Cosmetic Changes Research Articles

Editorial

The most noticeable feature of this, the first issue of The Geological Curator to emanate from Leicester, is yet more cosmetic changes in its presentation. The 'new look' double column format (successfully introduced by my predecessor Tim Pettigrew in vol.4, no.l) is continued, at a slightly larger print size; the cover has been modestly revamped and tidied up; cover information about GCG and its journal has been standardised; internal headings have a new uniformity, etc. Certainly cosmetic changes only, but I hope the overall effect is to improve the journal's appearance and, as a consequence, give its content enhanced authority. I would much appreciate your views on the 'new look', since I am well aware that the...

Tips for an Academic Job Talk

Two questions have frequently been raised by authors: (1) can a rejected manuscript-one that was not invited back-be revised and resubmitted? and (2) can an author challenge the reviewers? The answer to these questions will depend in large part on editorial policies which differ from journal to journal and editor to editor. There are, however, some rules of thumb that can be noted. First, an uninvited manuscript should never be resubmitted unless it has undergone fairly substantial revisions. Second, if the comments are of category one or category four types, then no amount of revision will make the study float, and it should not be resubmitted to the same journal. When the comments are of types two or three, I was willing to reprocess the article, provided extensive and not just cosmetic changes had been made.

Empirical investigation of COBOL features

This study investigated programming activity in COBOL. Attempts were made to identify problem areas so that improvements can be made in COBOL compilers and in the manner in which COBOL is taught. Identification of problem areas was achieved through examining program changes made by student programmers during the development of four different programs written in COBOL. The data, which was collected from a COBOL course at Purdue University, consisted of all versions of all programs submitted for compilation by each student. Thus, the data represented a complete history of each subject's program development process beginning with the initial version compiled and ending with the final version submitted for grading. All program changes made between two successive versions were classified into four categories: COBOL-related, algorithmic, cosmetic and report-generation-related. A significant number of changes are related to report generation which suggests a need for support in this area. COBOL-related changes were delineated into 104 error categories which suggested that there are several problem areas in COBOL. Finally, the four categories of program changes were observed with respect to various points in the program development process. Most COBOL-related changes occur before the midpoint of the development process whereas most cosmetic changes occur late in the process.

Changing Realities in Southern Africa: Implications for American Policy , and: U.S. Economic Power and Political Influence in Namibia, 1700-1982 , and: Namibia: Political and Economic Prospects , and: To Be Born a Nation: The Liberation Struggle for Namibia (review)

230 SAIS REVIEW second stage was never implemented. With the murder of Viera, the program that he fought so hard to hold together fell apart. Professor Montgomery also appears to believe that some land was given to the right-wing organization ORDEN, something which in fact never happened. Whereas Professor Baloyra sees hope for the future of El Salvador in the democratic, capitalist model achieved through an electoral process (p. 183), Professor Montgomery sees hope in the eventual triumph of the revolutionary Left (p. 157), which would create "democratic structures different from those traditionally associated with liberal democracy." Revolutionary regimes generally regard their revolutions as irreversible, thus limit, as in Nicaragua, any sort of democracy that might reflect a counterrevolutionary public opinion. Such leaders of the Left as Joaquin Villalobos are more than likely to enforce their point of view at the point of a gun. Still, it is difficult to see any solution for El Salvador other than a triumph of the Left. As long as the corrupt military system remains in place, El Salvador will remain a gangster state, no matter what cosmetic changes might come about through the electoral process. Furthermore, only a total marshaling of efforts, probably best achieved by the Left, can rescue the country from the economic and social disaster into which it has fallen. The bestiality of the Salvadoran state is privately acknowledged by many of the Washington politicians who publicly support increased aid. They agree that we are forking money over to SOBs, "but they are our SOBs," defending our interests in the global struggle against Moscow. Making national security such an overriding consideration that it demands U.S. support for any government, no matter how abysmal, is in itself an atrocity. If the security of the United States can only be achieved by such means, then a frightening truth about the United States and its purported ideals is revealed. One is driven to wonder how long despotism can be supported abroad without bringing about despotism at home. Changing Realities in Southern Africa: Implications for American Policy. By Michael Clough, editor. Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1982. 318 pp. $11.00. U.S. Economic Power and Political Influence in Namibia, 1700—1982. By Allan D. Cooper. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982. 222 pp. $22.00. Namibia: Political and Economic Prospects. By Robert I. Rotberg, editor. Lexington, Mass: D.C. Heath and Co., 1983. 144 pp. $18.95. To Be Born a Nation: The Liberation Strugglefor Namibia. By the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), Department of Information and Publicity. London: Zed Press. 357 pp. $9.95. Reviewed by John Marcum, eminent Africanùt and currently vice-chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Independence for Namibia has become the issue on which the Reagan administration's Africa policies are likely to be judged. From its arid isolation BOOK REVIEWS 231 bordering the cold South Atlantic, this modest land (larger than Texas, with a population the size of San Antonio) confronts the international community with a serious, but anachronistic issue of decolonization. Namibia and South Africa aside, the whole African continent has achieved political independence under forms of majority rule, albeit forms mostly less than democratic by Western standards. Acknowledging that the eagerness of African states to eliminate the remaining vestiges of colonialism from their continent is compatible with "the traditional American desire to help the spread of self-government and democracy." Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester A. Crocker has affirmed that there are "profound political reasons for engaging in the effort to bring independence to Namibia." However, within the "highly charged, politically polarized environment" of southern Africa, he argues, it is necessary to pursue this effort by building a framework of regional accommodations and security assurances. Essential to this process is the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Namibia's northern neighbor, Angola. The Cuban troop issue, says Crocker, is "not one we made up. It is an objective reality at the core of the question of regional security." South Africa, according to Crocker, regards it as "fundamental." Therefore, as a "practical diplomatic matter," Crocker contends, it will not be possible or desirable to...

