Measuring Hope in the Philippines: Validating the Short Version of the Locus-of-Hope Scale in Filipino

A short version of the locus-of-hope Scale was developed and translated into the Filipino language for the purpose of assessing hope in Filipinos who have lower levels of education and who may not have adequate levels of proficiency in English. The 20-item scale had four locus-of-hope subscales (internal, external-family, external-peers, and external-spiritual) each with four items (another four were filler items); all items described thoughts associated with some capacity and strategy to attain important goals in life. A sample (N = 362) of adults from communities in Metro Manila were asked to answer the scale, as well as measures of optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated an adequate fit between the hypothesized four-factor structure and the data, but the internal locus-of-hope scale was found to have low internal consistency. Regression analysis showed positive associations between the internal and external-family locus-of-hope subscales and the three measures of wellbeing. But external-peers locus-of-hope was negatively associated with optimism and self-esteem, and external-spiritual locus-of-hope was positively related with optimism.     

Lean and green in the transport and logistics sector – a case study of simultaneous deployment

The transport and logistics sector is of vital importance for the stimulation of trade and hence the economic development of nations. However, over the last few years, this sector has taken central stage in the green agenda due to the negative environmental effects derived from its operations. Several disciplines including operations research and sub-areas of supply chain management such as green supply chains, green logistics and reverse logistics have tried to address this problem. However, despite the work undertaken through these disciplines, theoretical or empirical research into the sequential or simultaneous deployment of the lean and green paradigms, particularly, in the road transport and logistics sector is limited. This paper presents a case study where both paradigms have been combined to improve the transport operations of a world leader logistics organisation in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, Mexico. To do this, a systematic methodology and a novel tool called Sustainable Transportation Value Stream Map (STVSM) were proposed. The results obtained from the case study indicate that the concurrent deployment of the green and lean paradigms through such methodology and the STVSM tool is an effective approach to improve both operational efficiency and environmental performance of road transport operations. The paper can be used as a guiding reference for transport and logistics organisations to undertake improvement projects similar to the one presented in this paper. Additionally, this research also intends to stimulate scholarly research into the application of lean and green paradigms in the transport and logistics sector to expand the limited research pursued in this area.     

Lean road transportation – a systematic method for the improvement of road transport operations

Road transportation has become an important factor in international trade and the management of supply chains. However, this form of product logistics has generally been considered inefficient. Traditionally, practical inefficiencies of road transportation have been addressed through mathematical modelling, operations research-based methods and simulation. This paper presents an alternative systematic approach to improve road transport operations based on lean thinking and the reduction of the seven transportation extended wastes. To do this, the paper reviews the extant literature in the area of lean road transportation, providing a structured research definition of the application of lean thinking in road transport operations and hence guidance on the limited research conducted in this field. The systematic lean transportation method is then presented and empirically tested through a case study in a Mexican firm. The results obtained from the case study indicate that the proposed systematic lean method is an effective alternative for the improvement of road transport operations, with the number of distribution routes and distance travelled being reduced by 27 and 32%, respectively. The proposed method can be used by organisations as a guide to help them improve their road transport operations. In addition, the paper’s aim is to contribute by stimulating scholars to further study the application of lean thinking and waste reduction in road transport operations.     

Plurality Rule Works In Three-Candidate Elections

In the citizen–candidate approach each citizen chooses whether or not to run as candidate. In a single-peaked preference domain, we find that the strategic entry decision of the candidates eliminates one of the most undesirable properties of Plurality rule, namely to elect a poor candidate in three-candidate elections since as we show, the Condorcet winner among the self-declared candidates is always elected. We find that the equilibria with three candidates are basically 2-fold, either there are two right-wing candidates and a left-wing candidate who wins the elections (or its symmetric), or there is a right-wing candidate, a left-wing candidate, and a candidate located in between the two others who becomes winner. We also show that when four or more candidates enter the contest, Plurality rule can elect the Condorcet-loser among the self-declared candidates.      

Strategic requirements with indifference: single-peaked versus single-plateaued preferences

We concentrate on the problem of the provision of one pure public good whenever agents that form the society have either single-plateaued preferences or single-peaked preferences over the set of alternatives. We are interested in comparing the relationships between different nonmanipulability notions under these two domains. On the single-peaked domain, under strategy-proofness, non-bossiness is equivalent to convexity of the range. Thus, minmax rules are the only strategy-proof non-bossy rules. On the single-plateaued domain, only constant rules are non-bossy or Maskin monotonic; but strategy-proofness and weak non-bossiness are equivalent to weak Maskin monotonicity. Moreover, strategy-proofness and plateau-invariance guarantee convexity of the range. We thank Salvador Barberà, Matthew Jackson, Bettina Klaus, Jordi Massó, John Weymark, and two anonymous referees and the Associate Editor for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank the participants in the 3rd Workshop on Social Decisions that took place in Málaga in November 2007. Dolors Berga acknowledges the financial support by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science through Research Grants SEJ2004-03276 and SEJ2007-60671 and also by the Generalitat de Catalunya through Research Grant 2005SGR-213 and the Barcelona Economics Program (CREA). Bernardo Moreno gratefully acknowledges financial support from Junta de Andalucía through grant SEJ522 and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through grant SEC2005-04805.     

