bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Enactive Exploration on Intrinsic Motivation, Strategy, and Performance in Electronic Search
Authors: Wood Robert , Kakebeeke Bastiaan , Debowski Shelda , Frese Michael
Published: March 2003

On a re´alise´ une investigation expe´rimentale des effets de l’exploration e´nactive sur la motivation intrinse`que, la strate´gie et la performance dans une tache de recherche e´lectronique. L’exploration e´nactive recouvre une part d’exploration autonome et de gestion des erreurs que les sujets de la condition expe´rimentale ont e´te´ incite´s a` exploiter lors de la phase pratique d’un programme de formation. Les sujets controle be´ne´ficiaient de la même formation de base et e´taient confronte´s a` la même phase pratique sans l’incitation a` l’exploration e´nactive. Celle‐ci suscitait une motivation intrinse`que plus forte mais n’influenc¸ait pas les facteurs d’autore´gulation. Les sujets expe´rimentaux avaient aussi de meilleurs re´sultats dans les tâches de transfert re´alise´es avec une expectation pre´cise de la performance. L’efficacite´ perc¸ue a` l’issue de la formation et la satisfaction avaient un impact positif sur la qualite´ des strate´gies retenues dans les tâches de transfert, mais la motivation intrinse`que nuisait a` la qualite´ de la strate´gie. La discussion porte sur la fac¸on dont les consignes introduisant a` l’exploration e´nactive influencent la motivation intrinse`que et sur l’impact de la motivation intrinse`que sur la strate´gie et la performance dans les tâches complexes.

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of enactive exploration on intrinsic motivation, strategy, and performance on an electronic search task. Enactive exploration includes elements of self‐guided exploration and error management, which participants in the experimental condition were encouraged to utilise during the practice segment of a training programme. Participants in the comparison condition received the same basic training and completed the same practice segment without the enactive exploration intervention. Enactive exploration produced higher intrinsic motivation than the comparison condition but did not influence other self‐regulatory factors. Participants trained in the enactive exploration mode also had higher performance levels on transfer tasks performed under stringent performance expectations. Post‐training self‐efficacy and satisfaction had a positive influence on the quality of strategies used on the transfer tasks but intrinsic motivation was negatively related to strategy quality. The ways in which enactive exploration instructions influence intrinsic motivation and the effects of intrinsic motivation on strategy and performance on complex tasks are discussed.
Stress and Gender in Unemployed Female and Male Managers
Authors: Fielden Sandra L. , Davidson Marilyn J.
Published: March 2003

The purpose of this pioneering study was to investigate the overall impact of unemployment on female managers compared to their male counterparts, an area which to date has received no specific attention. A questionnaire was designed based on a review of the relevant literature and content analysis of in‐depth interviews with 40 unemployed managers. This was distributed to the 80 government run Executive Job Clubs located throughout England, and was used to gain quantitative data exploring respondents’ experiences of unemployment in terms of sources of stress, stress moderators, and stress outcomes. Completed questionnaires were received from 115 female and 169 male unemployed managers registered at 46 Executive Job Clubs (return rate 47%). Multiple regression techniques were used to develop individual and comparative models of unemployment for unemployed female and male managers. The findings indicated that unemployed female managers encountered substantially greater sources of stress than their male counterparts in all aspects of unemployment. Increased stressors and less effective stress moderators resulted in female managers experiencing significantly poorer mental well‐being and greater negative physical effects during unemployment than their male counterparts. Recommendations are made to key organisations.
The Influence of U.S. GAAP on the Harmony of Accounting Measurement Policies of Large Companies in the U.K. and Australia
Authors: Parker Robert H. , Morris Richard D.
Published: March 2003

U.S. GAAP has increasingly become an influence on accounting practices in other countries, even aside from those traditionally considered under direct U.S. influence. The change arises from the large number of U.S. accounting standards, non‐U.S. companies listing on U.S. stock exchanges, and the amount of U.S. direct investment abroad. As the impact of U.S. GAAP varies across countries, it may affect international accounting harmony. This idea is tested by examining the level of international harmony for eleven accounting measurement policies in matched pairs of large companies from Australia and the U.K., two countries with historically strong cultural and economic links. It is argued that, in recent decades, accounting practice in Australia, more so than in the U.K., has become increasingly U.S.‐oriented. The concepts of harmony of Tay and Parker (1990) and Archer et al. (1996) are employed. International harmony is measured by the between‐country C index and chi‐square test; national harmony by van der Tas’s (1988) H index. While considerable national harmony is found in the U.K. for seven and in Australia for five accounting policies, there is considerable or complete international harmony for only three policies. Evidence is presented of the influence of U.S. GAAP as one factor explaining the poor degree of U.K./Australia international harmony. Australian companies appear to follow U.S. GAAP to a greater extent than do U.K. companies. The state of partial harmony thus existing restricts international comparability of accounting reports and may cause problems for regulators.
Social Exclusion: Towards an Analytical and Operational Framework
Authors: Bhalla Ajit , Lapeyre Frédéric
Published: March 2003

