Using 2005 data from Gallup public opinion surveys on attitudes toward immigration policy in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom this study explores the factors that impact attitudes. Additional analysis is conducted on the United States exploring how economic, political and associative measures impact attitudes.

Background: HIV is increasingly prevalent among youth in the US. Objective: To assess the impact of HIV/AIDS education on health-risk behaviors associated with HIV infection in the state of Georgia. Methods: Descriptive analyses of the 2005 Georgia Student Health Survey were conducted by cross-tabulating the presence of HIV/AIDS education and each of the health-risk behaviors of interest. In addition, a survey with a sample of metro Atlanta health educators that assessed ASK US was conducted and analyzed. Results: The percentage of Georgia high school students that had ever been taught about AIDS or HIV infection in school was 91.8% (n = 1,547).The only self-reported risk factor that appeared to have a relationship with HIV/AIDS education was binge drinking (p = 0.0060). Results of the health educator survey demonstrated that ASK US is a good HIV/AIDS education tool. Conclusions: Although HIV/AIDS education is widespread, the prevalence of various health-risk behaviors remain high and, therefore, different models of HIV/AIDS education may be called for.

No description available.

No description available.

Research shows that Muslims are often reproduced within the context that reinforces stereotyping of Muslims, see for example Otterbeck and Schielke. They are often regarded as a collective group with no distinct individuals and thereby the Islamic religiosity is portrayed as different and deviant from the more secular and private practiced Protestantism that is a common belief in Sweden. The purpose of this work is to study the already existing representation of Muslim women in a Western context, i.e. Muslim women in Sweden. This is done through an analysis of two ethnographic interviews and observational studies, written by researchers in Sweden (Karlsson Minganti and Sultan Sjöqvist) to investigate the existence of an "us and them" mindset. The two ethnographic studies which are analyzed in this work, deal with different types of Muslims: women who have been Muslims since birth and converted Muslim women. Furthermore, each researcher's results are put in relation to postcolonial theories to interpret and understand the conclusions of the researchers. My conclusion is that there are clear tendencies of an "us and them" mindset, where researchers place their research object as "them". The women are portrayed as different, with different values in relation to the "Swedish society" or the "Western world". Many of the women show awareness of being assigned the position of "the others" by the society. The women, both the converted and the ones who have been Muslim since birth, think that they do not fall into the norm of whiteness, they do not identify themselves as the "normal western woman" and they position themselves as a minority, forming the notion that they are "them" and confirming the exclusion of themselves. Other clear trends are the researchers ways to interpret and understand women's lives on the basis of the white 'middle-class women's experiences and thereby excluding the Muslim women’s own perception of their conditions of life.

The Chinese stimulus package of 2008 was a response by the government to rebound the second largest economy from the effects of the Global Financial Crisis. The package was one of the largest, and arguably one of the most successful, in boosting demand and spurring growth through targeting infrastructure projects and consumer spending. This paper investigates whether the package had any spillover effects on the US industrial and consumption companies with large markets in China through the time series multiple regression technique. This paper found that Chinese net exports had some explanatory power over the consumption companies, and the US industrial companies were hurt by the stimulus package. The findings also suggest that there are more macroeconomic variables that have more explanatory power over the returns of the companies than the ones included in the regressions.

My paper, “Us and Them – an analysis of the creation of “the Other” in The Reluctant Fundamentalist and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”, aims to examine Mohsin Hamid´s and John Boyne´s novels from the years 2007 and 2008. The paper tries to answer the following questions: How is “the Other”and“Us and Them”created in the novels? And: What consequences does the thinking in terms of “the Other”and“Us and Them”lead to in the novels? The examination is done through the method of close reading and by applying the theory of Orientalism and Edward W. Said’s analysis of the theory to the reading. It is, I believe, of utmost importance for teachers to create unity among their pupils, and peaceful and democratic classrooms where co-work is promoted. This is especially important in multi-cultural classrooms where different ethnicities, cultures, religions, nationalities, and so on, are present and represented. Unity, peace, democracy, and co-work prevent negative ways of thinking in terms of “the Other”or/and“Us and Them”among pupils, and they are also terms that the curriculum refer to. Literature can be a tool and a method to do this by, used properly. This is why I, a becoming teacher, have decided to close examine two novels that many Swedish schools have in class settings and find out whether they are creating unity, peace, and democracy between people or if they on the contrary are creating disruption between people and maybe support negative ways of thinking in terms of “the Other”and“Us and Them”. The examination of the novels revealed that they both do create “the Other”and“Us and Them ”and that it leads to negative consequences in the novels. But this only makes the novels perfect material for teaching, if, the teacher offering this material to pupils does not just expect pupils to read the novels, but helps them reflect upon them and problematize the themes, the events, and the characters in them.

