bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Franklin as Demographer
Authors: Aldridge Alfred Owen
Published: August 2016

Many students of Franklin discuss his Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc., as a precursor of Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population? overlooking the more significant fact that Franklin's essay is part of an extensive movement to analyze population trends, a movement dating at least from John Graunt's Natural and Political Observations … upon the Bills of Mortality (1662). Just as every writer on physics from Newton to Einstein has something to say aboutmotion, Franklin and Malthus as writers on population naturally discuss some common concepts. The similarities are not remarkable. As John Adams observes, “That the first want of man is his dinner, and the second his girl, were truths well known to every democrat and aristocrat, long before the great philosopher Malthus arose, to think he enlightened the world by the discovery.” The real significance of Franklin's essay lies in its influence in drawing attention to the potential economic and military strength of the Colonies and hence in contributing indirectly to the restrictive measures of the British colonial policy, the very policies that it was written to forfend.
Pepper Prices Before Da Gama
Authors: Lane Frederic C.
Published: August 2016

The opinion that spice prices rose in Europe in the century before 1492 and that that had something to do with Europe's oceanic expansion is remarkably persistent, in spite of the blow delivered to it by A. H. Lybyer more than a half-century ago. A distinct drop, however, in the price of spices, and particularly of pepper, between the decades 1420-1430 and 1440-1450 is indicated by a recent study of Antwerp prices, which thus reinforces the suggestion of older scattered figures from Navarre, England, and Klosterneuburg (Vienna). Pepper fell about 50 percent in that interval and did not return to its former high level until after 1498. In view of Venice's preeminent position in the trade in those decades, Venice is the obvious place to look for the source of a decline of prices generally in the West. Wholesale prices of pepper at Venice, 1363-1510, drawn mainly from diaries, merchants' account books, and letters, are shown in the accompanying Table 1. This explains the fall in prices in northern and western Europe. After selling at between 83 and 157 ducats percargoin 1411-1426, pepper prices at Venice fell to 50 in 1432 and drifted lower in the 1440's and 1470's, occasionally even going below 40. Rarely did the price rise above 55 ducats acargountil the interruption of Venetian voyages by the war with the Ottoman Turks in 1499.
The Draper Loom in New England Textiles: A Reply
Authors: Feller Irwin
Published: August 2016

Professor Sandberg in a very helpful comment has accepted the main conclusions of my paper on die economic rationality of New England mill owners with respect to the adoption of the Draper loom but has raised certain questions as to my handling of some of the data used to reach this conclusion and of the very representativeness of the data themselves.
Mrs. Vatter on Industrial Borrowing, A Reply
Authors: Davis Lance E.
Published: August 2016

Mrs. Vatter has covered three major points in her comment on my article. She has suggested the need for further research; she has questioned the completeness of my analysis of interest rate determination; and she has suggested an alternative explanation of the apparent ceiling on interest charges. I am in complete agreement with Mrs. Vatter on the first of her points. On the second, I apologize for any lack of clarity that may have led her to misinterpret my intent. On the third, I feel that, despite her evidence, her conclusion remains, at best, unproved.
The Long Swing: Comparisons and Interactions Between British and American Balance of Payments, 1820–1913
Authors: Williamson Jeffrey G.
Published: August 2016

In the past decade there has been an extremely active interest in theevidence and importance of the twenty-year building cycle, or Kuznets cycle as Lewis suggests we call it, in both American nineteenth-century development and British development after 1870. The evidence of building cycles in the United States is perhaps more extensive and seems clearly, in the research accumulated by Kuznets, Burns and Abramovitz, to indicate a long swing in the general process of growth, not just long swings isolated to the building trades. Whereas American long swings pervade all domestic series of output, income and investment, British experience seems somewhat different. After 1870 long swings in British capital exports alternated with long swings in domestic investment in a fashion which eliminated excess fluctuations in income and output, which would have been due mainly to fluctuations in aggregate demand.
Travel Allowances in Fourteenth-Century France
Authors: Boyer Marjorie Nice
Published: August 2016

Historians of medieval prices have relied very heavily on grain prices, which are abundant and easily available. In France, for example, there is an impressive run of biweekly figures from the grain market at Albi. A different category of data, that has not received much attention, concerns the cost of travel in fourteenth-century France.
A Note on Bread Prices in London and Glasgow, 1788–1815
Authors: Gourvish Terence R.
Published: August 2016

There has been comparatively little research into regional prices in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and historians have customarily relied upon indices of London's wholesale and contract prices to indicate the fluctuations and trends of British prices as a whole. Our knowledge of price movements, and especially of retail price movements, in other parts of the country is therefore scanty. It is not suggested that this situation may easily be altered, but evidence of bread prices in Glasgow at least may add further brush strokes to those which “supplied the first rough outlines on an otherwise blank canvas.”
Feudal Incomes and Demand Elasticity for Bread in Late Eighteenth-Century France
Authors: Danière André
Published: August 2016

