Children with Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida in East Africa: Can family and community resources improve the odds?

Hydrocephalus and spina bifida are life-threatening conditions that often result in severe disabilities. Risks are much reduced by immediate surgery and careful management, but neither has been available for most of the sub-Saharan African population. This paper traces the growth of solutions and some socio-cultural resources that historically have supported family and community care for children with severe disabilities, mainly in Tanzania, and nearby Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Some community-based rehabilitation (CBR) work with children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus is described, and challenges to the CBR approach are noted from the increased survival of people with disabilities requiring complex care. More appropriate information, recognition of indigenous knowledge, enlistment of community resources and financial assistance are needed to enhance the lives of East Africans with hydrocephalus, spina bifida and other severely disabling conditions.     

Understanding Unemployment Across California Counties

Unemployment rates differ widely and persistently across counties. This article examines equilibrium forces related to this geographic disparity with a focus on California. We show that although seasonal variation in employment can account for some of the differences, it cannot explain the total variation. Factors such as educational attainment, age, and gender appear to be strongly related to unemployment differences. Individuals living in higher‐unemployment areas also have a lower propensity to migrate. Because migration is usually considered to be the main equilibrating force, this evidence helps further explain why unemployment rates across counties are persistently different.     

Border Crossings and Diasporic Identities: Media Use and Leisure Practices of an Ethnic Minority

The diaspora of peoples whose origins were in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia) and who are now living in Western countries (especially the U.S. and UK) provides an interesting example of processes of negotiation of new hybrid cultures and identities, using new technologies, such as the Internet, and older technologies like the video player, cable or satellite television, radio, and telephone. These developments may require a revision of the classic sociological picture of assimilation as a zero sum model of acculturation, in which the acculturation of immigrants and their children involves the gradual replacement of their ethnic culture by that of the culture of the host nation. The electronic media, in the context of policies of multiculturalism, may lead to an accentuation of religio-ethnic differences. Contrary to previous assumptions, middle-class immigrants may be more inclined to resist cultural assimilation than their lower-class counterparts.     

Factors Associated with Having Flextime: A Focus on Married Workers

To examine flexible work scheduling of married workers a conceptual framework was developed and tested using the 1997 Current Population Survey Work Schedules Supplement. Odds of flextime use were higher for married males, non-Hispanic whites, those with relatively higher levels of education and income, those with a preschool aged child, residents of the Midwest or West (as compared with the South), managers or professionals, and employees of the federal government.     

Infants' Ability to Learn Phonetically Similar Words: Effects of Age and Vocabulary Size

What do novice word learners know about the sound of words? Word‐learning tasks suggest that young infants (14 months old) confuse similar‐sounding words, whereas mispronunciation detection tasks suggest that slightly older infants (18–24 months old) correctly distinguish similar words. Here we explore whether the difficulty at 14 months stems from infants' novice status as word learners or whether it is inherent in the task demands of learning new words. Results from 3 experiments support a developmental explanation. In Experiment 1, infants of 20 months learned to pair 2 phonetically similar words to 2 different objects under precisely the same conditions that infants of 14 months (Experiment 2) failed. In Experiment 3, infants of 17 months showed intermediate, but still successful, performance in the task. Vocabulary size predicted word‐learning performance, but only in the younger, less experienced word learners. The implications of these results for theories of word learning and lexical representation are discussed.     

Characterizations of gamma,inverse Gaussian,and negative binomial distributions via their length-biased distributions

A general form for characterizing inverse Gaussian and Wald distributions, based on their respective length-biased distributions, is introduced. Further results for characterizations of the gamma distribution, the negative binomial distribution and some mixtures of them by using their lengthbiased distributions are establised.     

Betrayal and repetition: Understanding aggression in sexually abused girls

Betrayal by a significant object is seen as primary in causing behavioral and emotional disturbances in incest victims, leading to a pervasive identification with the aggressor and disturbances in object relations development. Identification with the aggressor is understood not as a uniform defense mobilized against a specific affect but as a complex compromise formation which defends against anxiety, while also providing libidinal, aggressive and superego gratifications. Far from simply attempting to overcome the past, identifications thus preserve affects that have become pleasurable and self-defining. Two case studies of adolescent girls illustrate how treatment can help victims recognize and begin to forego the sadomasochistic pleasure derived from these identifications, a relinquishment necessary for true mastery.     

MAKING MULTICULTURALISM RELEVANT FOR MAJORITY CULTURE GRADUATE STUDENTS*

The revised accreditation standards for marriage and family therapy programs (Manual on Accreditation, 1988) require that the curriculum reflect an emphasis on “issues of gender and ethnicity as they relate to marital and family therapy” (p. 13). Training approaches that are described in the professional literature tend to emphasize an understanding of ethnic minorities while deemphasizing the trainee's own ethnic and cultural roots. As such, training lacks dynamic integrity for the white, middle-class trainee. This paper describes a rationale for addressing the ethnic and cultural background of all family therapy trainees and provides training activities to accomplish this end.     

Engineered Migration and the Use of Refugees as Political Weapons: A Case Study of the 1994 Cuban Balseros Crisis

This paper presents a case study of the August 1994 Cuban balseros crisis, during which more than 35,000 fled the island and headed toward Florida in the span of a few weeks. It argues that Castro launched the crisis in an attempt to manipulate US fears of another Mariel, and in order to compel a shift in US policy, both on immigration and on a wider variety of issues. The paper further contends that from Castro’s perspective, this exercise in coercion proved a qualified success – his third such successful use of the Cuban people as an asymmetric political weapon against the US. In addition, the paper argues that Castro’s success was predicated on his ability to internationalize his own domestic crisis and transform it into an American domestic political and foreign policy crisis. Finally, it offers a novel explanation of how, why, and under what conditions, states and/or non–state actors may attempt to use refugees as coercive political weapons. Although dwarfed in size by the larger 1980 Mariel boatlift, the 1994 crisis is important for several reasons. First, despite its brevity, it had far reaching consequences for US–Cuban relations. Without warning or preamble, it catalyzed a shift in US policy vis–à–vis Cuban immigration that represented a radical departure from what it had been for the previous three decades. Second, it influenced US domestic politics on the national level, by expanding the scope and salience of the issue, and mobilizing not only Floridians, but also the larger public concerned about illegal immigration. Third, the crisis illustrated the potential potency of engineered migration as an asymmetric weapon of the weak. Finally, the brief, but significant, interactions of international and domestic actors in this case warrant examination because, although the 1994 crisis was limited, in its dynamics it resembles myriad other international refugee crises, large and small. Thus the case offers valuable lessons that may aid in dealing with future (real or threatened) crises.     

Why the TVA Remains Unique: Interest Groups and the Defeat of New Deal River Planning*

Abstract Although scholars cite the Tennessee Valley Authority as one of President Franklin Roosevelt's major reform programs, the valley authority model did not replace the limited‐purpose water programs of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. State‐centered theorists hold that reformers are most likely to succeed during periods such as the New Deal era, when they are supported by a democratized polity and when they dominate Congress and the administration. This paper shows that in river policy, the strength of opposing interest groups also mattered. The TVA bill was passed in 1933 because reformers skillfully coordinated action at potential choke points and weakened the already disorganized opposing lobbyists. In 1936, however, after regrouping, opposing river lobbyists and legislators took advantage of the New Dealers' spending mood by expanding the Corps' flood control program. They also helped defeat further valley authorities, the most promising of the New Deal water policy reforms.