Benchmark Analysis: Shopping with Proper Confidence

We discuss the issue of using benchmark doses for quantifying (excess) risk associated with exposure to environmental hazards. The paradigm of low-dose risk estimation in dose-response modeling is used as the primary application scenario. Emphasis is placed on making simultaneous inferences on benchmark doses when data are in the form of proportions, although the concepts translate easily to other forms of outcome data.     

Stress at work and psychological and immunological parameters in a group of Norwegian female bank employees

This study concerned the immunological correlates of stress and work. Self reported stress, emotional state, ego-strength, and defensiveness were examined in relation to measures of cellular immunity (T-cell response to Con A and number of T4 and T8 cells) and humoral immunity (concentrations of immunoglobulins and complement components in plasma) in a group of 96 Norwegian female bank employees. The analyses showed that workload, the stress factor with the highest group mean, was associated with number of T-cells, while strain due to body posture during work was related to concentrations of IgM and C3. Further, depression was significantly correlated with IgM concentration and T-cell number, and anxiety with C3 concentration. T-cell activity was the immunological parameter most consistently associated with psychological well-being, showing positive correlations with defensiveness and ego-strength and negative correlations with anxiety and depression. In conclusion, T-cell number and concentrations of IgM and C3 were sensitive to both work-related stress experience and emotional distress. Coping abilities, indicated by the MMPI Ego-strength scale and emotional distress, were reflected in T-cell activity; insufficient coping was associated with low T-cell activity.     

Mapping Gender and Migration in Sociological Scholarship: Is It Segregation or Integration?

A review of the sociological research about gender and migration shows the substantial ways in which gender fundamentally organizes the social relations and structures influencing the causes and consequences of migration. Yet, although a significant sociological research has emerged on gender and migration in the last three decades, studies are not evenly distributed across the discipline. In this article, we map the recent intellectual history of gender and migration in the field of sociology and then systematically assess the extent to which studies on engendering migration have appeared in four widely read journals of sociology (American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Demography, and Social Forces). We follow with a discussion of these studies, and in our conclusions, we consider how future gender and migration scholarship in sociology might evolve more equitably.     

Goal Ambiguity and Organizational Performance in U.S. Federal Agencies

In spite of numerous observations that government organizationshave high levels of organizational goal ambiguity that exertmajor influences on their other characteristics, few researchershave measured goal ambiguity and tested these frequent assertions.In previous research, we developed measures of four dimensionsof goal ambiguity: mission comprehension ambiguity, directivegoal ambiguity, evaluative goal ambiguity, and priority goalambiguity. Confirming hypotheses developed from the literatureon public organizations, the latter three variables showed relationsto such organizational characteristics as organizational age,financial publicness (proportion of funding from governmentallocations), and regulatory status. This article reports asecond analytical step of examining the relations between thegoal ambiguity dimensions and indicators of organizational performancebased on responses to the 2000 National Partnership for ReinventingGovernment Survey of federal employees. The performance variablesincluded managerial effectiveness, customer service orientation,productivity, and work quality. Regression analyses with numerouscontrol variables found that directive, evaluative, and prioritygoal ambiguity related negatively to managerial effectiveness.All four performance indicators showed significant negativerelationships with evaluative goal ambiguity and directive goalambiguity. The results provide further evidence of the viabilityof the new measures of goal ambiguity, support theory-basedbut previously untested hypotheses, and further indicate thefeasibility and value of analyzing goal ambiguity of governmentorganizations.     

Prehistoric landscapes of the sonoran desert Hohokam

The Hohokam of southern Arizona are noted for greater duration of settlement than other major agricultural traditions in the archaeological record of the southwestern United States, including the Anasazi and Mogollon. The 40,000 square mile area inhabited by the Hohokam is marked by low elevation desert basins, but encompasses a range of topographic and climatic variability that shaped opportunities for prehistoric farming technologies. Irrigation from rivers was frequently associated with the longterm persistence of individual sites, while floodwater farming along ephemeral drainages was more often correlated with continuous occupation of hydrologically favored zones. Renewal of fields by waterborne nutrients and efficient practices in the use of natural resources countered the limited mobility options afforded by the Hohokam environment.In spite of a restrictive agricultural setting and an essentially static suite of productive technologies over many centuries, relationships among population, settlement, and landuse were redefined in evolving social and economic configurations. An example from the Tucson Basin illustrates differentiated patterns of settlement and agriculture arising in conjunction with increased levels of population and territorial integration in the late prehistoric period. Community organization among interrelated settlements incorporated a diversity of topographic zones and agricultural technologies in this high-risk context for prehistoric cultivators.     

Betrayal and repetition: Understanding aggression in sexually abused girls

Betrayal by a significant object is seen as primary in causing behavioral and emotional disturbances in incest victims, leading to a pervasive identification with the aggressor and disturbances in object relations development. Identification with the aggressor is understood not as a uniform defense mobilized against a specific affect but as a complex compromise formation which defends against anxiety, while also providing libidinal, aggressive and superego gratifications. Far from simply attempting to overcome the past, identifications thus preserve affects that have become pleasurable and self-defining. Two case studies of adolescent girls illustrate how treatment can help victims recognize and begin to forego the sadomasochistic pleasure derived from these identifications, a relinquishment necessary for true mastery.     

Mining the Data: Analyzing the Economic Implications of Mining for Nonmetropolitan Regions

Extractive industries such as logging and mining are generally expected to bring significant economic benefits to rural regions, but a growing number of findings have now challenged that common expectation. Still, it is not clear whether the findings of less–than–desirable economic outcomes are isolated or representative. In this article, we assemble literally all of the relevant quantitative findings on mining that we have been able to identify in published and/or technical literature from the United States. In the interest of rigor, we limit the assessment to cases in which strictly nonmetropolitan mining regions are compared against other nonmetropolitan regions and/or against those regions’ own experiences over time. Overall, 301 findings meet the criteria for inclusion. Contrary to the long–established assumptions, but consistent with more recent critiques, roughly half of all published findings indicate negative economic outcomes in mining communities, with the remaining findings being split roughly evenly between favorable and neutral/indeterminate ones. Positive findings are more likely to be associated with incomes than with poverty or (especially) unemployment rates, and they are more likely to come from the western United States, where much of the mining involves relatively large, new coal strip mines. Over half of all positive findings come from the years prior to 1982. In virtually all other categories, the plurality or majority of findings have been negative. When the patterns of findings are subjected to one–sample means tests, the only way to produce a significantly positive outcome is by combining all neutral/indeterminate findings with the positive ones, while focusing exclusively on incomes; by contrast, in the case of poverty or unemployment rates—as well as for the overall body of findings—the results are consistently and significantly negative, whether the neutral/indeterminate findings are combined with negative ones or omitted from the equations altogether. Until or unless future studies produce dramatically different findings, there appears to be no scientific basis for accepting the widespread, “obvious” assumption that mining will lead to economic improvement.