This article attempts to analyse the economic, social and political dimensions of social exclusion. After comparing the concept with the conventional notions of poverty and marginalization, we argue that social exclusion overlaps with poverty broadly defined, but goes beyond it by explicitly embracing the relational as well as distributional aspects of poverty. It is shown that the concept has universal validity although it has not gained much attention in developing countries. Indicators to measure different aspects of social exclusion are discussed; in this context, the article considers how appropriate it might be to use precariousness of employment as a measure. Finally, methodological problems involved in operationalizing the concept as a tool of policy formulation to fight exclusion are underlined.
Fighting Inflation in Latin America
Authors: Dijkstra A.
Published: March 2003

Inflation has been a chronic problem for Latin American economies since the Second World War. In the 1980s, inflation ran out of control in many countries. This article analyses the causes of these high inflation rates and discusses the experiences of Latin American countries in fighting (hyper‐) inflation in the 1980s and 1990s. Particular attention is given to the relative merits of orthodox versus heterodox approaches, and to the use of the exchange rate as an inflation stabilizer. The article concludes, among other things, that achieving fiscal balance is crucial, whatever method is used, and that a fixed exchange rate can help to stabilize inflation but contains many risks, in particular with open capital accounts.
Making Law Work: Restructuring Land Relations in Africa
Authors: McAuslan Patrick
Published: March 2003

This article explores a number of issues concerning the appropriate role for the law to play in the restructuring and reform of land relations and land tenure in Africa. Given current (external) donor tendencies, and (internal) pressures for reform from within, this is a particularly topical issue: in seeking to explore it, the author draws on his own experiences and involvement in land law reform, as well as other sources of information, concentrating on countries and events in Eastern and Southern Africa. After examining various models and country experiences, the article concludes that, while there is no single ‘right way’ to tackle land tenure reform in Africa, there are a number of factors which may be crucial to success, and in which the law—and lawyers—can play a vital role.
Commodities and the Power of Prayer: Pentecostalist Attitudes Towards Consumption in Contemporary Ghana
Authors: Meyer Birgit
Published: March 2003

This article addresses the phenomenal success of pentecostalism, a global religious movement par excellence, throughout postcolonial Africa. Investigating pentecostalist views of and attitudes towards commodities in southern Ghana, the article shows that pentecostalists represent the modern global economy as enchanted and themselves as agents of disenchantment: only through prayer may commodities cease to act as ‘fetishes’ which threaten the personal integrity and identity of their owners. Pentecostalism creates modern consumers through a ritual of prayer, which helps them handle globalization and control foreign commodities in such a way that they can be consumed without danger. Through prayer, commodities cease to possess their owners; the latter are rather enabled to possess the former. Pentecostalism engages in globalization by enabling its members to consume products from the global market and by offering its followers fixed orientation points and a well‐delimited moral universe within globalization's unsettling flows.
Constructing a Gender Policy for Joint Forest Management in India
Authors: Locke Catherine
Published: March 2003

Policy makers and advocates of joint forest management (JFM) agree that women should be full participants and that their involvement is especially important because of the nature of women's work. This article examines how JFM policy has addressed gender in India. It argues that policy has been informed by instrumentalist positions in the debate over women's relationship to the environment. Consequently, gender planning in JFM has focused on two issues: formal representation for women in local institutions, and identifying women's ‘special’ values, knowledge and uses of forest resources. The scant evidence suggests that the impact of JFM on women has generally been negative. Finally, the article suggests that gender policy in JFM needs to be based on a more sophisticated understanding of gender relations and a wider examination of the gendered context of JFM processes.
The Gender Sensitivity of Well‐being Indicators
Authors: Saith Ruhi , Harriss‐White Barbara
Published: March 2003

This article assesses the gender sensitivity of indicators of health, nutrition, education, and composite indices which are relevant to developing countries, using the analytical framework of ‘functionings’. It finds that a disaggregated under‐10 female–male ratio (0–4 years and 5–9 years) appears to be a suitable indicator for health. Difficulties with data collection and interpretation reduce the reliability of indicators of morbidity and nutrition intake. Nutrition outcome indicators like anthropometric measures are potentially useful, if genetic differences between population groups as well as between males and females are controlled for. In assessing gender gaps in education, enrolment and drop‐out ratios are more useful than adult literacy or mean years of schooling, but micro‐level research is required to decide which of these two is better. Composite indices like the Physical Quality of Life Index and Gender‐related Development Index are potentially useful, given some alterations to increase their relevance to developing countries.
Gender Bias in China, South Korea and India 1920–1990: Effects of War, Famine and Fertility Decline
Authors: Das Gupta Monica , Shuzhuo Li
Published: March 2003

