Times Are Tough—Brother,Can You Paradigm?

Ten years ago, the National Academy of Science released its risk assessment/risk management (RA/RM) “paradigm” that served to crystallize much of the early thinking about these concepts. By defining RA as a four-step process, operationally independent from RM, the paradigm has presented society with a scheme, or a conceptually common framework, for addressing many risky situations (e.g., carcinogens, noncarcinogens, and chemical mixtures). The procedure has facilitated decision-making in a wide variety of situations and has identified the most important research needs. The past decade, however, has revealed that additional progress is needed. These areas include addressing the appropriate interaction (not isolation) between RA and RM, improving the methods for assessing risks from mixtures, dealing with “adversity of effect,” deciding whether “hazard” should imply an exposure to environmental conditions or to laboratory conditions, and evolving the concept to include both health and ecological risk. Interest in and expectations of risk assessment are increasing rapidly. The emerging concept of “comparative risk” (i.e., distinguishing between large risks and smaller risks that may be qualitatively different) is at a level comparable to that held by the concept of “risk” just 10 years ago. Comparative risk stands in need of a paradigm of its own, especially given the current economic limitations. “Times are tough; Brother, can you paradigm?”     

Racial differences in occupational status and income in South Africa, 1880 and 1881

Using data on employed men from the 1980 and 1991 South African Censuses, we analyze the determinants of occupational status and income. Whites are found to have much higher occupational status, and especially income, than members of other racial groups. Most of the racial differentials in occupational status can be explained by racial differences in the personal assets that determine occupational attainment (especially education), but only a much smaller fraction of the White/non-White income differential can be so explained. Despite a modest reduction between 1980 and 1991 in the role of race in socioeconomic attainment, the overall picture shows more stability than change.     

Analyzing cross-sectional and longitudinal lung-function measurements: The effects of age

The problem of interpreting lung-function measurements in industrial workers is examined. The data under discussion pertain to FEV₁ and FVC measurements in smoking and in nonsmoking groups of grain-elevator workers in British Columbia and of workers in Vancouver City Hall. Initial observations have now been enriched by longitudinal follow up data on the same groups after three and after six years. It is shown that interesting selection phenomena, favouring “fit” individuals, take place over time, with regard both to lung symptoms and lung functions. Thus cross-sectional and longitudinal studies refer to somewhat different populations. It also appears that longitudinal studies are considerably more sensitive to identifying cumulative lung damage than are corresponding cross-sectional studies. The nonlinearity of the effect of age on lung functions is noted in the longitudinal data in a number of cases, lending support to the hypothesis of association between quadratic age effect and cumulative exposure to lung insults.     

SOCIAL BONDING AND DELINQUENCY

A multivariate analysis of social bonding theory of delinquency is presented which includes a comparison by rural-urban location. Findings indicate the bonding scales to be a stronger explanation of delinquency among rural youth, although lack of social bonding is also strongly implicated in delinquency committed by urban youth. Also, attachment to peers is positively associated with delinquency, while the conventionality of peers is inversely related to delinquent behavior. However, a strong racial influence on the connection between delinquency and the social bond was also observed. This racial influence appeared to operate independently of type of community, but a definitive conclusion could not be reached, given the characteristics of the sample and scale scores.     

Informational geometry of social choice

 Elementary geometry is used to understand, extend and resolve basic informational difficulties in choice theory. This includes axiomatic conclusions such as Arrow’s Theorem, Chichilnisky’s dictator, and the Gibbard–Satterthwaite result. In this manner new results about positional voting methods are outlined, and difficulties with axiomatic approach are discussed. A topological result about “dictatorial” behavior is offered. Received: 15 December 1993/Accepted: 22 April 1996     

ALINSKY IN THE 1980s: TWO CONTEMPORARY CHICAGO COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS

During his life, the work of Saul D. Alinsky may have been distorted by his confrontational style and outspoken manner. His lasting contribution lies in his understanding of community, organization, and power. Alinsky's intuitive grasp of the complex and multifaceted character of urban social structure, his masterful mobilization of community resources and strategies for building organizations, and his commitment to democratic pluralism and instrumental community action provide the framework for interpreting his actions. The United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) and the Organization of the North East (ONE) provide two case studies of contemporary community organizations that demonstrate the ongoing practical utility of Alinsky's orientation for community organization, as well as suggest the theoretical implications of his work for contemporary sociology.     

