bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Medical Assessment of Migrants: Current Limitations and Future Potential
Authors: Keane V.P. , Gushulak B.D.
Published: March 2003

Attempts to control the importation of infectious diseases through the medical screening and evaluation of immigrants and refugees represent the modern application of some of the earliest recorded public health interventions.

States with long‐standing immigration programmes continue to require the medical examination and screening of migrants for certain diseases. In some instances, the public health effectiveness of these immigration medical assessments is of questionable value when considered from a population health basis.

This article reviews current practices and describes recent studies where more modern and epidemiologically based immigration medical interventions have been undertaken. A more effective immigration medical assessment process is proposed through the use of results of this more empirical approach to immigration medical screening.
Structuration of Indian Information Technology Professionals’ Migration to Australia: An Ethnographic Study
Authors: Xiang Biao
Published: March 2003

Information Technology (IT) is leading to a new form of capital accumulation as is clearly evident in the IT industry. Regardless of its origin and amount, capital can be circulated and accumulated on a global scale, at an unprecedented speed and therefore with extreme volatility. An urgent task of the study of globalization and migration is to understand the international labour system of the “new economy”.

This article is an ethnographic study of those agents who have been the main means by which Indian IT professionals move globally. “Body shopping” is the practice whereby a firm recruits IT workers and then farms them out to clients for a particular project, though the firm itself is not involved in the project.

The key players in “body shopping” are a series of recruitment agents. They form “agent chains” where they depend on each other and assume different functions in dealing with the market, the state and the workers. “Body shops” rely on ethnic networks. Their practices have led to the emergence of a flexible international labour supply system that benefits some IT professionals but also imposes costs.
Towards a Coherent Policy of Co–Development
Authors: Weil Patrick
Published: March 2003

This paper seeks to demonstrate the major benefits that a dedicated policy of co–development can bring to three major actors affected by immigration: receiving states, countries of origin, and the immigrants themselves. True co–development involves sustained cooperation between receiving nations and source nations in the management of both legal and illegal migratory flows. At the same time, it fosters the economic and demographic development of both the sending and the receiving country. This cooperation is based in large measure on understanding that, more than ever before, the best migration policy for developed nations is one that seeks not to block, but to smoothly regulate the circulation and re–circulation of the majority of foreigners and immigrants. As a result, Northern countries will be able to concentrate the state’s limited control resources on selected targets such as criminals, delinquents, and migrants arrested multiple times for unauthorized entry or residence. Developed nations must recognize that the vast majority of immigrants wish to retain close links to their country of origin, and with drastically improved transportation and communication links, most migrants are increasingly able to do so. Northern states should adapt policies that, for the most part, accommodate immigrants’ wishes to maintain active ties to their homeland. Such measures are generally in the best interests of the receiving countries, source countries, and of course, the immigrants themselves.

The various problems faced by these three main actors regarding migration as they seek to pursue activities in their best interest is considered, followed by the advantages that a policy of co–development has for these actors: for receiving nations in terms of meeting labour force needs, reducing demographic problems, and controlling illegal immigration; and for source countries in terms of increased access to visas, increased amounts and efficacy of remittances, and the return and re–circulation of skilled and seasonal workers, and retirees.

The interests of the immigrants themselves will be considered at various points throughout the discussion, in the context of the effects that the various policies of receiving and sending countries will have on them.
Capital Structure Choices and Taxes: Evidence from the Australian Dividend Imputation Tax System
Authors: Twite Garry
Published: March 2003

The introduction in 1987 of a dividend imputation tax system in Australia represented a significant change to the tax framework. To the extent that tax incentives influence the use of debt financing, changes in tax laws that alter these incentives will lead to changes in corporate capital structures. This paper examines the changes in corporate capital structure around the introduction of a dividend imputation tax system. The introduction of dividend imputation provides an incentive for firms to (a) reduce the level of debt financing utilized where this incentive varies across firms depending on the firm’s effective corporate tax rate, and (b) increase the level of external equity financing. The results present evidence consistent with these incentives.
Dispute resolution in federal systems
Authors: Crommelin Michael
Published: March 2003

