Unethical Research and the C.I.A. Inspector General Report of 2004: Observations Implicit in Terms of the Common Rule

Declassification of documents has given rise to the allegation that the Central Intelligence Agency may have conducted unethical research targeting detainee subjects. That allegation is examined using document analysis and the development of research goals and roles as defined in the Common Rule. This article sets aside issues as to whether enhanced interrogation techniques described in the declassified documents rise to legal definitions of torture. Instead, it presents a post hoc ethics review raising questions addressed by Institutional Review Boards recommending the filing of a for-cause noncompliance complaint with the Office for Human Research Protection against the Central Intelligence Agency.     

Promoting Responsible Conduct of Research: A Canadian Perspective

This article compares the current Canadian and American approaches to governing the responsible conduct of research. The Canadian Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research acts on behalf of Canada's three federal research agencies to implement their Framework on Responsible Conduct of Research. It operates not on the basis of regulatory authority, like its U.S. counterpart, the Office of Research Integrity, but rather on the basis of making compliance a condition of eligibility for funding. Both offices are dedicated to promoting good research practices and to enforcing good standards of research practice.     

后现代语境下的传媒研究--论戴维·莫利媒介理论对中国媒介与文化研究的启发

戴维·莫利是英国文化研究的代表人物之一。他继承了伯明翰学派的学术传统,坚持跨学科的理论路径,强调将媒介研究置于社会和物质的背景下,从社会学、人类学、符号学等多学科视角来审视传播和文化;在全球化媒介构建的后现代语境下,他尝试运用人种志方法研究当代文化中媒介消费的全球化与本土化同时发生的动态过程,探讨有关跨文化传播与民族认同等问题。莫利的媒介理论对中国媒介与文化研究开辟新的视角与思路具有重要的启发,能帮助我们更好地理解当前所处的媒介时代与社会语境,为中国现代化进程中出现的媒介现象与传媒发展等问题提供可借鉴的阐释框架与方法论,对我国媒介理论研究与传媒实践都具有重要意义。     

Security Assurance: How Online Service Providers Can Influence Security Control Perceptions and Gain Trust

Security researchers agree that security control is a difficult to observe credence quality of online services that Internet users cannot easily assess through research or experience. Yet there is evidence that users form perceptions of security control that strongly determine how much trust they put in online services. This study investigates whether users’ security control perceptions arise solely from their predispositions or whether online service providers can influence them. The study also examines whether these seemingly undependable perceptions of security control lead to trust or whether more traditional factors might offer a better explanation of trust under security risks. To address these issues, this study proposes a new theory of security assurance that integrates the frameworks of trust and quality signals. The results show that rather than being guided by predispositions, users appear to mainly assess security control based on indirect cues controlled by service providers. Importantly, Internet users do not treat the credence quality of security the same way they treat qualities that can be understood through search and experience. Although returning users develop security control perceptions and trust from the usual heuristics of ongoing relationships, they also continue to evaluate market information about service providers like they do in new relationships. The proposed model offers a new perspective of how users respond to the uncertain and technically challenging qualities prevalent in online services.     

Promises to keep. An evaluator's perspective on employee assistance programs.

This paper presents a critical review of the rapidly expanding literature concerning employee assistance programs (EAPs). Several essential features of EAPs are identified and the assumptions underlying these components are examined. The latter section of this report offers some tentative suggestions for correcting this situation so that the EAP movement will no longer suffer from the lack of a firm database upon which to build more coherent and defensible theories and programs.     

Political participation: A comparative view of Israeli and American youth

This study explored the ways in which adolescents in Israel and the United States perceived government, politics, and public affairs. A series of open-ended interviews were conducted with approximately 300 high school students in each country immediately prior to the national elections in 1980–1981. Differences were found in regard to the extent to which the young people felt affected by and capable of affecting the larger political system, the extent to which voting was viewed as an important rite of passage to adulthood, and the extent to which they perceived having real choices in candidates and parties, with Israeli youth generally demonstrating more engagement in national governmental affairs. Finally, the conditions and factors that were likely to lead adolescents toward concern, interest, and participation in public affairs were offered.     

The international trade in automobiles: Explaining short-run changes in the import share of the United States market, 1979–1981

This paper examines the underlying causes for the rapid rise of the import share of the U.S. automobile market in the 1979 to 1981 time frame. Using data on the import share by state for the 1975–1979 period, a logit model is developed explaining movements in the import share. The principal purpose is to demonstrate that the rapid growth of the import share was due to a unique set of short-run factors such as constrained U.S. small car production capacity and exceptional consumer preference for fuel efficient automobiles. The sensitivity of the import share to changes in different factors is examined. The article concludes that U.S. policy makers concerned with the long-run viability of the U.S. automobile industry should discriminate between changes in import penetration caused by short-run factors and those caused by a secular deterioration of the U.S. comparative advantage in automobile production.     

Avoiding type III error in program evaluation : Results from a field experiment

A common, yet questionable assumption underlying many evaluations of service intervention programs is that program clients uniformly receive the services purportedly available. The authors draw upon the experience of a randomized field experiment to point out the hazards of that assumption. They found marked differences among clients in the amount of actual service received during participation in the program evaluated. Moreover, the data suggest that program outcomes varied as a function of the amount of service received. These findings are offered as a cautionary note to other evaluators; the amount of service actually received by clients should be accurately recorded and incorporated into the analyses of program outcomes.