Globalization and the Trade in Human Body Parts*

Depuis le début des années 1980, les greffes se sont multipliées tant en nombre qu'en variété, partout dans le monde. L'augmentation s'est accompagnée de l'émergence d'un marché pour les organes humains. Il est soumis dans le présent article que, bien que le marché des organes humains dépende de progrès technologiques, il convient de le considérer dans une perspective plus large, celle de la mondialisation, soit l'extension et l'intensification du mode d'échange capitaliste. De ce point de vue, il est avancé que le commerce des organes humains reflète le système normal d'échanges inégaux qui régit les autres formes de commerce entres régions développées du monde et régions sous-développées. Since the early 1980s, the number and variety of organ transplantations has increased enormously worldwide. Accompanying this increase has been the emergence of a market for human body parts. This paper argues that, while the trade in human body parts is conditioned by technological advances, it must be understood in the broader context of globalization, specifically the extension and intensification of a capitalist mode of exchange. In this regard, it is argued that the trade in human body parts mirrors the “normal” system of unequal exchanges that mark other forms of trade between the developed and undeveloped regions of the world. “If anything is sacred the human being is sacred.” Walt Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric.” “Two dollars for an eyeball, and a buck and a half for an ear.” The Tragically Hip, “Little Bones.”     

Multidimensional scaling on a sphere

Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (MDS) is adapted to give configurations of points that lie on the surface of a sphere.There are data sets where it can be argued that spherical MDS is more relevant than the usual planar MDS.The theory behind the adaption of planar MDS to spherical MDS is outlined and then its use is illustrated on three data sets.     

The Problem,Policy, and Political Streams of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009: Implications for Social Work Practice

Protection from employment discrimination has been a long battle waged by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community and allies. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) of 2009 could provide comprehensive federal protection from employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation. In this article, John Kingdon's framework for policy analysis is used to explore the federal ENDA.     

Turning sexual science into news: sex research and the media.

In this article we report on the findings of a two-part project investigating contemporary issues in sexuality researchers' interaction with journalists. The goal of the project was to explore best practices and suggest curricular and training initiatives for sexuality researchers and journalists that would enhance the accurate dissemination of sexuality research results in the media. We present the results of a survey of a convenience sample of 94 sexuality researchers about their experiences and concerns regarding media coverage and a summary of the main themes that emerged from an invitational conference of sexuality researchers and journalists. In addition, we present some preliminary recommendations for training and best practices. Topics assessed include reporting accuracy; sex researchers' comfort with various topics, media, and journalists; researchers' perceptions of the purpose and content of articles; concern about the impact of media coverage; and training for sexuality researchers.     

Alternative Penalty Functions for Penalized Likelihood Principal Components

The penalized likelihood principal component method of Park (2005) offers flexibility in the choice of the penalty function. This flexibility allows the method to be tailored to enhance interpretation in special cases. Of particular interest is a penalty function in the style of the Lasso that can be used to produce exactly zero loadings. Also of interest is a penalty function for cases in which interpretability is best represented by alignment with orthogonal subspaces, rather than with axis directions. In each case, a data example is presented.     

Simultaneous modelling of multiple traffic safety performance indicators by using a multivariate generalized linear mixed model

Summary.  Traffic safety in the UK is one of the increasing number of areas where central government sets targets based on 'outcome-focused' performance indicators (PIs). Judgments about such PIs are often based solely on rankings of raw indicators and simple league tables dominate centrally published analyses. There is a considerable statistical literature examining health and education issues which has tended to use the generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) to address variability in the data when drawing inferences about relative performance from headline PIs. This methodology could obviously be applied in contexts such as traffic safety. However, when such models are applied to the fairly crude data sets that are currently available, the interval estimates generated, e.g. in respect of rankings, are often too broad to allow much real differentiation between the traffic safety performance of the units that are being considered. Such results sit uncomfortably with the ethos of 'performance management' and raise the question of whether the inference from such data sets about relative performance can be improved in some way. Motivated by consideration of a set of nine road safety performance indicators measured on English local authorities in the year 2000, the paper considers methods to strengthen the weak inference that is obtained from GLMMs of individual indicators by simultaneous, multivariate modelling of a range of related indicators. The correlation structure between indicators is used to reduce the uncertainty that is associated with rankings of any one of the individual indicators. The results demonstrate that credible intervals can be substantially narrowed by the use of the multivariate GLMM approach and that multivariate modelling of multiple PIs may therefore have considerable potential for introducing more robust and realistic assessments of differential performance in some contexts.     

Constructive Social Work and Personal Construct Theory: The Case of Psychological Trauma

The complex and changing relationship between theory and practicein social work has received increasing attention in recent years.Parton (2000) has advocated a constructionist approach thatunderlines the similarity between the roles of the researcherand the practitioner. Personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955)is one member of the constructionist family that has particularimplications for social work practice. It evolved as a pragmaticapproach to psychotherapy, advocating a research supervisor/studentmodel of the practitioner/client relationship. In this article,we elaborate its application to social work practice, drawingon contemporary work in the fields of trauma and loss to illustrateits value.     

Powerless Masters: The Curious Decline of Jamaican Sugar Planters in the Foundational Period of British Abolitionism

This essay focuses on the competing identities that came to be associated with British West Indians during the foundational period of British abolitionism. The essay evaluates the competing images of the West Indian planter class, paying particular attention to how place and time influenced political, cultural and racial perceptions of British planters in the Caribbean. The article addresses the impact that a rising tide of abolitionism in Britain had on perceptions of West Indian planters, and contends that planters became relatively powerless to define their own image in the face of growing abolitionist attacks on slavery.