This article deals selectively with four broad approaches to conflict management in federal systems of government: formal dispute resolution,informal dispute resolution, dispute avoidance, and popular dispute resolution. Courts undertake the task of formal dispute resolution through judicial review: issues of current significance include judicial concepts of federalism, the reference jurisdiction, Scottish devolution, and supranational federalism and the European Court of Justice. Examples of informal dispute resolution are few. The South African Constitution includes a provision, requiring parties to an intergovernmental dispute to exhaust all other remedies before resorting to litigation. The dispute resolution process contained in chapter 20 of the North American Free Trade Agreement may stimulate experimentation with similar models in federal systems. Dispute avoidance techniques are many and varied; they include the drafting of constitutional instruments and the use of intergovernmental forums within and outside the constitutional framework. The electoral process may be employed in federal systems to determine the fate of governments, specific legislative measures and proposed constitutional amendments. Each federal society has its own culture of conflict management, which exerts a subtle but significant influence on the operation of, and the relationship among, dispute resolution systems.
The Limits of Anti‐Drug Policy in Mexico
Authors: Astorga Luis
Published: March 2003

The Mexican State's involvement in the fight against drugs has gone through several stages marked chiefly by legal and police action in keeping with the model of United States inspiration instituted in the early twentieth century. This paper seeks to show some of the limits to that model, built up in recent years by growing military participation, when the special history of the relationship between drug trafficking and the political authorities in a State party system is left out of account. There are also limits to the freedom of action of the President elected on 2 July 2000 and his government team, who do not belong to the State party, when it comes to determining the content and direction of anti‐drug policy.
Governance and the Limits of Accountability: The WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank
Authors: Woods Ngaire , Narlikar Amrita
Published: March 2003

Over the past two decades the functions of international economic institutions have greatly expanded to include programmes and policies which affect a wider range of people, groups, and organisations than before. Where previously people could hold their national governments to account for such policies, they must now look to international institutions where the decisions are being made. But to whom are these institutions accountable and are they accountable to those whom they directly affect? This paper sets out to answer that question in respect of the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO. After analysing the new intrusiveness of the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank, we explore how the concept of accountability might best be applied to international economic institutions. The paper then outlines the specific ways in which the IMF, World Bank, and WTO have recently bolstered their accountability through enhanced transparency and monitoring. In conclusion, however, the paper argues that in spite of improvements in accountability, the international economic institutions have not gone far enough in reforming their governance structures. There is a remaining imbalance between what they do, and their legitimacy as perceived by those they affect.
Issues in Complementary Health Insurance in Belgium
Authors: Stevens Y. , Van Rompaey L. , Huber V. , Van Buggenhout B.
Published: March 2003

This article attempts to assess the increasing role of complementary social insurance in healthcare in Belgium. As different players attempt to fill in the lacunae of the statutory social security scheme, the demarcation of their sphere of action and of their mutual relationship is becoming problematic. It is therefore interesting to see the evolution of solidarity and selectivity. The analysis of both categories and products in complementary health insurance indicates the limitations and the bottlenecks in coming years for the social security scheme on the one hand and complementary social insurance on the other.
Should Public Pensions be Funded?
Authors: Hemming Richard
Published: March 2003

This paper outlines some of the arguments for and against the funding of public pensions, with a view to establishing whether there is an economic basis for judging it to be superior to pay‐as‐you‐go (PAYG). It is concluded that if funding has an edge over PAYG, it is not an overwhelming one. While funding may have a modest cost advantage over PAYG and have superior characteristics from the standpoint of intergenerational redistribution, its alleged superiority in handling demographic and economic risk, as well as in signalling future pension costs, is difficult to justify. While theoretical arguments tend to be consistent with the view that funding will be associated with higher saving than PAYG, convincing empirical support is missing. Nevertheless, the momentum for shifting from PAYG to funding remains. But if there is to be such a shift, there may also be a case for shifting from public to private pension provision.
„Qualitative“ Bankenaufsicht – „Königsweg“ der Regulierung?
Authors: Paul Stephan
Published: March 2003

Banking regulation in the twenty-first century is at the crossroads. The article discusses the question whether the supervisory review of bank risk management systems is superior to the minimum capital requirements in traditional style. It points out the serious problems of both ways - especially the first one, which was preferred by the Basle Committee of Banking Supervision in its proposal ,,A new capital adequacy framework`` (June 1999).
Das European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee: Ein Beitrag zur Regulierungskultur in Europa
Authors: Benink Harald A. , Schmidt Reinhard H.
Published: March 2003

