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Sociologists struggle to get students to understand that from a biological perspective race is a meaningless concept because humans cannot be classified into neat racial categories. By insisting that race is a socially constructed concept, they often lose students who recognize that human populations do exhibit physical variations and that those variations seem to have a great deal of significance in American social life. The authors suggest that introductory and other sociology instructors will benefit from a review of the argument that Franz Boas mounted in opposition to the proponents of eugenics and scientific racism that were prevalent during his lifetime. It is further suggested that sociologists can benefit by becoming more familiar with anthropological discourse on the topic and that the move toward full acceptance of Qualitative Sociology is a step in the right direction. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Vocational Baccalaureate (FVB) constitutes the major link between the academic and vocational track in Swiss educational system by combining a vocational apprenticeship with general education. Regarding the effects of economic competencies on these transitions, there is a substantial lack within the current state of research. The objective of this study thus is to elucidate these effects. The used data are based on a representative sample of N = 1.051 FVB-students of the German-speaking part of Switzerland. It can be shown that economic competencies are a meaningful predictor when it comes to the transition from upper secondary to tertiary level and help to answer the question why students with hybrid qualification choose an academic or non-academic track after school.

Twenty normal newborns, approximately 36 hours old, were tested using an auditory temporal conditioning paradigm which consisted of a slow rise, 75 db tone played for five seconds every 25 seconds, ten times. Responses to the tones were measured by instantaneous, beat-to-beat heartrate; and the test trial was designated as the 2 1/2-second period following the last stimulus when a tone would have been expected. Two learning groups were defined: those subjects who gave significant responses on the test trial, regardless of direction, and those who did not respond. A 2 x 11 x 3 x 3 analysis of variance was run on the heartrate data with the 2 learning groups, 11 trials, 3 conditions (anticipatory response, response to onset of tone, and response to offset of tone) x 3 heartbeats (the slope of the three heartbeats associated with the responses to the tone, summed across the three conditions). Although the groups main effect only approaches significance (p<.08), the trial x beats interaction (p<.04) shows that the first trial startle pattern is followed by decreases in trials 2-4 and habituation in trial 5. Findings show that it is possible to obtain HR decelerations in newborn babies to a temporal conditioning paradigm and that the HR curves for newborn learning behavior are similar to those found in older subjects. (Author)

The relationship between the costs of central administration and academic teaching and research production was studied, based on a large sample of British universities and a separate analysis of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. To determine variables important to central administration costs, a cross-sectional and intertemporal regression analysis was undertaken with data from the British universities. The fixed-variable cost method was used to estimate cost functions for the Free University of Brussels. For the British universities, 1969-79 through 1976-77 data were used, while 1978 figures were used for the Belgian university. It was found that resources needed for the central administration program in a university were related to student numbers in an indirect way. A significant part of total costs was fixed and did not depend on any activity parameter. These fixed costs consist mainly of salary expenditures for the leadership function of the different administration programs. Other variables than student number influenced the central administration requirements. This was true for the granted research activities and for the mix of fields of studies in a university. Granted research activities involved higher administration expenditures than teaching and teaching-related research activities. Experimental academic activities (represented by number of students or academic staff) required a more expensive central administration than did nonexperimental activities. Finally, it was found that marginal costs with respect to internal activity parameters were nonconstant. Results were relevant for universities with a size below 11,000 students. (SW)

A research study investigated the relationship of stress in teachers' work environment to teachers' level of cognitive complexity (level of thinking) and their career maturity, and the relationship of stress, cognitive complexity, and career maturity to teaching experience. Participants were teaching elementary school in an urban environment: 23 education students, 32 student teachers, 30 beginning teachers, 12 intermediate teachers, and 15 experienced teachers. The conceptual complexity of subjects was measured by the Paragraph Completion Test (Phares & Schroder). Subjects' career maturity was assessed using Crites' Career Maturity Inventory-Adult Form, Attitudes Scale, and Competence Test. The Teacher Work-Life Inventory measured stress in teachers' work environments. The data provide support for the view that stress in the work environment of urban elementary school teachers is associated with their cognitive complexity. Results also suggest that elementary school teachers may tend to make better career decisions under less stressful work conditions and that the career maturity of teachers appears to increase with added experience. Issues for further research are considered. (JD)

