THE PERSISTENCE OF POLITICAL ATTITUDES AMONG 1960s CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

A scattering of recent research has studied the current politicalbeliefs and attitudes of individuals identified as "1960s activists."In contrast to much of the treatment accorded such people inthe popular media, this research tends to find most of theseactivists currently liberal on a wide variety of political topics.However, in the absence of panel data, most of this researchhas had to assess any change in the activists' attitudes eitherby assuming the activists' past positions or by trusting totheir retrospective reports. In this paper we report on panel data from a large group ofwhite activists, mostly students, who spent the summer of 1965organizing voter registration drives in Southern black communities.In some specific areas on which the activists tended to holdrather extreme positions in 1965, they may have moderated by1984. However, their overall pattern of response on a wide varietyof issues is basically stable over this twenty-year period.     

Religion and the Representative Anecdote: Replacement and Revenge in AMC’s The Walking Dead

The current study examines how the horror-based AMC television series The Walking Dead portrays religion in terms of a reframing of the role, if any, of faith in a higher power, and the portrayal of the faithful. The religious-themed discourse of this highly successful story about survivors of a zombie apocalypse as presented through dialogic and visual imagery serves as the text analyzed here; specifically, related episodes set in churches at two separate points in the series that combine to offer a metaphor of “structure” used to disassemble and reconstruct the role of religion. These episodes interlace religious themes to develop an overarching message that forms a representative anecdote of replacement in which the notion of “faith” becomes redefined.     

Impact of an Overt Response System on Staff Performance and Maintenance of Computer-Based Instruction

Interactive Computer Based Instruction (CBI) systems involve teaching strategies to facilitate greater response opportunities during training in an effort to improve learner performance. The current study investigated the effect of online staff training videos with and without overt response requirements on posttest and maintenance test scores across six block-randomized instructional modules for four employees of a university located in the southeastern region of the United States. The overt response consisted of multiple-choice questions administered throughout select teaching modules using an alternating treatment design. Findings suggest that learning occurred as a result of the CBI training; however, the effectiveness of the overt response system varied across individuals, with no discernible differentiation between learning gains associated with response requirements. Other areas of research for expanding the efficacy of CBI and overt response systems are highlighted.     

Testing the Effectiveness of Fundraiser Job Titles in Charitable Bequest and Complex Gift Planning

Traditional fundraiser job titles are often institution centered, focusing on the benefits of fundraising as “institutional advancement” or “institutional development.” Such institution‐centered job titles may not be as effective with donors given the modern shift toward donor‐centered philanthropy. Alternative job titles can be gift centered (for example, “major gifts”) or donor centered (for example, “donor advising”). A survey of 3,188 respondents tested sixty‐three job titles in four charitable scenarios: a charitable bequest gift, a gift of stock, a gift of real estate, and a charitable gift annuity. Measured by which person donors would be more likely to contact to discuss each donation, the worst‐performing titles were the traditional institution‐focused fundraiser job titles, in particular those using “advancement,” “institutional advancement,” or “development.” This was also true when examining only respondents who had made large gifts ($500+) to a charity. Traditional institution‐focused job titles are both the most commonly used and the worst performing. Nonprofit managers may do well to consider the donor's perspective when selecting job titles for fundraisers rather than following traditional industry practices.     

IMMIGRANTS IN THE NEW SOUTH: AN INTRODUCTION

This study analyzes (1) the effects of affluence perception on anomia and (2) the importance of affluence perception as an intervening variable interpreting the effects of race, education, and income on anomia. The analysis uses survey data from a probability sample of adults in Hamilton County (Cincinnati), Ohio. Affluence perception is found to be positively related to anomia and to account for part of the effects of race, education, and income on anomia. The three demographic variables, however, have stronger independent effects on anomia that cannot be accounted for by perception of affluence.     

