bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Constitutional Tax and Expenditure Limitation in Colorado: The Impact on Municipal Governments
Authors: Rown Tom
Published: March 2003

Tax and expenditure limitations (TELs) have become a pervasive influence on local government fiscal affairs. Explanations for the spread of TELs suggest that voters thought local government was growing more than needed. Thus, TELs were intended to constrain growth and reduce the size of local governments. This article's purpose was to determine the impact of two separate kinds of TELs, one a property tax measure, and the other a comprehensive revenue and expenditure limit, upon the growth of municipal governments in Colorado. Using a panel data set on municipal budgets (1975–1996), the article demonstrates three major points: 1) the effectiveness of a TEL in achieving reductions in local government revenue and spending growth depends upon the nature of the TEL; 2) the comprehensive TEL did effectively constrain growth and reduce local government reliance on the property tax, despite the local options for exemption; and 3) TELs do not have uniform impacts among governments of different population.
Do Debt Policies Make a Difference in Finance Officers' Perceptions of the Importance of Debt Management Factors?
Authors: Simonsen Bill , Robbins Mark D. , Kittredge Bill
Published: March 2003

This article explores the importance of various debt policy factors using a national survey of government finance officers. Further, it examines whether the presence of a particular factor in a debt policy influences finance officers' perception of its importance. We find that debt policies tend to be technical in nature and that broad policy issues are most often not included in debt policies. Moreover, we find that the inclusion of debt management factors in debt policies has a powerful influence on their perceived importance by public managers.
Debt Diligence: How States Manage the Borrowing Function
Authors: Robbins Mark D. , Dungan Casey
Published: March 2003

State‐level indebtedness is large and persistent and bond issuance has become increasingly complex. In light of these conditions, professional standards have been proposed by some organizations (including the Government Finance Officers Association) seeking to persuade members to codify sets of desirable practices into policies for debt issuance. We surveyed state government debt managers to assess the comprehensiveness and prevalence of debt policies. We find little evidence of the adoption of comprehensive formal debt policies. Instead, states rely more heavily upon the guidance provided by their own sets of standard practices or “rules of thumb.”
Sheltering under the Sacred Canopy: Peter Berger and Xunzi
Authors: Kline III T. C.
Published: March 2003

This article brings Xunzi's views on religious practice into conversation with Peter Berger's sociological understanding of religion in an effort both to deepen our understanding of their theories concerning the constructed nature of religious worldviews and to consider critically the plausibility of their arguments. The author suggests that comparison of Berger's theory in The Sacred Canopy with Xunzi's account of the Dao enables us to explain why certain weaknesses arise in Berger's theory—namely, the difficulty of imagining how the self could ever escape the sacred canopy to achieve authenticity and the tension between his assertions about the precariousness of the social order and the apparent stability of the social order suggested by his descriptions. By uncovering Berger's hidden assumptions about the self, comparison with Xunzi's work also suggests a way the problems might be remedied.
J. Wentzel van Huyssteen: Refiguring Rationality in the Postmodern Age
Authors: Stone Jerome A.
Published: March 2003

In his three books J. Wentzel van Huyssteen develops a complex and helpful notion of rationality, avoiding the extremes of foundationalism and postmodern relativism and deconstruction. Drawing from several postmodern philosophers of science and evolutionary epistemologists who seek to devise a usable notion of rationality, he weaves together a view that allows for a genuine duet betweenscience and theology. In the process he challenges much contemporary nonfoundationalist theology as well as the philosophical naïveté of some cosmologists and sociobiologists.
Vertical and Horizontal Transcendence
Authors: Goodenough Ursula
Published: March 2003

Transcendence is explored from two perspectives: the traditional concept wherein the origination of the sacred is “out there,” and the alternate concept wherein the sacred originates “here.” Each is evaluated from the perspectives of aesthetics and hierarchy. Both forms of transcendence are viewed as essential to the full religious life.
The Humanizing Brain: An Introduction
Authors: Ashbrook James B. , Albright Carol Rausch
Published: March 2003

