Risk-Reducing Legal Documents: Controlling Personal Health and Financial Resources

Every adult can eliminate the risk of losing control of personal health decisions and financial resources by having a last will and testament, health proxy, power of attorney, and living trust. Yet evidence suggests that less than a majority of adult Americans have these documents. We surveyed 900 adult Americans (25 plus years old) to determine what factors predict the possession of these risk-reducing documents. In total, 46% had a living will and testament, 32% a durable power of attorney, 30% a health proxy, and 18% a living trust. Events that prompt people with wealth to secure these documents, such as increasing age, getting married, having children, and experiencing a life-threatening event were the strongest predictors of having a will. These were also among the strongest predictors of having a health proxy, along with a personal history of being proactive, and a family history that fostered trust of attorneys. Affluence, age, and education were the strongest predictors of having a living trust, and the strongest correlate of having a durable power of attorney was having faced a life-threatening event, positive experiences with attorneys, and higher educational achievement.     

走向一种绿色意识形态

与价值观不同,意识形态既是规范性的又是描述性的,或者说,既是价值评估性的也是知识追求性的。事实与价值之间的关系,被传统地以“二分法”的方式加以构建,实际上二者是一种互补关系,但这也并不意味着对矛盾关系的否认。一种建立在摆脱教条主义的唯物主义基础上的绿色理论,更有利于开展一种行之有效的实践,而这或许是绿色运动可以从马克思主义那里继承的最为重要的遗产。如果生态主义要想成为一种有影响的意识形态,就必须发展一种“绿色实践观”,创建“理论-实践”的统一体,并借助包含着价值考量在内的“中介”来跨越二者之间的鸿沟。     

格林伯格现代主义绘画的还原论批判

随着美国极简主义艺术的兴起,人们发现形式主义已经走到了最残酷无情的绝对状态,与此同时,也看到了它在艺术上已经走进了一个彻底的死胡同。这种 20世纪 60年代中期激进还原的艺术得出了格林伯格学说的逻辑结论,即现代主义绘画不可避免地走向绝对平面性,而现代主义雕塑则不可避免地走向绝对立体感的清晰度。本人的批评既是对格林伯格现代主义绘画理论的批评,也是对极简主义的格林伯格式鼓吹的批判。     

To test or not to test: do workplace drug testing programs discourage employee drug use?

Workplace drug testing programs are often met with intense criticism. Despite resistance among labor and consumer groups and a lack of rigorous empirical evidence regarding effectiveness, drug testing programs have remained popular with employers throughout the 1990s and into the current century. The present study analyzed nationally representative data on over 15,000 US households to determine whether various types of workplace drug testing programs influenced the probability of drug use by workers. The study estimated several empirical specifications using both univariate and bivariate probit techniques. The specification tests favored the bivariate probit model over the univariate probit model. Estimated marginal effects of drug testing on any drug use were negative, significant, and relatively large, indicating that drug testing programs are achieving one of the desired effects. The results were similar when any drug use was replaced with chronic drug use in the models. These results have important policy implications regarding the effectiveness and economic viability of workplace anti-drug programs.     

生态文明的未来:马克思和无为生态

工业革命以来,自然生态遭受巨大破坏,各种环境问题大量出现.西方传统经济学思想对此负有不可推卸的责任.与之相反,中国传统文化中主张无为而治的无为思想,更能与马克思的思想相契合,因为,它有利于保持生态系统的平衡,促进人与自然的和谐共处以及经济的可持续发展.     

A Tiered Framework for Risk‐Relevant Characterization and Ranking of Chemical Exposures: Applications to the National Children's Study (NCS)

A challenge for large‐scale environmental health investigations such as the National Children's Study (NCS), is characterizing exposures to multiple, co‐occurring chemical agents with varying spatiotemporal concentrations and consequences modulated by biochemical, physiological, behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental factors. Such investigations can benefit from systematic retrieval, analysis, and integration of diverse extant information on both contaminant patterns and exposure‐relevant factors. This requires development, evaluation, and deployment of informatics methods that support flexible access and analysis of multiattribute data across multiple spatiotemporal scales. A new “Tiered Exposure Ranking” (TiER) framework, developed to support various aspects of risk‐relevant exposure characterization, is described here, with examples demonstrating its application to the NCS. TiER utilizes advances in informatics computational methods, extant database content and availability, and integrative environmental/exposure/biological modeling to support both “discovery‐driven” and “hypothesis‐driven” analyses. “Tier 1” applications focus on “exposomic” pattern recognition for extracting information from multidimensional data sets, whereas second and higher tier applications utilize mechanistic models to develop risk‐relevant exposure metrics for populations and individuals. In this article, “tier 1” applications of TiER explore identification of potentially causative associations among risk factors, for prioritizing further studies, by considering publicly available demographic/socioeconomic, behavioral, and environmental data in relation to two health endpoints (preterm birth and low birth weight). A “tier 2” application develops estimates of pollutant mixture inhalation exposure indices for NCS counties, formulated to support risk characterization for these endpoints. Applications of TiER demonstrate the feasibility of developing risk‐relevant exposure characterizations for pollutants using extant environmental and demographic/socioeconomic data.