the interaction of corporate culture, leadership/management, human resources, and advanced networking and web-based applications (more commonly called an Intranet) for the successful integration of new IT products into an established and well-defined organization. Background research for this paper was conducted as part of an Army Summer Faculty Research and Engineering grant.
Radical Changes or Traditional Approaches in a Different Guise? An Analysis of the Norwegian Mother-Child Service
Authors: Andrews Therese
Published: May 2005

In recent years practitioners within the Norwegian mother and child health service have been advised to change their approach to parents, and in particular to play down their traditional “expert” role. On matters concerning their own child, parents have come to be regarded as the “experts,” and scientific knowledge is no longer considered superior to skills gained through practical experience. However, current recommendations for practice are inconsistent, and rather than being reduced, professional authority and control have entered a new mode. Instead of being articulated and made explicit, these aspects of the mother-child service are disguised. The language employed by the service might act to mask attempts to maintain the traditional relationship between professionals and parents. This article does not direct a one-sided critique toward the exercise of professional authority within this field of practice, but instead seeks to initiate a discussion on legitimate and illegitimate forms of authority and control. The analysis draws on two sources of data: documentary materials and interviews with public health nurses.
Peer Influence and Drug Use among Adolescents in Rural Areas
Authors: Pruitt B.E. , Kingery Paul M. , Mirzaee Elaheh , Heuberger Greg , Hurley Robert S.
Published: May 2005

A sample of 1,004 eighth and tenth grade students in twenty-three small Central/East Texas communities was assessed to determine 1) their perception of the number of their friends who use drugs, 2) the amount of information they received about drugs from their friends, and 3) the connection between those perceptions and drug use. A multiple regression model which included grade, gender, the degree to which friends are perceived to use drugs and the amount of information about drugs received from friends explained 39 percent of the variance in the degree to which rural adolescents were involved in drug use. An item specific analysis of the subcomponents of these composite variables explained 44 percent of the variance in the degree to which rural adolescents were involved in drug use. This same four-factor model accurately classified over 81 percent of non-drug-users and 67 percent of users using discriminant analysis. Students who perceived a higher degree of drug use among their friends and who received more information about drugs from their friends used drugs more frequently. Lower marijuana use in these rural areas as compared to the nation, both as a peer perception and as a fact, may protect these students to a degree from broader patterns of drug use. The findings of this study support the theory that peer pressure is related to drug abuse, even in rural areas.
The Health Crisis in Argentina
Authors: Escudero José Carlos
Published: May 2005

The health crisis in Argentina is part of the larger crisis that has resulted from a collapse in the country's economic and political systems. After a brief review of the country's history over the last century, from international success story to economic failure, the author explains the health crisis in particular and the social crisis in general in terms of failed neoliberal policies imposed on Argentina by the United States and International Monetary Fund through the mediation of the country's political class.
Untangling the Logics of Urban Service Bureaucracies the Strange Case of the San Francisco Municipal Railway
Authors: Mollenkopf John
Published: May 2005

Marxist analysts have developed theoretical propositions concerning the conflicting functions of government in advanced capitalist countries, while public policy analysts have examined the logic of public resource allocation. Through an historical analysis of a typical urban bureaucracy, the San Francisco Municipal Railway, this paper describes how bureaucratic structure and functioning relate to broader conflicts over whom government actions should benefit. It concludes that the apparent shortcomings of the organization can be traced to, and were caused by, this conflict. The argument thus draws from each of these two quite different approaches to the question of what logic motivates the public sector.
Unemployment and Health: An Analysis of “Canada Health Survey” Data
Authors: D'Arcy Carl , Siddique C. M.
Published: May 2005

This paper provides a cross-sectional analysis of the physical and emotional well-being of employed and unemployed workers. The data used consists of a sub-sample ( N = 14,313) drawn from the Canada Health Survey's national probability sample ( N = 31,688). The analysis indicates substantial health differences between employed and unemployed individuals. The unemployed showed significantly higher levels of distress, greater short-term and long-term disability, reported a large number of health problems, had been patients more often, and used proportionately more health services. Consistent with these measures, derived from self-reported data, physician-diagnosed measures also indicate a greater vulnerability of unemployed individuals to serious physical ailments such as heart trouble, pain in heart and chest, high blood pressure, spells of faint-dizziness, bone-joint problems and hypertension. While these health differences between the employed and unemployed persisted across socio-economic and demographic conditions, further analysis indicated strong interaction effects of SES and demographic variables on the association of employment status with physical and emotional health. Females and older unemployed individuals reported more health problems and physician visits whereas the younger unemployed (under 40) reported more psychological distress. The blue-collar unemployed were found to be considerably more vulnerable to physical illness whereas the unemployed with professional background reported more psychological distress. The low-income unemployed who were also the principal family earners, were the most psychologically distressed. A regional look at the data showed that the low-income unemployed suffered the most in terms of depressed mood in each region of the country. It is apparent that unemployment and its health impact reflect the wider class-based inequalities of advanced industrial societies. The need for social policies that effectively reduce unemployment and the detrimental impact of unemployment is clear.
The Relationship of Sex-Role Orientation to Death Anxiety in Middle-Aged Males
Authors: Downey Ann M.
Published: May 2005

