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ABSTRACTPre–adult socialization is one way in which political ideologies are formed. Parents can affect the ideologies of their offspring through direct transmission or through the indirect mechanism of family social milieu. This paper analyses parent–adolescent pairs drawn from a larger sample survey study of eight western nations carried out in the mid–1970s. Three varieties of ideological perspectives are addressed: the traditional left–right continuum, pro– and anti–establishment attitudes, and material–postmaterial value structures. In general the familiar and historically rich orientations of the left–right dimension are transmitted much more successfully than are the remaining two, which are newer and less encapsulating. Regardless of particular ideology, the direct transmission model is significantly more faithful to the findings than an indirect model based on the family's social class and religious composition. The distortion in the reproduction of ideologies between the generations indicates the importance of intra–individual development and macro–level forces as sources of political ideologies.

Reliability analysis is the study of both the probability and the process of failure of a system. For that purpose, several tools are available, for example, fault trees, event trees, or the GO technique. These tools are often complementary and address different aspects of the questions. Experience shows that there is sometimes confusion between two of these methods: fault trees and event trees. Sometimes identified as equivalent, they, in fact, serve different purposes. Fault trees lay out relationships among events. Event trees lay out sequences of events linked by conditional probabilities. At least in theory, event trees can handle better notions of continuity (logical, temporal, and physical), whereas fault trees are most powerful in identifying and simplifying failure scenarios. Different characteristics of the system in question (e.g., a dam or a nuclear reactor) may guide the choice between fault trees, event trees, or a combination of the two. Some elements of this choice are examined, and observations are made about the relative capabilities of the two methods.

Abstract: A comparison of contemporary lists of Cabinet ministers with those of the 1850s or 1900s shows a substantial increase in the number of portfolio titles and the appearance of many new titles. However examination of the record of the designation of new portfolios shows very little by way of pattern. Initially Victoria made the innovations, and overall Victoria and New South Wales account for two‐thirds of new titles. But long periods of time have elapsed between the first and final adoption of a new title, and some titles which might have been expected to be attractive were introduced relatively late in the day. Murray Edelman's view that much government activity is directed to providing "symbolic reassurance" is not substantiated, with the possible exception of the 1970s when an unusually rapid and extensive round of portfolio initiation took place. It is suggested that more detailed study of why particular portfolios were brought into use might be rewarding.

Allan Holmberg's ethnography of the Sirionó Indians of eastern Bolivia depicts this group as one of the least complex human societies known. In recent years, anthropologists have argued that Sirionó cultural poverty may be due to deculturation rather than to their failure to develop a more complex culture as the result of environmental stresses. Previous efforts to explore this hypothesis have been limited by the lack of additional data on the Sirionó since Holmberg's early work. This study draws on new information derived from ethnohistorical sources and fieldwork among a recently pacified group known as the Yuquí. I demonstrate that the Yuquí and Sirionó share the same cultural heritage and that, while the Sirionó are now acculturated, the Yuquí only recently are undergoing this process. For this reason, the Yuquí case offers a parallel and current example from which new inferences can be made concerning the theory of Sirionó deculturation.ALLYN MACLEAN STEARMAN is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816.

The subject matter of the present study is educated
unemployment, a commonly observed phenomenon. especially in some of the
more populous LDCs like India. Such an inquiry is warranted for two
different reasons. First of all, It is a common observation that
educated unemployment does not deter the demand for education; see, for
example, Blaug et at. [3]. The question that needs to be answered is why
do people go in for education in spite of this widespread unemployment?
Secondly, it is an important policy question for governments of such
LDCs as to whether education should be subsidized or not. Whereas the
long-term gains in productivity accruing from a more educated labour
force are undeniable, there is now also a growing realization that
educational subsidies, by affecting educational costs, have a part to
play in increased educated unemployment. In addition, such subsidies,
being financed by taxes, reduce disposable income and hence further
reduce an already inadequate supply of domestic savings for physical
capital formation.