The "law versus politics" debate is central in the study of the Supreme Court's institutional role in US democracy and law making. Research has sought to determine if the Supreme Court is an unconstrained political actor or if it is constrained by precedent. This dissertation contributes to this debate by theorizing that there is not a direct tradeoff; instead, even a politically motivated Court can be constrained by precedent. Given precedent is an internally imposed norm, what incentive does a politically motivated Supreme Court have to adhere to precedent when it results in outcomes that deviate from the Court's most preferred ideological outcome? There has been a lack of theoretical development and empirical testing that would explain the Court's incentive to adhere to precedent. I argue that even a politically motivated Supreme Court has an interest in adhering to precedent as a means of control over the lower courts. The Court has a role as a principal with the Courts of Appeals acting as an agent. The Supreme Court uses precedent as a standard that guides lower court decision-making in thousands of cases that the Court will never hear. The Supreme Court is willing to sacrifice the dispositional outcome (who wins and who loses) in a given case to issue or adhere to a precedent that will better guide lower court decision-making in a given area. To test this theory, this project will construct an original data set using a new measure of precedent. Specifically, "the law" and "precedent" for a case will be coded in terms of the standard of review. The standard of review can be understood as a precise legal statement of which party has the burden of proof or justification in a given case and the nature of that burden. This is an ordinal measure (coded 0-4) based on the Court's finite legal rules in a given area of law (rational basis, heightened rational basis, intermediate, heightened intermediate and strict). This novel understanding better captures the legal content of court opinions.

A study of the separation of powers (legislative, executive, and judicial) in Australia at the Commonwealth and the State level including three Australian States, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. The separation of powers (SOP) theory from Locke and Blackstone is used for the SOP theory in Australia. In practice, the English rather than the American system of government and SOP is the model used for the Australian Commonwealth Government and SOP. The Commonwealth SOP is used as a guide for the States SOP. Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales are case studies used to compare and contrast with the Commonwealth. The concept of the SOP in Australia is articulated by the High Court and is derived from the Blackstonian SOP theory rather than the Federalist SOP theory. The implementation of the SOP theory into practice is problematic. The SOP theory is used as a conceptual framework to understand current events. The advantages and disadvantages or problems of the Commonwealth model are presented as a guide for the States. The same structure is used for the study of the three States in the form of the advantages and disadvantages or problems of the SOP at the State level. The entrenchment of the SOP at the State level will help to partly overcome the problems highlighted in the case study chapters. The federal SOP situation is better than at the State level but the entrenchment of Bills of Rights at the Commonwealth and State levels would help to counter the trend in reduction of civil rights. The SOP is important in protecting citizens from the abuse of government power. The lack of separation of powers, especially separation of judicial power at State level, has meant the increasing abuse of powers by the executive and the executive dominating the other two branches of government.