The rediscovery of the sacred needs to take into account the neural underpinnings of faith and meaning and also draw on the insights of the emerging discipline of complexity studies, which explore a tendency toward adaptive self‐organization that seemingly is inherent in the universe. Both neuroscience and complexity studies contribute to our understanding of the brain's activity as it transforms raw stimuli into recognizable patterns, and thus “humanizes” all our perceptions and understandings. The brain is our physical anchor in the natural environment—and its human capacities orbit us into the emerging world of culture (including religion), which provides a template for the brain's function of making sense of an ambiguous reality. The humanizing brain holds together scientific causality and religious meaning, working both bottom‐up (linking the physical and the experiential) and top‐down (beginning with the whole of things, or God). These processes we know as “mind” (experienced as intentionality, subjective consciousness, empathy, imagination, memory, adaptability). We maintain that such processes are not only subjective but built into “the way things really are.” Thus, they carry the most privileged information about the nature of reality to which we human beings have access. For not only are we humans observers and logicians, but we are embedded in the larger reality; and as we strive to make sense of it all, we become both Homo sapiens and Homo religiosus.
E. Digby Baltzell: Moral Rhetoric and Research Methodology
Authors: Klausner Samuel Z.
Published: March 2003

The ways in which values are assimilated to social research differ according to the theoretical frame of reference informing the research. An example from the writings of E. Digby Baltzell illustrates how a moral commitment shaped his assumptions about the nature of the social matrix and his research strategies. A Western moral rhetoric fares well if the researcher chooses a methodologically individualist framework. The framework assists a moral rhetoric by providing it with concrete rather than abstract social actors and with a basis for explanation in terms of motive rather than situational forces. Along the way moral statements can appear in the form of empirical generalizations and historical laws. Should sociologists deem ethically neutral social research desirable, this study suggests that concentration on scientific method, without exploring the value bases for selecting a frame of reference, is not a promising approach. A value analysis, especially around Weber's “value relevance,” may function propaedeuticly.
Primitive Globalization? State and Locale in Neoliberal Global Engagement
Authors: Sites William
Published: March 2003

Drawing widely from sociology, political science, and urban studies, this article introduces the term “primitive globalization” in order to address issues of state and governance for localities that globalize within a national context. Suggested by the discussion of primitive accumulation in Marx's Capital , this conceptual frame highlights the ways in which states neither circumvented by globalization nor resistant to it may facilitate neoliberal globalization by “separating” or disembedding social actors from conditions that otherwise impede short-term economic activity. This conception, which is considered primarily in relation to the United States, positions the state as both facilitator and victim of globalization, draws attention to state fragmentation and national politics, and places the role of the national state in the local state at the center of unstable linkages. It is suggested that under these conditions the national/ local state may be caught between the roles of government and governance; for this reason, as well as others, contemporary globalization remains transitional.
Money, Sex, and God: The Erotic Logic of Religious Nationalism
Authors: Friedland Roger
Published: March 2003

God is once again afoot in the public sphere. Politics has become a religious obligation. For a new breed of religious nationalist the nation-state is a vehicle of the divine. This essay seeks to accomplish four things. The first is to argue for an institutional approach to religious nationalism in order both to interpret and explain it. Second, I argue that religion and nationalism partake of a common symbolic order and that religious nationalism is therefore not an oxymoron. Third, the essay seeks to explain why religion has become such a potent political force in our time. And fourth—the task that will take up the bulk of the text—it seeks a principle of intelligibility in the semiotic order of religious nationalism that can comprehend its preoccupation with both women's erotic bodies and monies out of national control.
Parallel Finite–Element Analysis via Message Passing
Authors: Plaskacz Edward J.
Published: March 2003

This paper describes the evolution of a finite–element program with explicit time integration from a sequential form to a parallel message passing incarnation. The resulting parallel code has been used on a wide range of parallel platforms. The finite elements are allocated among multiprocessors through various domain decomposition strategies. Separate input and output files are established for each subdomain. These files are read from and written to by local copies of the program executable operating in parallel. At each time step, only internal forces for nodes at subdomain interfaces are exchanged. The Argonne–developed p4 package is used to manage interprocessor communication. Program fragments are presented to illustrate use of p4 in the context of finite–element analysis with explicit time integration. The code is portable among platforms supporting Berkeley UNIX 4.3BSD interprocess communication sockets. Results are presented for problems exhibiting large–deformation, elastic–plastic dynamic transient response. Benchmarks highlighting the benefits of parallel computing on both the small and medium–sized problems that engineers run routinely as well as large–scale ones are included. Speed–up factors are presented for shared–memory MIMD multiprocessors, networks of workstations, and two distributed memory MIMD multiprocessors—an Intel i860 Hypercube and the Intel Touchstone Delta supercomputer.
Tide Prediction Using Neural Networks
Authors: Deo M. C. , Chaudhari Girish
Published: March 2003

