Moral Values, Moralism, and the 2004 Presidential Election

The "moral values vote" in the 2004 American presidential election should be interpreted more broadly than as a reflection of concerns about same-sex marriage and abortion. Instead of specific hot-button social policy issues, a general personality trait of moralism—the tendency to perceive a moral dimension in everyday decisions—may have contributed to the election outcome. Specifically, we hypothesize that some Bush supporters shared Bush's high level of moralism (as reflected in his rhetoric) and that this moralism motivated their votes. Consistent with our hypothesis, a preliminary empirical investigation suggests that Bush voters were, indeed, higher in moralism than were Kerry voters. Plans for further research and political strategy implications are discussed.     

Addressing medical errors: the key to a safer health care system

A recent report on patient safety by the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Quality of Health Care in America noted that there are at least 44,000 patient deaths from medical errors each year, placing them as the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. They occur in every aspect of the practice of medicine. Some result in adverse events that harm patients. Can an organized effort to reduce medical errors be effective? Other complex industries have been successful in reducing errors and improving quality. The IOM report argues that the medical community must do the same to ensure a higher quality of care. Both the Clinton administration and Congress have expressed concerns about the frequency of medical errors, as has organized medicine. These findings raise significant policy questions for physician executives' charges with ensuring patient safety.     

Chemical and biological terrorism: planning for the worst

Preparing for a chemical or biological terrorist event has recently become an intense area of focus for emergency health planners in every state and city in America. Many of these individuals believe that a chemical or biological terrorist event is likely in the near future and they raise concerns about the readiness of our nation's health system to rapidly identify and manage a disaster of this magnitude. In both types of events, physician leadership is essential to reduce death and disability and restore public order. Several policy issues need to be addressed in this complex issue. Physician executives play a key role in preparing the health system to respond to this type of disaster.     

Effects of a participatory ergonomics intervention computer workshop for university students: a pilot intervention to prevent disability in tomorrow's workers

A participatory approach was used to create a computer ergonomics workshop for college students, incorporating an instructional systems design process and adult learning inquiry perspectives. The primary objective of this participatory ergonomic pilot intervention was to involve students throughout the training design process in solving computer workstation ergonomic problems and adopting healthy computing behaviors. Students' level of participation included becoming part of the training design team, a co-facilitator, or a student trainee. A second objective was to examine the translation of an industrial office ergonomics training program into a college computer ergonomics training program. The long term goal was to reduce upper extremity symptoms and disability. The program was piloted at one private university. The three student trainees significantly increased their knowledge of computer ergonomics from 69% of test items answered correctly pre-training to 82% post-training. Trainees were also successful in conducting computer ergonomic evaluations of students' computing work areas. They achieved 100% accuracy in identifying ergonomic problems and proposing solutions in five ergonomic workstation assessments in the field. This approach was successful in creating a sense of ownership among the student developers and facilitators as reflected in their self-reports during a post-intervention debriefing. The results of this pilot study justify formal controlled trials of this intervention in university students, who will become tomorrow's workers.     

Public health infrastructure: creating a solid foundation

The nation's public health system remains in disarray, despite the 1988 warning by the Institute of Medicine in its landmark report, "The Future of Public Health." Recent concerns about antibiotic resistance, inadequate disease surveillance capabilities, bioterrorism, and an increasing need for training the public health workforce have brought this problem into the forefront of congressional concern. Recent legislation aimed at addressing this problem was passed last Fall and signed into law. This program will take a significant step towards ensuring a solid public health system when it is fully implemented.     

The Foreign Policy Beliefs of Political Campaign Contributors: A Post-Cold War Analysis

Objective. In this article we address two questions raised by the literature on the structure of foreign policy beliefs. First, has the end of the Cold War brought about any major changes in these belief systems? Second, how do ideology and economic interests shape these beliefs? Methods. We analyze data from a 1996 survey of U.S. presidential campaign contributors conducted by the Ray Bliss Center to determine the foreign policy belief systems of contributors. We then compare those results to the belief systems found in a 1988 survey of contributors. Results. We find that Cold War belief systems are quite durable. There was surprisingly little change in the structure or content of contributors' foreign policy beliefs between 1988 and 1996. We also find that both ideology and economic interests help shape these beliefs and examine the circumstances under which each of these two considerations appears to have the most important effects. Conclusions. Policymakers face new challenges since the end of the Cold War, but domestic political elites still approach foreign policy with a Cold War perspective. Also, although ideology is very important in determining how individuals think about foreign policy, material interests also make a difference for campaign contributors.     

Rights Versus Morality: Online Debate About Decriminalization of Gay Sex in Singapore

This article presents a quantitative content analysis of 10,473 comments from two opposing online petitions related to the legal status of a section of the penal code in Singapore used to ban sex between men. Results indicate numerous significant differences in how the two sides discussed the law and its significance. In particular, they used different types of arguments to support their views and expressed different kinds of concerns over the potential impact of changing or maintaining the law. The patterns of language use seem to reflect distinctly different approaches to the debate and suggest the difficulty of finding common ground amid this contentious social issue, but they also reveal similarities to how Western cultures have framed the debate.     

Modeling fixed-charge problems with polynomials

In this paper we formulate fixed-charge problems with polynomials. Using polynomial formulations we show structural similarity between different kinds of linear and fixed charge formulations. We also show the benefits of applying polynomial formulation for finding an approximate solution for problems where no algorithms exist and in some cases for developing a method to provide direct solutions to those problems. The main benefit of this paper is better understanding of the fixed-charge function structure and better explanation of the local and global minima phenomena. We present a numerical example to illustrate applications of the proposed method.     

Climate,agriculture, and hunger: statistical prediction of undernourishment using nonlinear regression and data-mining techniques

An estimated 1 billion people suffer from hunger worldwide, and climate change, urbanization, and globalization have the potential to exacerbate this situation. Improved models for predicting food security are needed to understand these impacts and design interventions. However, food insecurity is the result of complex interactions between physical and socio-economic factors that can overwhelm linear regression models. More sophisticated data-mining approaches could provide an effective way to model these relationships and accurately predict food insecure situations. In this paper, we compare multiple regression and data-mining methods in their ability to predict the percent of a country's population that suffers from undernourishment using widely available predictor variables related to socio-economic settings, agricultural production and trade, and climate conditions. Averaging predictions from multiple models results in the lowest predictive error and provides an accurate method to predict undernourishment levels. Partial dependence plots are used to evaluate covariate influence and demonstrate the relationship between food insecurity and climatic and socio-economic variables. By providing insights into these relationships and a mechanism for predicting undernourishment using readily available data, statistical models like those developed here could be a useful tool for those tasked with understanding and addressing food insecurity.