Potential and probable pathological gamblers: Where do the differences lie?

A large proportion of adolescents engage in gambling activities and the prevalence of pathological gambling is high. This study presents a factor analysis of responses from 122 college students who obtained a score of 3 or greater on the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), the most widely used instrument to identify probable and potential pathological gamblers. The analysis showed five dimensions: Illegal Behaviors, Heavy Gambling, Eating Disorders, Parentally Modelled/Less Impulsive, and Worry. Analyses revealed that except for the Eating Disorders factor, all factors clearly differentiated the probable from potential pathological gamblers, as identified by the SOGS. Results raise important questions about the relationship of pathological gambling to other psychopathological or antisocial behaviors. Thus the probable pathological gambler category represents a wide-ranging behavioral profile that goes beyond gambling per se. Avenues for future research as well as clinical implications are discussed.This research was partially supported by grants from Le Fonds Richelieu, le Conseil Québécois de la Recherche Sociale and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.     

Agenda control in coalition formation

Theoretical models of government formation in political science usually assume that the head of state is non-strategic. In this paper, we analyze the power of an agenda setter who chooses the order in which players are recognized to form coalitions in simple games. We characterize those sets of players which can be imposed in the equilibrium coalition and show that the only decisive structures where the agenda setter can impose the presence of any minimal winning coalition are apex games, where a large player forms a winning coalition with any of the small players. Keywords: Government Formation, Agenda Control, Coalitional Bargaining, Finite Bargaining Rules. Received: 26 January 2001/Accepted: 31 July 2001     

A note on closure of the ILR and DLR classes under formation of coherent systems

In this paper, we give the closure of the class of increasing likelihood ratio (ILR) life distributions under the formation of certain coherent systems with independent and identically distributed components, and particularly in k-out-of-n systems. Some possible definitions of its dual class (DLR) are discussed and results about the closure are given. Furthermore, we include examples which show that these two aging classes are not closed under formation of special coherent systems. This work has been supported by Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Grants PB96-1105 and BFM2000-0362.     

Bayesian estimation of cognitive decline in patients with alzheimer's disease

Recently, there has been great interest in estimating the decline in cognitive ability in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Measuring decline is not straightforward, since one must consider the choice of scale to measure cognitive ability, possible floor and ceiling effects, between-patient variability, and the unobserved age of onset. The authors demonstrate how to account for the above features by modeling decline in scores on the Mini-Mental State Exam in two different data sets. To this end, they use hierarchical Bayesian models with change points, for which posterior distributions are calculated using the Gibbs sampler. They make comparisons between several such models using both prior and posterior Bayes factors, and compare the results from the models suggested by these two model selection criteria.     

Anti‐globalization movements and the European agenda

This article examines the relationship between the Europeanization process and the anti‐globalization agenda in Europe. Relying on the results of fieldwork research conducted since 2001 on the anti‐globalization demonstrations surrounding the European summits, it argues that these transnational protest movements are of a dual and, in part, contradictory nature. On the one hand, they have an agenda‐setting character, contributing to the formation of European public opinion. On the other hand, their influence in terms of agenda setting of European policy is constrained by their discourse style which bypasses or circumvents official discourse about European integration.     

Simple plurality versus plurality runoff with privately informed voters

This paper compares two voting methods commonly used in presidential elections: simple plurality voting and plurality runoff. In a situation in which a group of voters have common interests but do not agree on which candidate to support due to private information, information aggregation requires them to split their support between their favorite candidates. However, if a group of voters split their support, they increase the probability that the winner of the election is not one of their favorite candidates. In a model with three candidates, due to this tension between information aggregation and the need for coordination, plurality runoff leads to higher expected utility for the majority than simple plurality voting if the information held by voters about the candidates is not very accurate. Received: 12 September 2000/Accepted: 8 November 2001     

Validation of Multimedia Models Assessing Exposure to PAHs—The SOLEX Study

Polluted soils have become a public health problem. While population exposure to soil pollutants is generally quantified using multimedia models, their estimations have not been validated, and studies that attempted to do so are scarce. The objective of the SOLEX study was to compare the predictions of pyrene exposure levels (converted into 1 hydroxypyrene) computed by several models with the results of urinary 1-hydropyrene (1-HOP) assays among 110 employees working at three sites polluted during their past use as manufactured gas plants. Four models were used: AERIS (Canada), CalTOX (California, USA), CLEA (UK), and HESP (The Netherlands). Three occupational exposure scenarios--with office, mixed, and outdoor workers--were constructed, based upon job activities during two measurement campaigns, one in winter and one in summer. The exposure levels estimated by the four models could differ markedly (from 7 up to 80 times) according to the exposure scenario. Also, the predominant exposure routes differed according to the model (direct soil ingestion for HESP and CalTOX, inhalation for AERIS, and dermal absorption for CLEA). The predictions of CalTOX are consistent with the 1-HOP measurements for all the scenarios. For HESP, the consistency is observed for the scenarios, office and mixed, for which the pyrene level in the soil is low. AERIS and CLEA yield results that are systematically above the 1-HOP measurements. This study confirms that validation of the models is crucial and points out to the need to proceed to assess components of the models that are the most influential using appropriate statistical analysis in combination with true field data.     

Finding and fixing systems weaknesses: probabilistic methods and applications of engineering risk analysis.

Methods of engineering risk analysis are based on a functional analysis of systems and on the probabilities (generally Bayesian) of the events and random variables that affect their performances. These methods allow identification of a system's failure modes, computation of its probability of failure or performance deterioration per time unit or operation, and of the contribution of each component to the probabilities and consequences of failures. The model has been extended to include the human decisions and actions that affect components' performances, and the management factors that affect behaviors and can thus be root causes of system failures. By computing the risk with and without proposed measures, one can then set priorities among different risk management options under resource constraints. In this article, I present briefly the engineering risk analysis method, then several illustrations of risk computations that can be used to identify a system's weaknesses and the most cost-effective way to fix them. The first example concerns the heat shield of the space shuttle orbiter and shows the relative risk contribution of the tiles in different areas of the orbiter's surface. The second application is to patient risk in anesthesia and demonstrates how the engineering risk analysis method can be used in the medical domain to rank the benefits of risk mitigation measures, in that case, mostly organizational. The third application is a model of seismic risk analysis and mitigation, with application to the San Francisco Bay area for the assessment of the costs and benefits of different seismic provisions of building codes. In all three cases, some aspects of the results were not intuitively obvious. The probabilistic risk analysis (PRA) method allowed identifying system weaknesses and the most cost-effective way to fix them.