Assessing Cancer Risks from Short-Term Exposures in Children

For the vast majority of chemicals that have cancer potency estimates on IRIS, the underlying database is deficient with respect to early-life exposures. This data gap has prevented derivation of cancer potency factors that are relevant to this time period, and so assessments may not fully address children's risks. This article provides a review of juvenile animal bioassay data in comparison to adult animal data for a broad array of carcinogens. This comparison indicates that short-term exposures in early life are likely to yield a greater tumor response than short-term exposures in adults, but similar tumor response when compared to long-term exposures in adults. This evidence is brought into a risk assessment context by proposing an approach that: (1) does not prorate children's exposures over the entire life span or mix them with exposures that occur at other ages; (2) applies the cancer slope factor from adult animal or human epidemiology studies to the children's exposure dose to calculate the cancer risk associated with the early-life period; and (3) adds the cancer risk for young children to that for older children/adults to yield a total lifetime cancer risk. The proposed approach allows for the unique exposure and pharmacokinetic factors associated with young children to be fully weighted in the cancer risk assessment. It is very similar to the approach currently used by U.S. EPA for vinyl chloride. The current analysis finds that the database of early life and adult cancer bioassays supports extension of this approach from vinyl chloride to other carcinogens of diverse mode of action. This approach should be enhanced by early-life data specific to the particular carcinogen under analysis whenever possible.     

Positioning terrorism in management and marketing: Research propositions

Terrorism poses both direct and indirect threats to the operations of the firm. It represents a market imperfection that increases transaction costs and creates barriers to the free flow of goods, affecting potential gains that would occur in the presence of unhindered exchange. Terrorism reflects the risk or actual encounter of violent acts, whose goal is to engender fear, coercion, or intimidation. We investigate terrorism and its association with marketing strategy and operations. Key concepts on terrorism are reviewed and a collection of propositions is offered. We highlight the pivotal roles of sourcing, production, distribution, pricing, communications, and general business strategy as functions influenced by, or capable of influencing, terrorism. Lastly, we offer managerial implications, as well as directions and guidelines for future research.     

Editorial introduction to the Special Issue

In March 2004, a major conference on community development inthe ‘new Europe’ was held in Budapest, Hungary,to mark the accession of a further ten nation states, most ofthem in the east and central European region, to the EuropeanUnion. The conference was sponsored by the International Associationfor Community Development (www.iacdglobal.org), in conjunctionwith the Combined European Bureau for Social Development (www.cebsd.org),the Hungarian Association for Community Development (kofe@kkapcsolat.hu),and the Community Development Journal (www.cdj.oupjournals.org).The initial outcome was the Budapest Declaration, the text ofwhich was included in the CDJ issue of October 2004 (39(4),423–429 – copies     

Residential Differences in Filial Responsibility Expectations Among Older Persons1

Abstract This study examines variation in filial responsibility expectations-the extent to which adult children are expected to assist and care for their aging parents-among a sample of 440 older persons. The analysis focuses on the relationship of filial responsibility expectations to residential location and tests the hypothesis that older rural residents have higher expectations for assistance from their children than do older urbanites. Current residential location is found to have little impact on expectations, but older persons who were raised in rural areas, particularly on farms, have significantly higher expectations for filial assistance than do older persons from urban backgrounds. Possible consequences of these patterns for the transmission of expectations from parents to children are discussed.     

Estimation of Dietary Exposure to Chemicals: A Case Study Illustrating Methods of Distributional Analyses for Food Consumption Data

There are a number of sources of variability in food consumption patterns and residue levels of a particular chemical (e.g., pesticide, food additive) in commodities that lead to an expected high level of variability in dietary exposures across a population. This paper focuses on examples of consumption pattern survey data for specific commodities, namely that for wine and grape juice, and demonstrates how such data might be analyzed in preparation for performing stochastic analyses of dietary exposure. Data from the NIAAA/NHIS wine consumption survey were subset for gender and age group and, with matched body weight data from the survey database, were used to define empirically-based percentile estimates for wine intake (μl wine/kg body weight) for the strata of interest. The data for these two subpopulations were analyzed to estimate 14-day consumption distributional statistics and distributions for only those days on which wine was consumed. Data subsets for all wine-consuming adults and wine-consuming females ages 18 through 45, were determined to fit a lognormal distribution ( R ²= 0.99 for both datasets). Market share data were incorporated into estimation of chronic exposures to hypothetical chemical residues in imported table wine. As a separate example, treatment of grape juice consumption data for females, ages 18–40, as a simple lognormal distribution resulted in a significant underestimation of intake, and thus exposure, because the actual distribution is a mixture (i.e., multiple subpopulations of grape juice consumers exist in the parent distribution). Thus, deriving dietary intake statistics from food consumption survey data requires careful analysis of the underlying empirical distributions.     

Researching Children: Methods and Ethics

The appropriateness and desirability of researching children have been issues of some debate. Children may be perceived as non-competent or vulnerable, and proxies have been used as children's representatives. Increasingly researchers are speaking to children directly. Why is this so and what are the methodological and ethical implications of researching children's views? In this paper the authors draw on their own experiences of researching children in the fields of child carers and the impact of the Child Support Act 1991. A number of social, political and legal trends are identified which form a background to the growing interest in children as potential and actual participants in the research process. The theoretical, methodological, ethical and practical issues involved are then identified and described, using examples from two separate studies conducted by the authors.