How has the history of the twentieth century affected the extent of female disadvantage in child survival in China, South Korea and India, and how has this in turn shaped spousal availability and marriage payments? These three countries have similar kinship systems which generate discrimination against girls, and they show the highest levels of excess female child mortality in the world. This article explores how the extent of excess female child mortality was influenced by historical events in these countries in the period 1920–90, and discusses some of the substantial social ramifications of resulting changes in sex ratios. The authors hypothesize that these changes encouraged the retention of brideprice in China while dowry became the norm in India, and illustrate how these demographic changes have influenced the extent and manifestations of violence against women.
What do the World Bank's Poverty Assessments teach us about Poverty in Sub‐Saharan Africa?
Authors: Hanmer Lucia C. , Pyatt Graham , White Howard
Published: March 2003

As part of the World Bank's poverty reduction strategy, Poverty Assessments have been carried out for a number of countries which analyse who the poor are, the causes of poverty and poverty reduction policies. This article reviews what can be learnt from the twenty‐five Assessments prepared for countries in sub‐Saharan Africa up to 1996. Whilst other factors are acknowledged in identifying the poor, the Assessments over‐emphasize income‐poverty defined against an inevitably arbitrary poverty line. The Assessments are shown to be weak in addressing the causes of poverty, often ignoring the historical perspective, political context, and international dimensions such as debt and commodity price trends, focusing instead on the lack of growth in recent years as the main cause of poverty. Weak understanding of the causes of poverty undermines the basis for country‐specific poverty reduction strategies: policy recommendations are usually an uncritical presentation of the World Bank's three‐pronged strategy of growth, investment in human capital and social safety nets. Although the Assessments do not explicitly acknowledge the point, they suggest that the number of poor people in Africa will continue to rise; nor is there any basis for confidence that policies are being put in place to redress the situation.
People in Between: Conversion and Conservation of Forest Lands in Thailand
Authors: Sato Jin
Published: March 2003

The analysis of ‘ambiguous lands’ and the people who inhabit them is most revealing for understanding environmental deterioration in Thailand. ‘Ambiguous lands’ are those which are legally owned by the state, but are used and cultivated by local people. Land with an ambiguous property status attracts many different actors: villagers hungry for unoccupied arable lands in the frontiers; government departments looking for new project sites; and conservation agencies searching for new areas to be protected. This article shows, first, how two types of ambiguous land — state‐owned but privately‐cultivated land, and communal lands — were created. It then examines how the Karen, one of the hill peoples living on the ambiguous lands, have been struggling to survive between the forces of capitalistic development and forest conservation. Using a detailed study of forest use and dependency conducted in two Karen villages, I argue that the state’s efforts to reduce the Karen’s forest dependency, or even to evict them from the forests, are not leading to the stated objective of conservation. Finally, I draw some wider implications with reference to James Scott’s thesis on state simplification.
Environmentalists, Rubber Tappers and Empowerment: The Politics and Economics of Extractive Reserves
Authors: Brown Katrina , Rosendo Se´rgio
Published: March 2003

Extractive reserves are important initiatives in tropical forest zones which seek to integrate conservation of natural resources with development and human welfare objectives. Increasingly in such initiatives empowerment of local communities is seen as both a means of achieving this integration and as an end in itself. This article presents a theoretically informed analysis of the interactions between rubber tappers and environmental organizations in the establishment and implementation of extractive reserves in Rond?nia, Brazil. It distinguishes two dimensions of empowerment — political and economic — and examines how the alliances between organizations have impacted differentially on the two dimensions. The analysis suggests that these alliances have so far been more successful in enabling political rather than economic empowerment. Advances in political empowerment are shown, in the short‐term at least, not to have resulted in improvements in livelihood conditions of poor forest dwellers.
From Timber to Tourism: Recommoditizing the Japanese Forest
Authors: Knight John
Published: March 2003

Timber plantations make up nearly half the Japanese forest area. However, in recent decades domestic timber has been displaced by imports. The decline of Japanese forestry forms the background to the emergence of forest tourism whereby domestic forests become important sites for the recreational leisure of Japan’s urban middle class. This article describes the ways in which the Japanese forest is exploited as a tourist resource, and examines the problems that arise in this process of recommoditizing a timber forest into a tourist forest.
Agrarian Differentiation in Post–Socialist Societies: Evidence from Three Upland Villages in North–Western Vietnam
Authors: Sikor Thomas
Published: March 2003

