8/3/98

The following Ohio University professors are available for insightful interviews on topics in the news. Please contact Dwight Woodward at 740/593-1886 or Todd Anderson at 740/593-1885 to arrange an interview.

INTERACTIVE CD-ROM IMPROVES PARENTING SKILLS: An interactive CD-ROM that teaches parenting skills can help reduce the frequency and severity of children's behavioral problems, according to Ohio University Professor of Psychology Don Gordon, who developed the program. The CD-ROM, "Parenting Wisely," offers nine video dramas depicting common family problems, such as poor school performance and sibling rivalry. The program offers a choice of possible resolutions and potential outcomes for each."There's been a lot of research that suggests interactive computer technology promotes faster learning," says Gordon. "The key seems to be the interactive process. People have to take an active role in the learning process." Gordon presented research on the program's effectiveness July 11 at the annual meeting of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education.

STUDY FINDS POLITICS AFFECT SUPREME COURT DECISIONS: More than 70 percent of the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions during the terms of presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were liberal, but liberal decisions by the court dipped below 30 percent during the terms of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. That's according to a review of criminal cases over 40 years by two Ohio University professors of economics, Tony Caporale and Harold Winter. The political makeup of Congress and the party affiliation of the president play a role in the way the court rules in criminal cases, says Caporale. "Supreme Court justices basically have tenure for life and it is presumed they are insulated from any kind of pressure," Caporale says. "Much of the analysis of U.S. Supreme Court decision-making has excluded political change as factors influencing court rulings. It seems weird the literature hasn't addressed this to any extent."

NEW WATER TEST SPEEDS DETECTION OF TOXINS: A new technique that detects toxins in water in less than 10 minutes could lead to faster identification of harmful substances in the nation's water supplies, according to Anthony Andrews, an assistant professor of chemistry at Ohio University. The technique applies a principle similar to that used in drug testing: samples are screened for the presence of a suspicious substance and only those that test positive are sent for further analysis. Accurate water sampling of a large water system such as a river may require testing of as many as 100 samples from different locations in the river."The problem with doing a full analysis on every sample is that you can spend hours analyzing a sample only to find out that it's below Environmental Protection Agency limits," says Andrews. "With our method, you won't get an exact result of the type or amount of contaminants in the water sample, but you'll know whether the sample is contaminated above or below EPA limits." The testing method developed by Andrews can detect toxins at a level of one-billionth of a gram per liter of water, well below current EPA standards.