The turbulence in the international financial markets in the 1980s inspired the idea that independent academics might be in a position to make a contribution to the improvement of regulation and thus ultimately also to the stability of the national financial sector in the United States. This led to the creation of the US “Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee“, a group of academics and other independent experts working in the field of financial regulation, which meets regularly and issues statements concerning conceptual as well as current issues in financial regulation. Two years ago, a similar shadow committee was founded in Europe. It is composed of members from 11 different countries. The special problems of financial regulation in Europe, as well as the special features of the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC), derive from the fact that despite the trend towards economic and political integration, Europe is still a collection of different nations with different institutional set-ups and political and economic traditions. In this paper, Harald Benink, chairman of the ESFRC, and Reinhard H. Schmidt, one of the two German members, describe the origin, the objectives and the functioning of the committee and the thrust of its recommendations.
Die deutsche Steuerbelastung im internationalen Vergleich: Warum Deutschland (k)eine Steuerreform braucht
Authors: Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Frank , Schmidt Carsten
Published: March 2003

This paper attacks the widespread view that the latest (corporate) income tax reform in Germany was urgently needed to reduce the tax burden on the German economy. In the run-up to this tax reform, the public debate focused on nominal income tax rates and hence neglected the determination of the tax base. Empirical results on effective tax burdens in OECD countries show that a reform of German (corporate) capital taxation cannot be justified on the grounds of the tax burden. The international comparison of effective average tax rates shows that the corporate tax burden in Germany steadily declined from 1980 and was in 1996 lower than in most other industrialised countries. However, we argue that not only the actual tax burden but also the complexity of a tax system determines its international competitiveness. A German tax reform was - and still is - necessary due to the lasting complexity of the tax system and the relatively high tax burden on labour.
Integration of motion parallax with binocular disparity specifying different surface shapes
Authors: Ichikawa Makoto , Saida Shinya
Published: March 2003

We investigated the interaction between motion parallax and binocular disparity cues in the perception of surface shape and depth magnitude by the use of the random dot stimuli in which these cues specified sinusoidal depth surfaces undulating with different spatial frequencies. When ambiguous motion parallax is inconsistent with unambiguous disparity cue, the reasonable solution for the visual system is to convert the motion signal to the flow on the surface specified by disparity. Two experiments, however, found that the visual system did not always use this reasonable solution; observers often perceived the surface specified by a composite of the two cues, or the surface specified by parallax alone. In the perception of this composite of the two cues, the apparent depth magnitude increased with the increase of the depth magnitude specified by both cues. This indicates that the visual system can combine the depth magnitude information from parallax and disparity in an additive fashion. The interference with parallax by disparity implies that the parallax processing is not independent of the disparity processing.
Voluntary aspects of attentional control setting for detecting a feature‐deﬁned target1
Authors: Yokosawa Kazuhiko , Kumada Takatsune
Published: March 2003

Abstract: Singleton targets that differ from distractors in a single salient attribute can be discerned regardless of the number of items in the display. Recent studies have indicated that the perception of singleton targets is facilitated by an attentional control setting. We focused on the voluntary aspect of the attentional control setting. Psychophysical and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments examined the temporal characteristics of the attentional control setting by using an auditory cue. In both experiments, an auditorily cued feature‐search task was used. The cue validity (valid vs. neutral) and the cue lead time (CLT) were varied. In the psychophysical experiment, we established the effect of a symbolic cue on detection of a singleton. When the CLT was short or the cue was neutral, there was no facilitation, as reﬂected by the slow activation of the attentional control setting. In our fMRI experiment, the brain activity indicates that this detection task activated the prefrontal cortex. These results demonstrate that the attentional control setting for facilitation of the singleton‐target perception modulates activity in regions of the prefrontal cortex.
Voice and interpersonal attraction
Authors: Oguchi Takashi , Kikuchi Hiroto
Published: March 2003

The present study examined the effects of voice and physical appearance on inter‐personal attraction. Furthermore, the attributes of voice that enhance interpersonal attraction were investigated. In the first study the subjects were 25 female students from one university and the target persons were four male students from another university. The subjects rated attractiveness of voice and physical appearance, and the overall interpersonal attraction of the target persons. The attractiveness of voice and physical appearance had independent effects on interpersonal attraction. In the second study the subjects were 62 students (20 males, 42 females) from one university and the target persons were 16 students from another university (eight of each sex). The results of the first study were replicated. Bright, generous voices, low vocal pitch and a small range of vocal pitch increased interpersonal attraction.
Las Casas as Theological Counteroffensive: An Interpretation of Gustavo Gutiérrez’s Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ
Authors: Smith Christian
Published: March 2003

Peruvian liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez’s massive work, Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ, should not be read as a defensive or retreating move for liberation theology in the face of two decades of opposition. Rather, it is best understood as a creative and strategic counteroffensive to advance liberation theology in terms that the Vatican can only find difficult to counter. Nevertheless, liberation theology struggles with the difficulty of intellectually justifying itself on nondependency and non‐Marxist grounds. In any case, the struggle for the work of liberation in Latin America continues.
Peasant Resistance and Religious Protests in Early Philippine Society: Turning Friars Against the Grain
Authors: Nadeau Kathy
Published: March 2003