The literature on post–socialist transformations displays a fairly broad consensus that changes in macro structures of state and economy generate or increase rural inequality. This article examines the distributional effects of macro changes in Vietnamese villages. Findings from local–level research highlight the multiple ways in which people react to changes in macro structures. Core fields of negotiation by local people include exchange relations, the use of surplus, and land tenure. Local negotiation may lead to local–level trajectories of agrarian change that differ significantly from national–level changes. Changes in macro structures thus may not substantially alter the underlying process of differentiation. Rural people may be rich and poor for the same reasons as under collective agriculture, though income differences may have become more accentuated.
Scaling up Participatory Watershed Development in India
Authors: Kolavalli Shashi , Kerr John
Published: March 2003

‘Participation’ is widely accepted as a prerequisite to successful watershed development in India, but there is no shared understanding of its meaning, nor of how to make it operational. Meaningful participation, in which communities work collectively, help make decisions and share costs, is limited primarily to projects implemented by non‐governmental organizations (NGOs). Participation in government projects is more superficial because staff lack the skills and incentive to engage in meaningful participation. Strategies to scale up meaningful participation require a large number of NGOs. However, the number of NGOs with the necessary skills and values is limited, so a realistic strategy must seek to improve the capabilities and incentives of government agencies. Their performance may improve by making them accountable through transparent processes and participatory monitoring and evaluation. NGO‐facilitated access to information for communities can potentially change power relations and initiate political processes that make both community leaders and government agencies more accountable to communities.
Gender and Witchcraft in Agrarian Transition: The Case of Kenyan Horticulture
Authors: Dolan Catherine S.
Published: March 2003

This article examines the social effects of contract farming of export horticulture among smallholders in Meru District, Kenya. During the 1980s and 1990s, contracting was popularized by donors and governments alike as a way to reduce poverty and increase opportunities for self–employment in rural areas. Considerable research has documented the tensions in social relations that emerge in such cases, giving rise to gendered struggles over land, labour, and income in the face of new commodity systems. This article highlights similar tendencies. It suggests that men’s failure to compensate their wives for horticulture production has given rise to a string of witchcraft allegations and acts, as the wealth engendered by horticultural commodities comes up against cultural norms of marital obligation. While witchcraft accusations can expose women to risks of social alienation and financial deprivation, witchcraft nevertheless remains a powerful weapon through which women can level intra–household disparities and, more broadly, challenge the legitimacy of social practice. In Meru, witchcraft discourses are a vehicle through which gendered struggles over contract income are articulated and contested, and through which the social costs of agrarian transition become apparent.
Rising From the Ashes? The Difficult (Re)Birth of the Georgian State
Authors: Demetriou Spyros
Published: March 2003

This article explores some of the social and political dynamics that shaped Georgia’s transition from a constituent Republic of the Soviet Union to an independent state between 1987 and 2000, highlighting the factors that led to a series of catastrophic conflicts, the disintegration of social, ethnic and political relations, and the destruction of state institutions. Although not a typical case of state collapse, the Georgian experience draws attention to the interplay between social dynamics, political identities, the institutional legacy of Soviet rule, and the role of conflict in transforming competition over political power. The Georgian case, moreover, also reveals how understandings of state ‘collapse’ cannot be untangled from ‘reconstruction’ (or state formation more broadly). Rather than simply a negative end–game, collapse must be understood as a specific dynamic inscribed in the competition for hegemonic power and authority which, through its eventual coalescence in social, political and institutional forms, constitutes the essence of the modern state, and of political life in general.
Privatization of Security, Arms Proliferation and the Process of State Collapse in Africa
Authors: Musah Abdel–Fatau
Published: March 2003

Most so–called ‘collapsed states’ in Africa are extreme cases of the complex and contradictory processes of state–making and unmaking which are unfolding in the continent. Beneath the veneer of sovereignty, virtually all these nations started their independent existence in the 1960s as shell states. Since then, they have either followed the path of self–destruction (state collapse) or have sought to fill the shell with institutional content (state–making). Private military intervention is one of the key external factors undermining the state–building project. Whether in its traditional ‘soldier of fortune’ form, or in its current corporate cloak, the privatization of security injects an inflammatory element into the governance process in weak states. Since independence, the populations of Africa have been subjected to structural violence that has highlighted force and de–emphasized human security as the cornerstone of governance. Civil society reactions to this have become more pronounced since the end of the Cold War, and have led to negative reconfiguration in weak states that are least equipped to manage the new challenges. The privatization of security impedes efforts to fashion accountable governance, and entrenches the culture of violence. Private military companies, their partner arms brokers and local warlords are the principal actors in illegitimate resource appropriation — a major cause of ongoing asymmetric warfare in Africa — and the proliferation of weapons — an incendiary element in these wars.
Aid Conditionality as a Tool for Peacebuilding: Opportunities and Constraints
Authors: Boyce James K.
Published: March 2003

