Engaging with Comparative Risk Appraisals: Public Views on Policy Priorities for Environmental Risk Governance

Communicating the rationale for allocating resources to manage policy priorities and their risks is challenging. Here, we demonstrate that environmental risks have diverse attributes and locales in their effects that may drive disproportionate responses among citizens. When 2,065 survey participants deployed summary information and their own understanding to assess 12 policy‐level environmental risks singularly, their assessment differed from a prior expert assessment. However, participants provided rankings similar to those of experts when these same 12 risks were considered as a group, allowing comparison between the different risks. Following this, when individuals were shown the prior expert assessment of this portfolio, they expressed a moderate level of confidence with the combined expert analysis. These are important findings for the comprehension of policy risks that may be subject to augmentation by climate change, their representation alongside other threats within national risk assessments, and interpretations of agency for public risk management by citizens and others.     

Latent Class Analysis of Gambling Activities in a Sample of Young Swiss Men: Association with Gambling Problems,Substance Use Outcomes,Personality Traits and Coping Strategies

The study aimed to identify different patterns of gambling activities (PGAs) and to investigate how PGAs differed in gambling problems, substance use outcomes, personality traits and coping strategies. A representative sample of 4989 young Swiss males completed a questionnaire assessing seven distinct gambling activities, gambling problems, substance use outcomes, personality traits and coping strategies. PGAs were identified using latent class analysis (LCA). Differences between PGAs in gambling and substance use outcomes, personality traits and coping strategies were tested. LCA identified six different PGAs. With regard to gambling and substance use outcomes, the three most problematic PGAs were extensive gamblers, followed by private gamblers, and electronic lottery and casino gamblers, respectively. By contrast, the three least detrimental PGAs were rare or non-gamblers, lottery only gamblers and casino gamblers. With regard to personality traits, compared with rare or non-gamblers, private and casino gamblers reported higher levels of sensation seeking. Electronic lottery and casino gamblers, private gamblers and extensive gamblers had higher levels of aggression-hostility. Extensive and casino gamblers reported higher levels of sociability, whereas casino gamblers reported lower levels of anxiety–neuroticism. Extensive gamblers used more maladaptive and less adaptive coping strategies than other groups. Results suggest that gambling is not a homogeneous activity since different types of gamblers exist according to the PGA they are engaged in. Extensive gamblers, electronic and casino gamblers and private gamblers may have the most problematic PGAs. Personality traits and coping skills may predispose individuals to PGAs associated with more or less negative outcomes.     

The methodology of a multi-model project examining how facebook infrastructures social relations

It is the purpose of this paper to make explicit the methodology (the theory of the methods) by which we conducted research for an Economic and Social Research Council-funded research project on the relationship of values to value. Specifically, we wanted to study the imperative of Facebook to monetize social relationships, what happens when one of our significant forms of communication is driven by the search for profit, by the logic of capital. We therefore wanted to ‘get inside’ and understand what capital's new lines of flight, informationally driven models of economic expansion, do to social relations. Taking up the challenge to develop methods appropriate to the challenges of ‘big data', we applied four different methods to investigate the interface that is Facebook: we designed custom software tools, generated an online survey, developed data visualizations, and conducted interviews with participants to discuss their understandings of our analysis. We used Lefebvre's [(2004). Rhythmnanalysis: Space, time and everyday life. London: Continuum] rhythmanalysis and Kember and Zylinska's [(2012). Life after new media: Mediation as a vital process. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press] ideas about ‘lifeness’ to inform our methodology. This paper reports on a research process that was not entirely straightforward. We were thwarted in a variety of ways, especially by challenge to use software to study software and had to develop our project in unanticipated directions, but we also found much more than we initially imagined possible. As so few academic researchers are able to study Facebook through its own tools (as Tufekci [(2014 Tufekci, Z. (2014). Big questions for social media big data: Representativeness, validity and other methodological pitfalls. In ICWSM ‘14: Proceedings of the 8th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, pp. 505–514. [Google Scholar]). Big questions for social media big data: Representativeness, validity and other methodological pitfalls. In ICWSM ‘14: Proceedings of the 8th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (pp. 505–514)] notes how, unsurprisingly, at the 2013 ICWSM only about 5% of papers were about Facebook and nearly all of these were co-authored with Facebook data scientists), we hope that our methodology is useful for other researchers seeking to develop less conventional research on Facebook.     

How do labour laws affect unemployment and the labour share of national income? The experience of six OECD countries, 1970–2010

Using longitudinal data on labour law in France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States over the period 1970–2010, the authors estimate the impact of labour regulation on unemployment and the labour share of national income. Their dynamic panel data analysis distinguishes between the short‐run and long‐run effects of regulatory change. They find that worker‐protective labour laws in general have no consistent relationship to unemployment but are positively correlated with labour's share of national income. Laws specifically relating to working time and employee representation are found to have beneficial effects on both efficiency and distribution thus proxied.     

Understanding Care Leavers in Russia: Young People's Experiences of Institutionalisation

Abstract

Care leavers in Russia represent one of the most disadvantaged groups in society. However, they have rarely been the focus of welfare policy debate and they receive little or no support in their independent living. This paper presents the findings of a survey of Russian care leavers. The emphasis is on care leavers' experiences of the Russian institutional care system, and the issues that impacted on their postcare transition to adulthood. A number of factors were found to influence the wellbeing of care leavers, including placement instability, institutional isolation, poor education, stigmatisation of care leavers, relationships with “houseparents”, and supportive and often challenging friendships. Findings are discussed in relation to debates about the degree and nature of institutional care of children in Russia and elsewhere.     

Droit du travail,chômage et part salariale: l'expérience de six pays de l'OCDE, 1970–2010

Utilisant des données sur le droit du travail dans six pays (Allemagne, Etats‐Unis, France, Japon, Royaume‐Uni et Suède) entre 1970 et 2010, les auteurs évaluent les effets de la réglementation du travail sur le chômage et la part du travail dans le revenu national. Leur méthode montre la différence entre les effets à court et à long terme des changements de réglementation: la législation protectrice des travailleurs n'est pas associée de façon systématique avec le chômage, mais est corrélée positivement avec la part du travail dans le revenu national. Les dispositions relatives au temps de travail et la représentation des salariés ont des effets bénéfiques tant sur l'efficacité que sur la répartition.     

Competing Frameworks in Planning for the Aged in the Growth Corridors of Melbourne

The Ageing in the Growth Corridors Project was initiated as a partnership between the University of Melbourne and the Department of Health in the Northwest Metropolitan Region of Melbourne, Australia. It involved a research team working with six project officers appointed to stimulate development in relation to an aging population in the sprawling outer metropolitan growth corridors. This article identifies the key lessons learned in terms of project implementation relating to attitudinal and structural barriers to the development of an age-friendly environment in areas of rapid urban growth. The findings illustrate some of the dilemmas raised by competing program conceptions, a dynamic and changing federal/state policy context, and local resource and strategic management constraints. The partnership with the university, nevertheless, provided a point of stability and continuity for the project officers in implementing their mandate.     

The medicalization of sunlight in the early twentieth century

This paper traces the emergence of the therapeutic use of sunlight in medicine during the first half of the twentieth century. This was a period of considerable flux in medicine with various strands of practice and theory competing. Drawing on two case studies of sunlight therapy, both artificial (actinotherapy) and natural (heliotherapy), in the treatment of rickets and tuberculosis this paper will explore how medicine was constituted within these regimes. The paper will argue that therapeutic and clinical applications of sunlight helped establish an association between sunlight and health but also defined a particular and specific performance of medicine.