Asthma Patients' Activities and Air Pollution: A Semiparametric Censored Regression Analysis

Asthma patients' health status may be especially sensitive to some types of air pollution, but the evidence on this is mixed. We explore the effects of ground-level ozone on asthma patient's activities, breaking apart the usual aggregated category of leisure into indoor and outdoor activities, and differentiating those by whether the activities were active or inactive. Applying the semiparametric censored estimation method we demonstrate that even though the period over which activities were observed was relatively low in ozone levels, there is a significant impact of ozone on a few activities. The (non-ozone) economic and demographic variables in the model play significant roles in explaining the allocation of time among seven activities, suggesting the suitability of the approach for other household decision-making contexts.     

Bayesian locally optimal design of knockout tournaments

The elimination or knockout format is one of the most common designs for pairing competitors in tournaments and leagues. In each round of a knockout tournament, the losers are eliminated while the winners advance to the next round. Typically, the goal of such a design is to identify the overall best player. Using a common probability model for expressing relative player strengths, we develop an adaptive approach to pairing players each round in which the probability that the best player advances to the next round is maximized. We evaluate our method using simulated game outcomes under several data-generating mechanisms, and compare it to random pairings, to the standard knockout format, and to two variants of the standard format.     

Educating for Social Justice: Making sense of multicultural and antiracist theory and practice with Canadian teacher activists 1

This paper presents an argument for further engagement between educational scholars and school-based social justice activists. An analysis of one segment of the broad field of social justice education focuses on multicultural and antiracist education, particularly as they are understood in the Canadian socio-political context. A brief overview of the literature from UK and US sources highlights their complex and often overlapping concerns, and the need for more dialogue across national boundaries toward progressive social change. Excerpts from in-depth interviews with four Canadian teacher-activists reveal the potential for educators to take up various debates and findings from the academic literature in their daily struggles to work for social justice.     

On the Third Law of Demand

The Alchian and Allen theorem predicts that it will be harder to find "good" apples in the State of Washington, a prime apple-growing region, than in, say, New York City, where the addition of shipping charges makes "bad" apples comparatively more expensive. We recast the theorem as a testable proposition by explicitly taking the supply side into account and identifying plausible scenarios in which a fixed cost either has no effect on the relative prices of high and low quality grades of the same good in distant markets or, indeed, causes more of the bad apples to be shipped out.     

Trait Expressiveness and Marital Satisfaction: The Role of Idealization Processes

This study examined the processes that underlie the association between trait expressiveness and marital satisfaction. A total of 168 newlywed couples participated in a four‐wave, 13‐year longitudinal study of marriage. Cross‐sectional and longitudinal path analyses suggested that expressiveness promotes satisfaction by leading spouses to engage in affectionate behavior and by leading them to idealize their partner. Expressive people formed idealized images of their partner because they brought out the best in their partner's behavior and because they interpreted their partner's behavior in a favorable light. The study extends previous research by showing that the benefits of trait expressiveness extend into the second decade of marriage and by providing a plausible explanation of the connections between trait expressiveness and marital satisfaction.     

Mission attachment and satisfaction as factors in employee retention

Nonprofit organizations rely on the mission to attract resources and guide decision making. Increasingly, mission statements are recognized as a strong management tool that can motivate employees and keep them focused on the organization's purpose. This research investigated employee attitudes toward the mission in a youth and recreation service organization. In general, the employees expressed positive attitudes toward the organization's mission, and those attitudes were related to employee satisfaction and intentions to remain with the organization. However, dissatisfaction with pay tended to override employee's mission attachment as explanation of why they may leave the organization. The implication is that mission might be salient in attracting employees but less effective in retaining them.     

Risk,trust and knowledge networks in farmers’ learning

This study reports on New Zealand dairy farmers’ access to and use of information as mediated through conditions of risk and trust within the context of their interpersonal social networks. We located participants’ reports of their information use within their perceived environments of trust and risk, following Giddens's [1990. The consequences of modernity. Polity Press, Stanford, CA] typology of trust and risk in pre-modernity and modernity. The research participants were constant users of interpersonal and print information from numerous sources, and monitored their incoming data in the light of strategic needs, reflecting their roles as both farming practitioners and business owners. Socio-spatial knowledge networks (SSKNs) combine individuals’ explanatory cognitive models of information acquisition and use with a micro-geographical analysis of their interpersonal networks. The participants showed characteristics of pre-modern, modern and even post-modern society in respect of their use of complex interactional forms, as well as a blending of individualistic and communitarian practices and concerns in their professional and personal lives.     

Effects of Category Order on Answers in Mail and Telephone Surveys1

Abstract Past research suggests that mail surveys encourage a primacy effect, which is a tendency to choose the first answers from a list, whereas telephone surveys encourage a recency effect, a tendency to choose the last answers from a list. This paper summarizes results from 82 new experiments conducted in 12 separate surveys in seven states. Only four of 33 mail survey comparisons exhibited significant primacy effects, while five of 26 experiments in telephone surveys exhibited recency effects. In addition, only three of 23 cross-method comparisons produced a significant primacy/recency effect in the expected manner. The conclusion is that the prevalence of primacy and recency effects has been over-estimated by past research and a new theoretical approach that takes into account multiple causation is needed for examining these effects.     

Beyond recruitment: Predictors of differential participation in a national antihunger organization

Surprisingly little research has sought to explain differential participation after recruitment into social movement organizations (SMOs). This study examines the influence of several sets of predictors on participation by members of a national organization in the antihunger movement. The findings highlight the importance of incentive, ideological, and microstructural factors for differential participation and suggest that favorable perceptions of SMOs also promote participation. Final remarks address the implications of the findings for the social movement and voluntary organization literatures.