Showing papers by "University of North Carolina at Charlotte published in 1975"

Channelization: A search for a better way

Abstract: A reproduction of channel forms produced by natural fluvial processes will minimize some adverse effects of channelization. Design criteria intended to improve drainage or control flooding should, in many cases, include the construction of pools (deeps) and riffles (shallows). An optimal spacing of pools and riffles, averaging about six times the channel width, will improve the modified stream by providing a channel morphology that is relatively stable, biologically productive, and aesthetically pleasing.

The vanishing Mpongwe: European contact and demographic change in the Gabon River

Abstract: A drastic decline of aboriginal populations has been an important by-product of European commercial and imperial expansion in many parts of the world. Europeans have been aware of this phenomenon from the early days of Spanish exploration and conquest when Fray Bartolome de las Casas deplored the rapid collapse of Indian populations in the Caribbean. The problem still seemed acute in the nineteenth century. For example, the young Charles Darwin, describing the decline of the Australian Aborigines, placed most of the blame on alcoholism, introduced diseases, and the loss of hunting grounds. But these factors did not fully explain what appeared to be the impending extinction of a variety of peoples. ‘Besides these several evident causes of destruction,’ he wrote,there appears to be some more mysterious agency at work. Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal. We may look to the wide extent of the Americas, Polynesia, the Cape of Good Hope, and Australia, and we find the same result.

Violence in the Road: The Crime of Vehicular Homicide:

Abstract: While social scientists have devoted considerable attention to the study of inter-personal violence, little is known about the patterns of imper sonal violence represented by vehicular homicides. This report presents a descriptive analysis of 119 vehicular homicides occurring in a large mid western city during a three-year period. In analyzing vehicular homicides from a criminological perspective an attempt was made to identify the ecological, demographic, social, and prior offense patterns of this form of violent death. The findings indicate that the sociological characteristics of vehicular homicide are nearly identical to those of other urban crimes of violence, that individuals with a prior history of criminal aggressivity constitute a significant proportion of vehicular homicide offenders, and that there is a strong positive relationship between traffic offenses and a history of criminal aggressivity. It is concluded that these findings sup port the hypothesis that the tendency toward aggressive beha...

Structural characterization of polymeric haptoglobin from goats.

Abstract: 1. 1. Polymeric haptoglobin was purified from the serum of Spanish goats (Capra hircus). 2. 2. Subunits were demonstrated and purified for assay by column chromatography. 3. 3. A large polypeptide subunit, comparable to beta from human haptoglobin, was demonstrated. 4. 4. A second, smaller subunit exhibited properties similar to the alpha subunits from human haptoglobin. 5. 5. These data are discussed with respect to the possible evolutionary relationships between goat and human haptoglobins and the genetic mechanisms which generated goat haptoglobin.

Public Spending, Land Taxes and Economic Growth: An Empirical Analysis of the Adequacy of Land as a Tax Base

Abstract: . Site value taxation is often cited as desirable on efficiency grounds, but is all too often dismissed for alleged lack of revenue potential. This paper empirically tests the revenue adequacy of site value taxation. Revenue adequacy in this study is defined as the ability of the tax base to keep pace with community expenditure needs. The paper concludes that communities with higher than average rates of capital growth and with a relatively constrained land area will find land taxes when subsituted for present property taxes, quite adequate for future as well as present needs.

The effect of severity, consistency, and typicalness information on clinicians' causal attributions.

Abstract: Sixty-four clinicians responded to a brief description of a depressed student by indicating the extent to which each of four possible causes contributed to the depression. The descriptions were varied systematically so that the student's depression was described as either mild or severe, typical or atypical, and as having occurred before or as never having occurred before. Results indicated greater attribution of the depression to internal causal factors when the individual's depression was described as atypical and greater attribution to stable causal factors when the depression was described as having occurred previously. When the depression was described as severe, the clinicians tended to attribute it to external unstable causes. It was suggested that clinicians may differ from other populations in some of the causal attributions that they make for psychological difficulties.

Comparison of the Standard Mmpi and the Mini-Mult in a University Counseling Center

Abstract: One hundred ten undergraduates were administered the standard Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory which was scored for the standard profile and for a shortened version of the same inventory. The study was designed to explore the usefulness of a short version of the MMPI in a university counseling center. Correlations were obtained between corresponding scales on both forms for males and females separately. Although Pearson product-moment correlations for both sexes were statistically significant, they were not of the magnitude to predict scale scores on one form from the other. In addition, an examination of the profiles suggested that the short version could not provide clinical data comparable to those of the standard form. Implications for further research were made.