bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
P- Technique Comes of Age
Authors: Nesselroade John R. , Ford Donald H. 
Published: March 2007

The complexity of human behavior demands that research methods be capable of dealing with multivariate, multioccasion, multisubject data if successful explanatory accounts of behavior are to be constructed. When the research focus is on developmental phenomena such as aging, the complexity of the task is even greater because of the difficulties of modeling and accounting for systematic changes in behavior. Proper decisions about which research methods to use rest on four principal concerns: (1) general orientation of the research; (2) theoretical assumptions concerning the nature of the phenomenon being studied; (3) data collection strategy; and (4) data analysis tactics. Replicated, multivariate, single-subject research designs such as P-technique involve assessment with multiple variables at each of many times of measurement. The resulting data, which are analyzed to determine the nature of occasion-to-occasion changes in the variables, can inform about both covariation patterns and level. Such designs have not been exploited by researchers in aging even though concern with a variety of intraindividual changes in older adulthood is evident in the literature. The rationale of such designs and their potential utility for the study of adult development and aging are examined and discussed.
THE CHALLENGE FOR COMPARATIVE SOCIOLOGY IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF EUROPE
Authors: Haller Max 
Published: March 2007

Europe today seems to be undergoing a serious crisis. Its several sub-regions and nations, however, are affected very differently by it. Does Europe constitute a meaningful unit from a social scientific point of view at all? The paper argues that this is the case because of its common historical-cultural heritage and because of the increasing density of direct interrelationships between its nations and peoples. Nevertheless, internal differentiations continue to make of this `continent' one of the most complex and variegated culture areas in the world. Three dimensions are of particular relevance in this regard: (a) the level of socio-economic development; (b) linguistic-cultural and religious traditions; (c) the type of political system. If we allocate 25 of the larger European nation-states to this 3-dimensional typology, we can demonstrate a limited number of relatively internally homogeneous clusters of nations. These are distinguished from each other not only in terms of political system, but also in terms of socio-economic development, language and religion. The paper concludes with the thesis that the macro-context `Europe' constitutes an ideal base for carrying out international comparisons and pleads for making full use of this potential by including all European nations in such comparisons.
Statistics, Discrimination, and the Courts: The Fairfax County Example
Authors: Gantz Donald T. , Plant Jeremy F. 
Published: March 2007

The nature of judicial decision making in contemporary U.S. courts has increased the influence of statistical reasoning and professional statisticians. Statistical models proving or disproving prima face instances of discrimination in affirmative action litigation are an especially significant development in the past twenty years. Both public and private organizations must justify patterns of recruitment and hiring by assembling relevant data. Focusing on litigation brought by the U. S. Department of Justice challenging the hiring practice of Fairfax County, Virginia, a large and affluent urban county in the Washington metropolitan area, the article shows how statistical reasoning affects judicial decision making. In addition, a number of management issues are raised: These include whether regional or jurisdictional approaches should guide service delivery; how local governments can best plan for possible litigation; and how court-ordered affirmative action plans impact personnel practices.
Ethics Education and Training in the Public Service
Authors: Garofalo Charles , Geuras Dean 
Published: March 2007

This paper contrasts two concepts of ethics education or training of public administrators. One concept, expressed by Daniel Callahan, advocates that ethics education should improve public officials' ability to recognize and analyze ethical issues but should not indoctrinate them or attempt to change their moral behavior. The other concept, expressed by Dalton Lee, argues that normative training should go beyond rational analysis of ethical theory to inculcate moral behavior in public officials. We argue that both concepts rely upon the assumption that ethical values cannot be derived through purely rational or empirical analysis. We maintain that, rather than accepting or rejecting a questionable assumption to determine practice, we should allow practice to itself confirm or deny the assumption. We therefore recommend rationally and empirically based ethics education with the intent of improving ethical behavior. The success or failure of such education provides evidence for or against the questionable assumption. We examine the Kohlberg model and the organization development model as possible methods of moral education. We find those models promising but in need of refinement.
1986 Macromarketing Seminar Abstracts
Authors: Klein Thomas A. 
Published: March 2007

The 1986 Macromarketing Seminar was hosted by the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, August 7-10. Donald Shawver, University of Missouri, was Program Chairman. Charles Goeldner, University of Colorado, was Arrangements Chairman. More than 40 participants discussed macromarketing research and theory. Abstracts of papers formally presented at the seminar follow. Readers wishing complete copies of these papers may request them directly from authors. The Twelfth Macromarketing Seminar will be held at the Loyola Campus of Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, following the American Marketing Association Educators Conference, in August 1987. Program Chairman is Charles Ingene, University of Washington. Arrangements Chairman is Christopher Ross, Concordia University.
Design and Experimental Demonstration of Rapid, Precise End-Point Control of a Wrist Carried by a Very Flexible Manipulator
Authors: Chiang Wen-Wei , Kraft Raymond , Cannon Robert H. 
Published: March 2007