Over the past decade, aid donors have pledged billions of dollars to support peacebuilding efforts in collapsed states and war–torn societies. Peace conditionality — the use of formal performance criteria and informal policy dialogue to encourage the implementation of peace accords and the consolidation of peace — could make aid a more effective tool for building peace. In Bosnia, for example, donors have attempted to link aid to the protection of human rights, co–operation with the international war crimes tribunal, and the right of people displaced by ‘ethnic cleansing’ to return to their homes. Yet the conventional practices and priorities of aid donors pose constraints to the exercise of peace conditionality. This article examines several of these constraints, including the reluctance of donors (particularly the international financial institutions) to acknowledge responsibility for the political repercussions of aid; the competing foreign–policy objectives of donor governments; the humanitarian imperative to aid people whose lives are at risk; and the incentive structures and institutional cultures of donor agencies.
Social Reconstruction and the Radicalization of Development: Aid as a Relation of Global Liberal Governance
Authors: Duffield Mark
Published: March 2003

That democratic societies do not fall into conflict has become an axiom of contemporary international relations. Liberal societies, however, do not properly exist along the troubled margins of the global order. This absence has lent urgency to present efforts at social reconstruction. Whereas a couple of decades ago the principle of non–interference prevailed, this unfinished business has shaped a new will to intervene and transform societies as a whole. This article critically analyses the international will to govern through three interconnected themes. First, it examines accepted views on the nature of the new wars. These representations usually portray conflict as a form of social regression stemming from the failure of modernity. As such, they provide a moral justification for intervention. Second, an alternative view of the new wars — as a form of resistant and reflexive modernity — is developed. Made possible by the opportunities created by globalization, this resistance assumes the organizational form of network war. The essay concludes with an examination of the encounter between the international will to govern and the resistance of reflexive modernity. This encounter is the site of the post–Cold War reuniting of aid and politics. One important consequence has been the radicalization of development and its reinvention as a strategic tool of conflict resolution and social reconstruction. The use of aid as a tool of global liberal governance is fraught with difficulty; not least, the equivocal and contested nature of its influence. Rather than reconsideration, however, policy failure tends to result in a fresh round of reinvention and reform. The increasing normalization of violence is but one effect.
The Diagnosis and Prediction of Bank Failures in Zambia, 1990–98
Authors: Maimbo Samuel Munzele
Published: March 2003

This article presents a non‐econometric, yet practical approach for regulators in developing countries. With limited financial resources to determine the ‘safety and soundness’ of a large number of financial institutuions, regulatory authorities are appreciative of any kind of mechanism that can identify banks that are in financial difficulties. The Zambian case is interesting, in that the bank failures of 1995 and 1997/8 brought into question the ability of the central bank to diagnose the financial condition of banks. This article evaluates the Bank of Zambia's experience over the period 1990 to March 1998 and makes recommendations on how to improve diagnosis and prediction of bank failures by incorporating non‐financial factors into the analysis of bank performance.
From Rice Bowl to Safety Net: Insecurity and Social Protection during China’s Transition
Authors: Cook Sarah
Published: March 2003

Alongside economic growth, inequality and insecurity have increased rapidly in China. Groups formerly excluded from the security of the ‘iron rice bowl’ are now excluded from new forms of social assistance, often designed to compensate those losing livelihood guarantees. There is thus a need for new safety–net measures, both to assist the most vulnerable and least secure members of society throughout the transition, and to enhance their longer–term security. This article argues that compensatory arrangements can be effective only alongside a complementary set of social protection policies including increased investment in human resources. Better–designed interventions could strengthen rather than undermine existing informal safety nets, and allow an expanded role for nongovernmental organisations in social protection.
Language and thought: the fundamental significance of conversational awareness for cognitive development
Authors: Siegal Michael
Published: March 2003