The purpose of this study was to determine how sex-role orientation was related to death anxiety among a group of middle-aged males. A nonprobability sample of 237 male volunteers between the ages of forty and fifty-nine, of whom 88.7 percent were engaged in professional occupations, completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) and Boyar's Fear of Death Scale (FODS). In addition, “death experience” was measured by three items and was employed as a control variable in determining the relationship between sex-role orientation and death anxiety. Results of this investigation indicated that “death experience” or the amount of contact the male has had with death was not related to death anxiety. Additionally, those middle-aged males with a traditional male sex-role orientation (high masculinity/low femininity) did not exhibit higher death anxiety scores than those males with an androgynous orientation (high masculinity/high femininity) as was predicted. Thus, in this sample of professional middle-aged males, the men with a traditional sex-role orientation did not differ from those males who were androgynous with respect to death anxiety levels.
A Study of Topic Sentence Use in Scientific Writing
Authors: Popken Randall L.
Published: May 2005

This study examines three dimensions of paragraph topic sentence use in a corpus of scientific writing made up of research articles in biochemistry, geology, psychology, and sociology: 1. frequency of topic sentence use; 2. variation of topic sentence frequency in five rhetorical divisions; 3. variation of topic sentence types in these rhetorical divisions. Although the scientific writers used topic sentences in 55 percent of their paragraphs, differences existed among rhetorical divisions as to topic sentence frequency: writers used topic sentences quite often in results, results/discussion, and discussion, but quite seldom in methodology. Furthermore, topic sentence types differed across the divisions. In methodology, the topic announcement predominated; in discussion and introduction, the propositional occurred most often; in results and results/discussion, there was a balance of the two types. All these variations are thought to be related to differences in function (reporting facts versus interpreting) and texture (attributive versus logical text) across the rhetorical divisions. These variations may also affect ways of teaching paragraph skills in scientific writing.
Suicide Attempts in the District of Columbia Prison System
Authors: Sloane Bruce C.
Published: May 2005

Studies of 46 attempted suicides at two correctional institutions maintained by the District of Columbia Department of Corrections indicate that a jail for inmates awaiting trial or sentencing had a suicide attempt rate of 3.2 per cent, while a reformatory for, long-term inmates had a suicide attempt rate of 1.4 per cent. Attempters at the jail have more disciplinary problems and are facing more serious offenses than a non-suicidal control group. The lethality of the attempt increases with the seriousness of the offense. The reformatory attempters have been incarcerated for shorter periods of time and have shorter minimum sentences than controls at that institution, and the lethality of the attempt increases when there is a history of previous attempts. The reformatory attempters are more apt to have a history of alcoholism than the jail attempt group. Three types of attempters are delineated: 1) depressives make up the greatest numbers, particularly at the jail; 2) manipulative attempts can occur at any time, but are most common when initially incarcerated; 3) anomic attempts occur after long months or years of incarceration.
Medical History as Justification Rather Than Explanation: A Critique of Starr's The Social Transformation of American Medicine
Authors: Navarro Vicente
Published: May 2005

This paper discusses the major positions presented in Paul Starr's The Social Transformation of American Medicine and critically analyzes the major ideological and political assumptions that sustain Starr's explanation of the evolution of the institutions of medicine in the United States. These assumptions include, among others, that 1) the evolution of medicine is an outcome of conflicts among the different interest groups that exist within medicine, interacting within the parameters defined by the majority of Americans whose beliefs and wants eventually determine what occurs in medicine, and 2) the hegemonic positions in the ideology, practice, and institutions of medicine are dominant because of their powers of persuasion. This paper questions these positions on theoretical and empirical grounds and it presents an alternative explanation of the evolution of medicine. In this alternate explanation, the evolution of medicine (including its recent corporatization) is viewed as the outcome of power relations defined not by the majority of Americans but by a series of conflicts between classes, races, genders and other power groupings, within a matrix of dominant-dominated relations, in which dominance is reproduced by coercion and repression, and not merely by persuasion. Specific historical events are analyzed and alternative explanations are given to Starr's interpretations.
Panoramic Memory: A Response to the Threat of Death
Authors: Noyes Russell , Kletti Roy
Published: May 2005

