Note on Commitment and Community among Volunteer Firefighters

Three hundred seventy-two volunteer firefighters from fifteen all-volunteer departments in a five county area in central Virginia were administered a questionnaire which examined commitment and other attitudinal and demographic variables. The correlation coefficient between number of years a volunteer firefighter and age was. 77. Seventy-five percent (273) of firefighters had seldom or never considered quitting their role. Seventy-five percent indicated that over half of their close friends were fellow volunteer firefighters. Sixty-seven percent responded that being a member of the fire department was of equal or greater importance than church membership. Theoretically it is plausible that the primary group rewards experienced by firefighters as members of communal organizations accounted for the high level of commitment. An empirical example of Smith's (1981) concept of pure volunteers is provided.     

Improving Scientists'Judgments of Risk

Scientists disagree in their risk analyses because they use intuitive judgments to generalize results from the laboratory to circumstances not yet studied. If this assertion is correct, techniques intended to reduce intuitive judgments and increase analytical cognition should reduce scientific dispute. The results of a test case involving allegedly high risk and sharp dispute among scientists are described.     

Attention deficit disorder: Problems with preconceived diagnosis

The diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has become a household term with many inaccurate conceptions and expectations. The label is being applied to children with a broad range of mental health problems and developmental disorders. This study looks at the impact of preconceived diagnosis on assessment and treatment of children and adolescents. Alarming trends of overidentification of ADHD, which lead to inappropriate treatment and management, are identified. Other causes of the target symptoms are discussed. The impact of preconceived diagnosis on treatment outcome, patient functioning, and other areas are addressed. The need for greater community awareness of the broad spectrum of disorders of childhood and adolescence is identified.     

A portfolio of risk measures

A comprehensive set of sixteen measures of willingness to take risks has been developed. This set includes measures from three categories: measures from standardized risky situations having an underlying theory of risk, measures inferred from revealed choices in financial decisions, and measures derived from attitudes. A study of over 500 top-level business executives shows significant relationships within categories, but relatively little relationship across categories. Context differences, especially personal versus business situations and opportunities versus threats, underlie the responses.     

Prediction theory for autoregressivemoving average processes

This paper reviews statistical prediction theory for autoregressive-moving average processes wing techniques developed in control theory. It demonstrates explicitly the connectioluns between the statistical and control theory literatures. Both the forecasting problem and the Single extraction problem am considered, udng linear least squares methods. Whereas the classical Statistical theory developed by Wiener and Kolmogomv is restricted to stationary stochaotic processes, the recursive techniques known as the Kalman filter are shown to provide a satisfactory treatment of the difference-stationary care and other more general cases. Complete results for non-invertible moving averages are also obtained.