This paper presents the very high performance achieved experimentally with a wrist carried on a very flexible arm and designed for extremely quick, precise pick-and-place tasks. There are substantial potential advantages to using robot manipulators that are very lightweight and flexible- advantages in power, quickness, and performance, as well as in weight. Control using end-point sensing is of course essen tial in such a system. However, the closed-loop control band width of a robot manipulator is still physically limited ulti mately by its structural flexibility, as the end effector and the actuator are separated. Basically, there is a wave propaga tion time delay. A minimanipulator can be added to the end of such a main robot arm to perform special tasks with high accuracy and bandwidth and thus to enhance significantly and funda mentally the robot's performance. However, dynamic interac tion between the minimanipulator and the structural flexibil ity of the main robot arm may tend to destabilize the system, making the control design very difficult and sensitive to parameter variations. In the research described in this article, analyses were performed to'study the dynamic interaction between the mo tion of a minimanipulator and the structural flexibility of the main robot arm that carries it. A general geometric relation between end effector/sensor location and the center ofpercus sion was found, which assures that a simple controller design can be obtained that is insensitive to modeling uncertainty while achieving good stability and high performance. A plane-motion mechanical mini-macro manipulator system was designed and built, and with it fast, precise ma neuvers of several demanding kinds were demonstrated ex perimentally. The end-effector position control bandwidth achieved was more than eight times the frequency of the beam's first mode, and accuracy was excellent. 1. Only the case of a one-degree-of-freedom wrist is analyzed here. The corresponding characteristic in a multidimensional case will be more complicated because of the nonlinear coupling effect.
A Linear Complementarity Approach to the Frictionless Gripper Problem
Authors: Al-Fahed A.M. , Stavroulakis G.E. , Panagiotopoulos P.D. 
Published: March 2007

This article deals with static unilateral phenomena arising in grasping mechanisms and caused by the possible loss of contact between elastic grippers and rigid objects. The problem is formulated as a linear complementarity problem (LCP) that is derived from the equilibrium equations of forces and the compatibility equations for the displacements, as well as from the complementarity inequality restriction describing the contact. A variant of the infeasibility-reducing, complementary pivot al gorithm of Lemke is used for the numerical solution of the arising LCP. Form and force closure conditions are fulfilled in an auto matic way from the solution of the aforementioned LCP. The used algorithm guarantees rapid convergence to the solution of the problem. The theory is illustrated by numerical examples.
Autonomy's End
Authors: Winskel Mark 
Published: March 2007

Despite their obvious limitations as explanatory concepts, `technological autonomy' and `determinism' have often been associated with nuclear power. This paper reviews the persistency of notions of `autonomy' and `determinism' in the context of the British nuclear power programme. In the corporatist and technocratic setting of the nationalized British Electricity Supply Industry (ESI), the perceived imperatives of nuclear power technology were often allowed priority in policymaking, to the extent that an appearance of the technology's autonomy and determinism was maintained for 30 years. This had its conveniences: technical rationales disguised more contestable institutional and political interests supporting the programme. At the same time, senior politicians and scientists at times displayed a faith in the technology approximating a belief in its autonomy and deterministic power, particularly during geopolitical or industrial crises. ESI privatization was associated with the marginalization of nuclear power in Britain. Once the Government's wider mission to liberalize electricity supply was threatened by unanticipated disclosures regarding the cost of nuclear electricity, it proved willing to abandon its longstanding support for the technology. As institutional and political support for the nuclear programme was removed, the fallacy of its supposed autonomy was exposed. Whilst Langdon Winner accurately identified the preconditions necessary for the introduction of inherently political technologies such as nuclear power, in reality these were ever-present requirements, however hidden by the apparent power of the technology itself. Nevertheless, the persistence of notions of autonomy and determinism reflects a significant aspect of the sociotechnical relations of nuclear power.
A Description of Self Reports of Convicted Child Molesters Following Incarceration
Authors: Kaplan Meg S. 
Published: March 2007

Child molestation occurs at a rather high rate in the United States. A reduction may depend on the ability of law enforcement personnel to ascertain the extent to which a child molester continues to be interested in child molestation following incarceration. Seventyfour convicted child molesters under New York State Parole Supervision were interviewed in an attempt to determine: 1. whether or not they had received counseling; 2. if they perceived that counseling was effective; and 3. to identify which, if any, reported urges to molest children following incarceration. Results indicated that most of the subjects had not received specific sexual counseling while incarcerated and that 80% reported that they were not in need of counseling. Implications of these findings are discussed as well as the need to educate parole officers concerning the importance of community after care.
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin: Reconsiderations on a 'neo-Narodnik litterateur'
Authors: Kozlov Nicholas N. 
Published: March 2007