Enhancing Health-Conscious Behaviors Among Clients in Substance Abuse Treatment Programs

The physical health of substance abuse clients significantly deteriorates because of the client’s prolonged abuse of alcohol and other drugs and accompanying behaviors. The purposes of this study are (a) to understand how substance abuse clinicians think about the health needs of their clients, (b) to identify the mechanisms through which clinicians seek to enhance health-conscious behaviors among their clients, and (c) to identify how substance abuse clinicians view their role in enhancing health-conscious behaviors among their clients. A qualitative study was conducted using in-depth, semistructured interviews with substance abuse clinicians (N = 16) from 4 substance abuse treatment centers. Using the theory of planned behavior as a framework for understanding the promotion of health-conscious behaviors in substance abuse treatment, the findings suggest that substance abuse clinicians are capable of enhancing health-conscious behaviors among clients in substance abuse programs.     

AN ASSIGNMENT APPROACH TO CHOOSING R&D EXPERIMENTS

The criteria upon which R&D experiments are evaluated are subjective; therefore in practice it is extremely difficult to obtain a series of weights so that the trade-offs between the various criterion can be analyzed. The problem is compounded when the experiments represent basic research and no prior history is available for utility estimation. This paper presents a graph-theoretic interpretation of the selection process based only on the rank-order of the alternatives thus eliminating the need for utility estimation. Index numbers are then obtained as the solution of an integer program. An application and the theoretical foundations of the procedure are discussed.     

Aging With Rising Risk: Have Older Households Experienced Faster-Growing Risk Exposure Than Younger Ones Since the 1990s?

Financial markets have been characterized by boom and bust cycles since the 1980s, while the responsibility for managing retirement wealth has increasingly shifted onto individual households at the same time. Policy makers and experts have expressed concern over rising risk exposure among older householders, who appear to be increasingly exposed to the growing financial risks just as they near retirement. We consider household data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances from 1989 to 2010 to analyze the correlation between age and risk exposure. We test whether older householders’ risk exposure has indeed grown over time, whether it has increased more than that of younger householders, whether changes in the demographic composition of older householders have contributed to older households’ rising risk exposure, and the degree to which increases in risk exposure can be traced to a growing concentration of household assets held in stocks and housing and to rising householder indebtedness. Our results indicate that risk exposure has grown more for older householders than for younger ones, that demographic changes among older householders have contributed to additional increases in older householders’ risk exposure, and that the growth of older householders’ risk exposure is driven more by rising risky asset concentration and less by greater indebtedness.     

Cosmopolitism and Localism in the Brazilian Social Sciences

This article analyzes the main trends of sociology and political science in Brazil. It uses as empirical data the workgroups and the bibliographical reviews sponsored by the Associação Nacional de Pós‐Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais (ANPOCS), a scientific association that organizes much of the debate in the Brazilian social sciences in the last 40 years. From these data, it is verified that sociology and political science in Brazil combine a universalist vocation, in relation to its themes and problems, with an almost exclusive focus on Brazilian society. It is also considered that the current coup d'État imposes new interpretative challenges to Brazilian social sciences, which can no longer consider stable or irreversible the process of democratization of society and its political institutions. Cet article analyse les grandes tendances de la sociologie et de la science politique au Brésil. Il se fonde sur des données empiriques venant de groupes de travail et de recensions bibliothécaires sponsorisés par l'Associação Nacional de Pós‐Graduação e Pesquisa em Ciências Sociais (ANPOCS), une association scientifique qui a organisé la plupart des débats dans les sciences sociales brésiliennes au cours des 40 dernières années. Il en découle que la sociologie et la science politique au Brésil combinent une vocation universelle, en relation avec ses thèmes et ses problèmes, et un focus presqu'exclusivement centré sur la société brésilienne. Il est aussi démontré que le coup d'État en court impose de nouveaux défis interprétatifs dans les sciences sociales brésiliennes, qui ne peuvent plus considérer le processus de démocratisation de la société et de ses institutions politiques comme étant stables ou irréversibles.