Characteristics of smokeless tobacco use among high school football players as related to type of smokeless tobacco and period of use.

The present study was conducted to assess differences in the behavioral and demographic characteristics of snuff (dip) users as compared to users of chewing tobacco. High School football players (1116) were surveyed concerning their use and perceptions of smokeless tobacco. Adolescent athletes who tried smokeless tobacco were more likely to be white, to use cigarettes, alcohol, and cigars and to have family users than those who never tried. Initial use was highest before the age of fourteen years and was influenced by friends, curiosity and family. Dippers tended to initiate use because of friends, while chewers started because of family users. Users of both dip and chew started primarily because of curiosity. Users of both were more likely to consume greater amounts to alcohol and cigarettes and to smoke cigars and pipes. It appears that the longer smokeless tobacco is consumed, the more likely both dip and chew will be used. Users of smokeless tobacco for more than two years tended to consume more of the product each week, used it for more hours/day, initiated use at an earlier age, and used it more often at school and work than those using it for less than two years. Use of cigars/pipes, consumption of alcohol, and quantity of cigarette consumption increased significantly with longer duration of smokeless tobacco use. Intervention and prevention programs would be helped by understanding differences between users of various smokeless tobacco products and differences related to the duration of use. In addition, further analyses of smokeless tobacco users should study chewers, dippers, and users of both separately.     

Reducing U.S. carbon dioxide emissions: an assessment of different instruments

The possibility that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use might lead to global warming has become a leading environmental concern. Many scientific and environmental organizations have called for immediate action to limit carbon dioxide production. For the most part, however, public debate has focused on a single policy instrument: a carbon tax applied to fossil fuels in proportion to their carbon content. We present a detailed model of the U.S. economy and use it to compare carbon taxes with two other instruments that could achieve the same reduction in carbon dioxide emissions: a tax on the energy content of fossil fuels (a BTU tax) and an ad valorem tax on fuel use. We find that carbon taxes can achieve a given reduction with the least overall effect on the economy, but with a large effect on coal mining. Energy taxes are fairly similar to carbon taxes but have slightly less impact on coal mining and slightly greater overall cost. In contrast, ad valorem taxes fall much more lightly on coal mining but have a much greater effect on the economy as a whole.     

Conditioning effect of prior reputation on perception of corporate giving

Prior corporate reputation, one responsibility of a public relations department, affects public perceptions toward corporate philanthropic messages and ultimately affects public attitudes toward the company. Using an experiment that emulates the sort of news consumption individuals normally undertake, participants inferred corporate charitable giving as a mutually beneficial activity when a company had a good reputation (H1a). Participants inferred corporate charitable giving as a self-interested activity when the company had a bad reputation (H1b). Also, public inference (suspicion) successfully mediated corporate prior reputation on public attitude toward the company (H2). Participants showed positive attitude toward the company when they inferred the company had an altruistic motive for charitable giving (H3a). However, participants showed negative attitude toward the company when they inferred the company had a self-interested motive for charitable giving (H3b).     

Statistical software packages for PCs — A market survey

The increase of statistical software applications for PCs is caused by decreasing hardware costs and dramatically enhanced PC performance. Whereas in the past the domain of statistical computing has been reserved to mainframe solutions, a great number of new software packages for PCs have come out in the last five years. Therefore, the producers of established mainframe software were also forced to offer PC-based solutions. By limiting a market analysis to products with a medium set of well known statistical methods, the immense number of available products is reduced to about fifty systems. We ordered an evaluation copy of these systems to test the numerical quality, the system speed, and the performance of several procedures. Seventeen packages were made available for an extensive examination. This paper will (1) discuss the problems and the solutions of obtaining a complete and correct datamatrix that describes the entire market and (2) present the results of a comparative market analysis.     

TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF CULT FILMS: Reading Rocky Horror

This article provides a sociological reading of cult films, in particular, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Cult films are secular documents, celebrated as sacred texts by audiences and used as shared foci to collectively create rituals and belief systems. They differ from popular re-releases, fad films, films with cult qualities, and critical cult films in that they involve typical people in atypical situations, sympathetic deviance, challenges to traditional authority, reflections of societal strains, and paradoxical and interpretable resolutions. Examination of the Rocky Horror text and the cult activities that occur during its viewing, reveal it as a paradoxical indictment and validation of traditional societal arrangements.     

TEACHING TOOLS: ON JOURNALISTS' USE OF MACROECONOMIC CONCEPTS

Five macroeconomic concepts are presented which are prominent in the business sections of newspapers, but which are not given equivalent prominence in macroeconomic textbooks. These are the discouraged worker phenomenon, the use of inventories in forecasting, the effect of changes in the money supply on the bond market, and the effects of inflation and nominal interest rates in the foreign exchange market. These concepts are presented via news clips illustrating the way they typically appear in the press. Instructors are urged to place extra emphasis on these concepts.