One of the most important contributions to the study of religious resistance and rural rebellions in the Philippines has come from the works of nationalist scholars. They have shown that peasant revolts that have been widely studied cannot be constructively understood without considering their precolonial origins. This essay examines the role of religion in rural revolts in terms of its broader historical connections. It reviews some of the pre‐Hispanic continuities in the selection of authentic leaders in the Philippines during the early Spanish period. It concludes that Christianity was localized not simply because it was imposed but because it was propagated by a small group of radicalized, educated friars meeting some of the indigenous criteria for effective leadership. These friars were some of the early ancestors of today’s liberation theologians.
Does Masculinity Thwart Being Religious? An Examination of Older Men’sReligiousness
Authors: Thompson Jr. Edward H. , Remmes Kathryn R.
Published: March 2003

Previous work shows a significant relationship between gender orientation and being religious in samples of college–age and adult men. Before entering later life, men with a feminine orientation have greater religious involvement than other men. In a sample of older men from three Massachusetts counties, this study assessed the bearing of men’sgender orientation and gender ideology on their religious involvement. Gender orientation more than masculinity ideology was found to be a reliable predictor of older men’sreligiousness. Similar to studies of younger men, a feminine orientation was a significant determinant of the older men’s religious participation, commitment, and intrinsic orientation. Older men who define self in very masculine terms, however, engaged in a quest religiosity. When the masculinity ideology contains norms that prescribe the virtues of a traditional masculinity and acquiring status, men’s religious orientation was extrinsic (or means) oriented. These important findings are discussed in terms of how masculinity is at times a barrier to men’s private devotion and at other times can be a trigger to questing.
Testing the Promise of the Churches: Income Inequality in the Opportunity to Learn Civic Skills in Christian Congregations
Authors: Schwadel Philip
Published: March 2003

Political researchers point to church activities as a major avenue for lower–class individuals to learn the civic skills necessary for many forms of political participation, the skills that higher–status individuals learn through education and occupation. This article tests this theory through multilevel analyses of the effects of both individual income and average congregational income on three measures of participation in church activities and organizations that offer participants the opportunity to learn and exercise civic skills. The results show that churches are only slightly stratified when it comes to members’ participation in charity, public policy, or social justice organizations within the church, suggesting that they offer some promise to teach civic skills to the lower–income members. Nevertheless, churches are moderately stratified in terms of members’ participation in administration, finance, or buildings organizations within the church, and strongly stratified in organizations in general within the church, suggesting that higher–income members receive the majority of civic–skill practice and training in Christian congregations in the United States.
Religion and Human Cloning: An Exploratory Analysis of the First Available Opinion Data
Authors: EVANS JOHN H.
Published: March 2003

Human cloning has recently entered the public sphere as a contentious issue and religious groups have spoken out in opposition to these technologies. To date, there has been no research to specifically determine whether the laity agrees with the positions of the leadership or to more generally sort out the views of the religious public on the issue of cloning. In this article I examine two relatively unknown public opinion polls that included questions on both cloning and the religious identity, practices, and beliefs of the respondent. I find that evangelicals are more opposed to cloning than the rest of the public and are more likely to see cloning as a religious issue. I explore these relationships further with a survey from one denomination and find that it is not ignorance of science that results in opposition to cloning, but—at least for the evangelicals—a desire to keep religion and science distinct. I conclude with suggestions for how future researchers can build upon this first limited opinion data.
In Defense of Shame: Shame in the Context of Guilt and Embarrassment
Authors: Sabini John , Silver Maury
Published: March 2003

We are interested in the relations among shame, guilt, and embarrassment and especially in how each relates to judgments of character. We start by analyzing the distinction between being and feeling guilty, and unearth the role of shame as a guilt feeling. We proceed to examine shame and guilt in relation to moral responsibility and to flaws of character. We address a recent psychological finding (Tangney, Wagner, Hill‐Barlow, and Marshall, 1996; Tangney, Hill‐Barlow, Wagner and Marshall, 1996) that shame is both destructive and in so far as it has a social function could be replaced by guilt. We reinterpret the guilt culture/shame culture distinction in terms of our way of distinguishing these emotions. Finally we examine embarrassment as distinct from shame and find the difference to lie not so much in the phenomenology of the participant as it is in context, and in which elements of the context the speaker describing the emotion wishes to stress. We conclude by defending shame despite its psychological troubles.
Neutrality in the Social Sciences: On Bhaskar's argument for an essential emancipatory impulse in social science
Authors: Lacey Hugh
Published: March 2003