The work of Nikolai I. Bukharin is often similarly misrepresented by scholars of otherwise very different political inclinations. Many mainstream scholars sympathize with Bukhar-in's alleged "right deviation"; on the other hand, Trotskyists blame Bukharin for Stalinism. Both groups, each for different reasons, then seek to portray Bukharin as a social democrat rather than a Bolshevik. Common to both left and mainstream analyses is the avowal of a supposed theoretical and political "break" in Bukharin's thinking around 1921, during the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in Soviet Russia, a view which will be challenged here. This paper additionally seeks to provide some examples of fairly serious distortions of Bukharin's thinking, and to rectify matters by recourse to the original texts. Hopefully, this will make Bukharin into something less of a strawperson, and will enable his own arguments to be realistically criticized as well as allowing the potentially flawed perspectives of his opponents to be brought to light. And finally, this paper will focus on some of the similarities in theoretical outlook between Bukharin and his adversaries among the Left Opposition. This approach will help to transcend the irresoluble "Left Opposition" vs "Socialism in One Country" polemic, and provide further support for the opinion that neither position could have offered an adequate solution to the industrialization debate because both were confined by the presuppositions of the NEP.
The `Mafia Feeling': A Transcultural Theme of Sicily
Authors: Maria Franco Di 
Published: March 2007

In this article, the Mafia feeling is analysed as an anthropological and cultural theme which through the family establishes personal and individual identity (in the sense of identicalness) which needs set certainties. The presence of a code of certainties suggests the hypothesis that the Mafia feeling is structured on a specific cultural transpersonal level which guarantees the survival, the cohesion and the sense of belonging to the members of a subculture. It is argued that, from the Group-analytic standpoint the Mafia feeling can be considered as a pre-thoughtful and dogmatic thinking which, beginning from a normal degree of dogmatism (adaptive dogmatism), flows through a matrix entirely saturated with meaning into a pathological dogmatism.
Low Velocity Transverse Impact Behavior of 8-ply, Graphite-Epoxy Laminates
Authors: Lal K.M. 
Published: March 2007

This work discusses the behavior of 8-ply, quasi-isotropic, graphite epoxy laminates subjected to low velocity transverse impact loading. Large deflection theory of plates was used to predict the load-deflection characteristics during the impact event. The im pact model considered that the indentation, flexural and shear stiffnesses could be represented by 3-equivalent springs in series. The analysis of static and dynamic impact loading test-data concluded that the mem brane parameter, β, used in flexural stiffness relation was proportional to the square of the coefficient of restitution, e, of the impactor. Use of β = 0.443 e2 was made in load- deflection relations to consider the drop in plate stiffness due to delamination. The results of impact tests up to impact velocity 5.3 m/sec. were found in close agreement of the predictions.
Moisture and Temperature Induced Degradation in Tensile Properties of Kevlar-Graphite/Epoxy Hybrid Composites
Authors: Haque A. , Mahmood S. , Walker L. , Jeelani S. 
Published: March 2007

This paper presents results of a comparative study of the effects of mois ture and temperature on tensile properties of Kevlar 49/epoxy, graphite/epoxy, single fiber and Kevlar 49-graphite/epoxy hybrid composites. The work reported here shows varia tions in tensile strength, elastic modulus and Poisson's ratio with changes in the hygrother mal conditions. A temperature range of 23°C to 150°C was considered for both dry and wet specimens exposed to moisture for 200 days. Moisture was introduced into the speci men by immersion in distilled water. Effects of the kind of outer fiber of the same hybrid system was also studied for better understanding of the behavior of hybrid composites. Variation in the tensile modulus determined by various test methods is also reported. The results indicate that moisture and temperature degrade the tensile strength of hybrid and single fiber composites. The tensile modulus of Kevlar 49-graphite/epoxy is compara tively higher than that of Kevlar 49/epoxy. The degradation of the tensile modulus is mostly temperature dependent. The presence of moisture either increases or decreases the tensile modulus depending upon the laminate and exposure conditions. Poisson's ratio in general appears to increase with temperature. In the presence of moisture the Poisson's ratio further increases between the temperatures of 45°C to 150°C.
Creative Writers and Criminal Justice: Confronting the System (1890-1920)
Authors: Bloomfield Maxwell 
Published: March 2007