The works of Labrousse and Chabert on income fluctuations in pre-and post-revolutionary France have already been subjected to abundant criticism by Professor Landes in the November 1950 issue of THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY. The present note results from an attempt at resolving in a constructive way certain of the contradictions observed between Labrousse's inferences and his data. The argument, originally developed on the basis of observations in the decade immediately preceding the French Revolution, was extended to cover the thirty years (1815-1845) following the fall of Napoleon's empire. After a short review of Labrousse's “grain crop” interpretation of French economic cycles, it is shown that (1) his computations of feudal revenues do not agree with his description of their cyclical pattern and (2) grain revenue figures are only consistent with an elastic demand for bread over a certain range. This squarely contradicts the inelasticity assumption which underlies both Labrousse's theory and Landes' criticism of it. The treatment of eighteenth-century bread demand as price-inelastic had already wide currency among contemporary economists, and does not seem to have been seriously challenged ever since. An inductive analysis supported by scattered pieces of empirical evidence is then developed, with the conclusion that demand for bread (and grain) should indeed be elastic over the relevant region. The last section represents an extension of this interpretation to crop and price data in the post-Napoleonic period.
Russian Expansion to the East Through the Eighteenth Century
Authors: Foust C. M.
Published: August 2016

Most historical generalizations must be approached with a wary eye; Kliuchevskii's dictum that “the history of Russia is the history of a country in the process of colonization” is no exception. Taken unjudiciously this dictum grievously compresses time, focuses attention on only a single historical dynamic, lends to the historical process a pre-ordained character which is indeed usually absent. The historian's critical apparatus is dulled, and the delicate nuance and important variant are neglected. Moscow, it has been argued, was a chosen town to lead the southward and eastward expansion of the Great Russian people because of her physical location on the edge of the Valdai hills giving her control of the crucial waterways of European Russia. (Why not, for the same reasons, Vladimir or Rostov, Suzdal or even Uglich?) Muscovite expansion forms the central thread of Russian history, determining the economic and political structure of the state. It was the expansion which fixed and defined the necessity of the “service state,” which in turn subjugated all classes and groups to the all powerful tsardom. (Why not the reverse—the “service state” defining the expansion—and why did not an independent merchant class come to control the expansion, and the towns and politics of Muscovy?) To pursue the argument to a logical conclusion, die modern audioritarian state in Russia (bodi Soviet and Tsarist) is essentially a continuation of old Muscovy. As the latter expanded and colonized, so must the former. (The role of the Party and the Marxist dialectic, by this line of argument, has no fundamental historical significance.)
“Colonial Psychology” and Race
Authors: Hoetink H
Published: August 2016

If “colonial politics” denotes the objectives of a metropolitan power vis-à-vis its colony, then, for purposes of this paper, we may define “colonial psychology” as the frame of reference that determines the attitudes of “metropolitans” vis-à-vis the “colonial problem.” By “metropolitans” we mean the inhabitants of those Western societies that are linked to part of the non-West by the historical, political, economic and psychological ties that have always accentuated the dominance of the West. By “colony” we shall here mean only the areas with a multiracial population of which a white element considers itself so integrally a part that it feels itself more strongly associated with its own “colonial” society than with the metropolitan country of its origins.
The Composition of Iron and Steel Products, 1869–1909
Authors: Temin Peter
Published: August 2016

This paper is concerned with two questions: What was iron and steel used for in the course of the late nineteenth century? And how were the uses of iron and steel affected by changes in the methods of production of iron and steel? The first question asks what was the composition of the iron and steel industry's output, that is, what products were being produced. The second question asks if the changes in this composition were caused by changes in the supply schedules of the industry.
Economic History: One Field or Two?
Authors: Goodrich Carter
Published: August 2016

Is Economic History one subject or two? The question has been posed twice during the present century, each time by the growth of a vigorous body of research concerned with economic changes over time but developed largely in isolation from conventional economic history. In each case the new work was quantitative in method, and the result was the phenomenon of two separate bodies of scholarship—the one written in prose and calling itself economic history, the other written mainly in figures and calling itself by another name.
Aspects of Quantitative Research in Economic History
Authors: Davis Lance E. , Hughes Jonathan R. T. , Reiter Stanley
Published: August 2016

If we are successfully to relate our work with the main body of Economic History, we must be able to show the fundamental relationship between quantitative analysis and more conventional methods of economic historians. The historian reconstructs events of the past, and with them attempts to understand the institutions and modes of behavior associated with those events. He seeks to construct a consistent story revealing the fundamental nature and meaning to us of the past, thus creating insight into the past and understanding of it—something considerably beyond a mere account of what probably happened. However, this story must be based upon, and be consistent with, the reconstructed events of the past, “what probably happened.”
Rejoinder to Professor Bolino's Note
Authors: Murphy George G. S. , Zellner Arnold
Published: August 2016

