Comment on Bermingham's Summary of the U.N.'s Year 2000 Replacement Migration,Is it a Solution to Declining Population and Aging?

The UN's solicitousness for developed countries because of the possibility of their being depopulated seems disingenuous. In fact, developed countries are typically the losers from vast immigrant flows, and the underdeveloped countries that rid themselves of excess population are the gainers.     

Exploring U.S. Social Work Students’ Sexual Attitudes and Abortion Viewpoints

Social workers frequently engage with sexual and reproductive health topics, yet a notable paucity of social work research exists regarding abortion. Informed by overlapping theoretical frameworks of human rights and reproductive justice, this study examined a large, nationwide survey of social work students in the United States (N = 504). Linear regressions indicated that students’ endorsements of permissive sexual attitudes and support for birth control are inversely associated with holding anti-choice abortion views. Moreover, distinct relationships were found among sociodemographic characteristics and abortion attitudes and knowledge, suggesting that social work education efforts regarding contentious reproductive and sexual health topics should also focus on nuances of cultural competence and diversity, as well as general human rights principles and professional ethics.     

Moral Schemas in Articulation and Intuition: How Religious People Evaluate Human Reproductive Genetic Technologies

As new and more effective human reproductive genetic technologies (RGTs) rapidly develop, religious voices remain an important part of public discussion about the moral standing of such technologies. Here, we compare how individuals from different religious traditions evaluate disease RGTs (detecting genetic diseases in vitro) when compared to enhancement RGTs, allowing parents to select features of a child. Findings are gleaned from analysis of 270 interviews with individuals from 23 Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religious organizations, with supporting data from a national survey of more than 10,000 Americans. We find that respondents engage in clearly defined discursive moral reasoning to evaluate the propriety of disease RGTs while moral intuitions manifest themselves in responses to enhancement RGTs. We argue that schemas provide resources for moral discourses while also shaping moral intuitions expressed through emotions. Our results have implications for how religious people respond to new technologies when their institutional and denominational structures do not have readily discernable moral frameworks to guide responses.     

Exploring Infant Gesture and Joint Attention as Related Constructs and as Predictors of Later Language

In infancy, use of gesture and the ability to engage in joint attention with others both predict later language development. Conceptually, gesture and joint attention abilities may reflect a similar underlying social‐communicative skill. However, these abilities are often studied separately. Despite the fact that gesture is often used in episodes of joint attention, little is known about the degree to which measures of gesture use and joint attention ability are associated with one another or how they similarly, or differentially, predict children's language abilities. Participants in this study were 53 infants. At 12 months, multiple measures of infants’ gesture use were gleaned from a free–play interaction with a parent. Infants’ responding to and initiating joint attention were measured via the Early Social‐Communicative Scales (Mundy et al., 2003). Infants’ expressive and receptive language was measured at 24 months with the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (Mullen, 1995). A factor analysis including gesture and joint attention measures indicated that at 12 months, joint attention, particularly responding to joint attention, reflects a similar underlying construct with infant gesture use, yet they uniquely predict later language ability.     

La formation en cours d'emploi en Europe: déterminants et effets sur les salaires

Partant des données du Panel communautaire de ménages (PCM) pour la période 1995–2001 dans six pays, les auteurs étudient les déterminants des activités de formation et les effets de celle‐ci sur les salaires. A partir de quatre indicateurs caractérisant la formation, ils montrent que, si les estimations par la méthode des moindres carrés ordinaires indiquent que, presque partout, la formation valorise substantiellement les salaires, les estimations avec effets fixes font apparaǐtre une incidence quasi nulle. Les effets sur les salaires seraient donc surestimés faute de prise en compte adéquate de la corrélation entre la formation et d'autres facteurs affectant les salaires.     

Everyday discrimination,emotion, and daily interactions during adolescence

The present study examined whether everyday discrimination relates to the frequency of adolescents' positive and negative daily social interactions and whether these associations are driven by anger and positive emotion. Adolescents (N = 334) participated in a three-wave longitudinal study, in which they completed surveys regarding everyday discrimination, anger, and positive emotion, as well as 15 daily reports of conflict and getting along with friends and family. Higher everyday discrimination was related to more daily conflicts and fewer experiences of getting along with other people. Longitudinal models also provided preliminary evidence that everyday discrimination was associated with daily conflicts 4 years later indirectly through anger. Overall, results suggest everyday discrimination relates to adolescents' daily experiences, potentially through differences in emotion.     

Practice Guidelines In Child Custody Evaluations for Licensed Clinical Social Workers

Child custody evaluations and decisions are often complicated and emotionally charged. The following guidelines are offered as a framework for clinical social workers who are asked by the judicial system to undertake these evaluations. The historical background of child custody and the theoretical considerations that have guided the courts are reviewed. The traditional areas of consideration and the empirical data related to these areas are examined. The guidelines present pertinent information regarding ethical considerations, parent–child relationship, parenting style, gender issues, parental conflict, parental alienation, domestic violence, race, religion, sexual preferences, geography, parental psychopathology, substance abuse, child’s preference, physical health of the child, and behavioral health of the child. A format for the evaluation process is described and includes the role of the clinician, confidentiality, fees, and review of documents, interviewing, home visits, psychological testing, and the actual written report. Making recommendations to the court regarding child custody is an area of practice that clinical social workers encounter in ever-increasing numbers. Clinical social workers are called upon to give recommendations regarding child custody in neglect or abuse cases, in termination of parental rights proceedings, and in the area divorce and of guardianship. In an effort to provide clinicians with scientifically grounded parameters for rendering these recommendations, the following guidelines are recommended. These guidelines provide a framework of scientific principles, along with established and accepted clinical practice, to enhance the practitioner’s decision making in these challenging and complicated cases. The guidelines are specifically designed for clinical social workers doing custody evaluations in cases of marital divorce and are restricted to that area of practice.     

Drug discovery in neurodegenerative diseases

This meeting report documents the exciting ongoing research aimed at developing new therapeutic agents for neurodegenerative diseases at the interface between academia and industry, and illustrates the direction the NIH "roadmap" for medical research is taking. Some of the projects have resulted in very promising drugs, identified and developed by academic centers, entering clinical trials.