Prediction of tides at a subordinate station located in the interior of an estuary or a bay is normally done by applying an empirical correction factor to observations at some standard or reference station. This paper presents an objective way to do so with the help of the neural network technique. In complex field conditions this approach may look more attractive to apply. Prediction of high water and low water levels as well as that of continuous tidal curves is made at three different locations. The networks involved are trained using alternative training algorithms. Testing of the networks indicated satisfactory reproduction of actual observations. This was further confirmed by a high value of the accompanying correlation coefficient. Such a correlation was better than the one obtained through use of the statistical linear regression model. The training algorithm of cascade correlation involved the lowest training time and hence is found to be more suitable for adaptive training purpose.
Convergence Variability and Population Sizing in Micro‐Genetic Algorithms
Authors: Abu‐Lebdeh Ghassan , Benekohal Rahim F.
Published: March 2003

The issues of micro‐genetic algorithm (micro‐GA) convergence, population size, internal variability, and performance are examined. Procedures are developed to determine best population size when micro‐GAs are used for optimization of real‐world problems. Results show that the best population size cannot be determined before convergence has occurred and that convergence may occur without reaching an optimal solution. To determine the best population size, this article proposes the use of consistency of the final fitness values in addition to the fitness value at convergence. Internal variability must be considered in finding the best population size, and that best population size depends on the level of computational resources used. Smaller populations with generous computational resources performed as good as and sometimes better than larger populations. Midsized populations consistently exhibited lower variation in fitness value. For a given population size, the increase in fitness value may not be worth the added computation cost beyond a certain point. Three approaches are proposed to determine the best population size: (1) a random selection approach, (2) a detailed approach, and (3) a simplified approach. We used the detailed approach with our traffic problem and found that, with sufficient computational resources, the micro‐GA performed best with population size around the square root of the string length. We tested this proposition on standard simple and deceptive problems and found it to hold true.
Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in Sediment Transport
Authors: Babovic Vladan
Published: March 2003

The means for data collection have never been as advanced as they are today. Moreover, the numerical models we use today have never been so advanced. Feeding and calibrating models against collected measurements, however, represents only a one‐way flow: from measurements to the model. The observations of the system can be analyzed further in the search for the information they encode. Such automated search for models accurately describing data constitutes a new direction that can be identified as that of data mining. It can be expected that in the years to come we shall concentrate our efforts more and more on the analysis of the data we acquire from natural or artificial sources and that we shall mine for knowledge from the data so acquired.

Data mining and knowledge discovery aim at providing tools to facilitate the conversion of data into a number of forms, such as equations, that provide a better understanding of the process generating or producing these data. These new models combined with the already available understanding of the physical processes—the theory—result in an improved understanding and novel formulations of physical laws and improved predictive capability.

This article describes the data mining process in general, as well as an application of a data mining technique in the domain of sediment transport. Data related to the concentration of suspended sediment near a bed are analyzed by the means of genetic programming. Machine‐induced relationships are compared against formulations proposed by human experts and are discussed in terms of accuracy and physical interpretability.
Path Generation for Autonomous Locomotion of Articulated Steering Wheel Loader
Authors: Takahashi H. , Konishi Y.
Published: March 2003

A wheel loader is the major machine that has been used in several fields for scooping, carrying, and loading of crushed ores. Recently, automation of the wheel loader task has been receiving considerable attention. This article describes a path‐generation method for autonomous locomotion of the wheel loader. From the viewpoint of locomotion stability and ease of control, it is necessary for the path to be smooth and easily calculated. In order to satisfy these conditions, a path‐generation method using a clothoid curve is proposed. The change in curvature of the clothoid curve is continuous and is proportional to the length of the curve. Therefore, the clothoid curve provides continuous change of the steering angle. Furthermore, an interpolation method between the initial and target points of the wheel loader is proposed in this study, which consists of the clothoid curve segment and a straight‐line segment. A V‐shaped curve including the backward path and the forward path is also generated, taking into account the avoidance of rapid turning.
Fully Automated Shotcrete Robot for Rock Support
Authors: Girmscheid G. , Moser S.
Published: March 2003

Optimized shotcrete application techniques are required in particular tunneling projects. Today, any spraying can be done by hand or by manipulator. With the development in the material technologies, the range of possible operation was enlarged. With automation of the application, an important contribution to improve performance and quality and to reduce rebound may be achieved. At the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, systematic research is done to develop the fully automated process control, focusing on the wet shotcrete method. With the development of the fully automated shotcrete robot, the user will have a very effective tool at his or her disposal to spray concrete shells (fully automated). With the new robot, the user may choose from three different modes: manual, semiautomated, and fully automated spraying. Especially the fully automated mode facilitates higher performance with less danger to the worker's health. Quality control is inherent in the application process in regard to layer thickness, compaction, and homogeneity.
A Numerical Method for the Analysis of Rheologic Effects in Concrete Bridges
Authors: Destrebecq Jean‐François , Jurkiewiez Bruno
Published: March 2003

