Introduction: The Residential Context of Health

Our understanding of the relationship between housing and health will improve with closer attention to the characteristics of residents, their activities in relation to their housing, and social ecological factors that set the boundaries for those activities. To highlight these aspects of the subject area, we propose recharacterizing the housing and health field as one of inquiry into the residential context of health. In introducing this issue of the journal, we first elaborate on this proposal in conceptual and practical terms. We then overview the individual articles, each of which helps us develop a more nuanced view of the subject area. Finally, we comment on two themes running through multiple articles—stress and coping, and social ecological influences on residence .     

Determination of an Occupational Exposure Guideline for Manganese Using the Benchmark Method

An occupational risk assessment for manganese (Mn) was performed based on benchmark dose analysis of data from two epidemiological studies providing dose-response information regarding the potential neurological effects of exposure to airborne Mn below the current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Permissible Exposure Level (PEL) of 5 mg Mn/m3. Based on a review of the scientific evidence regarding the toxicity of Mn, it was determined that the most appropriate measure of exposure to airborne Mn for the subclinical effects measured in these studies is recent (rather than historical or cumulative) concentration of Mn in respirable (rather than total) particulate. For each of the studies analyzed, the individual exposure and response data from the original study had been made available by the investigators. From these two studies benchmark concentrations calculated for eight endpoints ranged from 0.09 to 0.27 mg Mn/m3. From our evaluation of these results, and considering the fact that the subtle, subclinical effects represented by the neurological endpoints tested in these studies do not represent material impairment, we believe an appropriate occupational exposure guideline for manganese would be in the range of 0.1 to 0.3 mg Mn/m3, based on the respirable particulate fraction only, and expressed as an 8-hour time-weighted average.     

Book Review: Mokhbul Morshed Ahmad,Understanding the South: How Northern Donor Agencies and NGOs Understand the Needs and Problems of Southern NGO Clients,Social Sciences Research Council,National University of Ireland,Galway, 2001, 244 pp., bibliography, $20.00

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

佛教唯识宗“对象”概念初探: 以《成唯识论》为据

《成唯识论》对所缘的特殊诠释不单在于提出亲、疏之分，且进一步把疏所缘依其来源再分为同聚、异聚，即自己与他人两类。《成唯识论》借助此一诠释解决表像论的单边认知所遇上的符应难题，即以个体众生之间依名言而起的相向互动，为建立共识提供可能性，从而把问题的性质由个体的、单向的静态认知如何符应物质性对象世界转换为个体之间相向地、动态地以名言主动地塑造或建构彼此的共识。     

Moral hazard,risk seeking,and free riding

This article reports on a laboratory study of moral hazard in insurance markets. The experimental literature on the provision of public goods suggests that agents often sacrifice their narrowly defined self-interest for the good of the group. However, in those experiments, losses are deterministic. We find cooperation in experiments with stochastic losses to be much lower than in otherwise identical experiments with deterministic losses. We argue that the combination of risk seeking and free riding under stochastic returns to investment in loss control makes moral hazard particularly problematic for insurance markets.     

The Redevelopment of Bus Depots: A Transaction Cost Economic Analysis of a Change in the Use of Land in Hong Kong

This is a pioneering study on bus depots based on a review of the English-language literature on or related to them, which is motivated by the prevalence of real estate projects using the land of the former depots. The review is followed by some conjectures about the transaction cost advantages of bus depot sites as a source of development land and examines the hypothesis that redevelopment projects using former bus depots, compared to other uses, in Hong Kong are more easily approved under the statutory planning system. The literature review found that bus depots have attracted much academic attention, although research angles were conditioned by different social perceptions of bus depots. The empirical results of this case study did not reject the hypothesis. The limitations and implications of the study are discussed.     

Income,Relationship Quality,and Parenting: Associations With Child Development in Two‐Parent Families

Prior research suggests considerable heterogeneity in the advantages of living in a 2‐parent family. Specifically, children living with married biological parents exhibit more favorable outcomes than children living with cohabiting biological parents and with married and cohabiting stepparents. To explain these differences, researchers have focused almost exclusively on differences in the levels of factors such as income, parental relationship quality, and parenting quality across family types. In this study the authors examined whether differences in the benefits associated with these factors might also account for some of the variation in children's cognition and social‐emotional development. Focusing on children at the time they enter kindergarten, they found only weak evidence of differences in benefits across family types. Instead, they found that children living in stepfather families experienced above‐average levels of parental relationship quality and parenting quality, which in turn played a protective role vis‐à‐vis their cognitive and social‐emotional development.