The 'best interests of the child' thesis: some thoughts from Australia

In the 36 years since the 1973 publication of ' Beyond the Best Interests of the Child ' by Goldstein, Freud and Solnit, the phase 'the best interests of the child' has achieved biblical standing and is now embedded in childcare and protection legislation worldwide. It also resonates through clinical reports and other materials that form the basis for proceedings in Children's Courts and in Family Law Courts. Such is the power of the phrase that it is to be found in Article 18 of the Convention on the Rights of Children that was adopted by the United Nations in September 1989. In 1996, Goldstein, Solnit and Goldstein, with Freud, indicated a preference for the phrase 'least detrimental alternative' rather than 'the best interests of the child'. For this reason, and because the world in 2009 is a far different place from that which existed 36 years ago, we think it is time to re-examine this classic phrase both in terms of its underlying thesis and how it is used in present-day childcare and protection proceedings and practice.     

Health-Based Screening Levels to Evaluate U.S. Geological Survey Ground water Quality Data

Federal and state drinking-water standards and guidelines do not exist for many contaminants analyzed by the U.S. Geological Survey's National Water-Quality Assessment Program, limiting the ability to evaluate the potential human-health relevance of water-quality findings. Health-based screening levels (HBSLs) were developed collaboratively to supplement existing drinking-water standards and guidelines as part of a six-year, multi-agency pilot study. The pilot study focused on ground water samples collected prior to treatment or blending in areas of New Jersey where groundwater is the principal source of drinking water. This article describes how HBSLs were developed and demonstrates the use of HBSLs as a tool for evaluating water-quality data in a human-health context. HBSLs were calculated using standard U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) methodologies and toxicity information. New HBSLs were calculated for 12 of 32 contaminants without existing USEPA drinking-water standards or guidelines, increasing the number of unregulated contaminants (those without maximum contaminant levels (MCLs)) with human-health benchmarks. Concentrations of 70 of the 78 detected contaminants with human-health benchmarks were less than MCLs or HBSLs, including all 12 contaminants with new HBSLs, suggesting that most contaminant concentrations were not of potential human-health concern. HBSLs were applied to a state-scale groundwater data set in this study, but HBSLs also may be applied to regional and national evaluations of water-quality data. HBSLs fulfill a critical need for federal, state, and local agencies, water utilities, and others who seek tools for evaluating the occurrence of contaminants without drinking-water standards or guidelines.     

Infants' ERP Responses to Novel and Familiar Stimuli Change Over Time: Implications for Novelty Detection and Memory

Detection of novelty is an important cognitive ability early in development, when infants must learn a great deal about their world. Work with adults has identified networks of brain areas involved in novelty detection; this study investigated electrophysiological correlates of detection of novelty and recognition of familiarity in 9‐month‐old infants, using event‐related potentials (ERPs). Infants were familiarized with an event in the laboratory, then ERPs were recorded as they viewed repeated presentations of pictures of this familiar event and a novel event, along with single presentations of 30 trial‐unique events. A middle‐latency negative component was sensitive to degree of novelty, differing in amplitude and latency by stimulus condition and across repeated presentations. Long‐latency slow‐wave activity also related to stimulus condition. Findings have implications for our understanding of infants' detection of novel information and the processes that render the novel familiar.     

Radical Outcasts versus Three Kinds of Police: Constructing Limits in Japanese Anti-Emperor Protests

Field observation of anti-emperor protests in Japan reveals two key processes through which the interaction of police and demonstrators gradually narrows the limits of permitted dissent through soft repression. The first process stigmatizes demonstration participants and sharply separates them from the mainstream of Japanese public life, discouraging public attention to or participation in their causes. The second process divides protest movements internally, decreasing support for groups that operate at the prevailing limit of tolerated dissent, and gradually constricting the limit itself. Great variability in police-demonstrator interactions within demonstrations suggests the limitations of newspaper content analysis methods for such research. Patricia Steinhoff is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawaii. A Japan specialist who studies Japanese radical left groups, she is the author or editor of twelve books, including three in Japanese, and eighty articles and book chapters. Recent publications include Doing fieldwork in Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2003), which she co-edited with Theodore Bestor and Victoria Lyon Bestor, and “Kidnapped Japanese in North Korea: The New Left connection” Journal of Japanese Studies 30:1, Winter, 2004, pp. 123–142.     

中国高校外语教学刍议

长期以来,中国的外语教学都是把听、说、读、写等基本技能分隔成相对独立的板块来实施的.因此,就有了口语、听力、写作、泛读和精读等诸多课程.在外语教学中最终将采用集各种技能为一体的整体教学思路和方法.其使用和完善将极大地促进中国的外语教学.     