Development of a Screening Approach to Interpret Human Biomonitoring Data on Volatile Organic Compounds: Reverse Dosimetry on Biomonitoring Data for Trichloroethylene

A screening approach is developed for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to estimate exposures that correspond to levels measured in fluids and/or tissues in human biomonitoring studies. The approach makes use of a generic physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model coupled with exposure pattern characterization, Monte Carlo analysis, and quantitative structure property relationships (QSPRs). QSPRs are used for VOCs with minimal data to develop chemical-specific parameters needed for the PBPK model. The PBPK model is capable of simulating VOC kinetics following multiple routes of exposure, such as oral exposure via water ingestion and inhalation exposure during shower events. Using published human biomonitoring data of trichloroethylene (TCE), the generic model is evaluated to determine how well it estimates TCE concentrations in blood based on the known drinking water concentrations. In addition, Monte Carlo analysis is conducted to characterize the impact of the following factors: (1) uncertainties in the QSPR-estimated chemical-specific parameters; (2) variability in physiological parameters; and (3) variability in exposure patterns. The results indicate that uncertainty in chemical-specific parameters makes only a minor contribution to the overall variability and uncertainty in the predicted TCE concentrations in blood. The model is used in a reverse dosimetry approach to derive estimates of TCE concentrations in drinking water based on given measurements of TCE in blood, for comparison to the U.S. EPA's Maximum Contaminant Level in drinking water. This example demonstrates how a reverse dosimetry approach can be used to facilitate interpretation of human biomonitoring data in a health risk context by deriving external exposures that are consistent with a biomonitoring data set, thereby permitting comparison with health-based exposure guidelines.     

Knowledge and Attitudes of University Health Service Clients about Genital Herpes: Implications for Patient Education and Counseling

Abstract

Genital herpes virus infection is an important target for health education efforts because of its apparently rising incidence in the college student population and because it can have potentially serious psychological as well as medical consequences. In order to better understand the health education and counseling needs of students, the present study surveyed knowledge and attitudes about genital herpes of 190 university students using a gynecology clinic and of 161 students using a general medical clinic. The students were found to have a high degree of familiarity with the disease, its cause, and mode of transmission, but tended to view the consequences of the disease as more severe than is actually warranted by the common medical complications. There was some degree of misinformation about prevention and treatment of the disease and some negative attitudes about patients suffering from it, but the survey respondents endorsed a high level of responsible behavior with regard to the disease and expressed some optimism about the possibility of adapting to it. These findings suggest specific misconceptions about genital herpes that might be amenable to a mass education approach. They also suggest the need for a counseling program that centers around reasonable reassurance and appropriately positive psychological and medical management for newly diagnosed patients.     

Modeling large electorates with Fourier series, with applications to Nash equilibria in proximity and directional models of spatial competition

 In this paper we introduce harmonic analysis (Fourier series) as a tool for characterizing the existence of Nash equilibria in two-dimensional spatial majority rule voting games with large electorates. We apply our methods both to traditional proximity models and to directional models. In the latter voters exhibit preferences over directions rather than over alternatives, per se. A directional equilibrium can be characterized as a Condorcet direction, in analogy to the Condorcet (majority) winner in the usual voting models, i.e., a direction which is preferred by a majority to (or at least is not beaten by) any other direction. We provide a parallel treatment of the total median condition for equilibrium under proximity voting and equilibrium conditions for directional voting that shows that the former result is in terms of a strict equality (a knife-edge result very unlikely to hold) while the latter is in terms of an inequality which is relatively easy to satisfy. For the Matthews [3] directional model and a variant of the Rabinowitz and Macdonald [7] directional model, we present a sufficiency condition for the existence of a Condorcet directional vector in terms of the odd-numbered components of the Fourier series representing the density distribution of the voter points. We interpret our theoretical results by looking at real-world voter distributions and direction fields among voter points derived from U.S. and Norwegian survey data. Received: 7 July 1995 / Accepted: 14 May 1996