A method is presented for the numerical analysis of creep, shrinkage, and relaxation in concrete bridges. The method is based on an incremental analysis of the behavior of a viscoelastic composite member and on the use of a classic finite beam element. One of the main advantages of the method is its ability to take the structure constitution and the material behaviors into account in a very precise manner for low calculation cost—limited numbers of finite elements and calculation steps. Also, the processes of construction, prestressing, and free strain development are easily taken into account. The method is compared with test results for two prestressed concrete beams. Finally, the method is applied to the time analysis of a cable‐stayed footbridge.
The Effects of Peer‐Assisted Literacy Strategies for First‐Grade Readers With and Without Additional Mini‐Skills Lessons
Authors: Mathes Patricia G. , Babyak Allison E.
Published: March 2003

In this research, we sought to replicate findings of our previous research examining the efficacy of 1st‐Grade Peer‐Assisted Literacy Strategies (1st‐Grade PALS) with children of different achievement levels in naturally constituted general education classrooms. We also examined the impact of adding skills‐focused mini‐lessons conducted along with 1st‐Grade PALS with the 3 lowest‐achieving readers in some of these classrooms. First‐Grade PALS sessions were conducted for 30‐minutes session 3 times a week for 14 weeks. Mini‐lessons were also conducted 3 times per week for 15 to 20 minute sessions during the final 6 weeks of 1st‐Grade PALS implementation. During 1st‐Grade PALS, all students within a class were paired with other students from within the same class (1) to practice phonological awareness, phonological recoding, and reading of connected text built on previously mastered phonological elements, and (2) to make predictions about a book prior to reading it, share the experience of reading a story with a peer, have repeated exposure to text, and summarize the story through verbal retelling. The skills‐focused mini‐lessons mirrored the content of 1st‐Grade PALS and were designed to provide additional instruction and integrated practice of the orthophonemic elements of English text. Results indicate that 1st‐Grade PALS, on average, enhanced reading performance of students both in terms of statistical significance and in terms of educational relevance, although not equally for all learner types, closely replicating findings from our previous studies. Results also suggest that there was some benefit to students who participated in the small‐group mini‐lessons. However, conclusions about the true impact of the mini‐lessons are limited because teachers resisted implementing these lessons.
Critical Elements of Classroom and Small‐Group Instruction Promote Reading Success in All Children
Authors: Foorman Barbara R. , Torgesen Joseph
Published: March 2003

The components of effective reading instruction are the same whether the focus is prevention or intervention: phonemic awareness and phonemic decoding skills, fluency in word recognition and text processing, construction of meaning, vocabulary, spelling, and writing. Findings from evidence‐based research show dramatic reductions in the incidence of reading failure when explicit instruction in these components is provided by the classroom teacher. To address the needs of children most at risk of reading failure, the same instructional components are relevant but they need to be made more explicit and comprehensive, more intensive, and more supportive in small‐group or one‐on‐one formats. The argument is made that by coordinating research evidence from effective classroom reading instruction with effective small‐group and one‐on‐one reading instruction we can meet the literacy needs of all children.
School Finance Induced Migration and Stratification Patterns: The Impact of Private School Vouchers
Authors: Nechyba Thomas J.
Published: March 2003

This paper introduces a general equilibrium model of public school finance that includes: (i) multiple school districts that finance local public schools via property taxes set by majority vote; (ii) multiple neighborhoods within school districts where each neighborhood is characterized by a quality level of housing; (iii) local public schools that are obligated to admit all interested students who reside within the school district; (iv) private schools that function as clubs of parents who share the cost of the private school equally and who can choose to exclude others; (v) an educational production process that depends on both per pupil spending and average peer quality within the school; and (vi) individual peer quality levels that are correlated with the socioeconomic status of households. Since it allows for various degrees of imperfect stratification of residents across communities, the model is well suited for investigating empirically relevant migration forces induced by school finance reform proposals. The abstract model itself, however, is too complex to yield many analytic results. A computational counterpart to the model isnb therefore developed, calibrated to data, and utilized for policy experiments. In particular, the impact of vouchers in the context of different types of prevoucher educational finance systems is investigated, and it is found that migration patterns in general would cause vouchers to benefit public schools in poor communities while hurting public schools in wealthy communities.
Fiscal Federalism and Capital Accumulation
Authors: Brueckner Jan K.
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the effect of fiscal federalism on capital accumulation and growth in an overlapping‐generations model. By relaxing the uniform‐consumption requirement of a unitary system, fiscal federalism allows the economy to respond to a difference in public‐good demands between young and old. Public‐good levels and taxes move in opposite directions for the young and old as their different demands are fulfilled, and this leads to opposing changes in private‐good consumption for the two groups. These changes disrupt the preferred time path of private consumption, which is restored by a change in saving. This change in turn alters the equilibrium capital intensity of the economy, and growth effects emerge during the transition to the new equilibrium.
Formation of Nations in a Welfare‐State Minded World
Authors: Dagan Nir , Volij Oscar
Published: March 2003

