The Marginalization of Nonresident Fathers: Their Postdivorce Roles

ABSTRACT

A sample of 260 Australian men were surveyed about their experience as nonresident fathers and their contact with their children. Most reported having little input into decisions concerning children's postseparation living arrangements, the amount of child support they paid, and the spending of their child support payments. Many claimed to have very limited say in any parenting decisions, and little or no involvement in children's schools. Fathers' limited parental role was found to be negatively correlated with their ongoing contact and involvement with children, and positively with their reported level of interparental hostility. Many respondents viewed their marginalization as parents as an impediment to their capacity to develop meaningful relationships with their children.     

Least Absolute Regression Revisited

We describe a method for fitting a least absolute residual (LAR) line through a set of two–dimensional points. The algorithm is based on a labeling technique derived from linear programming. It is suited for interactive data analysis and can be carried out with graph paper and a programmable hand calculator. Tests conducted with a Pascal program indicate that the algorithm is computationally efficient.     

A fourier integral density estimate: a Monte Carlo study

Davis (1977) proposed the use of a kernel density estimate which is the sample characteristic function integrated over (-A(n) , A(n)), where A(n) is chosen to minimize the mean integrated square error of the estimate. The scalar, A(n), is determined by the sample size and the population characteristic function. This paper investigates, in a Monte Carlo study, the mean integrated square error obtained under a procedure suggested by Davis (1977) for estimating A(n) when the population characteristic function is unknown.     

Extractive Regimes: Toward a Better Understanding of Indonesian Development

This article proposes the concept of an extractive regime to understand Indonesia's developmental trajectory from 1966 to 1998. The concept contributes to world‐systems, globalization, and commodity‐based approaches to understanding peripheral development. An extractive regime is defined by its reliance on extraction of multiple natural resources in the formation of an economic and political order that is also supported by global and regional forces. After elaborating the concept of an extractive regime, the article illustrates it through examination of Indonesia's developmental trajectory from its formation in the post–World War II era to its firm establishment during Suharto's New Order. Although a comprehensive study would necessitate attention to the full panoply of commodities, the study illustrates some of the workings of the extractive regime in the timber and fisheries sectors, which share spatial extensivity and other characteristics. The article concludes by considering the future of the extractive regime in Indonesia amid democratization and continued class domination and by offering suggestions for further application, specification, and extension of the extractive regime concept.     

Improving communication via quantitative management

Villa Soft Drinks Ltd, established in 1884, manufactures and bottles spring waters and carbonates for both the growing adult soft drinks market and the more traditional soft drinks market. The company employs just over 100 people split between the manufacturing site in Sunderland and the head office and distribution centre in Washington. One of the fundamental problems affecting the day-to-day running of Villa, and most companies, is communication. There is a lack of awareness of the impact that changes in one department have on other departments (e.g. if production efficiency is increased by 10%, what impact will this have on warehousing?). Villa had recently identified key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor all aspects of manufacturing performance on a regular basis. This enabled the current production situation to be evaluated and helped familiarize staff with charts and measurements. The use of Pareto analysis and problem solving techniques helped to boost efficiency and utilization. Key performance indicators were then developed in most other departments and are monitored and displayed regularly. The KPIs can be used further to improve transparency across the company by incorporating them in an interactive, interpretative tool to aid communication and understanding at all levels of the company. Individual departmental flow diagrams will be linked together to represent how the company operates. The diagrams will include both material flow and information flow. These data will then be organized in a software package and the end result will be a fully integrated simulation of the company in which any variable can be altered to demonstrate the effect this has on other departments and therefore the company as a whole. This will be an extremely valuable tool for the company as it will have many different applications, such as calculating manning requirements, identifying potential cycle time reductions and optimizing warehouse space.     

Talking identity in the public sphere: Broad visions and small spaces in sexual identity politics

Theory and Society -     

Transnational spaces of exclusion in Glasgow: multi-story,photography and spatial practices

Mobilising what Jean-Marie Floch calls the semiotic square, this article explores the transition from ‘this thing’ (the car itself) to ‘that thing’ (the car in the advertisement) and what the concomitant transitivity between a global brand and a national culture can entail through a close textual analysis of British television and poster publicity for the Renault Clio, and in particular for the Clio III. Organised around the ludic rheme, ‘Twice the Va Va Voom’ and the critical valorisation, ‘French Car, British Designers’, the advertising campaign, launched in 2005, elaborates a double-code that sets up the idea of ‘country-of-origin’ as a contest, pitting Britain, in the guise of Ben, against France, in the guise of Sophie. Accordingly, I want to deal with the tension between sameness and difference in Anglo-French relations that the verbal and visual rhetoric of the publicity connotes in the context of the ‘entente cordiale’. I take into account its deployment of cultural stereotypes, addressing sex and gender identities, white nationalism and white foreignness, and the racial blind spots of the advertisement in comparison to the preceding ‘Va Va Voom’ campaign, which starred the black footballer Thierry Henry. At the same time, as we observe Ben and Sophie driving their respective Clios around London and Paris in the television advertisement, and the conjunction of London and Paris signified in the poster, the city is objectified as a kind of meeting point or passage for the negotiation of new social relations and networks that enunciate the transition from political to commercial globalism in the Single European Market.     

SEQUENTIAL JUDGMENT EFFECTS IN THE WORKPLACE: EVIDENCE FROM THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION

This study investigates the impact of past performance evaluations on future decisions involving judgment. I analyze the decisions of highly skilled and highly monitored referees regarding offensive fouls and violations in the National Basketball Association. After testing for equilibrium adjustments in player behavior, findings support a hypothesis of increased referee scrutiny on one team following a potentially questionable call on the opposing team. Results are inconclusive for subsequent changes in scrutiny toward the original violating team. The analysis provides a nonexperimental test of sequential bias on elite employees working under strict performance standards, and suggests a likely role for sequential judgment effects in other areas of economic activity. (JEL D03, L83, J44, M59)