Assessment of Interindividual and Geographic Variability in Human Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter in Environmental Tobacco Smoke

Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is a major contributor to indoor human exposures to fine particulate matter of 2.5 μm or smaller (PM_2.5). The Stochastic Human Exposure and Dose Simulation for Particulate Matter (SHEDS‐PM) Model developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates distributions of outdoor and indoor PM_2.5 exposure for a specified population based on ambient concentrations and indoor emissions sources. A critical assessment was conducted of the methodology and data used in SHEDS‐PM for estimation of indoor exposure to ETS. For the residential microenvironment, SHEDS uses a mass‐balance approach, which is comparable to best practices. The default inputs in SHEDS‐PM were reviewed and more recent and extensive data sources were identified. Sensitivity analysis was used to determine which inputs should be prioritized for updating. Data regarding the proportion of smokers and “other smokers” and cigarette emission rate were found to be important. SHEDS‐PM does not currently account for in‐vehicle ETS exposure; however, in‐vehicle ETS‐related PM_2.5 levels can exceed those in residential microenvironments by a factor of 10 or more. Therefore, a mass‐balance‐based methodology for estimating in‐vehicle ETS PM_2.5 concentration is evaluated. Recommendations are made regarding updating of input data and algorithms related to ETS exposure in the SHEDS‐PM model. Interindividual variability for ETS exposure was quantified. Geographic variability in ETS exposure was quantified based on the varying prevalence of smokers in five selected locations in the United States.     

The evolutionary anthropology of political leadership

Existing approaches within leadership studies often share a bias towards industrialized societies and lack broader cross-cultural and ethological reference. Meanwhile, cross-cultural and evolutionary approaches within anthropology are actively working to unify research on leadership and followership across the biological and social sciences. This review provides a novel and thorough view of political leadership as investigated by evolutionary anthropologists and highlights the benefits of incorporating findings from the evolutionary social sciences into leadership studies generally. We introduce the anthropological approach to leadership; describe evolutionary anthropology, its subdisciplines (including primatology, paleoanthropology, paleogenetics, human behavioral ecology, and gene-culture coevolution), and its complementary disciplines (particularly evolutionary psychology); review leadership and hierarchy in nonhumans, including our extinct hominid ancestors; review female leadership and sex-differences; and, primarily, discuss the relationships between evolution, ecology, and culture as they relate to the observed patterns of political leadership and followership across human societies. Through evolutionary anthropology's diverse toolkit, a deeper insight into the evolution and cross-cultural patterning of leadership is realized.     

Paradoxes, locations and the need for social coherence: a qualitative study of living with a learning difficulty

Policy rhetoric over recent decades has promoted social inclusion of the more vulnerable sectors of society, such as people with learning difficulties. This study aimed to describe the experiences of people who live with learning difficulties in order to inform local service development. Thirty-five people with a learning difficulty and/or a family member were interviewed. A model of social coherence was developed that moves beyond the self-limiting debates about social inclusion and exclusion. It is underpinned by a sense of location for the person with a disability in relation to services and carers, family and community, dependency and risk, temporality and space, events, control and society. Key recommendations are for services to know the individual and his/her family; to be responsive to individual needs; to enhance the capacity of families and communities to support people with difficulty in learning; and to help these people to feel more valued.     

The social cost of the Black Saturday bushfires

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have predicted with high confidence that the risk of bushfires will increase in the future. As this risk increases, so too does the need for appropriate policy responses. In developing these responses, costs need to be weighed against benefits. To fully appreciate the benefits of bushfire risk mitigation policies and strengthen the development of social policies around such events, it is necessary to include the psychological cost of experiencing these events. In this study, we employ the ‘life satisfaction approach’ to place a monetary estimate on the cost of Australia's Black Saturday bushfires (Australia's worst bushfires on record). Results reveal that the bushfires significantly reduce self‐reported levels of life satisfaction, with an implied willingness‐to‐pay of AUD 2,991 in terms of annual household income, or AUD 1,039 per capita, to reduce by one percent the extent to which an individual's immediate local area was affected by the Black Saturday bushfires. In doing so, we identify an apparent gap between current levels of expenditure on bushfire response and mitigation, and that amount which (with the inclusion of associated social benefits) would be welfare maximising.     