Suppose that one accepts a theory that proposes that a certain group’s holding of a false belief is co‐caused by (e.g.) a specified social structure. Then, Bhaskar has argued, one is rationally committed, ceteris paribus, to adopting a negative value judgment of that structure (the theory is not value neutral) and a positive value judgment of activity directed towards removing it (the theory is partial towards emancipation). Contrary to Bhaskar, I argue that any rational move from accepting a theory to value judgments is mediated either by further value judgments, or by the role played by value‐impregnated theoretical terms. Furthermore, I argue (drawing upon a well known argument of Rudner), Bhaskar’s argument tends not to be applicable in the case of theories that assign certain kinds of causal roles to social structures. Reflection on Bhaskar’s argument, however, leads to a deeper grasp of the relations between accepting theories in the social sciences and adopting value judgments.
The Presence of Self in the Person: Reflexive Positioning and Personal Constructs Psychology
Authors: Jones Raya
Published: March 2003

Tan and Moghaddam’s (1995) ‘reflexive positioning’ expansion of Harré’s positioning theory provokes consideration of psychological factors underlying the discursive production of selves. However, it understates the issue, why do people appropriate particular positions, hearable in utterances, as applicable to themselves. Some of the theoretical ambiguities dissipate when positioning is approached from a personal‐constructs perspective (Kelly 1995), which draws attention to personal construction of selves, as distinct from social construction, and describes the dynamics of individual continuity, though understating the concrete contextuality of personal becoming. The present essay considers the compatibility of the personal constructs approach with Harré’s positioning theory.
Signs, Social Ontology, and Critical Realism
Authors: Nellhaus Tobin
Published: March 2003

Even though sign‐systems are a crucial part of society, critical realism, as developed by Roy Bhaskar, does not yet have an adequate theory of signs and semiosis. The few suggestions that Bhaskar offers can be advanced through the semiotics of C.S. Peirce. In doing so, however, it becomes necessary to reconsider Bhaskar’s ontological domains of the real, the actual, and the subjective, and expand the last domain into one of semiosis. This new understanding of ontological domains, incorporating Peireian semiotics, provides the basis for rethinking the ontology of society: the customary dyad structures/agents becomes the triad structures/agents/discourses, each of which possesses material, sociological, and meaningful aspects.
Toward a General Sociological Theory of Emotions
Authors: Turner Jonathan H.
Published: March 2003

Key ideas from expectation‐states theory, symbolic interactionism, dramaturgical analysis, power‐status theories, attribution theory, and psychoanalytic theories are combined in an effort to generate a more general theory of emotional arousal in face‐to‐face interaction. The level of emotional arousal in interaction is seen to reflect the degree of incongruity between expectations, including expectations for confirmation of self, and actual experiences. Such arousal involves the conversion of primary emotions into first and second‐order combinations. The nature of emotional arousal is, however, further complicated by the activation of defense mechanisms and attribution processes. The composite theory is formalized into a series of propositions which can serve as hypotheses for empirical tests.
The Power of Unsilencing: Between Silence and Negotiation in Heterosexual Relationships
Authors: Benjamin Orly
Published: March 2003

Orly Benjamin, The Power of Unsilencing: Between Silence and Negotiation in Heterosexual Relationships, pp. 1–19.

This article proposes an analysis of the social process of unsilencing in the specific context of heterosexual relationships. Unsilencing is the process in which an individual woman becomes empowered to the extent of voicing what is silenced by structural hierarchies that shape her experiences of the heterosexual relationships she is involved in. I connect the process of unsilencing to the sociological notion of “negotiated order” and a feminist notion of the self as fragmented and continually changing. Unsilencing is conceived as a response to power operating on three levels: emotional connection that empowers a contesting meaning structure; a process of distancing that empowers the individual in overcoming positioning processes; and an increased sense of authenticity in relation to the set of emotional management, language and beliefs embedded in the contesting meaning structure.
Forbidding Nasty Knowledge: On the Use of Ill–gotten Information
Authors: Godlovitch Stan
Published: March 2003