According to Piagetian accounts of cognitive development, children’s responses on many tasks reflect the lack of evidence for an operational competence that is conceptual rather than linguistic. In this paper, I show that such accounts assume that young children are endowed with substantial conversational wizardry, allowing them to interpret questions about cognitive tasks as intended by the experimenter. Once it is explicitly recognized that children may be less advanced in their conversational awareness than is commonly assumed, their competence can be assessed more accurately. Recent and new evidence from a variety of sources, such as research on conservation, suggestibility in memory, and theory of mind understanding in deaf and hearing children, converges to indicate that competence is inadequately characterized by a dichotomy between pre‐operational and operational logic and that what is developing in children’s cognition is a complex interplay between both conversational and conceptual processes. This evidence is not merely relevant to methodological concerns. It demands a radical shift in cognitive developmental theory and research to account for the importance of children’s conversational awareness.
Sex differences in early verbal and non‐verbal cognitive development
Authors: Galsworthy Michael J. , Dionne Ginette , Dale Philip S. , Plomin Robert
Published: March 2003

The present study of over 3000 2‐year‐old twin pairs used a sex‐limitation model to examine genetic and environmental origins of sex differences in verbal and non‐verbal cognitive ability. Girls scored significantly higher on both measures (p<0.0001), although gender only accounted for approximately 3% of the variance in verbal ability and 1% of the variance in non‐verbal cognitive ability. For the verbal measure boys showed greater heritability than girls. Also the twin‐pair correlation is significantly lower for opposite‐sex twins than for non‐identical same‐sex twins. This indicates that individual differences in verbal ability include some sex‐specific factors. Non‐verbal cognitive ability did not differ in aetiology for boys and girls. We conclude that genetic and environmental influences differ for girls and boys for early verbal but not non‐verbal development.
Haptic perception in newborns
Authors: Streri Arlette , Lhote Myriam , Dutilleul Sophie
Published: March 2003

Two experiments using different procedures were performed in which newborns’ ability to process information about object shape with their hands was explored. In the first experiment, a haptic fixed‐trial procedure was used and a decrease in holding times was found for both right and left hands. In the second experiment, discrimination between objects was studied in which a shifted procedure associated to an infant‐control procedure followed by a dishabituation procedure was used. Habituation to an object and a reaction to the novelty of a new object were shown for both right and left hands, showing that neonates are able to process and encode some information about object shape and then to discriminate between different shapes. It is the first evidence of such an ability in neonates. Methodological procedure and haptic cognition with regard to sensory symmetry are discussed and some developmental perspectives are proposed.
Basic principles of MRI and morphometry studies of human brain development
Authors: Kennedy David N. , Makris Nikos , Herbert Martha R. , Takahashi Tsutomu , Caviness Verne S.
Published: March 2003

Magnetic resonance imaging has undergone dramatic development in the past years. This has been paralleled by developments in the tools for extracting quantitative information from these images in support of capturing the anatomic features of brain development in living humans. This has revolutionized our expectations for current and future diagnostic and investigative work with the developing brain. This paper will cover the classes of information that are readily available in the MR image, the mechanisms for extracting quantitative results, and a sample of the application of these types of methods to developmental issues. These applications highlight tissue‐ and anatomic‐based contrasts in the nature and rate of developmental maturation within the brain. This will be followed by a discussion of the emergent themes of developmental science as elucidated by these classes of observation.
Disasters, the Media and Social Structures: A Typology of Credibility Hierarchy Persistence Based on Newspaper Coverage of the Love Canal and Six Other Disasters
Authors: Ploughman Penelope
Published: March 2003

The starting‐point of this paper is the assumption that credibility and the right to be heard are differentially distributed in any social system and therefore a ‘hierarchy of credibility’ exists. To test this, the media coverage of the Love Canal, New York, hazardous waste landfill disaster and six other disasters was examined to determine if this hierarchy exists in all cases. A hierarchy of credibility emphasising the views of established news sources with routine and habitual access to the media was demonstrated in the majority of events examined. However, the Love Canal disaster was one of two where this hierarchy was disrupted due to a number of factors. These included the contentious or political nature of the event, its duration, the extent of competition for credibility and coverage among news sources, the extent of information shortage, the type of news medium, the degree of sympathetic and representational salience of victims and the extent to which they organised and achieved status as ‘newsmakers’. Building on disaster research, a model of the operation of the credibility hierarchy in coverage of disasters is presented and discussed.
US Government Natural Disaster Assistance: Historical Analysis and a Proposal for the Future
Authors: Barnett Barry J.
Published: March 2003

Governments often provide grants or low‐interest loans to disaster victims. Yet these programmes have proven to be quite costly. In addition, questions have been raised about associated behavioural incentives. Conceptually, government disaster insurance programmes should be more efficient, consistent and equitable than ex post facto disaster relief in the form of grants and loans. Yet the performance of government disaster insurance programmes has been mixed, at best. This article reviews the history of US federal natural disaster assistance to individuals and concludes with a recommendation for a new government role in the provision of disaster insurance.
Race, Ethnicity and Disasters in the United States: A Review of the Literature
Authors: Fothergill Alice , Maestas Enrique G. M. , Darlington JoAnne DeRouen
Published: March 2003