Inappropriate machine settings in the stenter process for textile finishing lead to quality issues mismatches and deviations of the targeted product properties. Finding suitable machine settings experience-based is a timeconsuming and difficult process, that causes material wastage and ties up productive machine time. Big Data in manufacturing is constantly gaining importance. However, especially in manufacturing environments it remains a challenge to find suitable, well-structured and labeled subsets of data as well as meaningful questions that can be addressed with data-driven approaches. The thermal treatment on stenter machines is a central element for a textile finishing line that has to be passed by most textile products. The process conditions have major influences on various product quality metrics and product properties like areal weight and stress-strain behavior. Innovative textile small medium enterprises (SME) must increasingly ensure competitiveness through individual product developments and a wide product range [1]. However, this strategy requires efficient process design and control for new product types. Therefore, it is important to determine similar product instances from previous treatments to be able to use proven machine settings for dwell times and temperatures as initial values for process development. It is already desirable to use proven settings from similar products as the basis for new products. The identification of such similar products as a basis for the suggestion of new machine settings is a non-trivial and a subjective process. The aim of this research is to improve the quality of initial suggestions and to reduce the time to provide it. Figure 1 illustrates the targeted assistant system for stenters with frequently varying input products. For individual products with unique characteristics multiple settings in the large finishing system need to be set accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the presentation of Franz Martin Hammerle on textile industry's productivity. He says that productivity is a common measure of how efficient a business unit, a total industry, or even a country is using its resources. Through increases in productivity, the standard of living can improve. Economic development's goal is a rising standard of living. The productivity of a country's economy, which is a measure of the value of goods and services produced per unit of the nation's human, capital and natural resources determines a nation's standard of living. Productivity measures the amount of input needed to produce a given output.

A community-wide survey to examine needed changes in the Sacramento City Unified School District high school program was designed and implemented. Because of problems encountered in presenting a proposal, a major initial and ongoing objective was the education of administrators and board members in conducting a valid community survey. Underlying design premises were that many segments of the community have valid opinions on subjects related to schools, survey research provides a mechanism for basing decisions on total community views, school district personnel who determine changes in school programs should "own" the research upon which decisions are made, and administrators should fully understand the procedures and reasons for them. In a three-stage priority-setting process, high priority and low priority questions were drafted. The final draft was evaluated by the principals. Actual conduct of the telephone survey used a random-digit-dialed sample. Although administrators took strong exception to several community opinions, the issues were debated on their merits rather than through an attack on the research. Client "ownership" and methodological understanding of the survey was worthwhile. (CN)

The purposes of this study are (1) to analyze learning ability in newborns using heart rate responses to auditory temporal conditioning and (2) to correlate these with measures on the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale. Twenty normal neonates were tested using the Brazelton Scale on the third day of life. They were also given a learning task, which consisted of a temporal conditioning paradigm with a slow-rise, 75 db tone played for 5 seconds every 25 seconds, 10 times. Responses to the tones were measured by instantaneous, beat-to-beat heart rate, and learning was measured by mean heart rate change and slope computed on the period following the last stimulus when a tone would have been expected (response to the test trial). Results indicate that the 3-day-old baby whose heart rate indicates response to a temporal learning situation is older in gestational age than babies who do not indicate response, and is able to control his psychological state, but shows signs of neurological immaturity. He tends to be less responsive in situations of human closeness including orienting, alertness and cuddliness as measured by the Brazelton Scale. (Author/SB)

Changes in adult education since the end of World War II have been brought about less by adult education itself than by politics and the economy. The historiography of education is no longer considered a mere history of the ideas and literature of education but instead as social history. For research into the history of adult education, use of different historical perspectives is recommended, including the history of the institutions of adult education, a history of personalities, a history of social corporations that run adult education institutions, the political history of adult education, the history of the ideology, everyday history or the presentation and interpretaion of practical adult education, and a comparative history that considers the international context of adult education. Some tendencies are evident today in the system of adult education practiced in the western industrialized states, such as the growing numbers of adults, shift in emphasis to older adults in adult education, emphasis on vocationally oriented adult education, pragmatism, transition to adult education, increase in adults in higher education, and more adult education in universities. On a national as well as international basis, experts should find a reasonable strategy for collecting those materials that can give a real view of the practice of adult education and that can be used to develop archives. (YLB)