This study gives an insight into the behaviour and performance of large speculators and large hedgers in 29 US futures markets. Using a trading determinant model and priced risk factors such as net positions and sentiment index, results suggest hedgers (speculators) exhibit significant positive feedback trading in 15 (7) markets. Information variables like the S&P500 index dividend yield, corporate yield spread and the three months treasury bill rate were mostly unimportant in large players’ trading decisions. Hedgers had better market timing abilities than speculators in judging the direction of the market in one month. The poor market timing abilities and poor significance of positive feedback results suggest higher trading frequency intervals for speculators. Hedging pressures, which measure the presence of risk premium in futures markets, were insignificant mostly in agricultural markets. As a robust test of hedging pressures, price pressure tests found risk premium to be still significant for silver, crude oil and live cattle. The positive feedback behaviour and negative market timing abilities suggest hedgers in heating oil and Japanese yen destabilize futures prices, and points to a need to check CFTC’s (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) position limits regulation in these markets. In fact, large hedgers in these two markets are more likely to be leading behaviour, in that they have more absolute net positions than speculators. Alternatively stated, positive feedback hedgers in these two markets are more likely to lead institutions and investors to buy (sell) overpriced (underpriced) contracts, eventually leading to divergence of prices away from fundamentals. / Atlhought hedgers in crude oil had significant positive feedback behaviour and negative market timing skills, they would not have much of a destabilizing effect over remaining players because the mean net positions of hedgers and speculators were not far apart. While the results are statistically significant, it is suggested these could be economically significant, in that there have been no regulation on position limits at all for hedgers compared to speculators who are imposed with strict limits from the CFTC. Further, mean equations were regressed against decomposed variables, to see how much of the futures returns are attributed to expected components of variables such as net positions, sentiment and information variables. While the expected components of variables are derived by ensuring there are enough ARMA (autoregressive and moving average) terms to make them statistically and economically reliable, the unexpected components of variables measure the residual on differences of the series from its mean. When decomposing net positions against returns, it was found expected net positions to be negatively related to hedgers’ returns in mostly agricultural markets. Speculators’ expected (unexpected) positions were less (more) significant in explaining actual returns, suggesting hedgers are more prone in setting an expected net position at the start of the trading month to determine actual returns rather than readjusting their net positions frequently all throughout the remaining days of the month. While it important to see how futures returns are determined by expected and unexpected values, it is also essential to see how volatility is affected as well. / In an attempt to cover three broad types of volatility measures, idiosyncratic volatility, GARCH based volatility (variance based), and PARCH based volatility (standard deviation) are used. Net positions of hedgers (expected and unexpected) tend to have less effect on idiosyncratic volatility than speculators that tended to add to volatility, reinforcing that hedgers trading activity hardly affect the volatility in their returns. This suggest they are better informed by having a better control over their risk (volatility) measures. The GARCH model showed more reliance of news of volatility from previous month in speculators’ volatility. Hedgers’ and speculators’ volatility had a tendency to decay over time except for hedgers’ volatility in Treasury bonds and coffee, and gold and S&P500 for speculators’ volatility. The PARCH model exhibited more negative components in explaining current volatility. Only in crude oil, heating oil and wheat (Chicago) were idiosyncratic volatility positively related to return, reinforcing the suggestion for stringent regulation in the heating oil market. Expected idiosyncratic volatility was lower (higher) for hedgers (speculators) as expected under portfolio theory. Markets where variance or standard deviation are smaller than those of speculators support the price insurance theory where hedging enables traders to insure against the risk of price fluctuations. Where variance or standard deviation of hedgers is greater than speculators, this suggest the motivation to use futures contracts not primarily to reduce risk, but by institutional characteristics of the futures exchanges like regulation ensuring liquidity. / Results were also supportive that there was higher fluctuations in currency and financial markets due to the higher number of contracts traded and players present. Further, the four models (GARCH normal, GARCH t, PARCH normal and PARCH t) showed returns were leptokurtic. The PARCH model, under normal distribution, produced the best forecast of one-month return in ten markets. Standard deviation and variance for both hedgers’ and speculators’ results were mixed, explained by a desire to reduce risk or other institutional characteristics like regulation ensuring liquidity. Moreover, idiosyncratic volatility failed to accurately forecast the risk (standard deviation or variance based) that provided a good forecast of one-month return. This supports not only the superiority of ARCH based models over models that assume equally weighted average of past squared residuals, but also the presence of time varying volatility in futures prices time series. The last section of the study involved a stability and events analysis, using recursive estimation methods. The trading determinant model, mean equation model , return and risk model, trading activity model and volatility models were all found to be stable following the effect of major global economic events of the 1990s. Models with risk being proxied as standard deviation showed more structural breaks than where variance was used. Overall, major macroeconomic events didn’t have any significant effect upon the large hedgers’ and speculators’ behaviour and performance over the last decade.