Arms Races and Escalation: A Closer Look

The relationship between arms races and war is a critical consideration in both peace research and strategic planning. This study reconsiders the work of Michael Wallace which has postulated that arms races significantly increase the probability of a serious dispute escalating to war. A critique of Wallace's coding procedures and arms race index precedes an attempt to replicate his findings. In the replication, serious disputes, taken from the Correlates of War Project, among major powers during the years 1816-1970 serve as the population to be tested. Adjustments in coding and index construction from the Wallace work are made. It was discovered that only 25% of those disputes preceded by a mutual military buildup escalated to war, while almost 77% of the wars in this population were preceded by periods lacking armaments competition. Controls for inter-century differences and unilateral military buildups failed to alter this apparent lack of a relationship between arms races and dispute escalation. Differences with Wallace's study are analyzed and the implications for peace research discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68822/2/10.1177_002234338302000301.pd

Changes in the Intertemporal Relation Between the U.S. and Japanese Stock Markets

This paper finds a decreasing relationship between daytime trading in previous-day US equity markets and the Japanese market performance in the current period. On the other hand, the connection has increased between current US equity markets and current, after-hour Japanese markets. These changes have corrected a previous violation of the efficient market hypothesis, and suggest that as internet trading has increased volumes of off-hour trading, the Japanese equity markets have been better able to digest information from current US markets

Irrational War and Constitutional Design: A Reply to Professors Nzelibe and Yoo

This Reply proceeds as follows. Part I outlines the argument of the Nzelibe and Yoo paper. Part II considers their principal-agent analysis in the context of the American political system. Part III elaborates on the democratic peace literature, demonstrating that it does not support the conclusions that they draw. Part IV addresses the argument that we are in a new strategic situation, such that old rules ought not apply. Part V concludes

The Assessment and Treatment of Prosodic Disorders and Neurological Theories of Prosody

In this article, we comment on specific aspects of Peppe´ (Peppe´ , 2009). In particular, we address the assessment and treatment of prosody in clinical settings and discuss current theory on neurological models of prosody. We argue that in order for prosodic assessment instruments and treatment programs to be clinical effective, we need assessment instruments that: (1) have a representative normative comparison sample and strong psychometric properties; (2) are based on empirical information regarding the typical sequence of prosodic acquisition and are sensitive to developmental change; (3) meaningfully subcategorize various aspects of prosody; (4) use tasks that have ecological validity; and (5) have clinical properties, such as length and ease of administration, that allow them to become part of standard language assessment batteries. In addition, we argue that current theories of prosody processing in the brain are moving toward network models that involve multiple brain areas and are crucially dependent on cortical communication. The implications of these observations for future research and clinical practice are outlined

Filling in the Gaps: Extrasystemic Mechanisms for Addressing Imbalances between the International Legal Operating System and the Normative System

What happens when there is an imbalance between the operating and normative systems of international law? One obvious outcome is nothing; the imbalance remains, and the norms of the system are not given full effect. For example, human rights provisions abound, but they can be widely ignored in the absence of enforcement mechanisms. In this article, we identify several other possibilities. Our contention is that adaptations occur that compensate for, or at least mitigate, the effects of the operating-normative systems imbalance. Specifically, we explore four kinds of extrasystemic (at least from the perspective of the international legal system) adaptations: (1) actions by nongovernmental organizations and transnational networks, (2) internalization of international law, (3) domestic legal and political processes, and (4) soft law mechanisms. Our contention is that the international legal system is partly kept functioning by these actors and mechanisms, even though they technically fall outside the framework of the international legal system

Irrational War and Constitutional Design: A Reply to Professors Nzelibe and Yoo

This Reply proceeds as follows. Part I outlines the argument of the Nzelibe and Yoo paper. Part II considers their principal-agent analysis in the context of the American political system. Part III elaborates on the democratic peace literature, demonstrating that it does not support the conclusions that they draw. Part IV addresses the argument that we are in a new strategic situation, such that old rules ought not apply. Part V concludes

Acoustic Differences in the Imitation of Prosodic Patterns in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

In research, it has been difficult to characterize the prosodic production differences that have been observed clinically in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Moreover, the nature of these differences has been particularly hard to identify. This study examined one possible contributor to these perceived differences: motor planning. We examined the ability of children and adolescents with ASD to imitate prosodic patterns in comparison to a group with learning disabilities (LD) and a typically developing (TD) comparison group. Overall, we found that both the ASD and LD groups were significantly worse at perceiving and imitating prosodic patterns than the TD comparison group. Similar to previous studies using non-imitative speech, participants with ASD showed a significantly longer duration of utterances than the two comparison groups when attempting to imitate an intonation pattern. The implications of differences in duration of utterances are discussed. This study also highlights the importance of using clinical comparison groups in studies of language performance in individuals with ASD