Accounts from 205 persons who had encountered life-threatening danger were analyzed and among them sixty were found that included descriptions of panoramic memory. This phenomenon occurred most commonly among drowning victims and persons who, in the midst of accidents, believed they were about to die. It involved vivid recall of significant past experiences often spanning a lifetime. The memories were accompanied by sensory impressions and emotions appropriate to their content, often absorbing the attention of persons “reliving” them. This brief, life review appeared meaningful in terms of a perceived threat to life.
Gender Hierarchies in the Health Labor Force
Authors: Butter Irene H. , Carpenter Eugenia S. , Kay Bonnie J. , Simmons Ruth S.
Published: May 2005

Rapid growth and increasing diversity characterize trends of the U.S. health labor force in recent decades. While these trends have promoted change on many different fronts of the health system, hierarchical organization of the health work force remains intact. Workers continue to be stratified by class and race. Superimposed on both strata is a structure that segregates jobs by gender, between and within health occupations. While female health workers outnumber males by three to one, they remain clustered in jobs and occupations lower in pay, less prestigious, and less autonomous than those of their male counterparts. What has prevented women from improving their economic and leadership status as health workers? Is work performed by men of higher prestige because men perform it? Would curative and technical fields have less status if dominated by women? Would health promotion be funded more generously if most health educators were men?

In this article, two analytical constructs are presented to take a closer look at occupational categories, selected structural characteristics, differential rewards, and their relationship to gender segregation. Taken together, they demonstrate how women always cluster at the bottom and men at the top, no matter which dimension is chosen.
Visualizing a Procedure with Nassi-Schneiderman Charts
Authors: Weiss Edmond H.
Published: May 2005

Nassi-Schneiderman (NS) Charts are a form of flowcharting invented in the early 1970s to ensure that emerging computer programs would be structured, that is, organized into strings and nests of allowable programming constructs. These same constructs, however, are inherent in manual procedures as well. Using NS Charts to diagram human procedures eliminates prose ambiguities and provides most of the advantages of decision tables and trees. At the least, NS Charts can be used to test the logic and completeness of traditional procedures. At the most, they can replace many of the traditional publications.
The Research Proposal by an Academic Institution
Authors: Mattice Douglas A.
Published: May 2005

The proposal is an essential step in securing financial support for a research project. Sponsoring sources, government agencies, and private funding groups use the research proposal to determine the merit of the proposed work, the competency of the investigator, and the reasonableness of the estimated cost.

Because research is usually considered essential for a well rounded graduate program and because funds to support research projects at an academic institution often account for a significant portion of its total annual budget, the importance of proposal writing in the academic community is clear. The material presented herein is intended to provide a synopsis of the salient features of a research proposal generated by an academic institution.
The Effects of Expert Testimony concerning Rape on the Verdicts and Beliefs of Mock Jurors
Authors: Spanos Nicholas P. , Dubreuil Susan C. , Gwynn Maxwell I.
Published: May 2005

Mock jurors heard one of four versions of a ‘date rape’ case and deliberated, in small groups, to a verdict. Exposure to the direct examination of an expert who testified about rape myths undermined belief in the defendant's testimony that sex with the complainant had been consensual, and increased the frequency of guilty votes. However, exposure to the expert's cross-examination reversed the effects of the direct examination on the frequency of guilty votes. Women jurors disbelieved the defendant and voted him guilty to a greater extent than male jurors, while in both sexes profeminist attitudes correlated with disbelief in the defendant's testimony but failed to correlate significantly with final verdicts. Implications are discussed.
Coping with Life-Threatening Illness: A Task Model
Authors: Doka Kenneth J.
Published: May 2005

For many years Rubier-Ross' stage theory of dying has been the predominant model, at least popularly, in the field of thanatology. Yet this model has sustained considerable criticisms. This article reviews criticisms of the stage model. It suggests that a new model would need to widen consideration of the range of coping mechanisms that individuals employ as they struggle with life-threatening illnesses; emphasize that no style of coping is inherently preferable; reaffirm the individuality of responses; and recognize the complexity of the process of life-threatening illness. The article proposes that a more effective model for understanding coping with life-threatening illness would emphasize the varied tasks that individuals face at each phase of illness.