Professor Bolino makes a number of comments on our article, “Sequential Growth, the Labor Safety-Valve Doctrine and the Development of American Unionism,” in this journal, September 1959, which certainly call for some rejoinder on our part.
The Economics in a Business History
Authors: Cochran Thomas C.
Published: August 2016

The initial problems in writing the history of a business are similar to those encountered in writing the history of anything else: obtaining free access to all the existing records; determining whether these records are adequate to warrant the writing of a history; and then deciding what one wants to know from the records.
Isaac Bronson: His Banking Theory and the Financial Controversies of the Jacksonian Period
Authors: Venit Abraham H.
Published: August 2016

Isaac bronson was a highly successful financier of the Jacksonian era who was also one of the period's most original and influential banking theorists. Bronson accumulated his very considerable fortune in New York primarily by judicious personal money-lending operations on long-term bonds and mortgages at a cautious 7 per cent annual return, supplemented by successful ventures in land speculation. In addition to wealth, he had by the 1830's acquired a weighty reputation for sober financial conservatism and was regarded as an authoritative exponent of sound banking principles. Prominent in the financial community, he had long thrown his weight as a sound banking theorist against the “wild-cat” practices of the then rampant state banks. As controlling stockholder of the Bridgeport Bank for almost thirty years, and as president for much of that time, he prided himself on its successful weathering of the financial storms of the period.”
Presidential Presentation: The Future of Scholarship in Finance
Authors: Bauman W. Scott
Published: August 2016

It has been a pleasure and a worthwhile experience to serve as President of the Western Finance Association (WFA) and to have had the opportunity to work with its officers and committee chairmen over this past year. In the brief history of the Association, our organization has come a long way in becoming firmly established due to the strong interest of its members and to the dedicated support of its officers and working committees. I wish to take a few moments to publicly acknowledge the services of a few who have given vital support to the activities of the Association during the past twelve months.
Abstract: Characterizations of Exchange Convertibility Schemes: A Structure for Analysis
Authors: Folks William R.
Published: August 2016

This paper extends the results of previous work by the author in the development of a structure for analysis of rather general two-currency decision problems using an nstage dynamic programming model. After a brief review of the model, the paper provides a characterization of a convertibility scheme as a set function which assigns to each currency portfolio a set of currency portfolios which can be attained from the original portfolio, operating through the convertibility scheme. The concept of a substitutable convertibility scheme is developed; the substitutability property allows the decision maker to substitute a functionally determined single currecy payoff for a given twocurrency payoff. Two tests to determine substitutability in general, and for a particular return function, are developed. The modest reduction in dimensionality of the dynamic programming problem arising from this property is explained. Some specific convertibility schemes are then characterized, including free convertibility, inconvertibility, retention quotas, maximum balance, maximum acquisition, and multiple rate schemes. The substitutability of free convertibility is demonstrated. A retention quota scheme which allows free sale and purchase of retained funds in a parallel market is shown to be equivalent to a free convertibility scheme, and therefore substitutable.
Abstract: An Examination of the Forward Exchange Market during Pegged and Floating Systems: United States, Canada, Germany, and United Kingdom
Authors: Guy James R. F.
Published: August 2016

This paper examines the profitability and risk of a naive strategy of forward exchange speculation during pegged and flexible exchange rate systems. It suggests a new method of calculating these speculative returns and shows that the average return was much less than previously supposed and that the distribution of returns differed between systems and countries.
Abstract: Exchange Rate Risk, Foreign-Pay Bond Issues and the Financial Behavior of Canadian Corporations
Authors: Stroetmann Karl A.
Published: August 2016

Some basic ideas of a model of the international term structure of interest rates are outlined. Based on Roll's (1970) theory of equilibrium interest rates in an efficient bond market of a closed economy, we show that the term structure of interest rates in countries whose residents engage in international financial transactions is a function of domestic and foreign traders' expectations of future domestic and foreign spot interest rates, or their degree of risk aversion, and of differences in time preferences.
Abstract: Monitoring Discrimination in Housing-Related Lending
Authors: Black Harold , Mandell Lewis
Published: August 2016

During 1976 and 1977, a national sample of nearly 300 FDIC-insured financial institutions had their applications for home mortgage and home improvement loans monitored. The purpose of the study was to establish whether, and in what form, discrimination existed in the granting of housing-related loans.
Abstract: An Empirical Assessment of Lessee Disclosure Policy
Authors: Hughes John S. , Oldfield George S.
Published: August 2016

