Accident Epidemiology and the U.S. Chemical Industry: Accident History and Worst-Case Data from RMP*Info

This article reports on the data collected on one of the most ambitious government-sponsored environmental data acquisition projects of all time, the Risk Management Plan (RMP) data collected under section 112(r) of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. This RMP Rule 112(r) was triggered by the Bhopal accident in 1984 and led to the requirement that each qualifying facility develop and file with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a Risk Management Plan (RMP) as well as accident history data for the five-year period preceding the filing of the RMP. These data were collected in 1999-2001 on more than 15,000 facilities in the United States that store or use listed toxic or flammable chemicals believed to be a hazard to the environment or to human health of facility employees or off-site residents of host communities. The resulting database, RMP*Info, has become a key resource for regulators and researchers concerned with the frequency and severity of accidents, and the underlying facility-specific factors that are statistically associated with accident and injury rates. This article analyzes which facilities actually filed under the Rule and presents results on accident frequencies and severities available from the RMP*Info database. This article also presents summaries of related results from RMP*Info on Offsite Consequence Analysis (OCA), an analytical estimate of the potential consequences of hypothetical worst-case and alternative accidental releases on the public and environment around the facility. The OCA data have become a key input in the evaluation of site security assessment and mitigation policies for both government planners as well as facility managers and their insurers. Following the survey of the RMP*Info data, we discuss the rich set of policy decisions that may be informed by research based on these data.     

The challenge of partnership: a national foster care charter in the United Kingdom

The National Foster Care Association, in the United Kingdom, offers here its Foster Care Charter and its philosophy, which includes distinguishing "foster carers' from "foster parents' according to the plan for short- or long-term care.     

Crisis,charisma, values,and voting behavior in the 2004 presidential election

This study extends Pillai and Williams [1998, Pillai, R., Williams, E.A., Lowe, K.B., & Jung, D.I. (2003). Personality, transformational leadership, trust, and the 2000 U.S. presidential vote. The Leadership Quarterly, 14, 161–192] and examines leadership in the context of the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Data were collected at two time periods from respondents in three locations across two major regions of the U.S. Our results indicate that respondents' perception of crisis was related to charismatic leadership in the negative direction for the incumbent George W. Bush and in the positive direction for the challenger John Kerry. For Bush and Kerry the relationship between crisis and voting behavior was mediated by charismatic leadership. For Bush, decisiveness was related to charismatic leadership, which in turn predicted voting behavior. For Kerry, decisiveness and charismatic leadership predicted voting behavior. Implications of the findings for leadership research, in particular with respect to an incumbent and the challenger to an incumbent leader, are discussed.     

罗莎·卢森堡关于"社会主义还是野蛮状态"的概念

20世纪90年代以来,罗莎·卢森堡政治学说中所包含的后现代社会的内容得到了世界学者的广泛重视和深入研究。在这里,我们根据2006年3月20—22日武汉大学哲学学院和马克思主义哲学研究所联合举办的“罗莎·卢森堡思想及其当代价值国际学术研讨会”就此问题的讨论特发表以下三篇论文。这三篇论文的特点是结合现时代世界历史提出的重大问题,从哲学的层面反思了罗莎·卢森堡政治学中的基本问题,反映了当代罗莎·卢森堡政治哲学研究的水平和视野。这些论文无论对于深化罗莎·卢森堡政治学的研究,还是对于中国开展马克思主义的政治哲学研究来说,都具有重要的启迪意义。本专栏发表的三篇论文由武汉大学哲学学院何萍教授组织,中南财经政法大学人文学院王雨辰教授也给予了大力协助,在此一并表示衷心的感谢。