Networking in France. Is there a French School of Social Network Analysis?

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is a sociology based on interaction that visualizes and models relations between actors. Whereas interaction is approached by classical scholars, we had to wait until the 1970s and the birth of computer science to see social networks analysis develop. This article investigates the influence of SNA in France from the 1980s and wonder if there is a French school of SNA? To do so, we first resume social networks history and highlight its contribution to sociology. Second, we analyze the trajectory and profile of five “disciplinary entrepreneurs,” whose role in the field is important as they master three necessary languages for SNA: English, Mathematics and Computer Science. Third, in order to put back those individuals in their social structures, we cross SNA with the different French sociological tradition(s) (according to topics and methods). Last, we wonder if the institutionalization process succeeded in the creation of institutions from which a French SNA would be able to expand?     

Assessment of the Effectiveness of Radon Screening Programs in Reducing Lung Cancer Mortality

The present study was aimed at assessing the health consequences of the presence of radon in Quebec homes and the possible impact of various screening programs on lung cancer mortality. Lung cancer risk due to this radioactive gas was estimated according to the cancer risk model developed by the Sixth Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations. Objective data on residential radon exposure, population mobility, and tobacco use in the study population were integrated into a Monte‐Carlo‐type model. Participation rates to radon screening programs were estimated from published data. According to the model used, approximately 10% of deaths due to lung cancer are attributable to residential radon exposure on a yearly basis in Quebec. In the long term, the promotion of a universal screening program would prevent less than one death/year on a province‐wide scale (0.8 case; IC 99%: –3.6 to 5.2 cases/year), for an overall reduction of 0.19% in radon‐related mortality. Reductions in mortality due to radon by (1) the implementation of a targeted screening program in the region with the highest concentrations, (2) the promotion of screening on a local basis with financial support, or (3) the realization of systematic investigations in primary and secondary schools would increase to 1%, 14%, and 16.4%, respectively, in the each of the populations targeted by these scenarios. Other than the battle against tobacco use, radon screening in public buildings thus currently appears as the most promising screening policy for reducing radon‐related lung cancer.     

Penalized calibration in survey sampling: Design-based estimation assisted by mixed models

Calibration techniques in survey sampling, such as generalized regression estimation (GREG), were formalized in the 1990s to produce efficient estimators of linear combinations of study variables, such as totals or means. They implicitly lie on the assumption of a linear regression model between the variable of interest and some auxiliary variables in order to yield estimates with lower variance if the model is true and remaining approximately design-unbiased even if the model does not hold. We propose a new class of model-assisted estimators obtained by releasing a few calibration constraints and replacing them with a penalty term. This penalization is added to the distance criterion to minimize. By introducing the concept of penalized calibration, combining usual calibration and this ‘relaxed’ calibration, we are able to adjust the weight given to the available auxiliary information. We obtain a more flexible estimation procedure giving better estimates particularly when the auxiliary information is overly abundant or not fully appropriate to be completely used. Such an approach can also be seen as a design-based alternative to the estimation procedures based on the more general class of mixed models, presenting new prospects in some scopes of application such as inference on small domains.     

Revealing the elusive effects of vividness: a meta-analysis of empirical evidences assessing the effect of vividness on persuasion

Despites decades of research, past studies focusing on the effects of vividness on persuasion found mixed and contradictory results. In order to solve this conflicting issue, a meta-analysis was conducted on empirical studies assessing the impact of vivid (vs. pallid) communications on attitude and/or behavioral intention. Overall, 27 articles (k = 43; N = 7575) were included. Our results showed that vividness yielded significant small-to-medium effect on both attitude (d₊ = .31) and behavioral intention (d₊ = .39). Furthermore, meta-regression analyses indicated that memory recall, cognitive elaboration, and topic valence moderated these effects, whereas vividness/argument congruency was not significantly related to the variations of effects sizes. Finally, theoretical implications of theses finding will be discussed.     

Trip packing in petrol stations replenishment

This paper considers a generalized version of the trip packing problem that we encountered as a sub-problem of the petrol stations replenishment problem. In this version we have to assign a number of trips to a fleet composed of a limited number of non-identical tank-trucks. Each trip has a specific duration, working time of vehicles is limited and the net revenue of each trip depends on the truck used. The paper provides a mathematical formulation of the problem and proposes some construction, improvement and neighbourhood search solution heuristics. A set of benchmark problem instances is created in a way that reflects real-life situations and used to analyse the performance of the proposed heuristics. A real-life case is also used to further assess the proposed heuristics.     

Migration as a source of growth: The perspective of a developing country

This paper analyses the dynamics of migratory flows and growth in a developing economy. We show that when workers freely choose their location, some natives can rationally decide to return to their home country after they have accumulated a certain amount of knowledge abroad, while some prefer to stay permanently in the same economy (either at home or abroad). We point out that worker mobility can have an expansionary effect on the developing economy. Moreover, we show that in the long-run, as the sending economy develops, fewer natives are likely to emigrate and more migrants are likely to return. Received: 7 December 2000/Accepted: 25 April 2001     

The relationship between HRM practices and organizational commitment of knowledge workers. Facts obtained from Swiss SMEs

This paper explores the effects of human resource management (HRM) practices in Swiss small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). More specifically, the main objective of this study is to assess the impacts of HRM practices developed in Swiss SMEs upon the commitment of knowledge workers. Using data from a survey of over 198 knowledge workers, this study shows the importance of looking closer at HRM practices and, furthermore, to really investigate the impacts of the different HRM practices on employees' commitment. Results show, for example, that organizational support, procedural justice and the reputation of the organization may clearly influence knowledge workers' commitment, whereas other HRM practices such as involvement in decision-making, skills management or even the degree of satisfaction with pay do not have any impact on knowledge workers' commitment.     

Priming Resistance to Persuasion decreases adherence to Conspiracy Theories*

Research in the field of Resistance to Persuasion (RP) has demonstrated that inoculating individuals with counter arguments is effective for lowering their levels of adherence to conspiracist beliefs (CB). Yet, this strategy is limited because it requires specific arguments tailored against targeted conspiracist narratives. Therefore, we investigated whether priming Resistance to Persuasion would reduce individual adherence to CB among undergraduate student samples. A first study (N = 81) demonstrated that participants primed by filling a RP scale had lower CB scores than control participants. This effect was directly replicated twice (N = 205 and N = 265) and confirmed by a mini meta-analysis (N = 519; d = .20). Practical and theoretical implications are then discussed.     

Physical education and sport teachers' health: from expressed ill-being to hindrances of action

The researches that specifically analyse the working conditions of teachers are few in the ergonomic literature. Our research relates more specifically to teachers of physical education and sports in french context of college. The research project described here includes both a quantitative exploratory survey (218 respondents) and qualitative case studies (interviews and observation), using the general framework of Activity Ergonomics. The results of this exploratory work tend to emphasize the importance of collective and organizational dimensions in the experience of teachers' physical education and sports. Specifically, in a perceived context of degradation of working conditions and accumulation of constraints, the collective and local ability to negotiate the various constraints on the activity appears to be a protective factor. This power to act, these margin of manoeuvre could be a relevant topic for future research.