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence concerning investor reactions to off-balance sheet disclosures of concancellable leases as reflected in security prices. A valuation model is defined based upon the work of Modigliani and Miller which expresses the market value of the firm's common stock as a function of lease indebtedness. Data for the empirical analysis are obtained from Compustat and SEC form 10 K's. Crosssectional regressions are run by risk class on samples of 620 firms reporting rent expense, 432 firms disclosing lease commitments, and 139 firms reporting present values of so-called “financing” leases.
Abstract: Finite Difference Methods and Jump Processes Arising in the Pricing of Contingent Claims: A Synthesis
Authors: Brennan Michael J. , Schwartz Eduardo S.
Published: August 2016

Since the seminal article by Black and Scholes on the pricing of corporate liabilities, the importance in finance of contingent claims has become widely recognized. The key to the valuation of such claims has been found to lie in the solution to certain partial differential equations, the best known of which is that derived by Black and Scholes in their original article from the assumption that the value of the asset underlying the contingent claim follows a geometric Brownian motion.
Abstract: Short-Term Financial Planning under Uncertainty
Authors: Kallberg J. G. , White R. W. , Ziemba W. T.
Published: August 2016

The essence of short-term financial planning is to determine an asset and liability mix that minimizes the cost of financing the firm's cash surpluses and deficits over the planning horizon. Seasonal and other effects cause uncertainty in forecasted cash requirements, liquidation, and termination costs. We develop a stochastic linear programming model that is computationally feasible for a firm's financial planning over several periods with all three types of uncertainty when there is a rich structure over the set of possible asset choices. The models' solution is facilitated using a recent novel algorithm for finitely distributed simple recourse SLPR problems developed by Wets and coded by Collins, Kallberg and Kusy. The algorithm uses a “working basis” that has the same dimension as the corresponding (approximate) “mean” linear program.
Abstract: Option Valuation Models–Some Implications of Parameter Estimation
Authors: Boyle P. P. , Ananthanarayan A. L.
Published: August 2016

The Black-Scholes option pricing formula assumes that the variance of the return on the underlying stock is known with certainty. In practice an estimate of the variance, based on a sample of historical stock prices, is used. The estimation error in the variance induces error in the option price. Since the option price is a nonlinear function of the variance, an unbiased estimate of the variance does not produce an unbiased estimate of the option price. For reasonable parameter values, it is shown that the magnitude of the bias is not large.
Abstract: Recursive Experimental Design for Econometric Research: The Multiple Response Case
Authors: Papakyriazis Panagiotis A.
Published: August 2016

Until recently, most interest in econometrics was directed toward the data analysis problem. However, as opportunities for controlled experimentation in economics and business become more common, econometricians' interest in the statistical theory of experimental design is a natural consequence. Design techniques have and are being applied in marketing research, and in the contexts of such policy areas as the negative income tax and manpower experiments, the housing subsidy and health insurance subsidy experiments, and others. Experimentation in economics and business is an extremely complex research undertaking compared to the experimentation in other fields (such as agriculture, physics or chemistry) for which most of the design theory was developed. So, control experimentation in business and economics tends to be expensive in dollars, time and research talent. All this suggests the importance of carefully designing experiments to maximize their information output (efficient design) and the need for econometricians to extend the design theory in a number of directions of particular interest to economists and business researchers. This paper provides a solution to the problem of experimental designs for various multiple equation regression models frequently encountered by business and economic researchers.
‘Photosystem II: the water splitting enzyme of photosynthesis and the origin of oxygen in our atmosphere’
Authors: Barber James
Published: August 2016

About 3 billion years ago an enzyme emerged which would dramatically change the chemical composition of our planet and set in motion an unprecedented explosion in biological activity. This enzyme used solar energy to power the thermodynamically and chemically demanding reaction of water splitting. In so doing it provided biology with an unlimited supply of reducing equivalents needed to convert carbon dioxide into the organic molecules of life while at the same time produced oxygen to transform our planetary atmosphere from an anaerobic to an aerobic state. The enzyme which facilitates this reaction and therefore underpins virtually all life on our planet is known as Photosystem II (PSII). It is a pigment-binding, multisubunit protein complex embedded in the lipid environment of the thylakoid membranes of plants, algae and cyanobacteria. Today we have detailed understanding of the structure and functioning of this key and unique enzyme. The journey to this level of knowledge can be traced back to the discovery of oxygen itself in the 18th-century. Since then there has been a sequence of mile stone discoveries which makes a fascinating story, stretching over 200 years. But it is the last few years that have provided the level of detail necessary to reveal the chemistry of water oxidation and O–O bond formation. In particular, the crystal structure of the isolated PSII enzyme has been reported with ever increasing improvement in resolution. Thus the organisational and structural details of its many subunits and cofactors are now well understood. The water splitting site was revealed as a cluster of four Mn ions and a Ca ion surrounded by amino-acid side chains, of which seven provide direct ligands to the metals. The metal cluster is organised as a cubane structure composed of three Mn ions and a Ca2+linked by oxo-bonds with the fourth Mn ion attached to the cubane. This structure has now been synthesised in a non-protein environment suggesting that it is a totally inorganic precursor for the evolution of the photosynthetic oxygen-evolving complex. In summary, the overall structure of the catalytic site has given a framework on which to build a mechanistic scheme for photosynthetic dioxygen generation and at the same time provide a blue-print and incentive to develop catalysts for artificial photo-electrochemical systems to split water and generate renewable solar fuels.
Pericles Monarchos
Authors: Gomme A. W.
Published: August 2016