We model the endogenous formation of nations in a world economy where nations apply redistributive policies. We show that people's preference for stronger redistributive policies may lead to greater inequality in the world's distribution of income as a result of rich individuals tending to form their own nations. By the same token, stable economic integration occurs only when redistributive policies are not too strong.
On the Implications of the Internet for Insurance Markets and Institutions
Authors: Garven James R.
Published: March 2003

By most accounts, the Internet and related advances in information technology significantly affect financial services in general and insurance markets and institutions in particular. Coupled with other important trends such as globalization and regulatory reform, these changes are forcing far‐reaching changes upon the insurance industry and making it more competitive. This article focuses specifically on the implications of the Internet for insurance markets and institutions. The conventional wisdom that the Internet constitutes a sufficient condition for the disintermediation of traditional insurance distribution networks is called into question. To the extent that the Internet reduces transaction costs, it will create opportunities for new intermediaries as well as for existing ones. It will also influence product design, in some cases making it economically attractive to unbundle and repackage various forms of coverage. By removing entry barriers and reducing insurance costs, the Internet will also provide a private market solution to a major insurance regulatory concern—enhancing insurance affordability and availability.
Music and melancholy: Marsilio Ficino's archetypal music therapy
Authors: Ammann Peter
Published: March 2003

Melancholy, to Ficino, is a state in which the mind, the realm of deep, abstract thinking, is cut off from the supply of the spirit. His concept of spirit corresponds to a kind of universal life‐energy (libido, in Jungian terms). Individually, as the spirit of man, it appears as projected into the blood of the human body, collectively, as spirit of the world, into the spheres of the planets.

The spirit of man corresponds to the spirit of the world and can receive from it a great deal through the rays of the planets. To attract the ‘spiritual’ influence of a particular planet you may use animals, plants, food, scents, talismans. But music is what is recommended most strongly.

Ficino's intention is to temper the melancholic influence of Saturn. Consequently, his astrological songs are addressed to the compensating benign planets, the Sun, Jupiter and Venus. In modern terms it is an attempt, consciously, by active imagination, to re‐establish the emotional relatedness with the archetypal realms of the planets from which Saturn has cut us off.

Ficino's ideas are related to Jung's rehabilitation of the feeling‐function
Philosophical assumptions in Freud, Jung and Bion: questions of causality
Authors: Horne Michael , Sowa Angela , Isenman David
Published: March 2003

The historical development of concepts of causality in philosophy is described. Since the Enlightenment and the growth of science, exponents of the two most important concepts, determinism and teleology, have been in conflict. At the inception of psychoanalysis at the end of the nineteenth century this conflict was particularly intense. It was the cause of the first major schism in psychoanalysis between Jung and Freud. Psychoanalytic theorists have continued to disagree over this issue. Post‐modernist philosophy has abolished all metaphysics and therefore called into question concepts of psychic causality. Parallel to, but uninfluenced by this development, Bion has developed a psychoanalytic conceptualization which may be seen as transcending causality. The clinical and theoretical implications of these developments are described.
Experience of the Self in a lifetime
Authors: Dreifuss Gustav
Published: March 2003

While listening to a concert at the age of 20, I suddenly was overcome by a feeling of oneness. The music had touched deeper levels of my soul, which much later I could understand as an experience of the Self. Music may arouse opposite feelings, the source of which is the ambivalence of the Self, of God. These opposites within the Godhead are best explained by the word numinosity, a term coined by Rudolf Otto in his book The Idea of the Holy. Love and fear are opposite feelings with regard to God, to the ‘numen’.

A meaningful change in my life occurred at the age of 38 when my wife and myself decided to leave Switzerland and immigrate to Israel. Several dreams pointed to the necessity of settling in the Biblical Land, the earth being a manifestation of the mother archetype.

