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Focal Point, Volume 13 Number 01, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

This issue of Focal Point examines the ways in which families with employed caregivers and children with emotional and behavioral disorders manage to meet the demands of employment and family responsibilities. Finding a fit between the demands of work and family life is a struggle for every employed mother and father. For parents whose children have emotional, behavioral, or mental disorders, meeting this challenge can prove extremely stressful, particularly since supportive services are notably lacking. Although Fernandez has estimated that 10% of all employed parents have at least one child with a disability living in their homes, there has been …

Automated Bus Dispatching, Operations Control, And Service Reliability: The Initial Tri-Met Experience, James G. Strathman, Kenneth Dueker, Thomas J. Kimpel, Rick Gerhart, Ken Turner, Pete Taylor, Steve Callas, David Griffin

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This paper presents findings on initial changes in service reliability following Tri-Met’s deployment of a new bus dispatching system using automatic vehicle location and automatic passenger counter technology. Changes in on-time performance, headway variation, run time variation, and run times were determined with respect to pre-deployment levels. Changes in headway variation and run times were also used to estimate the initial benefits of the new system with respect to operating costs, passenger waiting, and passenger travel time.

Introduction To Comparative Politics Syllabus, Steven Alan Samson

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Trends. The Pros And Cons Of Decapitation: An Example From Dagestan, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article explores the pros and cons of destroying or severely degrading the strategic command, control, and communication (C3) assets of a politico-military adversary--i.e., decapitation.

The Global Economic Outlook: Threats And Opportunities For The U.S. Mining Industry, Murray L. Weidenbaum

Murray Weidenbaum Publications

The United States has built a unique service sector which is based on a unique industrial sector which is based on a unique mining sector. Harm any one of these three vital parts of our nation and you jeopardize the standard of living and future prospects of all our citizens. Now, the world economy is in the midst of a substantial and widespread upswing. In light of this positive outlook, the U.S. mining industry faces two primary threats: increased competition with international, overseas counterparts and the U.S. government's tendency to handicap American business via taxation, regulation, and intervention.

Trends. Data Bases Bearing On Clemency For Terrorists, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The article discusses the issue of President Clinton granting clemency to 16 Puerto Rican nationalists who were jailed for activities supporting terrorism that resulted in deaths, injuries, and destruction.

Trends. Global Warming, Policymaking, And Asymmetries Of Time, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses one of the most significant subtexts to political discourse on global warming, that of time.

The Massachusetts Welfare To Work Program: How Well Will It Serve Its Customers?, Abigail Jurist Levy

New England Journal of Public Policy

The author examined the initial two-year Massachusetts Welfare to Work plans to identify early signs of potential program strengths and weaknesses when the states were just beginning to implement it. She surveyed the then current literature that defines the work-first philosophy and its social context, outlining the essential elements of work-first programs for participants' success. The author then reviewed Massachusetts's sixteen regional plans to determine the degree to which they incorporated these elements in their program designs. Finally, she outlined the challenges, potential risks, and advantages that arise when national social policy shifts and local planners and policymakers must adapt …

Family Values And Presidential Elections: The Use And Abuse Of The Family And Medical Leave Act In The 1992 And 1996 Campaigns, Steven K. Wisensale

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores how and why the debate on family leave policy became intertwined with the discussion of family values during the 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns. It covers the emergence of family values in political debates in general and in election-year strategies in particular, the developmental history of family leave policy, including important benchmarks that occurred at both the state and federal levels. It also considers the role played by family values and family leave during the 1992 election and how the family leave bill and at least two other legislative proposals became important components of the discussions about …

The Sargent Governorship: Leader And Legacy, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

Following in the long line of succession of his predecessors, Francis W. Sargent served as the sixty-third governor of Massachusetts. A lifelong Republican, he was a man of character and sterling Yankee blue-blood lineage with the stature of a political independent. Grappling with a series of hot political issues and braving the passions and divisions spawned by the war in Vietnam, he was one of the ablest and most intriguing men ever to be governor. He worked hard at knowing his constituents and their concerns, but he did not always provide them with easy answers. Several new ideas were transformed …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

