Nonfamily Abducted Children: National Estimates and Characteristics.

Presents national estimates of children abducted by nonfamily perpetrators, based on surveys of households and law enforcement agencies. The Bulletin, which is part of a series summarizing findings from the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2), also analyzes characteristics of victims, perpetrators, and episodes. During the study period, an estimated 58,200 children were abducted by nonfamily perpetrators; 115 were victims of stereotypical kidnappings. Teenagers were the most frequent victims. Nearly half of all victims were sexually assaulted. In 40 percent of stereotypical kidnappings, the child was killed; in another 4 percent, the child was not recovered. The Bulletin also discusses policy implications of the findings

Children Abducted by Family Members: National Estimates and Characteristics.

Presents national estimates of children abducted by family members in 1999, their demographic characteristics, and the characteristics of perpetrators and episodes. The Bulletin is part of a series summarizing findings from the second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART-2). Of the estimated 203,900 children who experienced a family abduction, 117,200 were classified as caretaker missing and 56,500 were reported as missing to law enforcement or other agencies. Younger children were at greatest risk of being abducted by a family member. Use of threats or physical force was uncommon. The Bulletin also discusses policy implications of the findings

Sexually Assaulted Children: National Estimates and Characteristics.

Provides information on the estimated number and characteristics of children who were sexually assaulted in the United States in 1999. This Bulletin is the seventh in the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2) series. Information on sexual assault was gathered from NISMART–2 interviews with victims and their families

National Estimates of Children Missing Involuntarily or for Benign Reasons.

Provides information on the numbers and characteristics of two groups not often recognized in the literature on missing children: children involuntarily missing because they were lost or injured and those missing because of a benign explanation such as a miscommunication or mistaken expectation. The data are from two surveys conducted in 1999 as part of the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2). Children missing from their caretakers in circumstances with benign explanations constituted 43 percent of all missing children reported to authorities—the second largest category after those classified as runaway/thrownaway. The authors discuss the policy implications raised by these data

Forest Clearing in the Pantropics: December 2005–August 2011- Working Paper 283

This report summarizes recent trends in large-scale tropical forest clearing identified by FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action). Our analysis includes 27 countries that accounted for 94 percent of clearing during the period 2000–2005. We highlight countries with relatively large changes since 2005, both declines and increases. FORMA produces indicators that track monthly changes in the number of 1-sq.-km. tropical forest parcels that have experienced clearing with high probability. This report and the accompanying spreadsheet databases provide monthly estimates for 27 countries, 280 primary administrative units, and 2,907 secondary administrative units. Countries’ divergent experiences since 2005 have significantly altered their shares of global clearing in some cases. Brazil’s global share fell by 11.2 percentage points from December 2005 to August 2011, while the combined share of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Myanmar increased by 10.8. The diverse patterns revealed by FORMA’s first global survey caution against facile generalizations about forest clearing in the pantropics. During the past five years, the relative scale and pace of clearing have changed across regions, within regions, and within countries. Although the overall trend seems hopeful, it remains to be seen whether the decline in forest clearing will persist as the global economy recovers.

FORMA: Forest Monitoring for Action— Rapid Identification of Pan-tropical Deforestation Using Moderate-Resolution Remotely Sensed Data

Rising concern about carbon emissions from deforestation has led donors to finance UN-REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries), a program that offers direct compensation for forest conservation. Sustainable operation of UN-REDD and other direct-compensation programs will require a transparent, credible, frequently updated system for monitoring deforestation. In this paper, we introduce FORMA (Forest Monitoring for Action), a prototype system based on remotely sensed data. We test its accuracy against the best available information on deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia. Our results indicate that publicly available remotely sensed data can support accurate quarterly identification of new deforestation at 1 km spatial resolution. More rapid updates at higher spatial resolution may also be possible. At current resolution, with efficient coding in publicly available software, FORMA should produce global updates on one desktop computer in a few hours. Maps of probable deforestation at 1 km resolution will be accessible with Google Earth and Google Maps, with an open facility for ground-truthing each pixel via photographs and text comments.remote sensing; forest; deforestation; conservation; climate change

National Estimates of Missing Children: An Overview.

Presents an overview of the second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART-2). First in a series summarizing NISMART-2 findings, this Bulletin describes NISMART component surveys and estimating methodology and defines the types of missing child episodes studied: nonfamily abduction (including stereotypical kidnapping); family abduction; runaway/thrownaway; missing involuntary, lost, or injured; and missing benign explanation. The Bulletin also presents national estimates for children classified as caretaker missing and those reported missing to law enforcement or other agencies, by type of episode and by child\u27s age, gender, and race/ethnicity. The authors note that only a small proportion of all missing children are victims of stereotypical kidnappings

National Estimates of Missing Children: Selected Trends, 1988-1999.

Presents results of an analysis comparing selected findings from the second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2) and its predecessor, NISMART–1. The analysis, which is based on household surveys of adult caretakers and covers victims of family abductions, runaways, and children categorized as lost, injured, or otherwise missing, highlights trends from 1988 to 1999. The most important finding is the absence of increases in any of these problems. For some types of episodes, the incident rates decreased. This Bulletin is part of a series summarizing results from NISMART–2

THE CANADA-FRANCE REDSHIFT SURVEY V: Global Properties of the Sample

The photometric and spectroscopic data of the CFRS survey of objects with 17.5 < I_{AB} < 22.5 are combined and analysed. The overall completeness is 85%. The redshift histogram of the sample is presented for 591 field galaxies with secure redshifts. The median redshift is z = 0.56, and the highest redshift observed is z = 1.3; 25 galaxies have z > 1 The distributions of magnitudes and colors demonstrate that galaxies at these high redshifts have very similar colors to those observed locally. The survey thus represents a major improvement in our knowledge of field galaxies at large look-back times. Only ~1% of the galaxies are as compact as stars (on images with FWHM ~ 0.9") and comparisons of the photometric and spectroscopic data show that only one galaxy was initially incorrectly classified spectroscopically as a star, and only two stars were misclassified as galaxies. It is demonstrated that the redshift distributions in the five fields are statistically consistent with each other, once the reduction in the effective number of independent galaxies due to small-scale clustering in redshift is taken into account. The photometric properties of the spectroscopically-unidentified objects indicate that most are likely to be galaxies rather than stars. At least half of these must have the same redshift distribution as the identified galaxies, and a combination of magnitudes, colors and compactness of the remaining unidentified galaxies is used to predict their redshifts. The majority are probably ordinary galaxies at the high redshift end of our sample, including some quiescent galaxies at z > 1.0, rather than some new or unusual population.Comment: 20 uuencoded postscript pages (first part) with 12 figures (second part). Also available at http://www.dao.nrc.ca/DAO/SCIENCE/science.html and coming soon on a CFRS homepage. Accepted June 19, scheduled for Dec 10 issue of Ap

Union Leadership and Member Attitudes: A Multi-Level Analysis

[Excerpt] Analyses of union leadership roles show that union presidents should have both a within-union focus and an external focus. The authors combined multi-level survey data from 3,871 union members in 248 local teachers’ unions with archival and field staff data to examine relationships between leadership and members’ perceptions of union instrumentality and justice, union commitment, and participation. The results showed significant union-level effects on members’ beliefs about, and attitudes toward, their unions, attributable to the presidents’ internal and external leadership, wage outcomes, and union characteristics. Relationships between internally focused leadership and members’ loyalty and willingness to work for the union were partially mediated by perceptions of union instrumentality and justice. These perceptions fully mediated the relationship between externally focused leadership and union loyalty