The Jungian term Self is discussed by examples from my own analysis and by quoting Edinger. The Self is the mystery of conjunction of feminine and masculine energy. This was clear to me, but what about the evil, dark side of God, of his destructive side, of Satan or the devil, of Christ and Antichrist? I experienced the dark side of God when the Nazis rose to power, unleashing WW II and killing 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.
Managing the Public Debt: The Optimal Taxation Approach
Authors: Missale Alessandro
Published: March 2003

This paper examines research on public debt management, focusing on debt structure by denomination, indexation features, and maturity. The optimal taxation approach is reviewed and its policy implications are related to the trade‐off between minimization of the expected cost of debt servicing and minimization of budgetary risk. Strong arguments are provided for debt instruments which yield low returns when output and hence revenues are lower and public spending higher than expected. This debt design minimizes tax distortions and provides flexibility in conducting fiscal policy. The exact characterization of the debt composition which supports efficient taxation depends on the stochastic structure of the economy. Long‐term nominal debt is a hedge against supply shocks affecting revenues and inflation and makes the government budget insensitive to interest‐rate risk. However, at high levels of debt, the extent of insurance or flexibility that governments can obtain by issuing long‐term nominal debt is limited by the need to maintain the credibility of the anti‐inflation stance.
Undecidability, Computation Universality and Minimality in Economic Dynamics*
Authors: Velupillai K. Vela
Published: March 2003

An attempt is made, in this paper, to pose questions about economic dynamics in the broad areas of microeconomics, behavioural economics and macroeconomics from the point of view of classical recursion theory. This viewpoint makes it imperative that the fundamental economic entities in question are given an algorithmic formulation. Algorithms, in turn, are intrinsically dynamic objects which, if they are nontrivial, encapsulate nonlinear dynamics in novel ways such that it is possible to ask decidability questions and obtain effective answers about the economic entities.

It is shown, formally, that rational economic behaviour is comfortably consistent with nonmaximum, disequilibrium and unstable economic dynamics in core areas of microeconomics, behavioural economics and macroeconomics.
Speaking to Theorists and Searching for Facts: Tax Morale and Tax Compliance in Experiments
Authors: Torgler Benno
Published: March 2003

A significant body of research has been accumulated concerning tax morale and tax compliance. This paper takes a stroll through the experimental findings, focussing on personal income. After briefly discussing the traditional topic of deterrence the main focus is on the social and institutional factors which until now have received only limited attention.
Feeling Understood in Family Therapy
Authors: Pocock David
Published: March 2003

This paper attempts to highlight a common experience, but neglected topic, in family therapy: that of feeling understood. Aspects of postmodernism and contemporary psychoanalysis are revisited to create a theme of understanding as a fully relational activity – making sense together through language of that which lies beyond language. Some ideas on preparing to try to understand are discussed.
A family intervention in psychosis service integrating the systemic and family management approaches
Authors: Burbach Frank R. , Stanbridge Roger I.
Published: March 2003

A project to establish new family intervention services to support people with psychotic symptoms and their families is described. The new services are developed by training a whole team in each main population centre. The multidisciplinary training course and the family intervention service are described, and the way in which we integrate the ‘family management’ and ‘family therapy’ approaches is discussed.
Spirituality and religion in training, practice and personal development
Authors: Prest Layne A. , Russel Robin , D'Souza Henry
Published: March 2003

In the midst of a revitalized interest in spirituality and religion in Western societies, there has been reported a resurgence of activity regarding spirituality and religion in the mental health professions, including marriage and family therapy (MFT). Little is known, however, about the beliefs, behaviours, and training experiences of MFT graduate students. Therefore it is important to examine the training (education and supervision) needs in this area. For this initial study, a sample of US MFT graduate students were surveyed regarding their spiritual and religious attitudes and practices in their personal and professional lives. In most areas, graduate students were found to be similar to the previously published reports of practising professionals. In other areas, they report even more investment in spirituality and religion. The results of the survey suggest a need to include systematic attention to these areas in graduate training curricula and in the professional supervision process.
One therapist, four cultures: working with families in Greater China
Authors: Lee Wai–Yung
Published: March 2003

Rather than addressing ethnicity through a pre–set cultural lens, I discuss how my experiences as a family therapy trainer in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai taught me to understand culture through the lens of the family. Similarities and differences among these cultural domains were reviewed. I also demonstrate how each encounter shaped my emotional responses and ways of intervention in the course of family interviews. Even though I belong to the same ethnic background, I had to interact differently in different arenas, despite my cultural values and theoretical orientation.
Sugar, Technology, and Colonial Encounters: Refashioning the Industry in the Netherlands Indies, 1800–1942
Authors: Knight Roger
Published: March 2003