My difference with Professor Morrison can, I think, be best expressed as follows. (1) In Herodotos' debate there is no compromise between democracy and monarchy (any more than between either of these and oligarchy), no comfortable Polybian mixture of good elements. Otanes especially is quite uncompromising: ἐμοὶ δοκέει ἔνα μὲν ήμέων μούναρχον μηκέτι γενέσθαι οὔτε γάρ ἡδύ οὔτε ἀγαθόν . . . πλῆθος δὲ ἄρχον . . . τούτων τῶν ὁ μούναρχος ποιέει ούδέν, and so throughout. The μούναρχος is autocrat or nothing. And the remarks of Megabyxos and Dareios on democracy remind one of the Old Oligarch, no friend to Perikles. (2) Although I agree of course that it is Greek thought and not Persian that informs the debate, it is not for nothing that it is Dareios, the best of μούναρχοι, who defends μουναρχίη; that is, at this stage Herodotos has the Persian monarchy in mind. And (3), in as much as it is Greek experience, not Persian, that is behind Dareios' description of the failures of oligarchy and democracy that lead inevitably to μουναρχίη, it is Greek experience of the rise of tyranny—ἐ ςἔχθε αμεγάλ αἀλλήλοισ ιἀπικνέοται, ἐξ ὧν στάσιες ἐγγίγνονται, ἐκ δὲ τῶν στασίων φόνος, ἐκ δὲ τοῦ φόνου ἀπέβη ἐς μουναρχίην; and from democracy, τοῦτο ςὲ τοιοῦτο γίνεται ἐς ὃ ἂν προστάς τις τοῦ δήμου τοὺς τοιούτους παύσῃ ἐκ δὲ αὐτῶν θωμάзεται οὗτος δὴ ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου, θωμαзόμεος δὲ ἀν' ὧν ἐφάνη μούναρχος ἐών. The enemies of Perikles likened him to Peisistratos and his power, to a tyranny; but was Herodotos among these enemies ? (Alkibiades might have read the last sentence quoted above as his justification for ‘aiming at a tyranny’). And not Peisistratos, but other Herodotean tyrants are in some measure like the oriental μούναρχος, Kleisthenes of Sikyon (compare him with Croesus) and Polykrates: does Herodotos wish to suggest that Perikles was like either of these? More particularly since he was a wise man and knew that Xerxes-was as much a μούναρχος-type as Dareios.
Appendix: the Thermoluminescence Tests
Authors: Bowman S. G. E.
Published: August 2016

Thermoluminescence (TL) applied to the dating and authenticity testing of ancient ceramics is a well established technique.

Thermoluminescence is the light given out by non-conducting crystalline materials as a result of exposure to radiation and subsequent heating. In pottery the crystalline inclusions, such as quartz and feldspars, are responsible for the TL. The radiation results from minute quantities of radioactive impurities in the pottery itself and in its immediate environment. The TL signal measured in the laboratory is related to the time elapsed since either the formation of the crystalline inclusions or since they were last fired to a temperature of about 500°C or above. The dating of pottery by TL is therefore only possible due to the removal during firing by man of the effect of previous radiation over geological time. The TL signal is then proportional to the age of the pottery. When a ceramic is fired to a temperature which is not sufficient to remove the effect of previous radiation, the TL signal is normally in saturation, i.e. addition of a laboratory radiation dose prior to heating does not enhance the TL signal. In such cases, TL cannot be used to determine the authenticity or otherwise of the object.
A Note on the Excavation of the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia
Authors: Dawkins R. M. , Droop J. P. , Wace A. J. B.
Published: August 2016

The three of the excavators of the Orthia Sanctuary most concerned confess to a feeling of discouragement on finding that in the case of one reader at least all their endeavours to tell a plain tale plainly have failed, and that their power of expression has not been equal to the task laid upon it. The reader in question is the writer of the very careful and painstaking review of ‘Artemis Orthia’ which has appeared in the J.H.S. for this year over the initials V. W.-G. It is plain that to the reviewer the grounds on which the latter periods of Laconian pottery, the periods of its decay, upon which so much depends, have been classified are neither clear nor convincing. And since, in fact, the evidence on which that classification was made was both clear and convincing, the failure must lie in the exposition. In the excavators' hands the spade has been mightier than the pen. Or does the fault lie in an historical training which has not been adequate to the appreciation of the minutiae of archaeological evidence? ‘The historian,’ we are told, ‘may differ from the excavator in his estimate of what is proved.’
Cannabis and other drug use by tertiary students in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
Authors: O'Reilly Bridie , Jessen Janice
Published: August 2016

