Seeing the Insane in Textbooks of Abnormal Psychology: The Uses of Art in Histories of Mental Illness

Pictures in historical chapters of textbooks convey information about the values and assumptions of the authors'professions and the larger culture. We scrutinized 15 recent abnormal psychology textbooks for reproductions of art created before 1900. Thirteen works appeared in three (20%) or more textbooks. Overall, these pictures support a "Whiggish" account of history that celebrates the present and gives a distorted, incomplete rendering of the past. The 13 pictures tended to depict the mentally ill as an underclass who are released from their literal and metaphorical shackles by men who are "ahead of their time" in their struggles against prevailing ignorance. The pictures also emphasized the difference of the mentally ill by presenting a catalogue of stereotypic visual elements attributed to insanity throughout Western history. We argue for the inclusion in textbooks of "history for the sake of the past" as a way of genuinely engaging different ideologies and thereby stimulating interest in our own implicit values and biases.     

Integrating world cities into production networks: the case of port cities

In this article we analyse the location patterns of firms that provide specialized advanced producer services (APS) to international commodity chains that move through seaports. Such activities can take place in world cities or in port cities. The analysis of APS location patterns in port cities provides a good opportunity to integrate the study of world cities into the framework of Global Production Networks. Based upon our empirical findings, we conclude that while port-related APS activities predominantly follow the world city hierarchy, a number of port cities stand out because they act as nodes in global commodity flows and as centres of advanced services related to shipping and port activities. Based on these empirical findings we address future avenues of research.     

THE RISE OF PRESIDENTIAL POLLING THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This article traces the institutional development of presidentialpolling of public opinion. We suggest that Kennedy, Johnson,and especially Nixon developed the institution of the presidencyto include a "public opinion apparatus"—an operation thatwas centralized in the White House and devoted to assemblingpublic opinion data and conducting extensive public relationsactivities. According to interviews with former officials andarchival records, this apparatus had its roots in Kennedy's1960 presidential campaign, but during the Johnson and Nixonpresidencies it developed into a regular and enduring institutionfor connecting presidential activity with public opinion.     

Strategic coupling as capacity: how seaports connect to global flows of containerized transport

Strategic coupling refers to the process of matching local assets with global network demands. Although the concept has benefited from an increase in relational thinking, several critical issues remain unresolved. In this article, we identify and discuss three such issues – the characteristics of the entities involved in strategic coupling, the way in which the ‘local’ is conceptualized in the context of ‘global’ positioning, and the understanding of strategic action. To address these issues, we use Cox's notion of ‘spaces of dependence and engagement’ in combination with Ball's concept of the ‘structure of provision’. The case of the port of Rotterdam demonstrates the value of our perspective in elucidating the process of ‘strategic coupling’ within global networks of containerized traffic.     

A TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT-BASED INCENTIVE SYSTEM SUPPORTING TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION

Although there have been many cases of total quality management (TQM) success, embracing TQM does not always lead to performance improvements. Many companies resist the changes in organizational processes such as compensation and performance appraisal systems that are required to link TQM efforts to bottom-line performance. We present the basic structure of a TQM-based compensation system that can provide incentives based on a variety of performance measures, including an explicit incentive for the reduction of variability in product variables. As a result, this approach encourages the continuous improvement central to the TQM philosophy, rather than serving as a disincentive for such improvement as do many traditional compensation systems. The set of performance measures can be adjusted periodically to focus on those measures deemed most likely to yield significant increases in customer satisfaction, further supporting the core elements of TQM. The approach is described using examples from the paper manufacturing operation where it has been successfully implemented. A longitudinal analysis of several performance measures is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new compensation system.     

Gender,Racial, and Ethnic Disclosure in NIH K-Award Funded Diabetes and Obesity Clinical Trials∗

In 1993, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) passed The Revitalization Act (Subtitle B) which mandated that all NIH funded clinical trials have “appropriate representation” of minority and women subjects. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of the mandate by examining the reporting and inclusion of minority and female subjects into NIH K-Award funded clinical trials, addressing the minority predominant diagnoses of diabetes and clinical obesity. Using the CRISP search engine and PUBMED, we selected publications published by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) K-grant recipients during 1989–2004, associated with all the diabetes and obesity clinical trials. Studies were stratified into three timeline categories (1989–1993, pre-mandate; 1993–1996, post-mandate, and 1997–present, well past mandate) to evaluate trends in the recruiting of minorities and women before, during, and after the passing of the Revitalization Act. Of the 165 papers, only 37% disclosed race, a number that did not improve over time (p = .15), whereas 92% disclosed gender. Clinical trials that focused on females increased across the 3 timeframes (p < .001) for diabetes studies but not obesity studies. Overall, disclosure of race declined over the 3 timeframes whereas individually, the disclosure of African Americans improved.     

DIFFICULTIES WITH TESTING FOR CAUSATION*

This paper examines the use of econometric tests for causality that are based on the work of Granger and Sims. The main conclusion is that it is not possible to infer the direction of causation from observed correlations. There are two reasons why the causality tests cannot reveal the direction of causation from observed correlations. First, the null hypothesis tested is necessary but not sufficient to imply causality. Second, any specification error renders the causality test results uninterpretable.