Factors Impacting Group Long-Term Care Insurance Enrollment Decisions

This paper examines factors that influence whether or not employees choose to enroll in a group long-term care insurance plan. A conceptual family decision-making framework is used to group factors to study the enrollment decision of 509 state employees who were offered a long-term care insurance plan in 2000. Logistic regression results revealed that employee age, perceived risk, perceived affordability, decision-making style (communication with others and use of information), goals of control and choice, goal of financial peace of mind, household income, and potential caregiver availability explained 68.7% of the decision to enroll. Results support the key role of perception, specifically the perceived risk of needing long-term care and the affordability of the insurance plan, in the decision outcome.     

Skin Cancer and Inorganic Arsenic: Uncertainty-Status of Risk

The current U.S. EPA standard for inorganic arsenic in drinking water is 50 ppb (μg/L), dating to the National Interim Primary Drinking Water Regulation of 1976. The current EPA risk analysis predicts an increased lifetime skin cancer risk on the order of 3 or 4 per 1000 from chronic exposure at that concentration. Revision of the standard to only a few ppb, perhaps even less than 1 ppb, may be indicated by the EPA analysis to reduce the lifetime risk to an acceptable level. The cost to water utilities, and ultimately to their consumers, to conform to such a large reduction in the standard could easily reach several billion dollars, so it is particularly important to assess accurately the current risk and the risk reduction that would be achieved by a lower standard. This article addresses the major sources of uncertainty in the EPA analysis with respect to this objective. Specifically, it focuses on uncertainty and variability in the exposure estimates for the landmark study of Tseng and colleagues in Taiwan, analyzed using a reconstruction of the their exposure data. It is concluded that while the available dataset is suitable to establish the hazard of skin cancer, it is too highly summarized for reliable dose-response assessment. A new epidemiologic study is needed, designed for the requirements of dose-response assessment.     

Determinants of Scholarly Productivity among Male and Female Economists

A model of the determinants of articles produced by male and female economists is estimated using data from a survey of members of the American Economics Association. Years of experience, coauthorship rates, gender, research-teaching orientation of the respondent's institution, and teaching loads are shown to be important estimators. Coauthorship appears to increase the overall production of articles and may help explain why collaboration among economists has increased in recent years. Males produce, on average, about seven more articles than females, with approximately 59% of gender-specific differentials left unexplained by the variables included in the model. (JEL JØ )     

Implications of work and community resources and demands for marital quality

Based on a resources and demands approach, this study explores the effects of time in paid work, level of community participation, and work and community subjective resources and demands on three components of marital quality: activities with spouse, marital disagreements, and marital happiness. The analysis is based on data from 1,033 married dual-earner parents with a child aged 10-17 interviewed for the 1992-1994 US National Survey of Families and Households. The results indicate that fathers with the lowest levels of paid work hours and participation in community-professional organizations have the highest level of activities with spouses. A similar result is found for mothers with the lowest levels of participation in religious organizations and organized youth activities. Mothers' and fathers' community satisfaction is positively associated with two components of marital quality, whereas negative work spillover and economic strain show negative relationships with all three components. The paper is a first step in understanding the combined effects of work and community resources and demands on marital quality. Basée sur une approche de ressources et d'exigences, cette étude analyse les effets du temps sur le travail rémunéré, le niveau de participation à la communauté et les ressources subjectives du travail et de la communauté et des exigences sur trois composantes de la fonction conjugale: les activités avec le conjoint, les désagréments conjugaux et le bonheur conjugal. L'analyse se base sur les données de 1,033 parents mariés tous deux exerçant une profession et ayant un enfant entre 10 et 17 ans, interrogés pour l'étude Nationale des Familles et des Foyers aux états-Unis pour la période 1992-1994. Les résultats indiquent que les pères avec les niveaux les plus bas d'heures de travail rémunérés et de participation aux organisations de la communauté professionnelles ont le niveau le plus élevé d'activités avec leurs épouses. Un résultat similaire a été trouvé pour les mères ayant les niveaux les plus bas de participation à des organisations religieuses et des activités de jeunesse organisées. La satisfaction communautaire des mères et des pères est positivement associée aux deux composantes de la fonction conjugale, alors que les retombées d'un emploi négatif et la crise économique montrent les relations négatives avec toutes les trois composantes. Le document est un premier pas dans la compréhension des effets combinés du travail et des ressources et des exigences de la communauté sur la fonction conjugale.