This study uses the case of Israeli Arabs to analyze the impact of the system of controls in creating psychological quiescence in a subordinate minority. A theoretical framework, which accounts for both the aggregate process of ethnic political behavior and reduces the ethnic phenomenon to individual terms, is used. It provides a systematic insight into the way in which the attitudes of the minority are manipulated in order to subordinate them to the requirements of the superordinate majority. The three dimensions that are most pertinent to understanding the attitudinal prerequisites for creating quiescence are the degree of perceptual consensus, intracommunal consensus, and intercommunal conflict. The empirical analysis indicates that the system of controls to which the Israeli Arabs have been subjected may have lowered the level of both their perceptual consensus and intracommunal consensus. This, in turn, might have decreased the amount of inter-communal conflict between the Arabs and the Jews, thus sparing Israel most of the consequences of ethnic strife, which came to characterize other ethnically divided societies.

Previous work on perceived risk, particularly a study by Fischhoff et al. (1978), is critically examined with reference to its applicability to specific health related issues. Judgments were obtained from 159 subjects of 15 health‐related items in terms of perceived risk, benefit, and a number of risk characteristics based on the Fischhoff et al. research. In addition, demographic details concerning sex of respondent, seat belt usage, smoking status, and birth order were collected. Using regression analyses it was found that the direction of the risk‐benefit relationship was dependent on the issue being judged. Risk was found to be better explained by ratings of likelihood of mishap and likelihood of death as a consequence of mishap. Benefit was poorly explained by the risk characteristics and demographic data. However, subject group characteristics were shown to be important influences on risk and benefit perception in certain situations. The implications of these results for understanding behavioral decisions involving risk in relation to specific activities are discussed.

THE TOOLS OF GOVERNMENT Christopher C. HoodGOVERNMENTS UNDER STRESS: POLITICAL EXECUTIVES AND KEY BUREAUCRATS IN WASHINGTON, LONDON AND OTTAWA Colin Campbell.NATIONAL PARTIES AND LOCAL POLITICS John Gyford and Mari James.NATIONAL INTERESTS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT Ken Young (ed.)PARLIAMENT AND THE EXECUTIVE Royal Institute of Public Administration.PARLIAMENT AND BUREAUCRACY. PARLIAMENTARY SCRUTINY OF ADMINISTRATION PROSPECTS AND PROBLEMS IN THE 1980s. J. R. Nethercote (ed.).ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS IN POLITICS Philip Lowe and Jane Goyder.THE NATION'S OIL: A STORY OF CONTROL Gerry Corti and Frank Frazer.PARTICIPATION Anne Richardson.INDUSTRIAL CRISIS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE STATE AND INDUSTRY Kenneth Dyson and Stephen Wilks (eds.).STATE AND GOVERNMENT IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY: THE EXECUTIVE AT WORK Ned Johnson.BOTH ENDS OF THE AVENUE: THE PRESIDENCY, THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH AND CONGRESS IN THE 1980s Anthony King (ed.).LE NOUVEL ORDRE ÉCONOMIQUE INTERNATIONAL ET L'ADMIMSTRATION PUBLIQUE Gérard Timsit (ed.).COMMUNITY AGAINST GOVERNMENT: THE BRITISH COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT 1968–78 Martin Loney.THE CASE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT G. Jones and J. Stewart.

A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 211 workers in a business office who used video display terminals (VDTs) to do their work and by 148 control subjects who did the same job using paper documents instead of VDTs. The groups exhibited few differences in the likelihood and intensity of on-the-job physical discomfort, and no differences in the perception of discomfort that lingered after work. Almost identical proportions of subjects in the two groups reported that their vision had grown worse recently. Differences were found in job satisfaction and concerns about job security, but most of these favored VDT users. The use of an intermediate standard of comparison showed that the visual quality of VDT displays was preferred to that of the paper documents they replaced. The results confirm and extend the findings of the author's earlier study of telephone operators and show that VDTs need not be unusually potent sources of discomfort and disaffection among office workers.

