Journals Ranked by Impact: Political Science

"Compares the citation impact of journals in a given field as measured over three different time spans."

"Calculated by taking the number of all current citations to source items published in a journal over the previous two years and dividing by the number of articles published in the journal during the same period—in other words, a ratio between citations and recent citable items published. The rankings in the next two columns show impact over longer time spans, based on figures from the Thomson Scientific Journal Performance Indicators." Source: ISI Thomson Scientific

Top 5:

1. Am. Polit. Sci Rev.
2. Am. J. Polit. Science
3. Journal of Democracy
4. J. Conflict Resolution
5. Political Geography

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Report Documents 18 Years of "Dirty War" in Mexico

February 26, 2006 - The National Security Archive posts on its Web site today a work of history in progress -- a draft of an unprecedented report by Mexico's government on the nation's "dirty war" of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

This document is the result of four years of work by the office of Mexico's Special Prosecutor for Social and Political Movements of the Past (Fiscalía Especial para Movimientos Sociales y Políticos del Pasado - FEMOSPP), Dr. Ignacio Carrillo Prieto. The office was created in 2002 by President Vicente Fox to investigate human rights crimes.

The crimes detailed in the draft report were committed during the administrations of Presidents Diaz Ordaz (1964-1970), Echeverría (1970-1976) and López Portillo (1976-1982). In those years, hundreds of Mexican citizens -- uncounted innocent civilians as well as armed militants -- were murdered or "disappeared" by military and security forces. Thousands more were tortured, or illegally detained, or subjected to government harassment and surveillance.

The report has not yet been made public, although its authors -- a group of 27 researchers, historians and activists contracted by the Special Prosecutor in 2004 to write it -- gave it to Dr. Prieto on December 15. But this draft of the report is currently circulating in Mexico. A reporter for a national magazine, Eme Equis, has a copy, and today is publishing an in-depth analysis of the section concerning state-sponsored counterinsurgency operations in Guerrero during the 1970s. Others have the report too, including the prominent writers and historians Elena Poniatowska, Carlos Montemayor and Carlos Monsivais. Source: National Security Archive.

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Recent Changes in U.S. Family Finances

"The Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances for 2004 provides insights into changes in family income and net worth since the 2001 survey. The survey shows that, over the 2001–04 period, the median value of real (inflation-adjusted) family income before taxes continued to trend up, rising 1.6 percent, whereas the mean value fell 2.3 percent. Patterns of change were mixed across demographic groups. These results stand in contrast to the strong and broad gains seen for the period between the 1998 and 2001 surveys and to the smaller but similarly broad gains between the 1995 and 1998 surveys." Source: Federal Reserve Bulletin

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Conscientious Objection in Medicine

"Values are important parts of our lives. But values and conscience have different roles in public and private life. They should influence discussion on what kind of health system to deliver. But they should not influence the care an individual doctor offers to his or her patient. The door to 'value-driven medicine' is a door to a Pandora’s box of idiosyncratic, bigoted, discriminatory medicine. Public servants must act in the public interest, not their own." Source: British Medical Journal

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Third Annual Report Card of the Policies and Preferences of Presidential Administrations with Regard to Human Rights

"In its third annual report on the human rights practices of US presidential administrations, the Center on Democratic Performance (CDP) at Binghamton University gives President Bush a ‘D' for his policies and performance on central issues of human rights for the year 2005. This reflects a decline of one grade over 2004, attributable mostly to reports on the use of political detention without trial, torture of political detainees, and the use of secret detention of political prisoners. On most other indicators of human rights policy – such as recognition of leaders from countries deemed repressive, and budgetary consideration of human rights issues, and treaties – the Administration remained relatively static from last year." Source: Center on Democratic Performance, Binghamton University, SUNY

Link to online report

Methodology / Grading

Snapshot of Philanthropy's Response to the Gulf Coast Hurricanes

"Foundations, corporations, and other institutional donors committed over $490 million to relief and recovery efforts in the first few months following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to Snapshot of Philanthropy’s Response to the Gulf Coast Hurricanes, a new report from the Foundation Center. This support represented 17 percent of an estimated $3 billion in private hurricane response giving." Source: The Foundation Center