The argument begins with the widely accepted proposition that science and technology had a crucial part to play in the legitimisation of Western colonialisms in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It then sets out to examine the implications of this in terms of the interaction of science, technology and the commodity production of cane sugar in Asia’s largest and best‐known sugar colony — the Netherlands Indies (Indonesian) island of Java. It demonstrates that cane sugar in Java was indeed the site of technological revolution and of a scientific approach to production which Western contemporaries saw as asserting their superiority over, and justifying their domination of, the East. From a broadly postcolonial perspective, the colonial binaries inherent in discourse of this kind were a good deal more ambiguous than its contemporary practitioners were inclined to allow. Indeed, a discourse which seems otherwise to have been Manichaean in the severity of its social distinctions, was significantly subverted by the collateral existence of fissures within the apparent monolith of an industrial structure based on Western technology and science. That structure was not self‐sustaining, and although it was possible to marginalise the once‐dominant Asian element in the industry, Java sugar nonetheless had to accommodate within its managerial and technical structure large numbers of people of part‐European, part‐Asian ethnic background. It did this by accepting a colonial construction of the European which was particular to Java, and which embraced large numbers of Eurasians as well as Dutch expatriates. The language of difference, inherent in the notion of a Manichaean divide, rested, in short, on a kind of discursive counterfeit, which was an indispensable condition for the persistence of scientific and technological production.
Life Insurance, the Medical Examination and Cultural Values
Authors: Jureidini Ray , White Kevin
Published: March 2003

This paper is concerned with the commodification of the risk of death which occurred with the development of life insurance and with the role of the medical examination in making life insurance a viable commodity. Using British and Australian data, it shows how the medical profession and the medical examination were crucial to nineteenth century life insurance institutions in the calculation of the value of human lives. Life insurance institutions combined a developing ideology of health with the knowledge of health statistics and applied both for a developing institutional finance market. The calculation and preservation of the value of individual human lives by the pooling of risks on selected lives is the service which life insurance sells and which underpins finance capital. The knowledge developed from health and morbidity statistics was a process both of social surveillance and of market‐oriented monitoring for economic risk‐reduction. At the level of the individual the necessity for life insurance was the dissolution of traditional community and familial support as industrial capitalism developed.
Muslim Women and the Politics of (In)visibility in Late Colonial Bengal
Authors: Sarkar Mahua
Published: March 2003

The paper attempts to understand ways in which gender and racially defined communal ideologies worked simultaneously to produce Muslim women in colonial Bengal as invisible within nationalist historiography. It argues that the negative representations of Muslim women underpinned the construction of other identity categories in colonial Bengal, and highlights the participation of Hindu/Brahmo women writers in this process.
The Value Relevance of Earnings and Cash Flows: Empirical Evidence for Japan
Authors: Charitou Andreas , Clubb Colin , Andreou Andreas
Published: March 2003

The Japanese equity market is one of the largest in the world. In recent years, fund managers worldwide have substantially increased their exposure to the Japanese capital markets. In spite of the Japanese capital market's rapid growth and its increasing importance in the international financial world, there has been limited empirical evidence linking security returns to earnings and cash flows. This study extends the growing empirical literature on the association of earnings and cash flows with security returns by using a Japanese dataset consisting of 6,662 firm‐year observations for the period 1984–93. We hypothesize that (i) earnings and cash flows are jointly associated with stock returns, and (ii) the association between cash flows (earnings) and security returns increases (decreases) when earnings are transitory. This study provides empirical evidence (i) that cash flows (earnings) have information content beyond earnings (cash flows) in explaining security returns, and (ii) that cash flows (earnings) play a more (less) important role in the marketplace when earnings are transitory. Moreover, results show that the explanatory power of our Japanese models is similar to the evidence provided in prior US studies, indicating that Japanese investors utilize earnings and cash flows in their pricing of equities as their US counterparts.
‘Immunity’, ’Privilege’, and ‘Right’: British Trade Unions and the Language of Labour Law Reform
Authors: Syrett Keith
Published: March 2003

A continuing debate exists among labour lawyers in the United Kingdom as to the most appropriate legal framework for the regulation of collective industrial action. Many have argued that a change in legal form will not in itself afford greater protection to union activity. Through an analysis of the changing approach of the trade union movement to the issue of ‘immunities’ and ‘rights’ during the Thatcher period, this article seeks to demonstrate that adoption of the ‘rights’ discourse in fact offered considerable strategic advantages. In consequence, any analysis of this question should not overlook the significant political role played by language.
Blind Insights? The Limits of a Reflexive Sociology of Law
Authors: Nelken David
Published: March 2003

