The Role of Social Distrust in Risk-Benefit Analysis: A Study of the Siting of a Hazardous Waste Disposal Facility

Distrust of social institutions is becoming an important component of risk communication and policy analysis. To assess the impact of social distrust on decision making, we examine the role of distrust of information sources on the willingness to accept a hazardous waste disposal facility in one's neighborhood. Using a prospective-reference utility model, distrust of information sources is analyzed a possible influence on individual choice in a risk-benefit tradeoff. Using contingent valuation survey data on the siting of a hazardous waste disposal facility, we find that respondents are particularly distrustful of both governmental officials and waste disposal businesses. We find that social distrust increases the perceived risk of a facility and influences the likelihood of accepting a referendum to site a hazardous waste disposal facility. The level of compensation offered in the contingent valuation scenario also is found to influence a respondent's risk perception.     

Performing armchair roundoff analyses of statistical algorithms

Numerical stability is but one of many desirable properties which should be considered when designing statistical software. However, rigorous roundoff analysis is rarely done because it seems not worth the price; the influence of rounding error is usually of secondary importance, and the analysis is thought to be beyond the reach of all but a few specialists. This note discusses the role of roundoff analysis in the design of a statistical program and shows that new techniques sometimes make assessment of the effect of rounding errors no more difficult than the verification of other program properties.     

Fitness and Fatness in Relation to Health: Implications for a Paradigm Shift

Health care professionals most often approach health promotion for large persons in the context that health improvement can be attained only through weight loss. Unequivocal acceptance of the notion that thinness equals health and fitness has been the only health intervention strategy available for many large men and women. The apparent ineffectiveness of traditional diet and exercise programming to reduce body weight has caused many health care providers, obesity researchers, and lay persons to challenge the further use of diet and exercise for the sole purpose of reducing body weight in the large person. A brief survey of the most popular dieting techniques used over the past 40 years shows that most techniques cycle in and out of popularity, and that many of these techniques are hazardous to health. Data from the scientific community indicate that diet and exercise programs for weight loss are ineffective in producing reduced weight maintenance after a period of 3 to 5 years. On the other hand, there are data indicating that overweight men and women can become healthy without losing significant amounts of weight. Furthermore, epidemiological studies indicate that fitness, not fatness, is related to disease and mortality. Any intervention strategy for the obese should be one that promotes the development of a healthy lifestyle. The outcome parameters used to evaluate the success of such an intervention should be specific to disease risk and symptomatologies and not limited to medically ambiguous variables like body weight or body composition.     

Is deviance “Deadℍ? The decline of a sociological research specialization

Colin Sumner has declared that the sociology of deviance as a research specialty was “dead? by 1975; later influential studies on norm-violating behavior appeared only in the specific area of criminology. We subjected this argument to empirical test through an analysis of the most-cited scholars and works in 263 textbooks, articles, and research notes appearing in the sociology of deviance from 1993 to 1999. We found some support for Sumner's claims: The majority of the most-cited scholars in devi-ance today conduct research in other areas, primarily in criminology. Furthermore, among the 31 most-cited works in our analysis, only two of 15 studies classified in the sociology of deviance appeared after 1975. We conclude with some thoughts about the factors that contribute to the rise and fall of research specializations in sociology.     

Institutional Diversity and Performance in African Cotton Sectors

This article analyses the performance of cotton sectors across East, Southern, and West Africa, paying particular attention to the wide diversity of institutional arrangements that they now exhibit. It finds strong support for earlier contentions regarding trade‐offs between competition and coordination, and between the roles of public and private sectors. New insights provide concrete and context‐specific guidance to policy‐makers and stakeholders regarding the key challenges they will face and the risks they will need to manage as they work to improve productivity and ensure an equitable division of benefits within cotton sectors.     

Personality and organizational health: the role of conscientiousness

Organizational health research identifies processes through which the work environment and individual differences combine to influence both individual and organizational outcomes. This study investigated the contribution of conscientiousness to organizational health. Research in the areas of occupational stress, work performance, and organizational climate was used to develop a framework for integrating different elements of organizational health. Within this framework, the work environment was assessed by perceptions of workload and role clarity ; individual well-being was assessed by psychological distress and job satisfaction ; and behaviour important for organizational success was assessed by contextual performance. Conscientiousness was investigated within the framework using self-reports from a sample of 104 Australian employees. Conscientiousness directly influenced contextual performance but did not influence well-being or perceptions of the work environment. Conscientiousness also reduced the impact of role clarity on both psychological distress and job satisfaction. The role of conscientiousness in a comprehensive model of organizational health is discussed.