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The Pentagon and the U.S. Intelligence Community's Secret Historical Document Reclassification Program

"Washington, D.C., February 21, 2006 - The CIA and other federal agencies have secretly reclassified over 55,000 pages of records taken from the open shelves at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), according to a report published today on the World Wide Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Matthew Aid, author of the report and a visiting fellow at the Archive, discovered this secret program through his wide-ranging research in intelligence, military, and diplomatic records at NARA and found that the CIA and military agencies have reviewed millions of pages at an unknown cost to taxpayers in order to sequester documents from collections that had been open for years." Source: George Washington University

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One-Fifth of the Nation: A Comprehensive Guide to America's First Suburbs

"Neither fully urban nor completely suburban, America's older, inner-ring, "first" suburbs have a unique set of challenges—such as concentrations of elderly and immigrant populations as well as outmoded housing and commercial buildings—very different from those of the center city and fast growing newer places. Yet first suburbs exist in a policy blindspot with little in the way of state or federal tools to help them adapt to their new realities and secure a role as competitive and quality communities. This paper defines first suburbs throughout the nation, examines their similarities and differences, and, finally, sets out a policy agenda tailored specifically to these distinctive places." Source: The Brookings Institution, Metropolitan Policy Program

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Hurricane Spending and the Federal Budget

"Last year, three major hurricanes - Katrina, Rita, and Wilma - struck the U.S. Gulf Coast. In response to these disasters, Congress enacted two supplemental appropriations acts to provide a total of $62.3 billion for rescue, relief, reconstruction, and recovery operations. Federal policymakers are now changing their focus from short-term rescue and relief to long-term reconstruction and recovery. This report identifies some key considerations for evaluating such proposals." Source: Joint Economic Committee, United States Congress

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Poverty Reduction and Growth: Virtuous and Vicious Circles

"Latin American countries need to fight poverty more aggressively if they want to grow more and compete with China and other dynamic Asian economies, says a new World Bank report. According to Poverty Reduction and Growth: Virtuous and Vicious Circles, while growth is key for poverty reduction, poverty itself is hampering the achievement of high and sustained growth rates in Latin America, which remains one of the most unequal regions in the world with close to a fourth of the population living on less than US$2.00 a day." Source: World Bank


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Women and Girls in the Criminal Justice System

"Female criminal behavior has been commonly perceived as a less serious problem than male criminal behavior. Historically, women have been more likely to commit minor offenses and have made up only a small proportion of the offender population. Although women remain a relatively small number of all prisoners, these facts have concealed a trend in the rising percentage of female offenders, their participation in violent crime, and have inhibited the development of gender-specific programs to address the issue." Source: National Criminal Justice Reference Service

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Myths and Realities of American Political Geography

Abstract: The division of America into red states and blue states misleadingly suggests that states are split into two camps, but along most dimensions, like political orientation, states are on a continuum. By historical standards, the number of swing states is not particularly low, and America’s cultural divisions are not increasing. But despite the flaws of the red state/blue state framework, it does contain two profound truths. First, the heterogeneity of beliefs and attitudes across the United States is enormous and has always been so. Second, political divisions are becoming increasingly religious and cultural. The rise of religious politics is not without precedent, but rather returns us to the pre-New Deal norm. Religious political divisions are so common because religious groups provide politicians the opportunity to send targeted messages that excite their base. Source: Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Research Working Paper Series

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Guantanamo Bay Detainees

"Five independent investigators specializing in issues related to arbitrary detention, freedom of religion, the right to health, torture and the independence of judges and lawyers of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights are calling on the United States to close immediately its detention centre in Guantánamo Bay and bring all detainees before an independent and competent tribunal or release them without further delay.