Is there a danger that sociological approaches to law end up creating law in their own image? Can they set their own limits? Could they help further rather than hinder the process by which law becomes more technocratic? Continuing a debate with Roger Cotterrell, this paper offers an examination of Cotterrell's suggestion, in the last issue, that these dangers can be avoided provided that sociological interpretation of legal ideas recognizes an allegiance to law rather than to academic sociology. By contrast, I propose a reflexive strategy intended to invite sociology to examine the ways in which its discourses and practices are both similar to but also different from those of law.
The Lawrence Inquiry – Incompetence, Corruption, and Institutional Racism
Authors: Bridges Lee
Published: March 2003

The inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in South London in 1993, which reported earlier this year, documents a catalogue of police incompetence and ‘institutional racism’. The report also puts forward a number of far‐reaching recommendations, echoing long‐standing demands by the black community, for the reform of policing in Britain. Yet, in its approach to ‘institutional racism’, the report can be seen to have downplayed the need for a critical re‐examination of policing policies and priorities at a strategic level. As a result, many of its key recommendations, in such areas as stop and search and the policing of racist crime, may prove ineffective. The government’s commitment to ‘anti‐racism’, following the Lawrence report, is also called into question by its subsequent decision to further restrict the rights of defendants and the ability of black people to defend themselves against racist police practices through the criminal justice system.
Adapting the Modern Law Novel: Filming John Grisham
Authors: Robson Peter
Published: March 2003

The essay looks at the process of adaptation of fiction to film. It seeks to build on earlier work which suggested that this process required to be examined in the political and social context within which the adaptation occurred. It focuses on the work of John Grisham and notes how the fiction of Grisham can be divided into thrillers and social issues novels. These in their turn have been turned into films in which, in the process of adaptation, their themes have become both sharper and more focused. They have also in this process become less critical of the social and political structures within which Grisham’s fictional protagonists operate. The essay seeks to provide an explanation for this paradox which relates to the fore‐mentioned notion of contextual adaptation.
Legal Feminism and Foucault – A Critique of the Expulsion of Law
Authors: Munro Vanessa E.
Published: March 2003

Contemporary theorists have become increasingly receptive to the selective incorporation of Foucaultian theory within feminist frameworks. However, the reception of Foucault within feminist legal critique has been less enthusiastic. The most celebrated theorist to argue for the incorporation of Foucaultian insight within the feminist analysis of law is Carol Smart. While conceding the significant contribution of her work, this article will argue that her interpretation of the Foucaultian thesis on law is considerably more problematic. Illustrating the extent to which she adopts an unnecessarily pessimistic prognosis for the development of Foucault within legal analysis and reform, this article will examine an emerging counter‐interpretation of Foucault that presents the possibility for a more promising application, seeking to provide a defence both of the utility of Foucault for feminist jurisprudence, and of the utility of legal reform strategies being exercised for feminist purposes.
Using Private‐Public Linkages to Regulate Environmental Conflicts: The Case of International Construction Contracts
Authors: Perez Oren
Published: March 2003

The article takes a pluralistic view of the ‘trade‐environment’ conflict by exploring one of the settings of this conflict: the lex constructionis– international construction law. It seeks to unravel the way in which the unique structural‐cultural attributes of this legal domain have affected its environmental (in)sensitivity. The article's main argument in that context is that the contractual tradition of the lex constructionis (as manifested in the standard contracts that dominate this field) and its unique institutional structure, have created a culture of ecological indifference. This culture has important practical consequences because of the deep ecological problematic of international construction projects. The article develops an alternative contractual model, which depicts the construction contract as a semi‐political mechanism, rather than a private tool. This conceptual change seeks to break the public/private separation that characterizes the contractual discourse in the international construction market. The article explores, further, whether this alternative contractual vision could be realized in practice, and proposes several implementing modules which could further this goal. While the article explores a particular international regime, its methodology and conclusions – in particular, the political‐constitutional interpretation of the contract and the critique of the public/private dichotomy (see sections III.3 and III.4) – should be relevant to the regulation of many other (national or international) environmental dilemmas.
Identifying Organizational Subcultures: An Empirical Approach
Authors: Hofstede Geert
Published: March 2003

Organizations have cultures, but parts of organizations may have distinct subcultures. The question of what is the proper level for a cultural analysis of an organization is generally handled intuitively. The organizational culture of a large Danish insurance company (3,400 employees) was measured, based on employees’ answers to 18 key questions about work practices. Subsequently, scores were determined separately for 131 work groups, and these were subjected to a hierarchical cluster analysis, which produced a dendrogram. The dendrogram showed that within the company there were three distinct subcultures: a professional subculture, an administrative subculture, and a customer interface subculture. These fit a theoretical prediction by Jones (1983); the cultural rifts between the subcultures could be readily recognized in the company’s practice, and had tangible consequences.