Anarchy,groups, and conflict: an experiment on the emergence of protective associations

In this article, we investigate the implications of the philosophical considerations presented in Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, by examining group formation in a laboratory setting where subjects engage in both cooperative and conflictual interactions. We endow participants with a commodity used to generate earnings, plunder others, or protect against plunder. In our primary treatment, we allow participants to form groups to pool their resources. We conduct a baseline comparison treatment that does not allow group formation. We find that allowing subjects to organize themselves into groups does not lead to more cooperation and may in fact exacerbate tendencies towards conflict.     

Using Dictator Game Experiments to Learn About Charitable Giving

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The dictator game has become a celebrated workhorse of experimental economics and social psychology. In the standard...     

Quantifying Water Pathogen Risk in an Epidemiological Framework

Traditionally, microbial risk assessors have used point estimates to evaluate the probability that an individual will become infected. We developed a quantitative approach that shifts the risk characterization perspective from point estimate to distributional estimate, and from individual to population. To this end, we first designed and implemented a dynamic model that tracks traditional epidemiological variables such as the number of susceptible, infected, diseased, and immune, and environmental variables such as pathogen density. Second, we used a simulation methodology that explicitly acknowledges the uncertainty and variability associated with the data. Specifically, the approach consists of assigning probability distributions to each parameter, sampling from these distributions for Monte Carlo simulations, and using a binary classification to assess the output of each simulation. A case study is presented that explores the uncertainties in assessing the risk of giardiasis when swimming in a recreational impoundment using reclaimed water. Using literature-based information to assign parameters ranges, our analysis demonstrated that the parameter describing the shedding of pathogens by infected swimmers was the factor that contributed most to the uncertainty in risk. The importance of other parameters was dependent on reducing the a priori range of this shedding parameter. By constraining the shedding parameter to its lower subrange, treatment efficiency was the parameter most important in predicting whether a simulation resulted in prevalences above or below non outbreak levels. Whereas parameters associated with human exposure were important when the shedding parameter was constrained to a higher subrange. This Monte Carlo simulation technique identified conditions in which outbreaks and/or nonoutbreaks are likely and identified the parameters that most contributed to the uncertainty associated with a risk prediction.     

Real socialist societies between neo‐traditionalism and modernity: The case of yugoslavia

The present article argues that the breakdown of the real‐socialist systems and their movement towards a ‘capitalist ‘‐oriented post‐socialist stage of development can be best analyzed within the general framework of the theory of modernization. The partial and deformed modernization characteristic of the (ex) real socialist societies in conjunction with the prevasive amongst the Eastern Europeans of a traditional unqualified egalitarian belief syndrome makes the transition to modernity and welfare‐state democracy even harder.     

Mesothelioma: Risk Apportionment Among Asbestos Exposure Sources

The mesothelioma epidemic in the United States, which peaked during the 2000–2004 period, can be traced to high‐level asbestos exposures experienced by males in occupational settings prior to the full recognition of the disease‐causing potential of asbestos and the establishment of enforceable asbestos exposure limits by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1971. Many individuals diagnosed with mesothelioma where asbestos has been identified as a contributing cause of the disease have filed claims seeking compensation from asbestos settlement trusts or through the court system. An individual with mesothelioma typically has been exposed to asbestos in more than one setting and from more than one asbestos product. Apportioning risk for mesothelioma among contributing factors is an ongoing problem faced by occupational disease compensation boards, juries, parties responsible for paying damages, and currently by the U.S. Senate in its efforts to formulate a bill establishing an asbestos settlement trust. In this article we address the following question: If an individual with mesothelioma where asbestos has been identified as a contributing cause were to be compensated for his or her disease, how should that compensation be apportioned among those responsible for the asbestos exposures? For the purposes of apportionment, we assume that asbestos is the only cause of mesothelioma and that every asbestos exposure contributes, albeit differentially, to the risk. We use an extension of the mesothelioma risk model initially proposed in the early 1980s to quantify the contribution to risk of each exposure as a percentage of the total risk. The percentage for each specific discrete asbestos exposure depends on the start and end dates, the intensity, and the asbestos fiber type for the exposure. We provide justification for the use of the mesothelioma risk model for apportioning risk and discuss how to assess uncertainty associated with its application.     

Stepping Out of Your Own Shadow: A Didactic Example of How Facing Uncertainty Can Improve Decision-Making

Advocates of quantitative uncertainty analysis (QUA) have invested substantial effort in explaining why uncertainty is a crucial aspect of risk and yet have devoted much less effort to explaining how QUA can improve the risk manager's performance. This paper develops a teaching example, using a personal decision problem with subtle parallels to societal risk management, to show how choices made with increasing appreciation of uncertainty are superior ones. In the hypothetical, five analysts explain the same uncertain prospect (whether to invest in a volatile stock issue), with increasing attention to the nuances of uncertainty. The path through these different perspectives on the decision demonstrates four general points applicable to environmental risk management: (1) Various point estimates with equal claim to being "best estimates" can differ markedly from each other and lead to diametrically different choices; (2) "conservatism" has both relative and absolute meanings, with different implications for decision-making; (3) both inattention to and fixation on "outliers" in the uncertainty distribution can lead the manager astray; and (4) the best QUA is one that helps discriminate among real options, that points to optimum pathways toward new information, and that spurs on the iterative search for new decision options that may outperform any of the initial ones offered.     

Open Access: A Review of an Emerging Phenomenon

Discussion about Open Access (OA) has dominated industry news for the past two years. Librarians and publishers alike are attempting to fully grasp the implications of different business models on various issues, including costs, peer review, funding mechanisms, value, and archives. While there is general agreement about the importance of broadening access to scientific literature, there is disagreement on how this is best achieved in a financially responsible fashion. This article looks at some of the questions surrounding Open Access journals as well as the role publishing plays in the continuum of science in general, particularly with regard to membership organizations.