Self Report Co-Morbidity and Health Related Quality of Life – A Comparison with Record Based Co-Morbidity Measures

The purpose of this projectwas to compare three hospital-based measures ofco-morbidity to patient self-reportco-morbidity and to determine the relativeproportion of outcome predicted by each of theco-morbidity measures in a population ofindividuals receiving major joint arthroplasty. Baseline measures using the SF-36 generalhealth questionnaire and the Western OntarioMcMaster Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) wereobtained from 518 persons undergoing total kneeor hip replacement. A second measure wasobtained six months post-surgery. Co-morbiditywas calculated by summing the self-reportedco-morbidity at baseline, using both thechart-based and administrative data version ofCharlson's Co-morbidity Index, and by summingthe number of International Classification ofDiseases – Version 9 (ICD-9) codes appearingin the electronic health record. Linearregression was used to determine how much ofthe variation in outcome was explained by eachof the co-morbidity measurement methods. Self-report co-morbidity explained as muchvariation in outcome as the hospital-basedindices. Self-report co-morbidity did notperform as well as the other methods inexplaining the variance in health systemutilization. It was concluded that self-reportco-morbidity is minimally as useful asrecord-based systems when measuring the impactof co-morbidity on health related quality oflife (HRQL). This is an important finding, asprivacy legislation, the time until data isavailable and cost are all barriers to usingrecord-based co-morbidity measures.     

SYSTEMIC AND NONSYSTEMIC DIAGNOSTIC PROCESSES: AN EMPIRICAL COMPARISON

This study concerned the extent to which systemic and nonsystemic clinicians differ in their diagnostic processes. Experienced therapists, identified either with a family systems or a psychodynamic orientation, viewed a stimulus film of a family session and individual interviews with each parent and identified patient. Subjects listed "clinically relevant factors" and formulated hypotheses. Content analyses showed that the systemic clinicians, in contrast to the nonsystemic ones, identified as relevant a greater number of different subsystems, more triads, and fewer monads. Whereas they formulated more functional and fewer temporal hypotheses, almost no explicitly circular hypotheses were developed by either group of therapists.     

Symmetry extensions of “neutrality” I: Advantage to the condorcet loser

This is the first of three papers introducing a theory for positional voting methods that determines all possible election rankings and relationships that ever could occur with a profile over all possible subsets of candidates for any specified choices of positional voting methods. As such, these results extend to all positional voting systems what was previously possible only for the Borda Count and the plurality voting systems. In this first part certain mathematical symmetries based on neutrality are used 1) to generalize the basic properties that cause the desired features of the Borda Count and 2) to describe classes of positional voting methods with new types of election relationships among the election outcomes. Some of these relationships generalize the well-known results about the positioning of a Condorcet winner/loser within a Borda ranking, but now it is possible for the Condorcet loser, rather than the winner, to have the advantage to win certain positional elections. Included among the results are axiomatic characterizations of many positional voting methods.This research was supported in part by NSF Grant IRI-9103180.     

Understanding the September 11 Terrorist Attack on America: The Role of Intergroup Theories of Normative Influence

The present article analyzes the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in terms of current theories of normative influence in intergroup conflict. The (conflicting) implications of various social psychological models of decision making for Western and American attempts to reduce the likelihood of further attacks are delineated. We examine the implications of social identity models and models of outgroup normative influence, as well as dynamic models of intergroup behavior that focus on the polarizing effects of outgroup hostility. The influence of Western responses is distinguished for various target audiences, including not only the terrorists, but also pro-Western Muslims in North America and Europe, unaligned Muslims, and Muslims with anti-American feelings who do not endorse terrorism.