Individuals v. states: The correlates of Human Rights Committee rulings, 1979-2007

This paper examines the outcomes of individual abuse claims filed against states under the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as decided by the Human Rights Committee (HRC). Results from selection models that account for a country’s initial decision to join the Optional Protocol and an individual’s subsequent decision to file a complaint under it show that the substantive nature of complaints were more determinative of HRC outcomes than were country-level characteristics. Claims relating to due process rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms most often resulted in violations, whereas claims pertaining to discrimination, suffrage rights, and the rights of women and children were much less successful. Only two country-level characteristics robustly affected HRC outcomes, net of rights claims: democratizing countries were found in violation at higher rates than were other countries, while violation rates declined as a function of aggregate wealth.     

Maintenance Orders and Causes for Non-Payment

From the very inadequate statistics kept by courts in the past in England, Canada and especially Australia, it appears that there is a high rate of default in the payment of maintenance for broken families. This article discusses the causes for this situation.     

An Examination of Fieldwork Models at Adelphi University School of Social Work

Practitioners' orientation toward research was compared with that of social work students. Practitioners' views on the importance and usefulness of research were significantly less favorable than those of graduate students in social work and more similar to students at the BSW level; but no differences were found with regard to belief in the unbiased nature of social work research. The differences between the practitioners and graduate students might be a manifestation of the failure of the curriculum to articulate research concepts and methodology in a manner responsive to the realities of practice.     

Electronic markets in support of procurement processes along the automotive supply chain

Since the introduction of the internet, firms have continued to seek ways to use these public networks to gain competitive advantage. The procurement function is beginning to take on greater strategic importance as these networks started providing firms wider opportunities such as choices of suppliers. This aims not only to reduce procurement costs, but also to build stronger relationships with suppliers to improve quality and flexibility in meeting customer demand. This type of linkage of firms with their suppliers when the product manufactured is complex and supply-chain is heavily tiered, such as the case of the automobile industry, creates challenges to any electronic market or exchange that is aiming to support such a system. Based on discussions with some key individuals in an automotive supply chain and an in-depth analysis of a supply-chain segment, this paper explores the role electronic markets may have to play, if they are to support the procurement processes of various agents along the supply chain.     

Measuring performance of two-stage network structures by DEA: A review and future perspective

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a method for measuring the efficiency of peer decision making units (DMUs). An important area of development in recent years has been devoted to applications wherein DMUs represent two-stage or network processes. One particular subset of such processes is those in which all the outputs from the first stage are the only inputs to the second stage. The current paper reviews these models and establishes relations among various approaches. We show that all the existing approaches can be categorized as using either Stackelberg (leader-follower), or cooperative game concepts. Future perspectives and challenges are discussed.     

超越新自由主义高等教育的边界:全球青年的抵抗和美英分裂

对比了美国和欧洲尤其是英国青年反抗新自由主义专制的斗争。首先阐述了新自由主义对高等教育的攻击,其次详细描述学生反对新自由主义专制的表现,提出应该在更宽广的视角下分析青年反抗运动,最后指出了新自由主义意识形态对美国社会和高等教育造成的危害,即消除了批判性性格塑造文化。     

Estimates of per Capita Fish Consumption in the U.S. Based on the Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals (CSFII)

This paper presents estimates of daily average per capita fish consumption by age and gender for the 48 conterminous states. The estimated consumption rates are reported for three fish habitats: freshwater/estuarine fish, marine fish, and all fish. The estimates were generated from the combined 1989, 1990, and 1991 Continuing Survey of Food Intake by Individuals (CSFII), a national food consumption survey conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Point and interval estimates of per capita fish consumption were generated from the empirical distribution of daily average per capita consumption. The point estimates include the mean, 50th, 75th, 90th, 95th, and 99th percentiles. Ninety percent confidence intervals are provided for the estimated mean and 90% bootstrap intervals are provided for percentile estimates. Information in a recipe file provided by USDA was used to calculate the amount of fish in recipes which contain fish. The estimated consumption rates are based on the weight of fish in its prepared or "as consumed" condition. The estimated mean consumption rate for all fish for the U.S. population of the 48 conterminous states was 15.65 grams/person/day (C.I.:14.67–16.63) of which 4.71 grams/person/day (C.I.:4.17–5.25) was freshwater/estuarine fish and 10.94 grams/person/day (C.I.: 10.14–11.73) was marine fish.