A Couple-Based Approach to the Reduction of PTSD Avoidance Symptoms: Preliminary Findings

This study reports preliminary findings regarding the feasibility and efficacy of a novel couple-based treatment, named Strategic Approach Therapy (SAT), for reducing avoidance symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Six male Vietnam combat veterans diagnosed with PTSD and their cohabitating marital partners participated in 10 weeks of SAT treatment. Self-report, clinician ratings, and partner ratings of PTSD symptoms were obtained before the first session and after the tenth session of treatment. Veterans reported statistically significant reductions in self-reported, clinician-rated, and partner-rated effortful avoidance, emotional numbing, and overall PTSD severity. These data indicate that SAT offers promise as an effective treatment for PTSD avoidance symptoms.     

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE GROWTH ACCOUNTING PERSPECTIVE

A positive relationship between FDI and economic growth under two economic conditions has been estimated: a sufficient level of human capital and well-developed financial markets, respectively. However, these two conditions can be fundamentally different catalysts for FDI to promote economic growth in the perspective of growth accounting. Using data from 69 countries over 1970–1989, we find that FDI promotes productivity growth only when the host country reaches a threshold level of human capital; and FDI promotes capital growth only when a certain level of financial development is achieved. ( JEL F21)     

Human resource practices of multinational organizations in Belgium

This study uses data from a survey of 117 large organizations located in Belgium to examine the relationship between corporate ownership and personnel practices. Results obtained from multivariate analyses supported the general hypothesis that personnel policies and practices vary as a function of ownership and nationality. For example, foreign-owned firms are found to be more advanced in their adoption of methods to gain employee loyalty and commitment than domestic enterprises. In addition to ownership effects, the moderating effects of some key organizational characteristics were examined. This shows that large differences exist with respect to the human resource practices used in firms as a function of management philosophy, creative strategy and industry sector.     

Network Evening News Coverage of Environmental Risk

ABC, CBS, and NBC's carefully crafted and expensively produced evening news broadcasts devoted 1.7% of their air time to 564 stories about man-made environmental risks during the period from January 1984 to February 1986. Little relationship was found between amount of coverage and public health risk. Instead, the networks appeared to be using traditional journalistic determinants of news (timeliness, proximity, prominence, consequence, and human interest) plus the broadcast criterion of visual impact to determine the degree of coverage of risk issues. Government, industry, and citizens accounted for two-thirds of the sources cited by the networks. Experts and spokespersons for environmental advocacy groups were sparsely used as sources. Given the media's need for news pegs, acute and chronic risk stories were covered differently. Acute risk stories were reported in a clearly defined cycle, peaking on the second day with on-the-scene reports and film-clips of devastation. In keeping with a decrease in visual drama, later reports were shorter and emphasized legal and political considerations. Chronic risk coverage followed the release of new scientific, legal, or political information.     

Communicating Contaminant Risks from Sport-Caught Fish: The Importance of Target Audience Assessment

A fish consumption health advisory has existed for New York Lake Ontario sport-caught fish since 1978. Our study objectives were to evaluate the effectiveness of the advisory for reaching potential target audiences and to identify appropriate advisory content, style, and dissemination methods using a risk communication planning model as an evaluation framework. We used a combination of mail surveys and personal interviews with three target audiences (opinion leaders among recreational anglers and charter boat operators, migrant farm workers, and low-income individuals) and two communicator groups (fishery experts and health care experts). The New York Lake Ontario advisory appeared to be successful in reaching and encouraging risk-mitigating fish consumption behavior in recreational angler opinion leaders and low-income individuals but not in migrant farm workers. The advisory may not be reaching two sensitive subpopulations, women of childbearing age and children. Communicators and target audiences differed in their assessments of important information to include in an advisory. The health advisory could be improved with additional information such as risk-reducing cooking and cleaning methods and by diversifying the dissemination methods to reach the variety of audiences who potentially consume Lake Ontario fish.     

Social ties, task-related communication and first job performance of young engineers

This study investigated the relationships among social ties, task-related communication, and first industrial job performance of a group of young engineers by utilizing a cooperative (coop) engineering program as a natural study. The coop arrangement allowed the researcher to examine the work behavior of these young engineers with similar academic training who were working on comparable work assignments in the same set of organizations.The study found that the job performance of the coop engineers was related to the pattern of work- related communication but not the total number of contacts. Specifically, high performance new engineers were integrated more broadly into the interpersonal communication networks than low performance new engineers. Moreover, high performance new engineers exhibited communication patterns similar to those of high performance veteran engineers working on similar types of technical work. Social ties with the company staff was found to be related positively with job performance, but social ties with other coop engineers was found to be related negatively with job performance, a result which challenges an implicit assumption often made by researchers and managers about the organizational socialization of newcomers. Overall, this study provides an integrative framework for relating social ties and communication as key factors for understanding the job performance of young engineers and presents a methodology for assessing their organizational assimilation.     

Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Exposure-Response Relationships in Epidemiologic Studies

Demonstration of a dose-response relationship for environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is an important indication of causality. Central to the analysis and interpretation of dose-response relations as described in epidemiological studies is the relationship between dose and exposure. It must be recognized that in studies of ETS we have only surrogate measures of dose, and these surrogate measures (based on exposure) are imperfect. The question-based measures of ETS exposure generally have not been standardized, may have limited validity and reliability, and cannot comprehensively describe total ETS exposure, exposure to individual ETS components, nor doses of biologically relevant agents at target sites. Nevertheless, useful data have been yielded in epidemiologic studies linking ETS exposure to increased respiratory infection and symptoms, reduced lung growth in children, and increased lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. The more consistent exposure-response data for studies on acute health in children may reflect the greater difficulty in measuring exposure in studies of chronic health in adults.     

Fire Risks in Oil Refineries: Economic Analysis of Camera Monitoring

A probabilistic method is presented to evaluate the economic value of fire monitoring by closed circuit TV camera in petroleum refineries. The proposed model is restricted to the analysis of risk reduction in an area where fires can be caused either by pump failure or by failure of valves and lines. The benefits come from reducing the time during which the fire grows undetected. Fire growth and expected values of losses are analyzed by a Markov model that includes five phases: (1) active undetected growth, (2) detection, (3) fire growth at the beginning of the firemen's intervention, (4) fire control, and (5) fire extinction. The results (e.g., the expected net present value of the investment) show that the proposed monitoring investment is attractive for an illustrative example.