Some knowledge — most infamously, the Nazi experiments on human subjects — has been acquired by means which cannot be morally condoned however beneficial the knowledge may be. Yet, given that we now have such knowledge, it seems morally questionable to forbid its use where we know it can benefit us. Although a strong utilitarian case exists for deploying such information and although any pragmatic, humane person would use it where it could improve a situation, residual moral qualms remain which are neither the expression of sentimentality nor squeamishness. Given the evil source of the knowledge, can we avoid the charge that we are tied to the evil, and even respectful of the experimenters, by wilfully benefiting from the work? I explore a few arguments meant to remove the moral qualms and show them all to be wanting. However, because we in fact regularly and routinely benefit in countless ways from many systematic evils of the distant past without qualms, we seem to be inconsistently selective when it concerns certain evils. This inconsistency can be explained, if not justified, by appeal to a principle of decent delay which allows us after a time to ignore the origins of our present benefits and so make moral fadeout acceptable. This principle itself is grounded in our natural and increasing forgetfulness of events as they recede in time, an adaptive mechanism which allows us both to carry on our lives in relative decency and yet to maintain a fitting sensitivity to newer, closer evils which affect more immediately our relations with others and our sense of moral integrity.
The Chief Inducement? The Idea of Marriage as Friendship
Authors: Abbey Ruth , Den Uyl Douglas J.
Published: March 2003

A combination of social forces has thrown marriage into question in westernised societies at the end of the millennium. This uncertainty creates space for new ways of thinking about marriage. In this context, we examine the idea of marriage as friendship. We trace its genealogy in the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor and then subject it to critical scrutiny using some of Michel de Montaigne’s ideas. We ask how applicable the ideal of higher friendship is to marriage and what might be gained and lost by a synthesis of marriage and friendship. Grounding the discussion in historical sources is valuable because the topic is so little explored in the contemporary philosophical literature. This approach also allows any enduring value in these historical texts to be elicited
The 4 Dimensional Language of Infancy: The Interpersonal Basis of Art Practice
Authors: Matthews John
Published: March 2003

Using studies made in London, England, plus recent research conducted in Singapore, this paper investigates the roots of aesthetic and design sensibilities in the symbolic play and drawing of early infancy. This study supports Colwyn Trevarthen’s [1996] theory that in an interpersonal space formed between caregiver and infant, facial expression, gesture and vocalisations of each partner are orchestrated together and are given powerful expressive and representational values. Microanalysis of video recordings shows that exploratory actions impelled by the infant are organised by patterned bursts of emotions. The rhythmic periodicities of these actions form the structure of later art‐making and design, including early drawing, painting and dance. There are important pedagogical implications concerning the optimal conditions required to promote art and design understandings in childhood. The Congress presentation of this paper was illustrated by video‐recorded observations, made in London and Singapore, of the beginnings of expression, representation and design.
Drawings of People by Australian Aboriginal Children: the Inter‐mixing of Cultural Styles
Authors: Cox Maureen V.
Published: March 2003

The general developmental changes observed in human figure drawings of modern‐day young children in western societies are reviewed in this paper. Differences in style over historical time and in other societies throw doubt on the notion of a fixed and universal pattern of development. Even so, children’s drawings seem to become more westernised as schooling has spread to more and more remote, rural societies. In Australia, however, the Warlpiri Aboriginal people have continued to use their traditional pictorial symbols in their paintings, sand drawings and school books; Warlpiri school‐children use and develop both the indigenous and the westernised styles of drawing.
Building Bridges: Experiential Art Understanding
Authors: Räsänen Marjo
Published: March 2003

When building the bridge of experiential art understanding, the focus is set on the key stone of self in the centre of the arch. Art interpretation as a means of understanding and constructing self is based on the view of self as an unilinear collage of the accumulated life experiences each of us possesses. It is a whole consisting of different roles and relations, cultural identity being a crucial part of it. Self‐identity is the experience of distinctness, agency, and continuity that is formed through one’s personal life history. In the model of experiential art interpretation, the process of art interpretation is understood as a series of events where the viewer’s past and present experiences are the basis for constructing new knowledge. The dialectics between personal and social knowledge happens through the different, coequal forms of grasping and transformation. Experiential art interpretation combines strategies from the disciplines of art history, aesthetics, and criticism, and connects them to the experientially‐based processes of reflective observation, conceptualization, and production. A central concept in experiential art exploration is transfer, which means the ability to apply knowledge and skills learned in one context to other situations. Transfer leads to increased self‐consciousness and metacognitive skills. For transfer to happen, learners have to be able to apply processes of artistic inquiry both in understanding other artworks and in making their own artworks. The second level of transfer has to do with the ability to apply the new ideas and attitudes adopted in the interpretation process in real‐life situations.
Problem Interpretation and Resolution via Visual Stimuli: The Use of ‘Mood Boards’ in Design Education
Authors: Garner Steve , McDonagh‐Philp Deana
Published: March 2003