In this paper we synthesise past disaster research that addresses issues of race and ethnicity in the United States. Using an eight‐stage typology to organise the findings, this literature review presents the results from a wide range of studies. The synthesis shows how various racial and ethnic groups perceive natural hazard risks and respond to warnings, how groups may be differentially affected, both physically and psychologically, and how disaster effects vary by race and ethnicity during the periods of emergency response, recovery and reconstruction. We show that studies have important findings, many illustrating that racial and ethnic communities in the US are more vulnerable to natural disasters, due to factors such as language, housing patterns, building construction, community isolation and cultural insensitivities. By presenting these studies together, we are able to witness patterns of racial and ethnic inequalities that may be more difficult to see or interpret in individual studies that take place in one specific time and place. We conclude the review with policy and research recommendations.
A Measure of Uncertainty: The Nature of Vulnerability and Its Relationship to Malnutrition
Authors: Webb Patrick , Harinarayan Anuradha
Published: March 2003

Terms such as ‘vulnerability’ and ‘insecurity’ are used widely in the general nutrition literature as well as in work on humanitarian response. Yet these words are used rather loosely. This paper argues that more clarity in their usage would benefit those seeking a bridge between development and humanitarian problems. Since vulnerability is not fully coincident with malnutrition, poverty or other conventional indices of human deprivation, public action must be based on a better understanding of the nature of crises and human uncertainty beyond physiological and nutritional outcomes. More attention is needed to be paid to the context‐specific nature of risks, the capacity of households to manage such risks and the potential for public action to bolster indigenous capacity through targeted development investments, not just relief.
Malnutrition in Emergencies: How Can We Do Better and Where Do the Responsibilities Lie?
Authors: Seaman John
Published: March 2003

Over many years, the international relief system has been repeatedly criticised in terms of slowness of response, poor inter‐agency co‐ordination, and technical incompetence on a larger or smaller scale. Notwithstanding many initiatives to improve co‐ordination and other aspects of international relief performance, relief failures, including epidemic malnutrition, continue to occur. The reasons for these failures are discussed from the perspective of the characteristics of the international system, and the way in which this would be expected to perform under different conditions. The chief limitations of the international system identified are: the lack of any focus for imposing co‐ordination, other than governments of affected countries; the lack of any requirement for donor nations to ensure that adequate resources are supplied; and a tendency for the system to respond uncritically to the international media. A broad typology of international responses is proposed. It is suggested that relief failure can be recast in terms of the lack of any system which can ensure the correct allocation of food and other resources between emergencies, and ensure the systematic distribution of such resources as are supplied. It concludes that the scope for further improvement in the performance of the international relief system is now limited, but that the most promising area for investment would, where possible, support governments in affected countries to take greater control of the management of the international relief system.
Conflict‐induced Displacement and Involuntary Resettlement in Colombia: Putting Cernea's IRLR Model to the Test
Authors: Muggah H.C.R.
Published: March 2003

This paper tests Cernea's (1997) impoverishment risks and livelihood reconstruction (IRLR) model in cases of conflict‐induced displacement (CID). In applying the model to a situation involving internal conflict, the article illustrates the particular problems encountered by internally displaced people (IDPs) and policymakers charged to respond to them. The article searches for local interpretations of CID and resettlement through a comparative profile of two IDP settlements in Colombia: one urban, the other rural. It concludes that the IRLR model, when contextualised, provides a useful tool to identify and categorise risks of impoverishment and resettlement priorities. At the same time, however, the article demonstrates that the model insufficiently captures the root causes or causality of CID.
The Political Economy of Complex Emergency and Recovery in Northern Ethiopia
Authors: Milas Seifulaziz , Latif Jalal Abdel
Published: March 2003

During the 1980s Ethiopia experienced the effects of conflict, drought and famine on a scale far greater than many CPEs elsewhere. In May 1991, after the decisive defeat of the military dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam by the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and after decades of civil war, drought and famine, Ethiopia faced the prospects of peace and of much needed development. This paper explores both Ethiopia's experience of conflict and humanitarian intervention in areas of Tigray held by the Tigray Peoples' Liberation Front (TPLF) during the 1980s, and its experience of post‐conflict rehabilitation and reconstruction in the 1990s. It first deals with the roots of the conflicts within Ethiopia: political marginalisation, heavy state intervention and highly extractive relations between state and peasants, inappropriate and failed development policies, ethnic identity and the politicisation of ethnicity. The Mengistu regime's counter‐insurgency measures are then contrasted with the policies and programmes of the TPLF, Ethiopia's most effective opposition movement and the leading element in the EPRDF, and its achievements in mobilising popular support: its establishment of democratically elected structures of local governance and its famine relief distribution programme.
Nature’s Impartiality, Man’s Inhumanity: Reflections on Terrorism and World Crisis in a Context of Historical Disaster
Authors: Alexander David
Published: March 2003