When you receive this issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy, we should be crossing the threshold from millennium mania to millennium madness. The former has concerned itself almost exclusively with the etiquette of millennium rites, where one ought to be on the occasion itself — embracing the starlit grandeur of the ancient pyramids, as if to remind ourselves that some things preceded the outgoing millennium and even exceeded the achievements of our own: in the silence of a Tibetan monastery to contemplate in serenity the philosophical implications of the momentous transition and reflect perhaps on the …

Welfare Reform: Lessons From New England, Richard M. Francis, Thomas J. Anton

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article examines state welfare policy choices following the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Using data from national studies and an intensive study of policymaking in New England, the authors demonstrate that states have acted independently rather than uniformly in response to devolution. Because states did not respond as predicted, and for reasons that were not anticipated, scholars must develop new approaches to understanding state policymaking. This study argues that accounting for state policy choices requires an understanding of the context of policymaking. Conventional analyses of welfare reform have ignored the institutional structures through which …

The Mechtech Program: An Education And Training Model For The Next Century, Robert Forrant

New England Journal of Public Policy

The small-firm metalworking industry is routinely characterized by cutthroat competition and fierce privacy. Yet, since the late 1980s, the members of the western Massachusetts chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association have participated in an education, training, and technology diffusion network characterized by a high degree of interfirm cooperation. Hundreds of workers and managers have take part in group training sessions and seminars. The reconstruction of the skill base is central to the MechTech apprenticeship program through which apprentices spend four years in participating firms, exiting the program as licensed machinists, tool and die makers, or moldmakers. In an …

Race, Class, And The Distribution Of Radioactive Waste In New England, Douglas J. Anderton, John Michael Oates, Michael R. Fraser

New England Journal of Public Policy

Objective. Inequity in the distribution of environmental burdens among social groups, for example, minority and disadvantaged segments of the population, is an important topic in policy research. This research has largely focused on hazardous waste facilities and Superfund sites. Yet federal mandates to the states raise similar concerns over the social distribution of low-level radioactive waste facilities (LLRWFs). This study seeks to provide the first evaluation of equity in the distribution of LLRWFs within a state.

Methods. We use data from the 1990 Census to compare selected characteristics of tracts with low-level radioactive waste facilities to tracts without, tracts nearby …

Ddasaccident255, Hd-Aid

Global CWD Repository

The victim, was clearing a lane past the remains of a dead cow and was already a metre past the cow when the accident occurred. While the victim was sweeping with the mine detector he received a signal on the right 10-cm overlap of the lane he was busy clearing. The ground at the accident site sloped slightly to the right of the lane. The victim started to prod in the area of the signal by using the prodder. When he was prodding on the right of his base stick, he activated an explosive device. This occurred at approximately 13:00.

Community Building Sourcebook: Land Use And Transportation Initiatives In Portland, Oregon, Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District Of Oregon

TriMet Collection

No abstract provided.

Ibpp Research Associates: East Timor, Anonymous

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The article is a rushed letter from an anonymous individual involved in East Timor in late August or early September 1999 when Indonesian troops were present in the area. The letter was sent to the International Peace Practitioners Network (IPPN). For reference, IPPN is a project of the Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association and of Psychologists for Social Responsibility

The letter itself was subsequently forwarded to IBPP by IPPN, and the content of the letter was not verified by IBPP.

IBPP commentary includes a discussion of the role of political psychologists, and other interested parties, in the …

Trends. An Implosion Of Ideology: Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Palestine, The Soviet Union, And Beyond, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The article discusses multiethnic, representative democracies (MRDs) that often promulgate and effect foreign policies that are founded on the ideological premise that instilling MRDs throughout the world is necessarily the optimal road to Good.

Testimony Before The Working Group On The Benefit Implications Of The Growth In The Contingent Workforce, Susan N. Houseman

Testimonies

No abstract provided.

Expert And Public Evaluations Of Technological Risks: Searching For Common Ground, James Flynn, Paul Slovic

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Drs. Flynn and Slovic compare and evaluate the ways in which the public and experts perceive technological risks.

The Cresset (Vol. Lxiii, No. 1, Michaelmas), Valparaiso University

The Cresset (archived issues)

No abstract provided.

