Union magazines’ coverage of the NAFTA controversy before congressional approval

Congressional consideration of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 drew intense labor lobbying. Unions acted to motivate members to contact their representatives and senators, including use of their magazines as advocacy and informational tools. Union magazines, which are littlestudied but potentially influential advocacy tools, attacked the pact and urged readers to take political action. Their coverage focused on jobrelated critiques, especially predictions of a job drain to Mexico and lower wages for U.S. workers. Much less attention went to environmental and other perceived flaws of NAFTA. Language in those articles was frequently more heated than in the mainstream media.     

AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF CONGRESSIONAL TERM LIMITS

We examine the impact of a six-term tenure limit on members of the U.S. House of Representatives. The first part of this study develops a methodological framework for simulating the quantitative impact of term limits. The second part of this study uses this framework to estimate the effects of term limits on (i) the value of holding office, (ii) turnover, and (iii) the size of the Democratic majority in the House. Both steady-state and transition period effects are explored.     

Estimation of a multivariate mean with constraints on the norm

Estimation of the mean θ of a spherical distribution with prior knowledge concerning the norm ||θ|| is considered. The best equivariant estimator is obtained for the local problem ||θ|| = λ₀, and its risk is evaluated. This yields a sharp lower bound for the risk functions of a large class of estimators. The risk functions of the best equivariant estimator and the best linear estimator are compared under departures from the assumption ||θ|| = λ₀.     

Explaining the Third Sector in South Korea

The paper presents the main characteristics and the distinctive nature of the South Korean third sector compared to most Western countries. Differences are explained in terms of cultural embededdness and political embededdness—in particular with respect to the import of Confucianism (or neo-Confucianism) and of human rights abuse in articulation with a strong ideology of anticommunism that has been developed by a succession of dictatorial regimes since the end of the Japanese colonization of Korea. The paper concludes by highlighting positive factors for the future development of the third sector in Korea.     

Maternal Depressive Symptoms and 6‐Month‐Old Infants' Sensitivity to Facial Expressions

We examined 6‐month‐old infants' abilities to discriminate smiling and frowning from neutral stimuli. In addition, we assessed the relationship between infants' preferences for varying intensities of smiling and frowning facial expressions and their mothers' history of depressive symptoms. Forty‐six infants were presented pairs of facial expressions, and their preferential looking time was recorded. They also participated in a 3‐min interaction with their mothers for which duration of both mother and infant gazing and smiling were coded. Analyses revealed that the infants reliably discriminated between varying intensities of smiling and frowning facial expressions and a paired neutral expression. In addition, infants' preferences for smiling and frowning expressions were related to self‐reports of maternal depressive symptoms experienced since the birth of the infant. Potential implications for social cognitive development are discussed.     

Estimating likelihoods for spatio-temporal models using importance sampling

This paper describes how importance sampling can be applied to estimate likelihoods for spatio-temporal stochastic models of epidemics in plant populations, where observations consist of the set of diseased individuals at two or more distinct times. Likelihood computation is problematic because of the inherent lack of independence of the status of individuals in the population whenever disease transmission is distance-dependent. The methods of this paper overcome this by partitioning the population into a number of sectors and then attempting to take account of this dependence within each sector, while neglecting that between-sectors. Application to both simulated and real epidemic data sets show that the techniques perform well in comparison with existing approaches. Moreover, the results confirm the validity of likelihood estimates obtained elsewhere using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.     

Cultural responsiveness in substance-abuse treatment: a qualitative study using professionals' and clients' perspectives

As a result of the growing number of ethnic and cultural minority clients in substance-abuse treatment during the last decades, a culturally responsive approach has become more and more imperative. In this article the statements (n = 1330) of professionals (n = 11) and clients (n = 11) representing the substance-abuse treatment centres in the region of Ghent and its suburbs (Belgium) are analysed. In focus are the specific treatment needs of ethnically and culturally diverse substance-abusing clients and the difficulties consequent to treating this target group. Possible approaches to overcoming these difficulties are highlighted and elaborated by means of semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The participants in the study stress the importance of an integrated approach, with special attention given to the factors that can promote or jeopardise treatment.     

Racial and Ethnic Residential Patterns in Canada

The aim of this study is to understand how city factors explain racial and ethnic residential patterns in contemporary multiethnic cities. We examined residential patterns among 17 groups in 12 Canadian cities. The results suggest that we should be cautious in taking factors derived from literature based largely on European experiences at the beginning of the last century and applying them uniformly to different groups in Canadian multiethnic cities. Our results show that the residential segregation of different racial and ethnic groups is affected by different sets of city factors. In addition, most factors suggested in that literature do not relate to the segregation patterns among visible minority groups.