The efficacy of the random digit dialing method in telephone surveys was examined. Random digit dialing (RDD) generates a pure random sample and provides the advantage of including unlisted phone numbers, as well as numbers which are too new to be listed. Its disadvantage is that it generates a major proportion of nonworking and business numbers--about four in five. Although a number of RDD sampling strategies have been proposed, they all lack a means of classifying those numbers at which there is never an answer. They could be outside the sampling range (businesses or nonworking numbers) or households whose members are rarely home. The computation of response rates is a major problem, however, especially since many surveyers want a minimum response of 50 percent. This study examined the validity of the approach which distributes never-answered numbers in the same proportion as those answered. Five surveys were conducted in Sacramento and Santa Cruz (California) during evening and weekend hours, and then a followup was made during business hours. Results indicated that nonworking telephone numbers were generally identified during the regular (evening and weekend) calling hours. Business numbers were difficult to identify, and were probably understated. This proposed method was not recommended. (GDC)

Two basic methods exist for drawing probability samples to be used in telephone surveys: directory sampling (from alphabetical or street directories) and random digit dialing (RDD). RDD includes unlisted numbers, whereas directory sampling includes only listed numbers. The goal of this paper is to estimate the effect of failure to include unlisteds in the sample on survey results. Two community-wide telephone surveys were conducted for the Sacramento City Zoo (California) (N=100) and for Sacramento Department of Parks and Community Services (N=429), using the pure RDD method. Data analyses were conducted using the chi-square statistic as run on SPSS/PC+. Results showed responses to four questions exhibited significant listed-unlisted differences. There was evidence that researchers using listed RDD samples might come to different conclusions, but the evidence was not strong. Although the research presented here is clearly limited (reports on a single and fairly narrow geographic area, concerns only two surveys addressing related topics, and contains one survey with a small sample size), it suggests that survey results may depend on sampling technique. Additional inquiry is warrented for a more definitive assessment. (BAE)

The field of ICT4D (ICT for Development) entails using ICTs in support of the international development agenda, such as efforts against poverty or for better education in developing countries. The conceptualisation of ICT4D strongly depends on what is understood as international development itself. Hence, this paper argues that the introduction of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 can be understood as a caesura not only for conceptualising development, but, in turn, for conceptualising ICT4D, as well. On the basis of literature review, this paper analyses the SDG framework and applies it to theories of ICT4D, outlining to which extent this new development agenda requires new approaches to ICT4D. In doing so, this article aims to sensitise the reader towards the challenges and potential dilemmas emerging from this transition and to spark debate on how to conceptualise ICT4D in response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A December, 1983, conference in Bucharest on identifying the main issues of higher education planning in Europe addressed three broad questions: major objectives of regional planning, different planning approaches and problems encountered in using them, and the efficiency of various approaches for meeting their objectives. (MSE)

Douglas Ehninger and Wayne Brockriede have both proposed the possibility of "arguers-as-lovers." To get a better idea of how this "lover" stance might actually look, an examination of two individuals engaged in arguing would be useful. The written correspondence between two young scholars, Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (a Christian) and Franz Rosenzweig (a Jew), written from their respective situations in the German army during World War I, proves to be a robust, loving, fertile dialogue between personal friends whose theological positions have often been characterized as mutually antagonistic. As a personal scholarly enterprise of inquiry, correction, and encouragement this correspondence reflects elusive yet promising tendencies as an enterprise of human interaction and reveals persons in process more than positions in conflict. Two themes support this thesis--the first theme shows a high degree of investment of each person with the other, which nourishes and strains the dialogue. This investment is manifested not only in the backgrounds of the person and the situation of the correspondence, but also in specific features of the letters. A second theme develops around the structural variety of the letters. The results of this critical dialogue can help in understanding the arguing process. For the two writers, instead of its being a "place to stand," it became a way to dwell together. (Fifty-nine notes are included.) (MS)