Interactive Hazards Education Program for Youth in a Low SES Community: A Quasi‐Experimental Pilot Study

A pilot study of an interactive hazards education program was carried out in Canberra (Australia), with direct input from youth participants. Effects were evaluated in relation to youths’ interest in disasters, motivation to prepare, risk awareness, knowledge indicators, perceived preparedness levels, planning and practice for emergencies, and fear and anxiety indicators. Parents also provided ratings, including of actual home‐based preparedness activities. Using a single group pretest‐posttest with benchmarking design, a sample of 20 youths and their parents from a low SES community participated. Findings indicated beneficial changes on a number of indicators. Preparedness indicators increased significantly from pre‐ to posttest on both youth (p < 0.01) and parent ratings (p < 0.01). Parent ratings reflected an increase of just under six home‐based preparedness activities. Youth knowledge about disaster mitigation also was seen to increase significantly (p < 0.001), increasing 39% from pretest levels. While personalized risk perceptions significantly increased (p < 0.01), anxiety and worry levels were seen either not to change (generalized anxiety, p > 0.05) or to reduce between pre‐ and posttest (hazards‐specific fears, worry, and distress, ps ranged from p < 0.05 to < 0.001). In terms of predictors of preparedness, a number of variables were found to predict posttest preparedness levels, including information searching done by participants between education sessions. These pilot findings are the first to reflect quasi‐experimental outcomes for a youth hazards education program carried out in a setting other than a school that focused on a sample of youth from a low SES community.     

Policy Legitimacy,Rhetorical Politics,and the Evaluation of City‐Street Video Surveillance Monitoring Programs in Canada

This article examines the evaluation and legitimization of city‐street video surveillance in Ontario, Canada. We demonstrate how monitoring programs are promoted, designed, and justified based on rhetorical claims about their efficacy. Although program evaluation data do not commonly corroborate or support program objectives, we show how the rhetorical politics of video surveillance evaluation research finds legitimacy by adhering to the Ontario privacy commissioner's best practices guidelines—guidelines that are formulated to minimize rhetoric in system design. The findings raise questions about how city‐street video surveillance remains a viable policy option given the lack of evidence pertaining to its usefulness.     

Barriers to Managing Coronary Artery Disease Among Older Women

Numerous barriers to managing coronary artery disease (CAD) among older women are reported in the literature; however, few studies adjust for demographic and health status differences. A survey assessing barriers and other factors was distributed to a stratified random sampling of older women with CAD. Factor analysis and multiple logistic regression procedures were used to estimate the impact of these issues on receiving a CAD-related office visit. The most problematic barriers included denial and low health literacy. Efforts to promote patient awareness of heart health and better communication between patients and clinicians may alleviate these barriers.     

Identification Properties of Recent Production Function Estimators

This paper examines some of the recent literature on the estimation of production functions. We focus on techniques suggested in two recent papers, Olley and Pakes (1996) and Levinsohn and Petrin (2003). While there are some solid and intuitive identification ideas in these papers, we argue that the techniques can suffer from functional dependence problems. We suggest an alternative approach that is based on the ideas in these papers, but does not suffer from the functional dependence problems and produces consistent estimates under alternative data generating processes for which the original procedures do not.     

Benefits of Hybrid Lateral Transshipments in Multi‐Item Inventory Systems under Periodic Replenishment

Lateral transshipments are a method of responding to shortages of stock in a network of inventory‐holding locations. Conventional reactive approaches only seek to meet immediate shortages. The study proposes hybrid transshipments which exploit economies of scale by moving additional stock between locations to prevent future shortages in addition to meeting immediate ones. The setting considered is motivated by retailers who operate networks of outlets supplying car parts via a system of periodic replenishment. It is novel in allowing non‐stationary stochastic demand and general patterns of dependence between multiple item types. The generality of our work makes it widely applicable. We develop an easy‐to‐compute quasi‐myopic heuristic for determining how hybrid transshipments should be made. We obtain simple characterizations of the heuristic and demonstrate its strong cost performance in both small and large networks in an extensive numerical study.     

Repurposing Materials and Waste through Online Exchanges: Overcoming the Last Hurdle

Online material and waste exchanges (OMWEs) provide online channels to repurpose by‐products, unused materials and waste from industrial and commercial facilities. Unfortunately, OMWE's also have challenges. First, sellers may have access to other disposal options and, as a result, may not fully commit to the exchange. Second, buyers can face high uncertainty about the product exchanged and the transaction being undertaken. Overcoming these challenges is the “last hurdle” to making OMWEs successful. This study investigates the factors that reduce the buyers' uncertainty and increase the sellers' commitment to the OMWE. We analyze novel transaction‐level data from an online exchange (MNExchange.org) combined with other archival public records on county‐level repurposing and disposal statistics. First, we find that regional repurposing policies and alternatives have a complementary effect on sellers' commitment toward OMWEs, resulting in increased OMWE exchanges. However, regional disposal policies and alternatives have a substitution effect on sellers' commitment, resulting in reduced exchange success. Further, greater product and transaction information reduce the buyer's uncertainty and increase exchange success. Finally, the analysis shows that users' (buyers and sellers) heavily rely on their prior experience with OMWEs. Specifically, higher familiarity between the buyer–seller pair and familiarity with the OMWE system leads to higher likelihood of exchange success. This study lays the foundation for understanding OMWEs and has important implications for developing policies and operations to increase online transactions of by‐products, materials and wastes.