Food, Social Policy and the Environment: Towards a New Model

Food policy is high on the public policy agenda, but still suffers from a lack of overview and integration. The paper reviews examples of policy limitations where tighter and more explicit links could usefully be made between environmental, social and public health considerations. The paper proposes a new ecological health approach to public policy. This offers marked advantages over the present "productionist" approach to food policy. With this old policy regime in crisis, the paper reviews current moves towards adoption of the ecological health model in Britain, Europe and globally.     

关于社区林业可持续扶贫模式的探讨

社区林业作为新兴的参与式林业,改变了“刀耕火种”的传统林业与“规模开发”的政府林业的经营方式,对于农村扶贫起到了积极的引导和推动作用。中荷扶贫社区林业项目面对山区反贫困的各种挑战,积极探索和帮助山区贫困农民,建立起“农户林业+科技示范机制+农民专业协会”的可持续扶贫模式。以“开发式”生态扶贫方式,促进社区林业从生存角色向脱贫致富产业的方向转变。     

Patient progress modelling and results in Wilm's Tumour

The report describes the development of a mathematical model of the progress of patients with Wilm's Tumour using the methodology developed by Jackson & Aspden [1, 2]. The model incorporates two prognostic factors which are shown to influence patient progress. These are the stage of the tumour and the age of the patient at presentation. The model proved adequate to represent an initial set of patient data, and comparison runs were performed with data from a later time period. These runs highlighted changes in patient progress between the two groups and illustrated the usefulness of the model in this type of analysis. The analysis also underlined the poor prognosis of patients over 5 years old who relapsed.     

AN EXAMINATION OF THE MARKET FOR FAVORS AND VOTES IN CONGRESS

This paper examines the strategies that "horse traders" and "power brokers" adopt in trading favors to pass legislation. Although the favors that they trade are generally impossible to observe, the paper develops a model that allows tests of favor trading. With data from the Senate vote on the Byrd Amendment to the 1990 Clean Air Act I conduct such a test. The test provides evidence that on this vote (i) favor trading occurred, (ii) the coalition leaders practiced price discrimination, and (iii) the coalition leaders did not collude with each another.     

Working-Class Authoritarianism und Die Wahl Rechtspopulistischer Parteien

May the often stated over-representation of workers in the electorates of right-wing populist parties in Western Europe be explained by the so-called “working-class authoritarianism”-thesis by S.M. Lipset? Following this thesis, there are specific socialisation and deprivation experiences in the social situation of the working-class, favouring the development of authoritarian traits and making class-members more susceptible to authoritarian parties. On the basis of the European Social Survey of 2002 the thesis is tested empirically by using the Goldthorpe class scheme and two measures of authoritarianism. It is shown that workers are more inclined to vote for right-wing populist parties and have higher levels of authoritarianism. Furthermore, persons with high levels of authoritarianism are more likely to vote for such parties. The authors conclude that disproportionately high shares of votes for right-wing populist parties from the working-class are, indeed, mediated by authoritarianism. In addition to this, class affiliation has an independent effect on voting behaviour. Finally, it is found that authoritarianism has an even stronger impact on the vote for right-wing populist parties in the service class and the class of routine non-manual workers, though being less frequent there.     

Method, narrative and historiography in Michael Mann's sociology of state development

‘This paper argues that the work of Michael Mann is distinguishable from neo‐Weberian sociology in four ways. The first is his fusion of structural conceptions of large‐scale social change to the empirics of individual action. The second is his fourpart theorisation of social power and its implications for the analysis of the state. The third is his endeavour to find a middle ground between comparativist and linear historiographies. The fourth is his combination of contextual specificity and nomothetic generality. While each of these areas will be approached critically, the paper will conclude that Mann's sociology has significantly contributed to our understanding of macro‐historical change.’     

Sample size recalculation for binary data in internal pilot study designs

For binary endpoints, the required sample size depends not only on the known values of significance level, power and clinically relevant difference but also on the overall event rate. However, the overall event rate may vary considerably between studies and, as a consequence, the assumptions made in the planning phase on this nuisance parameter are to a great extent uncertain. The internal pilot study design is an appealing strategy to deal with this problem. Here, the overall event probability is estimated during the ongoing trial based on the pooled data of both treatment groups and, if necessary, the sample size is adjusted accordingly. From a regulatory viewpoint, besides preserving blindness it is required that eventual consequences for the Type I error rate should be explained. We present analytical computations of the actual Type I error rate for the internal pilot study design with binary endpoints and compare them with the actual level of the chi‐square test for the fixed sample size design. A method is given that permits control of the specified significance level for the chi‐square test under blinded sample size recalculation. Furthermore, the properties of the procedure with respect to power and expected sample size are assessed. Throughout the paper, both the situation of equal sample size per group and unequal allocation ratio are considered. The method is illustrated with application to a clinical trial in depression. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.