Eliciting Information from Experts on the Likelihood of Rapid Climate Change

The threat of so‐called rapid or abrupt climate change has generated considerable public interest because of its potentially significant impacts. The collapse of the North Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation or the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, for example, would have potentially catastrophic effects on temperatures and sea level, respectively. But how likely are such extreme climatic changes? Is it possible actually to estimate likelihoods? This article reviews the societal demand for the likelihoods of rapid or abrupt climate change, and different methods for estimating likelihoods: past experience, model simulation, or through the elicitation of expert judgments. The article describes a survey to estimate the likelihoods of two characterizations of rapid climate change, and explores the issues associated with such surveys and the value of information produced. The surveys were based on key scientists chosen for their expertise in the climate science of abrupt climate change. Most survey respondents ascribed low likelihoods to rapid climate change, due either to the collapse of the Thermohaline Circulation or increased positive feedbacks. In each case one assessment was an order of magnitude higher than the others. We explore a high rate of refusal to participate in this expert survey: many scientists prefer to rely on output from future climate model simulations.     

From entitlements to incentives: The changing philosophy of social protection

In recent years policies for social protection initially designed for purposes of income maintenance have come to place increasing emphasis on the reintegration of welfare beneficiaries into the labour force. This paper describes a range of initiatives in public assistance, unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and public pensions, which link social benefits with incentives to work. These measures are seen as part of a broader pattern of change that seeks to balance social rights and obligations. The reasons for this change are examined in the light of demographic trends, ideological shifts, and unanticipated consequences of past social welfare policies. An analysis of the uncertainties surrounding incentive-oriented social policies suggests that these measures bear careful monitoring.     

Defrocking dualism: A new approach to defining industrial sectors

In this paper we argue that a division of the economy into core and periphery sectors does not do justice to the complexity of the structure of the U.S. economy. The dualistic approach is inadequate both theoretically and empirically. While the dual economy literature has utilized multiple concepts it has conceived of them as forming a single dimension. We develop additional concepts from the complex organizations literature and utilize this enlarged set of concepts in a truly multidimensional framework. We also present a new technique of categorization based on a combination of factor and cluster analyses. The resulting categorization is highly interpretable, and it is superior to previous operationalizations in that it fully reflects the multidimensionality of economic segmentation.     

Fathers in Family Therapy: A Survey of Family Therapists

Sixty family therapists were surveyed in an investigation of resistance by family members to family therapy. Consistent with other investigations, the father was viewed as the most resistant along a number of dimensions. Therapist behaviors that related to difficulties with the father, specifically, and to family therapy generally, were identified. The implication of these results and possible strategies to reduce the resistance of the father are discussed.     

Validation of the behavioral observation system. Using nurse ratings of acuity

1. One of the goals of the BOS is to gather supplemental, objective data to help unit administration determine patient acuity, and thus, staffing needs. 2. The BOS was developed to help provide information that is easily collected, objective, reliable, and valid. 3. The current study sought to establish preliminary support for use of the BOS to assess patient acuity and determine staffing needs. 4. Because the BOS can be completed as part of HSWs' daily tasks with little additional cost, the data can be available to decision makers to determine the unit's needs more accurately and efficiently.     

A simple method for estimating a regression model for κ between a pair of raters

Agreement studies commonly occur in medical research, for example, in the review of X-rays by radiologists, blood tests by a panel of pathologists and the evaluation of psychopathology by a panel of raters. In these studies, often two observers rate the same subject for some characteristic with a discrete number of levels. The κ-coefficient is a popular measure of agreement between the two raters. The κ-coefficient may depend on covariates, i.e. characteristics of the raters and/or the subjects being rated. Our research was motivated by two agreement problems. The first is a study of agreement between a pastor and a co-ordinator of Christian education on whether they feel that the congregation puts enough emphasis on encouraging members to work for social justice (yes versus no). We wish to model the κ-coefficient as a function of covariates such as political orientation (liberal versus conservative) of the pastor and co-ordinator. The second example is a spousal education study, in which we wish to model the κ-coefficient as a function of covariates such as the highest degree of the father of the wife and the father of the husband. We propose a simple method to estimate the regression model for the κ-coefficient, which consists of two logistic (or multinomial logistic) regressions and one linear regression for binary data. The estimates can be easily obtained in any generalized linear model software program.     

Modeling Denomination Structures

Previous work on the denomination structure of currency treats as exogenous the distribution of transactions and the denominations held by people. Here, by way of a matching model, both are endogenous. In the model, trades in pairwise meetings alternate in time with the opportunity to freely choose a portfolio of denominations and there is a trade‐off between the benefits of small‐denomination money for transacting and the costliness of carrying a large quantity of small‐denomination money. For a given denomination structure, a monetary steady state is shown to exist. The model implies that too small denominations are abandoned.