Aid as a Catalyst

This article argues that aid is not the prime mover of development, but rather a catalyst. It might be used as a reward for good development governance. However, it will fulfil its catalytic function better by creating conditions for policy improvement. Better governance should be seen not only as a pre‐condition for development and for development aid, but also as a development objective in itself. This is particularly true for aid recipient countries in disarray.     

Multidimensional Sequence Alignment Methods for Activity‐Travel Pattern Analysis: A Comparison of Dynamic Programming and Genetic Algorithms

Quantitative comparisons of space‐time activity‐travel patterns have been made at length in regional science. Traditionally, Euclidean Hamming distances have been widely used to measure the similarity between activity‐travel patterns that involve several attribute dimensions such as activity type, location, travel mode, accompanying person, etc. Other techniques, such as pattern recognition in signal processing theory, have also been introduced for this purpose. All these measures, however, lack the ability to capture the sequential information embedded in activity‐travel patterns. Recently, the sequence alignment methods (SAMs), developed in molecular biology that are concerned with the distances between DNA strings, have been introduced in time use research. These SAMs do capture the similarity of activity‐travel patterns, including sequential information, but based on a single attribute only. Unfortunately, the extension of the unidimensional SAMs to a multidimensional method induces the problem of combinatorial explosion. To solve this problem, this paper introduces effective heuristic methods for the comparison of multidimensional activity‐travel patterns. First, following a brief review of existing measures of activity‐travel pattern comparison, the problem of multidimensional sequential information comparison and the combinatorial nature of the method are discussed. The paper then develops alternative multidimensional SAMs employing heuristics based on dynamic programming and genetic algorithms, respectively. These heuristic SAMs are compared using empirical activity‐travel pattern data. The paper ends by discussing avenues of future research.     

Rural Failure: The Linkage Between Policy and Lobbies

The failure of a national rural policy is a complex phenomenon. Suffice to say that such policy never emerged, despite frequent appearances on the presidential agenda. This analysis looks beyond institutional inertia and examines the reasons why no sustained rural lobby was ever created independent of farm interests. The circular explanation finds (hat lobbies fail to develop in the absence of a supportive base on which to place their demands for change.     

Tracing Issue Definition and Policy Change: An Analysis of Disability Issue Images and Policy Response

We examine the role of issue definition in disability policy change. Based on qualitative and quantitative evidence from media coverage and congressional hearings, we conclude that policy change was influenced by the redefinition of disability issues from medical and economic definitions to a new sociopolitical perspective. Specifically, we find evidence that media attention and tone influenced the number of congressional hearings and the tone of these hearings. The change in the congressional definition subsequently contributed to the passage of key legislation based on the sociopolitical/civil rights definition of disability. Importantly, our research supports previous studies that suggest problem definition helps to explain significant policy change.