By the early twentieth century the modernization of American criminal law had become an issue of widespread public concern, both in professional circles and in the popular press. Bar leaders, such as Roscoe Pound and William Howard Taft, proposed to improve the machinery of criminal justice by tightening procedural rules and enhancing the authority of trial judges. Their efforts at "scientific" law reform led to the creation of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology in 1909. Creative writers, on the other hand, influenced by the rise of literary realism, tended to produce popular novels and plays that sympathized with the powerless defendant caught up in a dehumanizing bureaucratic process. This essay explores the interplay of legal norms and imaginative literature as it affected two subjects of great public interest in the Progressive Era: (a) changes in the substantive law of crimes and (b) the problem of the criminal corporation.
The Reform Tradition in Nineteenth-Century Composition Teaching
Authors: WOODS WILLIAM F. 
Published: March 2007

Commentary: English composition as we know it began in the early nineteenth century...but why is that important? Why would we care about poorly educated grammar school pedagogues—our distant colleagues!—fingers aching with cold as they parsed sentences, heard recitations, and fed the wood stove during those long wintery terms? Very simply, because their lives, practices, and less frequently, their writings give us back ourselves. Our own problems in teaching writing have recurrently presented themselves in forms that nineteenth-century teachers easily would have recognized. Like them, we sense the ongoing need for hard basics, the primitive core of our profession. Yet like those early teachers, we also dwell within a “reform tradition” that stresses the importance of students' interests and experience and continues to see the writing task as based on what used to be called “synthetic” insights and “self-active” learning. Inspired partly by romantic educational theories from the continent, this tradition grew out of the social and educational reforms of the 1830s and 1840s and provided the basis for the early progressive teaching of the 1890s. Prominent during the 1930s, and reasserting itself powerfully in the 1960s and 1990s, this student-centered approach manifests the continuing vitality of the enlightenment ideas and values and the romantic individualism that first gave it life.
Some Determinants of Citizen Attitudes Toward Community Resource Development
Authors: Clark Robert C. , Timothy Earl E. 
Published: March 2007

The federal government has established a new national park com prising 20 of the Apostle Islands and 42,000 acres of Lake Superior shoreline in northern Wisconsin. The gateway for this park is Bayfield, now an isolated, rural community of 1,000. This study examines, by adaptation of the Likert-type scale, the attitudes of a random sample of Bayfield citizens toward the park and its possible impact on the community. With the use of correlation analysis and regression technique, the authors analyzed the total socioeconomic and political frame work of citizen attitudes influenced by 1. social-psychological factors, and 2. specific variables such as age, education, and anticipated rise in income. Governmental orientation emerged as the strongest and most consistent predictor. Attitude toward the park objectives and formal education also showed a significant relationship. Implications are drawn relating the findings of the study to involvement between federal agencies, adult educators and local people in a community planning situation.
Photoperiodic Influences on Sexual Behavior in Male Syrian Hamsters
Authors: Powers J.B. , Steel E.A. , Hutchison J.B. , Hastings M.H. , Herbert J. , Walker A.P. 
Published: March 2007

The effect of photoperiodic conditions on sexual behavior was investigated in male Syrian hamsters that were either gonadally intact, or castrated and treated with low doses of testosterone throughout the experiment. Hamsters were exposed to long (LD 16:8) or short (LD 8:16) days for 7 weeks; for the next 8 weeks, either they were exposed to an intermediate daylength (LD 12:12), or daylength conditions remained unchanged. Sexual behavior was affected by photoperiod conditions in both gonadally intact animals and testosterone-treated castrates, but to different degrees. Intact males exposed to short days for 15 weeks exhibited gonadal regression, and their copulatory performance was impaired. The percentage of ani mals that intromitted or ejaculated was significantly reduced. Additional measures of sexual performance among the copulating males were also affected. In contrast, among the castrates with testosterone clamped at low but stable levels, the proportion of males that mounted, intromitted, or ejaculated was not affected by photoperiod. However, among the males that continued to copulate, sexual performance changes were present in the short-day castrates that resembled those displayed by the intact males. We infer that these behavioral effects in both hormonal conditions reflect primarily a difficulty in the attainment of intromission. Gonadal regression alone cannot easily account for the behavioral deficits of the intact males, because circulating testosterone levels at the end of the experiment were not significantly different between the gonadally intact hamsters and the castrated, testosterone-treated hamsters exposed continuously to short days. Males trans ferred from either long or short days to the intermediate-daylength condition responded be haviorally to this photoperiod as if it were a short day, that is, their ejaculatory frequency declined. We conclude that male hamsters exposed to photoinhibitory daylengths exhibit deficits in their sexual behavior, not only because endogenous levels of testosterone decrease, but also because the substrates on which this hormone acts become less responsive. We hypothesize that under physiological conditions, the episodic secretion of testosterone im poses constraints on the maintenance or restoration of copulation, and that the potent behav ioral effects achieved by constant-release implants of testosterone may mask the presence of photoperiodically induced alterations in the hamster's sensitivity to this gonadal hormone.