THE PROFESSIONAL FARMER

The Australian farmer faces important and interconnected management challenges on both the economic and ecological fronts. To confront these challenges effectively, farmers would be well advised to constitute themselves as a professional body along the lines of the Bar Association. Making farming a professional activity in this sense would provide a number of important benefits and advantages. It would facilitate the provision and delivery of the needed educational resources for economic and ecological land management, and help farmers avoid the pressures of heavy‐handed government centralism. At the same time, such professionalism would encourage more efficient use of sector resources by minimising the need for direct political lobbying and intra‐farm group competition for membership. As a professional body, farmers could hope for increased public standing and the economic clout that would come from having control over the supply of skilled land managers.     

Infra-humanization: The Wall of Group Differences

Infra-humanizing outgroups involves considering outgroups less human and more animal-like than the ingroup, which is perceived, in essence, as fully human. In this article, the first section presents the theoretical background of infra-humanization and distinguishes it from related concepts, such as dehumanization. The three basic hypotheses of the theory are then presented with a summary of empirical evidence. Social implications follow. Reasons for the pervasiveness of the phenomenon are examined as well as conditions that lead a specific outgroup to be infra-humanized. We also explore the consequences of infra-humanization, such as a lack of forgiveness for the outgroup and the ingroup's justification for past misdeeds against the outgroup, rather than guilt. Policy issues center on ways to combat essentialism, walls of difference between groups, and irrational symbols of superiority. The roles of egalitarian values and of deprovincialized intergroup contact are emphasized.     

Strategic technology alliance termination: An empirical investigation

There is growing consensus that overall alliance termination rates are high. However, despite this track record of termination and despite unsurpassed growth rates of strategic technology alliances, little is known about the reasons for their termination. Typically strategic alliances have been characterized as inherently instable, i.e. often involving unplanned and premature termination of the alliance by partnering firms indicating alliance failure. The literature on strategic technology alliances, however, proposes that alliance termination does not always indicate failure, but can be intended and can be a sign of strength. We examine these different perceptions by using a sample of 48 strategic technology alliances in different high-technology industries. The findings in the paper confirm that the rates of termination are rather high for strategic technology alliances. Overall, we found that in particular negative prospects about future cooperation, negative perceptions about joint benefits and the lack of a win-win situation had an impact on the decision to terminate a strategic technology alliance. Also, the fact that some companies opt only for short-term (not for long-term and renewed) cooperation seems to introduce a negative factor into the longevity of strategic technology alliances.     

The Impact of Elder Abuse Education on Young Adults

The present study examined the effectiveness of educational interventions in altering tolerance for and behavioral intentions of elder abuse among college student young adults. Participants were 225 undergraduates who were assigned to one of four educational groups: Elder Abuse Education, Aging Education, Family Education, and a Pre- and Posttest only condition. While the Elder Abuse Education group reported less tolerance and intentions for elder abuse compared to the other groups at the immediate posttest, a decrement in such positive changes at 1-month follow-up was observed in such persons. These mixed findings suggest that while specific interventions may reduce elder abuse tolerance, supplemental educational efforts over time may be necessary to maintain intervention-specific gains in intentions and behaviors particular to elder abuse.     

Commentary on “a methodology for identifying married couples in medicare data”*

Authors of an article appearing recently in Demography propose a retrospective method to identify husband-wife pairs in administrative records. Although their premise is correct, they over-state the power of their methodology. The error stems from a misunderstanding of how persons entitled to both primary and secondary social security benefits are classified in program data. A retrospective look four years after the reference data shows that the number of pairs is increased by less than 10%, not by more than 50%, as the authors claim.     

Asymptotic normality of the deconvolution kernel density estimator under the vanishing error variance

Let $X_1,\dots ,X_n$ be i.i.d. observations, where $X_i=Y_i+{\sigma }_n{Z}_i$ and the $Y$’s and $Z$’s are independent. Assume that the $Y$’s are unobservable and that they have the density $f$ and also that the $Z$’s have a known density $k$. Furthermore, let ${\sigma }_n$ depend on $n$ and let ${\sigma }_n\to 0$ as $n\to \infty$. We consider the deconvolution problem, i.e. the problem of estimation of the density $f$ based on the sample $X_1,\dots ,X_n$. A popular estimator of $f$ in this setting is the deconvolution kernel density estimator. We derive its asymptotic normality under two different assumptions on the relation between the sequence ${\sigma }_n$ and the sequence of bandwidths $h_n$. We also consider several simulation examples which illustrate different types of asymptotics corresponding to the derived theoretical results and which show that there exist situations where models with ${\sigma }_n\to 0$ have to be preferred to the models with fixed $\sigma$.     

The Validity of Career Maturity Attitude Measures Among Black and White High School Students

To investigate the validity of five career maturity attitude measures among Black and White high school students, the Counseling Form of the Career Maturity Inventory Attitude Scale and a measure of appropriateness of career choices were administered to 83 Black and 239 White high school students. White students scored significantly higher than Black students on Involvement, Independence, and Compromise in Career Decision Making, and on Appropriateness of Career Choices. Reliability coefficients are mostly in the .50s and .60s. None of the five Attitude Scale subscales are related to appropriateness of career choices of Black students, and only one subscale, Compromise, is significantly correlated with appropriateness of career choices of White students. The data do not support the theoretical expectation that career maturity attitudes are related to appropriateness of career choices, and raise questions regarding the validity of inferences made about the career maturity of both Black and White students. Some practical and theoretical implications of the study are identified.     

Can technology be managed strategically?

The purpose of this article is to investigate techniques for inserting strategic management of technology into the overall business planning process. The method developed here begins with defining the technological profile of a company and then proceeds to expand the method to incorporate analytical procedure for technology futuring, and finally combining these long-range forecasts with the company's policies and plans into an integrated planning model. An illustrative case study of the NCR Corporation is appended to demonstrate the application.     

Families and family study in international perspective

Many changes are occurring in the world's families. Some observers feel that the changes are destructive, whereas others see them as leading to new opportunities and understanding. Issues in international family studies include regional limitations and the various aspects of doing research cross‐culturally. Knowledge regarding certain categories of families, inheritance, and the social psychology of families is incomplete. There are, however, some universals and universal or worldwide changes, including movement toward individual partner choice, more divorces, lower fertility, and greater opportunities for women.     

Overvaluing the therapist: The search for a good object

Summary In this paper, an attempt was made to relate clinical practice to theory as it provides direction in working with transference manifestations presented by a patient entering therapy with an immediate need to overvalue the therapist. The problem was related to the patient's inability to tolerate separation (object loss) because of failure to develop ego precipitates leading to her own positive self-image. The conditions for developing a positive self-image were outlined. Vignettes from the patient's history were offered to illustrate the problem in practice.