The Politics of Invasive Weed Management: Gender,Race, and Risk Perception in Rural California*

Abstract “Biological invasions” are now recognized as the cause of significant ecological and economic damage. They also raise a series of less visible social issues. Management of invasive species is often a political process raising questions such as who decides which organisms are to be managed, and who benefits or is affected by different management techniques. In a rural region of northern California, the proposed use of herbicides on spotted knapweed sparked an intense social controversy. This research uses participant observation, interviews, and archival material to understand how members of the Karuk Tribe of California, the non‐Indian community, and the U.S. Forest Service developed different perceptions of safety and risk regarding herbicide use. I describe interconnected factors that frame the interpretation of risk: institutional trust, proximity to exposure, gender, and race. Gender and race, in turn, form the basis of anti‐herbicide mobilization. The larger sociological question highlighted is, who pays the price for species invasions? Use of herbicides on invasive species is increasing. Many people who face increased exposure to herbicides are members of racial minority groups. When the poor or racial minorities face disproportionate exposure, differences in risk perception become matters of environmental justice. This paper discusses the broader social implications of differences in risk perception among communities and land managers.     

Learning-related behaviors, cognitive skills, and ability grouping when schooling begins

We use ECLS-K data from a national sample of students to estimate the determinants and consequences of reading ability group placement in kindergarten and first grade. We find that prior test score performance is the strongest determinant of such placement, followed in magnitude by the teacher’s judgment of the student’s learning-related classroom behavior. These variables explain most of the race, gender, and social class differentials when students are placed into ability groups for the first time. Within kindergarten and first grade classes where grouping is used, placement into a higher group exerts a positive effect on student learning-related behavior and reading achievement. Ability group placement and the teacher’s assessment of student behavior both have significant effects on student’s growth in reading achievement, even net of their prior reading achievement scores. Such grouping takes individual and group-level performance differences that emerge during the preschool period and causes them to widen more than would otherwise be the case during the first 2 years of formal schooling.     

Reproducibility of clinical data II: categorical outcomes

In this second part of this paper, reproducibility of discrete ordinal and nominal outcomes is addressed. The first part deals with continuous outcomes, concentrating on intraclass correlation (ρ) in the context of one‐way analysis of variance. For categorical data, the focus has generally not been on a meaningful population parameter such as ρ. However, intraclass correlation has been defined for discrete ordinal data, ρ_c, and for nominal data, κ_I. Therefore, a unified approach to reproducibility is proposed. The relevance of these parameters is outlined. Estimation and inferential procedures for ρ_c and κ_I are reviewed, together with worked examples. Topics related to reproducibility that are not addressed in either this or the previous paper are highlighted. Considerations for designing reproducibility studies and for interpreting their results are provided. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Réguler ou qualifier ? Le cas des boues d'épuration urbaines

The history of urban sewage sludge, a matter of much confusion and mobilization, illustrates the impact of controversies about farming. It also casts light on the significance of new themes and on questions about the French “co-management” model. Above all, it helps us analyze the recourse to new controls that operate outside the sway of public authorities and complete official regulations - in the form either of procedures for labeling quality, which anchor the production and elimination of sludge in a locality, or of procedures that place sludge as an input in the food chain. Such procedures seek to restore confidence and strengthen the commitments made by various parties. They also provide evidence of how farming is changing. - Special issue on Agriculture and food.     

Technology assessment and the 'ethical matrix'

This paper explores the usefulness of the 'ethical matrix', proposed by Ben Mepham, as a tool in technology assessment, specifically in food ethics. We consider what the matrix is, how it might be useful as a tool in ethical decision-making, and what drawbacks might be associated with it. We suggest that it is helpful for fact-finding in ethical debates relating to food ethics; but that it is much less helpful in terms of weighing the different ethical problems that it uncovers. Despite this drawback, we maintain that, with some modifications, the ethical matrix can be a useful tool in debates in food ethics. We argue that useful modifications might be to include future generations amongst the stakeholders in the matrix, and to substitute the principle of solidarity for the principle of justice. Electronic Publication     

Treating Families of Bone Marrow Recipients and Donors

Leukemia and aplastic anemia are beginning to be treated by bone marrow transplants, involving donors and recipients from the same family. Such intimate involvement in the patients life and death struggles typically produces a family crisis and frequent maladaptive responses by various family members. A crisis-focused family therapy approach is described which helps all members, including the hospitalized victim, develop adaptive coping strategies, and learn to deal realistically with expectations while maintaining hope. Physicians, too, must retain their reality-orientation while holding onto hope. Two case histories illustrate common sources of family dysfunction and techniques of intervention through family therapy.     

Normal stress and coping

Many Black families have chosen alternative lifestyles to accommodate the realities in their lives. The diversity in their lifestyles has often been viewed as “deviance” or “pathological” by White-oriented social science professionals. Black families, however, encounter the pressures any American family may face, and in addition they live under the continuous and varying stress of racially motivated oppression and inequalities that affect many aspects of their lives. The alternative lifestyles many Black American families have developed help to illuminate how Black families cope with the dual stresses of race and life events. This article describes the impact of stress in the lives of two of the variant alternative family forms found in Black families—a single parent family and an extended family. The two families are part of a comprehensive longitudinal study of Black families and their children, the Toddler and Infant Experiences Study (TIES). In addition to documentation of family stress, the data are examined within a conceptual framework that recognizes the dual stress factors of race and life events.     

Subgroup analyses in cost‐effectiveness analyses to support health technology assessments

‘Success’ in drug development is bringing to patients a new medicine that has an acceptable benefit–risk profile and that is also cost‐effective. Cost‐effectiveness means that the incremental clinical benefit is deemed worth paying for by a healthcare system, and it has an important role in enabling manufacturers to obtain new medicines to patients as soon as possible following regulatory approval. Subgroup analyses are increasingly being utilised by decision‐makers in the determination of the cost‐effectiveness of new medicines when making recommendations. This paper highlights the statistical considerations when using subgroup analyses to support cost‐effectiveness for a health technology assessment. The key principles recommended for subgroup analyses supporting clinical effectiveness published by Paget et al. are evaluated with respect to subgroup analyses supporting cost‐effectiveness. A health technology assessment case study is included to highlight the importance of subgroup analyses when incorporated into cost‐effectiveness analyses. In summary, we recommend planning subgroup analyses for cost‐effectiveness analyses early in the drug development process and adhering to good statistical principles when using subgroup analyses in this context. In particular, we consider it important to provide transparency in how subgroups are defined, be able to demonstrate the robustness of the subgroup results and be able to quantify the uncertainty in the subgroup analyses of cost‐effectiveness. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.