The crisis intervention team: a revolutionary tool for law enforcement: the psychiatric-mental health nursing perspective

Effective management of people who are in mental health crisis in the community has gained national concern from the standpoint of law enforcement. This article addresses a revolutionary concept known as the Crisis Intervention Team, which teaches law enforcement personnel how to safely approach and de-escalate people who are experiencing a mental health crisis and get them safely to treatment.     

The impact of tax rates, political partisanship and economic variables on the distribution of state and local tax burdens

This study finds that the effective state and local tax rate for the top 1% of income households as a percentage of the effective state and local tax rate for the bottom 20% of income households in 2002 is significantly influenced by whether a state has a multi-rate income tax, right-to-work laws, the liberalism of a state's electorate, the average tax burden in a state and past tax policy. Democratic Party strength in state government, Republican or Democratic Party institutional control of state government, change in real per capita income, a Democratic Governor and the change in the share of income going to the top 1% of income households are not significant predictors. The empirical results are identical for the top 2-5% of income households to the bottom 20% of income households.     

Are there rewards for language skills? Evidence from the earnings of registered nurses

The existing empirical evidence on whether U.S. labor markets reward workers for second-language skills is meager and conflicting. Employing data from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses in 2000 and 2004, this study reexamines the positive bilingual–earnings relationship found in the most current research on this topic. We test the relationship using alternative models that explain the wages earned by nurses. The advantage of this approach is that it permits an assessment of how sensitive the results are to changes in the variables used in the model. We find the evidence of a positive bilingual effect on earnings to be mixed. The relationship is sufficiently frail that statistically significant results eventually dissolve as more precise occupational characteristics are included in the wage equation. Moreover, using more current data, we find no evidence of a wage premium paid to nurses for second-language skills. We offer possible explanations for this lack of evidence within this specific occupation.     

Class and cuisine in contemporary Britain: the social space,the space of food and their homology

Thirty‐five years ago Pierre Bourdieu asserted that food preferences, as much as any other element of culture, are distributed within a space of difference more or less homologous with the social space of class positions. Plumbing data on annual spends on all manner of food items, he detected two key oppositions – a taste for the light versus a taste for the heavy on the one hand and a taste for rich foods versus a taste for healthy and exotic foods on the other – and located their generative principles in differences of volume of capital and composition of capital respectively. Deploying a correspondence analysis of similar data using the 2010 Living Costs and Food Survey, supplemented by data from the 2008 British Social Attitudes survey and the 2003 Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion Survey, we seek to examine whether comparable differences in expenditure and preferences are observable in contemporary Britain and, consequently, to illuminate the current structure of the food space and its homology with class. Ultimately, we conclude that Bourdieu's general model is essentially transposable from 1960s France to the UK at the dawn of the 21st century, though we put additional emphasis on the ethical dimension of food consumption, and reflect on the prevalent instances of symbolic violence it underpins.     

Does Anti‐Hispanic Bias Motivate Opposition to Non‐English Languages?*

Contemporary political debates about language policy in the United States focus on three primary policy issues: bilingual education in public schools, English‐only legislation, and the access of non‐English speaking citizens to political rights. Using the “Multi‐Ethnic United States” module from the 2000 General Social Survey (GSS), this article tests multiple attitudinal, behavioral, demographic, and contextual hypotheses for how Anglos and African Americans view bilingual policy issues. We examine the role of linguistic contact, self‐interest, group threat, and discriminatory views of Latinos, finding that the latter—as measured by the “Three Ds” (Derogation, Disrespect, and Distance)—are the strongest predictors of attitudes toward bilingualism. Distance (social distance from Latinos) is consistently significant, disrespect (doubts about Latino contributions to the United States.) is mostly significant, and derogation (Latino stereotypes) is occasionally significant. Also, political ideology and knowledge of a non‐English language play important roles in the formation of favorable bilingualism opinions. However, the self‐interest and group threat variables were largely insignificant. Taken together, these findings indicate the importance of understanding how policy views may be structured by opinions about out‐group individuals and cultures. Language can serve as a proxy for immigrants themselves, as negative attitudes toward Latinos are associated with negative attitudes toward bilingualism.