Cannabis has been reported to be associated with impaired educational attainment in adolescents, reduced school performance and the potential for underperformance in adults engaged in occupations requiring high-level cognitive skills. The current study examined the extent and patterns of cannabis and other drug use among 386 tertiary students in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. The sample was mainly female (72%), half were aged under 25 years and 52% were in the first year of tertiary study. Cannabis use was prevalent among students, with 68.3% ever using it, 32.4% in the last year and 22.4% with recent use (last six months). The current pattern of cannabis use was significantly associated with age and gender. The most common reasons for using cannabis were to unwind (45.6%) or become stoned (33.7%). Close to half (52.3%) of recent users were not at all concerned about their cannabis use and 63.2% did not think they needed to reduce consumption. In the last six months, 84.5% of students had used alcohol, 12.1% amphetamine, 8.4% ecstasy, 6.8% non-medical use of benzodiazepines, 4.6% hallucinogens, 1.6% inhalants and 1.1% opiates. A quarter (23.6%) of students had used alcohol and cannabis on the same occasion. The results are discussed in relation to the utility of traditional awareness programs and the desirability of appropriate and credible intervention strategies.
Health worker confidence in diagnosing and treating mental health problems in Papua New Guinea
Authors: Koka Betty E. , Deane Frank P. , Lambert Gordon
Published: August 2016

Confidence in identifying different diagnostic categories of mental disorders by general health workers who provide the bulk of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) mental health care is vital for the country's provision of mental health care. Making a psychiatric diagnosis is complicated by PNG's diverse culture and estimated 800 distinct languages. These cultural-linguistic factors influence help-seeking behaviour and continued use of traditional treatment despite the introduction of western approaches to mental health care. The aim of this study was to determine the confidence of health workers in identifying and diagnosing different categories of mental health problems in this complex environment. A sample of 209 Papua New Guinea health workers from four geographic regions completed a questionnaire that assessed background levels of training and confidence in diagnosing a range of modern and culture specific diagnoses. Overall, respondents reported relatively little prior mental health training. Consistent with this were the relatively low levels of confidence for culture specific diagnoses (e.g. sorcery), but significantly higher levels of confidence with modern diagnoses (e.g. depression). The implications of the findings for training and provision of mental health care are discussed.
A Qualitative Investigation of the Application of Behaviour Modification to Group-Quitting for Māori and Pacific Smokers
Authors: Jones Linda , Pacific Hauora , Donnelly Adrienne , Harneiss Cynthia , Warbrick Dot , Swinn Kerry , Malosi Lillian , Kapinga Ngaruna , Tonga-Tuiloma Talau
Published: August 2016

Hauora Pacific (HP), a research group for Māori and Pacific nursing students, explored the adaptation of a behaviour modification programme as a health promotion strategy and smoking cessation resource for Māori and Pacific people. Each of seven HP members, supported by a mentor from their family or church, conducted a focus group with about six participants of their own ethnicity. The focus groups met twice. Data were collected on smoking beliefs, and what might aid smoking cessation. In the second meeting, themes common to the seven focus groups from the first meetings were validated, and a draft behaviour modification workbook for “quitting in groups” was discussed and edited. The initial surprise for HP members was that their participants did not share the dominant discourse on health risks from smoking; nor did they want to be told they should quit. Participants framed smoking as a positive activity. Discussion highlighted the common belief that “quitting in groups” would not be a preferred way to stop smoking, linked to personal shame from an inability to stop smoking; and the potential for a group to be too judgmental or pressuring. Although some work on the adaptation of a behaviour modification resource for “quitting in groups” did occur, participants felt that much more Māori or Pacific input would be required to shift an essentially western approach to behaviour change, into something another culture could feel ownership of. Addiction was seen as the issue that had been least well addressed in the past, and participants believed that having more trained-and-available people would be their preferred health resource.
Conflict Resolution On Tanna, Vanuatu
Authors: Gregory Robert J. , Gregory Janet E.
Published: August 2016

Both locally and globally, human populations appear to be engaged in almost constant conflict in this new 21st century, offering ample opportunities for those who would help solve problems. In one remote part of the planet, Tanna in Vanuatu, conflict resolution is a near constant activity raised to an elegant art form. Big men and village orators deal with complex issues in a public forum frequently. Understanding the principles and the methods of resolving differences in another culture depends upon an in-depth knowledge of their historical and contextual background. In addition, observation of the spatial and temporal dimensions of actual meetings to resolve disputes provided the authors with a fascinating insight into the structure and dynamics of the inter-village systems. This paper initially examines selected aspects and themes of Tannese culture, including such concepts or bodies of knowledge as balance, reciprocity, politics, ethics, resource availability, kinship, genealogy and the practicalities of everyday living. Then, through presentation of several instances of conflict resolution, some of the non-western, alternative styles of conflict resolution noted, including for example, rapid resolution of differences, maintenance of balance and reciprocity, collective involvement, no imprisonment, and use of healing and ceremony, are discussed. These methods may have application to other cultures and peoples who are trying to resolve disputes within their own frameworks for living.
Surveying Psychologists' Public Image with Drawings of a “Typical” Psychologist
Authors: Hartwig Steve G.
Published: August 2016

