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Focuses on cooperative efforts between federal and state governments to protect the environment. US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) agreements with state governments; Reasons for changing the existing set-up; Elimination of the system of distrust; Search for new ways to protect the government.

• The Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia and the Research Diagnostic Criteria were used to ascertain community-based rates of affective and nonaffective psychiatric disorders. Both current-point and lifetime prevalence rates were reported for a sample of whites, blacks, and Mexican-Americans. Rates for whites were compared with those reported for another community sample in which the same diagnostic criteria were applied. Comparison of lifetime rates from the two studies showed good concurrence for most of the affective disorders, particularly depression. This study also examined differences in rates by ethnic status.

• The reliability and validity of the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview (PERI) are examined using data from a triethnic (white, black, and Mexican-American) sample of community respondents. The PERI scales attempt to measure both nonspecific psychological distress and different dimensions of psychopathology. Internal consistency reliability is assessed using Cronbach's coefficient a. Concurrent and discriminant validity are evaluated by comparing the PERI scales with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale and the Bradburn Negative Affect Scale. These scales show high internal consistency reliability in all three ethnic groups. The Demoralization Scale measures a separate dimension from the other psychopathology scales, and the latter scales are distinct from one another. While the criterion validity of the PERI in population samples remains unknown, it is possible to measure important dimensions of psychopathology in the general population. The PERI may constitute one such measure.

In preparation for a community-based study of depression in adolescence, several pilot studies were conducted with samples of adolescents. The purpose of these studies was to evaluate the reliability and association with depression of several instruments when used with older (14- to 18-year-old) adolescents. These instruments included measures of cognitions, body image, self-esteem, self-awareness, social interactions with peers and family, social support, micro- and macrostressful life events, anxiety and tension, positive affect, antisocial or oppositional behavior, suicidal ideation, and vocabulary. The internal consistency reliability and stability of most of the instruments were satisfactory. In addition, most instruments were associated with a measure of depression, Radloff's Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale. Several of the scales were successfully abbreviated using techniques based on factor analysis and item analysis.

This paper reexamines the effect of minority group status on fertility to discover the efficacy of two positions outlined by Goldscheider and Uhlenberg (1969) and Sly (1970). The problems raised focus on the definition of "ethnic group," the failure to control for the effects of age at marriage and employment status of woman in fertility analyses, and the failure to examine current as well as cumulative fertility. Results tend to support Goldscheider and Uhlenberg's position that ethnicity has effects on fertility independent of other dimensions and point toward their recommendation that social psychological factors be examined to determine how fertility is influenced by ethnicity.

The authors gave the PERI Demoralization Scale (PERI-D), a measure of nonspecific psychological distress, to 528 subjects drawn from a larger longitudinal community survey. Respondents also were interviewed using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (SADS), a structured clinical interview. Based on the SADS, subjects were given diagnoses based on Research Diagnostic Criteria (RDC). The results corroborate earlier findings of a modest relationship between self-reported symptoms of distress and the diagnosis of clinical psychiatric disorder. There was somewhat better fit between RDC diagnoses of depression, particularly major depression, and PERI-D symptom scores, suggesting the PERI-D items may be slightly more useful for detecting cases of depression in the community than for the broader range of psychiatric disorders. In general, the authors concur with earlier writers who suggest that brief psychiatric symptom scales may be useful as screening tests in community surveys, but such instruments do not in themselves provide good estimates of the prevalence of clinical psychiatric disorder in the community.

Data from 562 psychiatric patients were analyzed to assess the effects of ethnic status (Anglo/Mexican origin) and language (English/Spanish) on the reliability and validity of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale. The results indicate no systematic variation in either reliability (test-retest, internal consistency), dimensionality, or ability of the CES-D Scale to detect clinical depression among Anglos or persons of Mexican origin classified according to language use as Spanish dominant, English dominant, or bilingual. However, the data indicate that this particular screening instrument does not adequately discriminate between patients with clinical depression and those without depression. These results corroborate several recent studies that question the utility of the CES-D Scale as a depression screening instrument. Taken together, the available evidence suggests that the ability of the CES-D Scale to detect major depression is so limited that further use of the instrument as a screening scale would seem unwarranted, at least in treatment settings.

We have carried out a detailed analysis of several long pathlength transmission measurements in the 8–12-μm atmospheric window in order to determine the extinction coefficient due to the water vapor continuum. Our results indicate that three modifications to the current lowtran atmospheric transmission model are required. The first two corrections involve an improved fit to the pure water vapor continuum absorption together with the elimination of the atmospheric broadened continuum term. Finally, and most critically, a strong measured temperature dependence must be included in the water vapor continuum absorption coefficient. For pathlengths ranging from 10 km to 50 km, failure to incorporate these corrections can lead to errors in the computed transmission ranging from factors of 2 to more than 10,000.