Exploring Alternative Purchasing Strategies: Just-In-Time Or Just Enough?, Julie J. Gentry, Matthew A. Waller, Scott B. Keller

Journal of Transportation Management

What are the prevalent purchasing strategies used by manufacturing firms to purchase components that are critical to the quality of their most important products? This research reports the findings from data on purchasing strategies collected from 248 companies. The data indicate that although firms seem to be moving away from a transaction-based purchasing strategy towards "partnership" relations necessary for successful just-in-time strategies, firms are likely to embrace one of four hybrid purchasing strategies that on a spectrum would fall somewhere between the two "pure" strategies. These identified strategies offer purchasing managers viable alternatives to moving directly into a just-in-time environment.

Leading Without Bleeding: An Information Technology Case Study At Union Pacific Railroad, Uma G. Gupta, Randy W. Butler, Thomas D. Milner

Journal of Transportation Management

In the railroad industry, the ability to assess damages to rail units in an accurate and timely manner is critical to the success and profits of a company. Accurate damage assessment of rail units also plays a key role in dispute resolution and negotiation with key vendors and suppliers (my.uprr.com/pub/dam-prev). This paper describes and presents information about Union Pacific Railroads (UPRR) and Science Applications International Corporations (SAIC) highly successful efforts in fully automating the data collection, inspection, assessment and reporting of damage claims to rail equipment. UPRR and SAIC used an innovative and highly creative approach to develop and implement …

Maritime Unions And The U.S. Merchant Marine, Richard L. Clarke

Journal of Transportation Management

U.S. maritime unions have played a vital historical role in both the defense and the economic development of the United States. The economic and the political forces that helped shape and promote the growth of U.S. seafaring labor unions changed dramatically in the 1990s. Maritime union membership in the United States has fallen by more than 80 per cent since 1950. Inflexible union work rules and high union wage scales have contributed to this decline. Recent regulatory and industry changes require a new union approach if U. S. maritime unions are to survive the next decade.

Defining Dyadic Cost And Risk In International Trade: A Review Of Incoterms 2000 With Strategic Implications, Drew M. Stapleton, Virginie Saulnier

Journal of Transportation Management

As trade markets continue to expand due to developments in transportation and logistics technologies, distribution networks extend well beyond national frontiers. With obstacles such as distance, language, and business customs, allocation of legal responsibility between a buyer and a seller of goods becomes even more crucial in international commerce. This document is presented in three general sections. Reviewing the basics, including definition, origin, use and classifications of INCOTERMS constitutes the first section. The second section describes and analyzes the differences between each of the 13 INCOTERMS 2000. Lastly, the changes introduced by the 2000 revision are studied in more detail …

The Impacts Of Using A Safety Compliance Standard In Highway Design, Paul J. Ossenbruggen

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Dr. Ossenbruggen introduces an algorithmic method to objectively test and evaluate safety in the highway design process.

The Conference Proceedings Of The 1999 Air Transport Research Group (Atrg) Of The Wctr Society, Volume 3, Anming Zhang, Brent D. Bowen, Uno Aviation Institute

Faculty Books and Monographs

UNOAI Report 99-7

The Conference Proceedings Of The 1999 Air Transport Research Group (Atrg) Of The Wctr Society, Volume 4 , Anming Zhang, Brent D. Bowen, Uno Aviation Institute

Faculty Books and Monographs

UNOAI Report 99-8

Groping For Autonomy: The Federal Government And American Hospitals, Robert B. Hackey

Health Sciences Faculty Publications

This article chronicles the slow but steady emergence of countervailing power in the hospital industry since mid-century. The transformation of American health care policymaking reflects the federal government's growing fiscal obligations as the single largest purchaser of health care. As John Kenneth Galbraith [1956,113] notes, "Power on one side of a market creates both the need for, and the prospect of reward to, the exercise of countervailing power from the other side." The federal government's effort to exercise countervailing power over health care providers shows no sign of abating in the future, for Medicare and Medicaid costs threaten the stability …

Industrial Resources: Oldham County, Kentucky Library Research Collections

Oldham County

"Resources for Economic Development: Oldham County, [Kentucky]" prepared by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, Division of Research in cooperation with the Oldham County Office of Economic Development, LaGrange, Kentucky, September 1999. The report includes, but is not limited to, information about: population, labor market, local manufacturing, transportation, utilities, fuel, water, sewage, industrial sites, local government and services, taxes, educational and health facilities, housing, communication, recreation, natural resources, markets, and climate.