Psychologists have traditionally surveyed their public image using structured survey methods, such as specific questions and rating scales. In an attempt to assess Australian psychology's public image using a less conventional survey approach, a representative sample of adults were asked to draw pictures of what they considered a “typical” psychologist to look like. A basic content analysis of respondents' drawings (N = 119) suggested that psychologists were predominantly perceived as male, and middle-aged or older. Further perceptions to emerge are presented and discussed, along with both methodological and professional implications of the findings.
Needle and Syringe Programs in the Community: Responding to Multiple and Diverse Needs
Authors: Aspin Clive
Published: August 2016

Needle and syringe programs (NSP) are an integral component of Australia's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and as such, have been in place since the early days of the epidemic. Because of their early implementation, they have played a key role in helping to stem the spread of HIV among people who inject drugs. Also, they have been instrumental in ensuring that clients have had access to appropriate resources and education. However, these programs have often operated in the face of considerable resistance from a range of stakeholders and in particular, local communities. This article provides an insider's perspective on the operation of a large Sydney NSP and describes how the Program caters to the expressed needs of all members of the community, while continuing to provide an effective and responsive health service to people who inject drugs.
Male Indigenous and non-Indigenous ageing: A new millennium community development challenge
Authors: Earle Richard , Earle Leon D
Published: August 2016

This article focuses on Australian men living in the Northern Territory, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. They are identified as the sector least able to access the indicators of successful ageing, and a sector in urgent need of community inclusive policies, programs, and social support. Four important concepts have been identified in developing this paper; namely the indicators of successful ageing, the use of the term ‘age range’ (as a means of examining needs more specifically), life cycle comparisons (between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians), and the limitations of generic Federal policies. These concepts are linked with Social Context Theory, to identify a major community development challenge.
Enterprise development: A model for Aboriginal entrepreneurs
Authors: Ivory Bill
Published: August 2016

Opportunities exist within the current political and economic climate to build on some of the concepts of traditional Aboriginal society, and create a working environment for enterprise development. A model or models are required not just for Aboriginal people to gain support from government or wider institutions, but for governments and other institutions to work to. When referring to voluntary organisation grass roots development in Zimbabwe, Clark argued that “projects will remain irrelevant to the majority of the needy unless used as beacons to light up pathways for others – notably the state – to pursue” (1990, p. 65). Development in Aboriginal towns and communities needs to go beyond the stage of relief and welfare, to an era of sustainable development. However as Korten argued when referring to sustainable systems development and the quest for self-managing networks, changes “in specific policies and institutions” may first need to be sought “at local, national and global levels” (1990, p. 120). Changes are gradually occurring in terms of policies, however institutions active in the field need to become more positively interactive with their clients. A model of enterprise development is being moulded to involve such institutions and their resources.
Aid adverts that juxtapose rich and poor: A preliminary test of their efficacy in North Australia
Authors: Griffiths Kylie
Published: August 2016

Aid commercials are increasingly advertising for the sponsorship of children in “Third World” countries through juxtaposing images of them alongside children enjoying wealthier, “First World” lifestyles. Sixty-four Bachelor of Education students from Darwin's Northern Territory University viewed images of the same child surrounded by First World, Third World, or a juxtaposed First/Third World environment; responded to an aid donation scenario; and reported their religiosity. Except for those participants who placed a higher value on religion, and compared to conventional “poor only” imagery, the juxtaposed images de-motivated viewers to help children living in Third World countries. Thus, while appealing to a minority of the donor public, juxta-positioning might be leaving the majority of potential donors untouched and unmotivated to help.
Discussion Forum: The Dawkins Reforms and Psychology
Authors: Robson Alan
Published: August 2016

Suggestions that psychology lacks academic substance are common. Recently, in an article in the Australian newspaper, Emeritus Professor John Sutcliffe described it as a “dicky-shirt” discipline -- all form and no substance (Sutcliffe, 1994). He wrapped his observation into a general attack on the Dawkins education reforms which he correctly blames for eroding the intellectual core of Australian academic life. Many academics share Sutcliffe's concerns.

