Are Large Differences in “Lifesaving” Costs Justified? A Psychometric Study of the Relative Value Placed on Preventing Deaths

Government actions to reduce risks to health have varied greatly in their cost per death prevented, frequently by 10-fold or even 100-fold. This research asks whether disparities of this magnitude are justified by citizens' preferences abut the relative value of reducing deaths from different hazards. Four samples were asked to rank the relative priority of preventing deaths through 8 realistic programs, each addressed to a different hazard, and then to rate how large the differences in spending should be. Subjects were not asked to give absolute values on preventing deaths and were asked only for their relative valuation of the benefits of preventing a death, not to weigh the benefits and costs or to determine an optimal spending level. We found that in all samples the median respondent valued his top-rated program 5 to 6 times more than his bottom-rated program. However, because individuals disagreed upon the relative priority for different programs, the aggregated rankings barely showed more than a 2-fold difference in the amounts that should be spent. Thus, for the important programs considered by these samples, a large variation in spending does not appear to be justified on the basis of differentials in the values placed on preventing different types of deaths. A more deliberative methodology like the one used here appears fruitful for providing insights to policymakers about preferences in this sensitive area.     

Workplace autonomy and industrial democracy: The equity solution

The time has come to begin thinking about a conceptual shift in management thought. Once again, turbulence is developing in the environment and a new framework is developing to manage people. This framework calls for new forms of partnership between workers and management, including an expansion of employee rights, autonomous workgroups, and employee ownership. This article proposes that a new definition of corporate citizenship is needed.     

Estimation of Long-Term Risk from Canadian Uranium Mill Tailings

A methodology is presented for assessing the risk from Canadian uranium mill tailings piles. The methodology is based on the "set of triplets" concept and uses an event tree to identify various scenarios representing the performance of a pile over its 1,000-year design life. Compartment-type mathematical models are used to quantify the movement of hazardous substances through the environment. Numerical examples are given of both "level 1" (straight probabilistic) and "level 2" (probability of frequency) type analyses.     

Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment Model (I-VAM)

Quantifying vulnerability to critical infrastructure has not been adequately addressed in the literature. Thus, the purpose of this article is to present a model that quantifies vulnerability. Vulnerability is defined as a measure of system susceptibility to threat scenarios. This article asserts that vulnerability is a condition of the system and it can be quantified using the Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment Model (I-VAM). The model is presented and then applied to a medium-sized clean water system. The model requires subject matter experts (SMEs) to establish value functions and weights, and to assess protection measures of the system. Simulation is used to account for uncertainty in measurement, aggregate expert assessment, and to yield a vulnerability (Omega) density function. Results demonstrate that I-VAM is useful to decisionmakers who prefer quantification to qualitative treatment of vulnerability. I-VAM can be used to quantify vulnerability to other infrastructures, supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA), and distributed control systems (DCS).     

Trends and differentials in breast feeding: An update

Analysis of the 1973 National Survey of Family Growth shows a continued downward trend in breast feeding by successive cohorts of American mothers. The downward trend is evident in both measures of incidence (ever-breast feeding) and duration of breast feeding for first and higher-order births. For all cohorts higher-order births are less likely to be breast fed than first births. However, breast feeding of higher-order births is typically of a longer duration. Differentials in breast feeding reveal strong associations with indicators of social class; women who are college graduates, who work as professionals, and who are married to professional husbands are most likely to breast-feed their infants. Differentials in average duration of breast feeding are often reversed from differentials in ever-breast feeding.     

Charisma: Its Varieties,Preconditions, and Consequences*

This paper explores the preconditions for, the nature of, and the consequences of charisma—actors that must be understood for charisma to he a useful empirical and theoretical concept. Unfortunately, as the first section of this essay demonstrates, due primarily to the influence of certain of Max Weber's discussions of charisma, sociological progress in these areas has been limited. However, drawing on two neglected hints by Weber–that the preconditions for the phenomenon of charisma are extraordinary human needs and that Freud's work can illuminate this field of inquiry–the second section of this essay attempts to correct this state of affairs through an application of the results of much psychoanalytic investigation. It argues that, because extraordinary needs (the preconditions for charisma) are of various types, charisma must be differentiated into four phenomena–omnipotence, excellence, sacredness, and the uncanny–and it then tentatively specifies both their variable immediate and long-range consequences. In so doing, it incorporates systematically many of the widely divergent findings reported in sociological research.