This paper defines and discusses ‘mood boards’– those assemblages of images and, less frequently, objects, which are used to assist analysis, creativity and idea development in design activity. There is need for discussion since little published information currently exists to guide students and tutors. The paper proposes that mood boards can assist problem finding as well as problem solving. Primarily, mood boards provide a mechanism for students and practising designers to respond to perceptions about the brief, the problem as it emerges and the ideas as they develop. The construction of mood boards potentially stimulates the perception and interpretation of more ephemeral phenomena such as colour, texture, form, image and status. They are, like Debono's lateral thinking techniques, partly responses to an inner dialogue and partly provocation to become engaged in such a dialogue. Examples are drawn from recent work in the field of industrial design at Loughborough University.
Assessment in Educational Practice: Forming Pedagogised Identities in the Art Curriculum
Authors: Atkinson Dennis
Published: March 2003

This paper draws on the work of Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida in order to present a discussion of how students and teachers in the field of art and design education achieve their pedagogised identities. My purpose is to offer some thoughts on assessment by advocating a project of difference which attempts to embrace children's and student's ontological orientations of practice. Assessment discourses which assume universal and essentialist ideas of ability are criticised and shown to presuppose objective or naturalist fantasies. A valuing of difference and the singularity of practice is proposed by describing five drawings produced by Year 7 students in a London secondary school, and then by referring to the Lacanian Real in order to extricate the art object from normative assessment discourses.
Art Education in Zimbabwe
Authors: Abraham Rachel
Published: March 2003

Art education in Zimbabwe has a rather negative image which dates back to the colonial era. Art was usually confined to wealthy urban schools and taught mostly to white students. The subject was often used as a dumping ground for nonachievers and girls (who had few career options available to them outside of marriage). As a result art was considered an expensive and non‐academic subject in former Rhodesia. The situation did not improve after independence. Art still retains a poor image and has not expanded into mainstream education. However, the country has a rich artistic heritage and informal art education has developed to provide sculptures and crafts for the tourist industry. The government made art compulsory in primary education but have been unable to provide the necessary financial backing to implement the scheme. Only about 80 of the 1548 (5%) schools who have students sitting ‘O’ level examinations offer art as a subject. Third level education has been hindered by the lack of a degree course in art and design, and financial difficulties are again a concern.
Futures Commitments and Exchange Rate Volatility
Authors: Adrangi Bahram , Chatruth Arjun
Published: March 2003

It is commonly suggested that certain groups of futures traders, such as speculators and small traders, exacerbate cash market volatility. Empirical research on the subject has been conducted in context of the relationship between price volatility and futures volume or open interest and fails to satisfactorily resolve such an issue. This paper examines the relationship between exchange rate variability and futures trading activity in the context of disaggregated open interest. The data and techniques employed allow for more specific inferences regarding which group of traders contribute to exchange volatility. The results suggest that while ‘typical’ levels of futures commitments are not destabilizing, surges in the level of commitments of large speculators and small traders causes exchange rate volatility. The actual release of the commitment‐of‐traders data, however, has no impact on spot prices.
The Impact of SFAS No. 14 Segment Information on Price Variability and Earnings Forecast Accuracy
Authors: Lobo Gerald J. , Kwon Sung S. , Ndubizu Gordian A.
Published: March 2003

This study provides empirical evidence on the economic effects of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) No. 14 segment disclosures. Required disclosures under this standard subsume those of the Securities and Exchange Commission' (SEC) 1970 line‐of‐business disclosure rule both in terms of the variables to be disclosed and the degree of decomposition of the consolidated information. Consequently, this study hypothesizes that stock price variability will be greater at the time of, and security analysts' earnings forecasts more accurate following, release of these disclosures. The results of the empirical analysis support these hypotheses. They indicate that SFAS No. 14 segment disclosures convey incremental information over previously reported SEC line‐of‐business information that is relevant to stockholders and to security analysts.
Ownership Structure, Firm Performance and Top Executive Change: An Analysis of UK Firms
Authors: Dahya Jay , Lonie A. Alasdair , Power David M.
Published: March 2003

The results of this paper reveal a significantly negative relationship between the equity stake owned by a senior executive and the likelihood that this executive will be removed from office. We also establish the existence of a strong positive relationship between poor company performance and the likelihood that the top managers responsible will be forced out of their firms; this forced departure only tends to occur when the managers’ stake in the firm is less than 1%; as the level of ownership rises, managers become increasingly entrenched in their posts. The stock market reaction to management change is greatest (a) when the departure is unexpected and (b) when the dismissed executive owns more than 5% of the equity of his company. This study also examines the influence of other aspects of ownership structure and board composition upon the likelihood of a top executive dismissal.
Does the Pecking Order Hypothesis Explain the Dividend Payout Ratios of Firms in the UK?
Authors: Adedeji Abimbola
Published: March 2003