Their report, released today, follows an 18-month joint study by the experts into the situation of the detainees. The report's findings are based on information from the United States Government, interviews conducted by the experts with former Guantánamo Bay detainees currently residing or detained in France, Spain and the United Kingdom and responses from lawyers acting on behalf of some current detainees. It also relies on information available in the public domain, including reports prepared by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), information contained in declassified official United States government documents and media reports. The experts expressed regret that the US did not allow them the opportunity to have free access to detainees in Guantanamo Bay and carry out private interviews, normally provided by the terms of reference accepted by all countries they visit." Source : United Nations

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Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Rape Victimization: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey

"Although the word rape is gender neutral, most rape victims are female (almost 86 percent), and most rapists are male. Female victims are significantly more likely than male victims to be raped by a current or former intimate partner and to sustain an injury during a rape. Many rape victims suffer serious mental health consequences. Only one in five adult women report their rape to the police. About half of the women raped as adults who had contact with police and about half who had contact with the courts were satisfied with their treatment." Source: National Institute of Justice

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Collective efficacy and obesity: The potential influence of social factors on health

Abstract

Social determinants have been identified as a fundamental cause of health and disease in most industrialized countries. However, much less is known about which characteristics of communities may lead to disparities in health outcomes. Collective efficacy—the willingness of community members to look out for each other and intervene when trouble arises—is a social factor shown to be associated with outcomes related to obesity, including premature mortality and cardiovascular disease. The objective of this study is to determine whether neighborhood collective efficacy is associated with individual measures of body mass index (BMI) in adolescents.

We use a multi-level, cross-sectional survey in Los Angeles County, involving 807 adolescents in 684 households in 65 neighborhoods in addition to a sample of 3000 adult respondents. The main outcomes measures are BMI, at risk of overweight, and overweight status. Using a two-level model, we find significant relationships between collective efficacy and all three outcomes, net of levels of neighborhood disadvantage.

The associations between BMI and collective efficacy could potentially be explained by several factors, including a metabolic pathway, neighborhood differences in the physical and social environments, or a combination of these two. If group-level collective efficacy is indeed important in the regulation of individual-level net energy balance, it suggests that future interventions to control weight by addressing the social environment at the community level may be promising.

Source: Rand Corporation

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full text books online

Although the Google Book Project gets the most press, there are other sites that have electronic versions of classics available for download. Titles include: The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells and thousands of others.
Access and download :
Manybooks.net
Project Gutenberg
University of Pennsylvania's Online Books Page

U.S.-China Trade Relations: Entering a New Phase of Greater Accountability and Enforcement

From the press release: "Despite three consecutive years of growing U.S. exports to China, the trade relationship between the two countries today “lacks equity, durability and balance” in the opportunities it provides, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Rob Portman says.

"This disparity is due in part to China's failure to honor certain commitments, including its failure to enforce intellectual property rights, its protection and support for certain domestic industries, and its refusal to fulfill certain market opening commitments," Portman said at a February 14 press conference where he released the results of a USTR review of U.S.-China trade relations.

The report, U.S.-China Trade Relations: Entering a New Phase of Greater Accountability and Enforcement, is the first comprehensive statement of U.S. trade policy toward China since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. It assesses U.S.-China trade ties following China's first four years of membership in the WTO and reflects input from private China experts, industry, Congress and U.S. government agencies." Source: Office of the United States Trade Representative.

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MLA : How do I document sources from the Web in my works-cited list?

MLA style for citing electronic resources is covered in their online FAQ.

Examples of MLA citations are provided for:

1. Scholarly Project
2. Information Database
3. Personal Site
4. Book
5. Article in a Journal
6. Work from a Library Subscription Service
7. Posting to a Discussion List

and others.

link to site

APA Reference Examples for Electronic Source Materials

Extracted from the APA Style manual the site outlines proper citation format for electronic materials including:

1. Internet articles based on a print source
2. Article in an Internet-only journal
3. Article in an Internet-only newsletter
4. Document available on university program or department Web site
5. Electronic copy of a journal article, three to five authors, retrieved from database

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Girls and Drugs

"Despite commonly held beliefs that boys are at higher risk for using illegal substances, data indicate that girls have caught up with boys in illicit drug and alcohol use and have actually surpassed boys in cigarette and prescription drug use. There are also more girls who are new users of substances than boys." Source: White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)

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