Promoting sense-making in volatile environments: Developing resilience in disaster management

Over the past decade, the research on disaster administration has taken a critical look at the command and control operations in disaster response and recovery. Following the notable bureaucratic failures in response to Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami in Indonesia, researchers have focused on disaster administration system. The various actors within the system should focus on sense-making and resilience to be agile in the face of catastrophic events. This study profiles the contributions made through a focus on developing resilience in disaster management. Through a detailed literature review in multiple areas of the disaster management literature, along with illustrative examples from the challenges that agents have faced in several recent global disasters from 2014 to the present, the importance of resilience is highlighted. Areas for future research are included.     

Abortion Perspectives and Pollsters' Questions

Abstract

In measuring public opinion about controversial issues, pollsters strive for balanced and comprehensive coverage of the subject. This type of coverage may be undermined, however, when one perspective of the issue tends to predominate in society. This point is illustrated by a review of questions major pollsters asked about the abortion issue over an eight-year period. The data suggest that in querying the public about abortion rights, in describing the legal and empirical realities of the abortion situation and in seeking the public's reaction to abortion politics and policy, pollsters tended to reflect the dominant pro-choice perspective.     

Testing in semiparametric models with interaction, with applications to gene–environment interactions

Summary.  Motivated from the problem of testing for genetic effects on complex traits in the presence of gene–environment interaction, we develop score tests in general semiparametric regression problems that involves Tukey style 1 degree-of-freedom form of interaction between parametrically and non-parametrically modelled covariates. We find that the score test in this type of model, as recently developed by Chatterjee and co-workers in the fully parametric setting, is biased and requires undersmoothing to be valid in the presence of non-parametric components. Moreover, in the presence of repeated outcomes, the asymptotic distribution of the score test depends on the estimation of functions which are defined as solutions of integral equations, making implementation difficult and computationally taxing. We develop profiled score statistics which are unbiased and asymptotically efficient and can be performed by using standard bandwidth selection methods. In addition, to overcome the difficulty of solving functional equations, we give easy interpretations of the target functions, which in turn allow us to develop estimation procedures that can be easily implemented by using standard computational methods. We present simulation studies to evaluate type I error and power of the method proposed compared with a naive test that does not consider interaction. Finally, we illustrate our methodology by analysing data from a case–control study of colorectal adenoma that was designed to investigate the association between colorectal adenoma and the candidate gene NAT2 in relation to smoking history.     

Reallocation of pronouns through contact: In‐the‐moment identity construction amongst Southern California Salvadorans

This study uses natural, everyday social interaction within Salvadoran families living in Southern California to examine the use of the 2nd‐person singular pronouns tú and vos (and their corresponding morphologies) in this contact variety of Spanish. An in‐depth, qualitative analysis reveals that the employment and significance of these forms of address do not conform entirely to Salvadoran norms, nor to those of the surrounding Mexican‐based Spanish koiné. Accommodation to the pronominal repertoire of the region's majority serves as a communicative resource driven by questions of U.S./Los Angeles identity and solidarity with speakers in‐the‐moment interlocutor(s), a process which has caused the original Salvadoran pronouns to also be reallocated and refunctionalized (Britain and Trudgill 1999 ) as resources for accomplishing Salvadoran identity. Members of this community make active use of their pronominal options in real‐time interaction as they navigate the fluid, multifaceted identities that they and their interlocutors now embody in the U.S. context.     

A Grounded Qualitative Study of the Meanings of Effectiveness in Canadian ‘Results-Focused’ Environmental Organizations

This research examines the manner in which effectiveness is socially constructed and interpreted within a subpopulation of “practical solution delivering” Canadian environmental organizations. Key findings are that effectiveness is not framed by ENGO staff in terms of sustainability-related outcomes of value, despite contextual reasons why this might be so. Instead, effectiveness is interpreted in terms of popularity and engagement with the public, with funders and with other key stakeholders. This suggests that despite organizational and population affirmations to the contrary, the environmental programs and activities are designed to engage human awareness and affect more than to create practical environmental change.     

New Ways to Promote Proenvironmental Behavior: Expanding and Evaluating Motives for Environmentally Responsible Behavior

This article contends that while striving to promote environmentallyresponsible behavior, we have focused attention too narrowly on just two classes of motives. There is a need to expand the range of motives available to practitioners and to provide a framework within which motives can be evaluated for both their immediate and long-term effectiveness. The article then examines a strategy for promoting environmentally responsible behavior that has significant potential. This strategy is based on a particular form of motivation called intrinsic satisfaction. Nine studies are reviewed that have outlined the structure of intrinsic satisfaction. A key theme discussed is the human inclination for competence. This fundamental human concern is shown to have both a general form and a resource-specific version.