MITTERRAND'S THORN: THE PCF

Abstract : Despite these encouraging signs, if US policymakers are to truly understand French perspective, a sensitivity to French domestic politics is essential. While conceding certain cosmetic changes, most analysts see considerable continuity in France's foreign and defense politics; to postulate a similar continuity with regard to domestic policies, however, would be to ignore reality. In Mitterrand's case, possible opposition from the left may prove more devastating than that from the rightist establishment that his reforms so threaten. The focus of politics on the left over the last decade has centered around the state of relations between Mitterrand's Socialist Party and Georges Marchais' Communist Party (PCF). These relations will continue to be important to the accomplishment of Mitterrand's goals and, consequently, to the maintenance of his popularity with the electorate.

Measuring inflation in the soviet machinebuilding sector, 1960–1973

This article examines the behavior of machinery wholesale prices in the Soviet Union during the 1960–1973 period. Many Western experts hypothesize that Soviet enterprises escape fixed prices by making cosmetic changes in established products in order to raise their prices—the so-called new-product-pricing phenomenon. The hedonic technique—the use of regression analysis to examine the connection between price change and quality improvements in machinery items—is used in the study to test for the presence of this phenomenon and to determine what impact, if any, it had on machinery price levels over the period studied.

The German October of 1977

Is Germany on the way to becoming a police state? Terrorism and nuclear power plants provide legitimation for police activities and maneuvers of an heretofore unknown extent. Public opinion abroad begins to express worries that an dictatorship has been established, in which many of the democratic rights and liberties have been extinguished and with the approval of an intimidated majority of the population. I won't paint the picture of a Germany become newly fascist: the Decree against Radicals (Radikalenerlass) or professional proscription (Berufsverbot)* as it is called by leftists and other progressives, the exclusion of defendants from the trials, the investigation into people's opinions, etc. aren't specifically fascist, but elements of an authoritarian state which simply appear rougher and tougher in the Federal Republic than in other western democracies. Briefly let me fill you in on some steps of the legalization of repression in West Germany: 1956 ban of the KPD; 1968 emergency laws; 1972 Berufsverbot; and 1972 through 1977 the restriction of the rights of lawyers in criminal suits, a host of changes in laws restricting the advocacy of violence and writings or actions directed against the security and well-being of the state; infringement of the right to demonstrate; new laws which can isolate completely even from their lawyers whoever is arrested under the suspicion of participation in a terrorist conspiracy to the point where legal defense has become impossible; a reorganization and centralization of police surveillance and control. A virtual war atmosphere was created in the country in mid-October: hundreds of thousands of motorists were pulled off the road and searched; constant appeals to the population were issued to encourage their reporting any suspicious types or activities to the police such as a sudden change of address, of hair cut or any other cosmetic changes, unusual mailings or publications. Today there are plans and actual discussions on how to militarize the 'police statutes,' there is planned legalization of wide-ranging identity checks and emergency procedures (like the utilization of the special border police as a civil war police), plans for security detention and preventive detention of alleged terrorists, plans to enter any demonstrators into the computerized intelligence files, plans to legalize police searches of entire neighborhoods in case of a terrorist event (Razziagesetz). All of these are merely steps to legalize a practice carried out today on the basis of decrees and ordinances. When there's trouble ahead, no laws need be applied anyway. The list is far from complete. I only want to give you an idea of the

The Puerto Rican Political Economy

Puerto Rico became a colony of the United States in 1898 as part of the settlement exacted from Spain in the Treaty of Paris ending the SpanishAmerican War. And, at a time when classical colonialism is on the decline as a means of control and exploitation, Puerto Rico remains a colonized nation, the Puerto Ricans a colonized people. The United States has attempted to disguise its role as colonizer by granting Puerto Rico token self-government and other cosmetic changes such as referring to Puerto Rico as a free associated state (Estado Libre Asociado) or, officially, as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The facts, however, remain. Puerto Rico is not a sovereign nation: The United States retains ultimate control and veto power over all decisions that would be within the domain of a truly independent state. This issue of Latin American Perspectives considers some of the important forces that have shaped Puerto Rico's past and present and examines the emerging prospects for the future. This introduction has a two-fold purpose. First, it is designed to provide a brief introduction to Puerto Rico's colonial experience and the economic and class transformations that have occurred as a result of United States hegemony. Second, the articles appearing in this issue are introduced, integrated, and analyzed. The introduction thus serves to make the entire issue self-contained: even the reader with little or no background will be able to more easily read the six articles with better understanding. These articles make important contributions to our understanding of the Puerto Rican situation and are representative of a growing body of analysis that is attempting to move beyond the bounds of past research on Puerto Rico.