This paper compares the terrorist outrages of 11 September 2001 in New York City and Washington to the Lisbon earthquake of 1 November 1755. Both events occurred, literally out of the blue, at critical junctures in history and both struck at the heart of large trading networks. Both affected public attitudes towards disaster as, not only did they cause unparalleled destruction, but they also represented symbolic victories of chaos over order, and of moral catastrophism over a benign view of human endeavour. The Lisbon earthquake led to a protracted debate on teleology, which has some parallels in the debate on technological values in modern society. It remains to be seen whether there will be parallels in the reconstruction and the ways in which major disasters are rationalised in the long term. But despite the differences between these two events — which are obviously very large as nearly 250 years of history separate them and they were the work of different sorts of forces — there are lessons to be learned from the comparison. One of these is that disaster can contribute to a perilous form of self‐absorption and cultural isolation.
The economic rate of return of infrastructures and regional policy in the European Union
Authors: Florio Massimo
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the results of cost–benefit analysis (CBA) of 200 major investment projects co‐financed in 1988–93 by the European Commission. The project database we have built is probably one of the few existing sets of comparable micro‐data on the expected rates of return of public infrastructure and on the quality of CBA leading to its calculation. The database reveals a striking dispersion of expected rates of return around the average. Part of the large sample variance is probably a consequence more of inconsistencies in the actual implementation of CBA than of structural differences among the European Union’s more economically backward regions. We offer a measurement of the quality of CBA and compare EU ex‐ante data with World Bank ex‐post data.
Économie sociale et nouveaux pays industrialisés: Le cas de la Corée du sud
Authors: Bidet Eric
Published: March 2003

For more than 30 years, South Korea has experienced exceptional economic growth. In the context of such an accomplishment, is any room left for the social economy organizations? The analysis of available legal and economic data shows that whereas these organizations have a nonnegligible place in the Korean economy, on the one hand their role is limited in comparison with their western counterparts, and on the other hand the boundaries between public, capitalist and social economy sectors are blurred. The family in Korea is the most natural factor of socio‐economic integration; in many areas the family substitutes for intermediaries like the social economy organizations. The economic crisis that touched Korea at the end of 1997 contributed to the weakening of the traditional model of family solidarity and offered new prospects for the Korean social economy, especially in the field of social protection and social services. This is similar to what seems to be evolving in Europe.
Les Caisses Rurales Face à l’Union Monétaire: Une étude d’efficacité comparée
Authors: Gallardo Antonio Miranda , Morales Gutiérrez Alfonso Carlos
Published: March 2003

The authors analyze the economic efficiency of rural credit unions of large size compared to a group of credit unions. The methodology is based on the analysis of profitability, productivity and efficiency ratios and on the estimation of a Cobb–Douglas cost function. The evolution during the period 1989–1994 as well as the situation at the end of this period are examined. The same methodology is used to study the rural credit unions individually.
Économie sociale et économie publique: nouvelles formes de coopération à l'ère de la mondialisation
Authors: Lévesque Benoît , Malo Marie‐Claire , Thiry Bernard
Published: March 2003

En choisissant le thème du congrès CIRIEC/IFIG 2000 à Montréal, “Économie sociale et économie publique: nouvelles formes de coopération à l'ère de la mondialisation”, les instances du CIRIEC international ont voulu inscrire les évolutions récentes des relations entre entreprises publiques et d'économie sociale dans un contexte international en pleine mutation, à l'ère de la mondialisation.
The effects of human resources management practices on the organizational performances of Canadian financial co‐operatives
Authors: Arcand Michel , Bayad Mohamed , Fabi Bruno
Published: March 2003

Reading through academic literature with a critical eye shows that the relation between human resources management (HRM) and the performance of the firm is a relatively unknown phenomenon. This relation is sometimes described as a “black box”. Far from claiming to have closed the debate, this article sets forth an original approach that represents an undisputable input which allows a better understanding of this phenomenon.

Even if there are many theories that try to explain this relation, only the universalistic approach of human resources will be of interest. While using both a qualitative and a quantitative approach, our research shows that some HRM practices do seem to give a competitive advantage to Canadian financial co‐operative enterprises.