The Dawkins reforms are an uneasy blend of populism and commercialism aimed at achieving the Labour government's economic goal of a “clever country”. Most conspicuously, they have involved the incorporation of former technical institutes into large multi-campus universities. The result has been the physical extension of a university presence across the country into some improbable rural backwaters. Inevitably these dramatic changes in the size and spread of universities have been accompanied by a change in the definition of the role of universities. Topics of study which were once the domain of lower tier tertiary institutions now find a place in the core academic centres. The result has been a shift in the balance of academic interest from abstract to applied research and teaching.

Feeding into these changes has been what Sutcliffe describes as a “money-driven” ethos. After decades of intervention to redress inequalities and irrationalities stemming from the operation of free markets, Labour governments in various parts of the West have capitulated to historical forces and pre-emptively embraced the free enterprise policies of the traditional right.
The Good, the Bad or the Ugly: Considerations on Fieldwork and Bronislaw Malinowski
Authors: Pataki-Schweizer K. J.
Published: August 2016

The activity of fieldwork, that is research conducted with individuals and groups in a real-life and by implication, real-time setting or living environment rather than research under controlled conditions and specific time-frames, continues to draw strong attention and criticisms. Given the plethora of these schools of thought and their critiques over the past decades including relativism in its intense expressions, emphases on quantification as a sine-qua-non, hermeneutics, praxis, semiotics, deconstructionism and essentially “post-modernist” approaches to enduring questions of objectivity, recording behaviour, methodological rigor, meaning and their epistemological references, it is significant that (1) fieldwork still continues and does so in a variety of disciplines, and (2) most criticisms have been directed essentially at issues of validity, viability and reliability in relation to “data”, rather than some grand meta-disciplinary demise.

There are those who would dearly like to throw baby, bathwater and the entire endeavour out, and such critiques are important: in their confabulations, they evoke enduring and profound issues with trenchancy. Nor have political assaults been slow to enter the battle: fieldwork, especially as perceived via an increasingly hapless anthropology, is seen as an enduring colonial tool, an exploiter of the ethnic domain, a servant of capitalism and product of the western will to power.
Understanding cross-cultural communication
Authors: Thomas David R
Published: August 2016

The need for cross-cultural communication skills arises whenever people from different languages and cultures come into contact. With increased tourism, international business, students studying overseas, and increasing awareness of indigenous minority cultures there is concern to foster better communication among different cultural groups. In the present paper, examples of cultural differences in communication in Australia and New Zealand are presented. Two approaches to the training of cross-cultural communication skills are described: the cultural assimilator developed by Brislin, and McCaffery's “learning how to learn” orientation.
Training Needs Analysis for First-Line Supervisors Employed by the University of Papua New Guinea
Authors: Kimaso Silas J.
Published: August 2016

The purpose of this study was to determine the training needs of first-line supervisors employed at the University of Papua New Guinea. Thirty managers and 30 first-line supervisors responded to a questionnaire designed to assess the importance of, and training offered in, various skills relevant to first-line supervision. “Need” was defined as the absence of sufficient training in a skill judged to be of importance. The results show that there are significant differences between the perceptions of the first-line supervisors and managers with respect to training needs of first-line supervisors. Managers rated “people skills” as important for first-line supervisors, while first-line supervisors rated more administrative type skills as most important for them.
Drug Usage in Relation to Locus of Control
Authors: Marai Leo
Published: August 2016

This study evaluated relationships between the use of psychoactive drugs, susceptibility to social influence, and locus of control in a sample of 79 Papua New Guinean university students. Contrary to expectations, drug users did not differ from nonusers in either locus of control or in susceptibility to social influence.
Allocentric and Idiocentric Personalities: A Comment
Authors: Lea David R.
Published: August 2016

In this article I question the idiocentric/allocentric distinction on the grounds that: a) it utilizes an increasingly discredited humanist conception of the rational autonomous subject associated with the definition of idiocentrism; b) it distinguishes forms of motivation which fail to offer reliable indices of behavioural patterning; and c) it offers a characterization of different cultural norms and societal morality which is ultimately misleading.
Mental States as Social Discourse
Authors: Mules Warwick
Published: August 2016

In a recent article published in this journal, Lea (1991) argues against psychological theory which proposes access to mental states through empirical investigation. His argument depends upon demonstrating certain logical flaws in the arguments of proponents of this kind of empiricism, thereby ruling their conclusions out of court. In response to Lea, I will show that empirical investigation of mental states is possible only when undertaken as a reflexive theoretical practice. Unlike Lea's argument which remains within the Cartesian/Kantian paradigm of a priori structures and categories, an argument based on reflexive theoretical practice takes account of the grounded conditions under which knowledge becomes validated in social settings, involving close attention to the status of language in context of use. I will show that certain elisions in Lea's argument, particularly in his invocation of Wittgenstein's work on language use, eliminates for him the possibility of dealing with language in this manner. Furthermore, I will also show in the course of undertaking the above tasks, that Lea's mode of augment is itself perfectly consistent with the form of apriori theorizing he wishes to reject.