This study investigates the toilet training of four severely handicapped autistic children who regularly participated in a number of diverse community settings. In the context of a multiple baseline design, the children were first provided a systematic toilet training program in only some of the environments. In a subsequent "continuity" condition, the same toilet training program was systematically and simultaneously implemented within all of the children's environments. Results showed no consistent trends towards acquisition when training was provided in only some of the settings, even when the program was in progress for over two years. However, the continuity approach which coordinated all of the children's daily activities produced immediate and steady gains in successful toileting. This success was evident with children who had long histories of unsuccessful training attempts as well as with a child who had no previous exposure to toilet-training programs of any kind, These data are discussed in terms of the need for and benefits of continuity of treatment across settings for severely handicapped individuals.

This study seeks to determine how effectively a simulated site visit could provide an older person with a working knowledge of an unknown building. The need for such research is related to the relocation of older people. The simulation technique, based on mental image research, was composed of a model of the building and a series of sequential slides. The model provided information concerning spatial relationships, and the slides provided identification information and the sequential experience of walking through the building. To evaluate the simulation technique, a field experiment was conducted. The sample was divided randomly into three groups: simulation group; site visit group; and control group. A person's working knowledge was defined operationally by assessing the following: confidence in way-finding ability; the mental image of the building; and way-finding ability in the building. The evaluation demonstrated that the working knowledge provided by the simulation technique was actually more useful than that provided by actual visits to the building.

Directories have had a somewhat chequered history, both in terms of their original production, and also in their subsequent use as sources of information. To a large extent these two aspects are closely related, as is illustrated by the reluctance of some urban historians to use directories because of doubts over their reliability. A further factor determining the extent to which directories have been utilized, has been the availability of other information. In Britain it has been the relative abundance of small area census data that has had an important effect on directing research in urban history, by drawing much attention away from the exploration and use of other sources. This is certainly the case with directories, which for many researchers have served only as a 'stop-gap', being used when nothing else was available and then often with a sceptical attitude. Recently, some of these views have started to change as a growing number of urban historians make more use of directory material, particularly in the study of urban systems and changes in commercial structures.

The "Inverted-U Hypothesis" states that for a given task, there is an optimal level of workload or demand that yields the highest level of performance. A departure in either direction will result in a monotonically lower performance level, hence an inverted-U-shaped relationship between task demand and quality of performance. Most studies to date have failed to demonstrate the left-hand branch of the curve, that is, the regime in which performance presumably rises as load increases. The purpose of this study was to explore whether lowlevel additional demand on the monitor would result in improved performance. Four groups of subjects performed a visual monitoring task for 48 min, then two of the four groups were given additional tasks, and a third had potentially distracting information on its display. Results indicated that the two groups with additional demand detected more signals than did the control group or the control-plus-distraction group. There were no significant differences in false alarms.

SummaryAs part of a longitudinal study of diet and dental caries, 405 Northumberland children initially aged 11–12 years recorded the time of going to bed on 3 consecutive days on 5 occasions over a 23-month period. The bedtimes were recorded in a personal diary and checked at private interview. Mean bedtime for the 212 females changed from 21 hr 44 min at age 11 years 7 months to 22 hr 11 min at age 13 years 3 months. Bedtime for the 193 males was, on average, 9 min later than that for the females. There was a consistent relation between bedtime and social class, with social class IV + V children going to bed, on average, 14 min later than social class I + II children. When the average age of the children was 13 years 3 months, 13% of them went to bed at or after 23.00 hr, and they were latest to bed on Saturday when their average bedtime was 22 hr 59 min.

Several recent nuclear power plant probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs) have utilized broadened Reactor Safety Study (RSS) component failure rate population variability curves to compensate for such things as expert "overvaluation bias" in the estimates upon which the curves are based.A simple two‐components of variation empirical Bayes model is proposed for use in estimating the between‐expert variability curve in the presence of such biases. Under certain conditions this curve is a population variability curve. Comparisons are made with the existing method.The popular procedure appears to be generally much more conservative than the empirical Bayes method in removing such biases. In one case the broadened curve based on the popular method is more than two orders of magnitude broader than the empirical Bayes curve. In another case it is found that the maximum justifiable degree of broadening of the RSS curve is to increase α from 5% to 12%, which is significantly less than the 20% value recommended in the popular approach.