This study tests the pecking order hypothesis on data of 224 firms in the UK over the period 1993–96 inclusive. Evidence observed supports the prediction of the hypothesis that there is a negative interaction between the long term value of dividend payout ratio and investment. The evidence also indicates that financial leverage has a positive interaction with dividend payout ratio but no significant interaction with investment. While investment has a significant positive influence on financial leverage, financial leverage does not have a significant influence on investment. It is also observed that irrecoverable advance corporation tax (ACT) has a positive, albeit weak, influence on dividend payout ratio and that overseas profit has a negative influence on the ratio. The results of the study agree with the previous evidence with regard to the influence of dividend payout ratio on investment and financial leverage, and the influence of investment on financial leverage. However, the results contradict the previous evidence reported by Baskin (1989) and Allen (1993) about the influence of financial leverage on investment. While the previous studies observed that financial leverage has a positive influence on investment, this study finds that financial leverage does not have a significant influence on investment. The main contributions of the study are that (1) it provides some evidence that there is a negative interaction between dividend payout ratio and investment and a positive interaction between dividend payout ratio and financial leverage, (2) it provides some evidence about the effects of overseas profit and irrecoverable ACT on dividend payout and (3) its results suggest that the recent abolition of the refund of ACT is justified on the ground that it may affect investment and growth in the UK.
Corporate Sales, Equity Trading, and Risk
Authors: Blazenko George W.
Published: March 2003

This paper proposes and investigates an explanation for a positive association between the signed value of common share returns and trading activity. The mixture of distributions model for stock returns and trading is applied with the added assumption that product sales for a firm is the directing process which generates the flow of information to equity markets. Because trading depends upon information arrival, sales and trading are positively related. Also, because contribution margin is positive, cash flows increase with sales. Dependence of both cash flows and trading on sales implies that returns and trading are also positively related. This explanation is tested in this paper.
A Note on the Determinants of the Outcomes of Bankruptcy Petitions: Evidence From Korea
Authors: Kim Minchoul , Kim Minho
Published: March 2003

This study provides evidence on the determinants of the outcomes of bankruptcy petitions using Korean firms for the period from 1977 to 1994. We hypothesize that a firm with more free assets, less liquid assets, longer existing period, larger size, lower operating risk, and more goodwill would have higher survival prospects from the bankruptcy petition. The results from logit estimation confirm this hypothesis. The free assets, existing period, firm size, and goodwill have positive influence on the probability of reorganization, while the liquid assets, and operating risk are negatively related to the probability of reorganization. Among these variables, the free assets percentage is the most significant at the one percent level in determining the outcomes of bankruptcy petitions. This reveals that a bankrupt firm with more free assets tends to be reorganized because it would be easy to obtain additional financing needed for the successful reorganization. The liquid assets and existing period are also significant at the five percent level. We conclude that a firm with more free assets, less liquid assets, and longer existing period would have higher survival prospects in Korea.
Real Options, (Dis)Investment Decision‐Making and Accounting Measures of Performance
Authors: Stark Andrew W.
Published: March 2003

This paper suggests that a residual income‐type measure of performance can be designed which supports optimal investment and disinvestment decision‐making in a real options framework involving the options to wait before investing and to abandon. The measure has a number of advantages and disadvantages. Nonetheless, the balance of advantage versus disadvantage for the proposed measure must be set against the inadequacies of other competing measures of performance and associated organisational designs. Even if the measure of performance suggested is not regarded as practically useful, it has another general advantage – it can be used as a benchmark against which to evaluate other performance measures with regard to their support of optimal investment and disinvestment decision‐making in a real options framework.
R&D Intensity and Corporate Financial Policy: Some International Evidence
Authors: Bah Rahim , Dumontier Pascal
Published: March 2003

This paper presents evidence on the financial policies of firms strongly engaged in research and development activities. By referring to the under‐investment paradox, the asset substitution problem, the asset specificity proposition and the information asymmetry literature, we postulate that R&D‐intensive firms should adopt specific financial policies. In conformity with our hypotheses, empirical results based on a sample of R&D‐intensive and non‐R&D firms in four major industrialized countries (Europe, the UK, Japan and the US) show that R&D‐intensive firms exhibit significant lower debt and dividend payment levels, but shorter debt maturities and higher cash levels than non‐R&D ones.