Analysing partial ranks by using smoothed paired comparison methods: an investigation of value orientation in Europe

Summary. This paper introduces the paired comparison model as a suitable approach for the analysis of partially ranked data. For example, the Inglehart index, collected in international social surveys to examine shifts in post-materialistic values, generates such data on a set of attitude items. However, current analysis methods have failed to account for the complex shifts in individual item values, or to incorporate subject covariates. The paired comparison model is thus developed to allow for covariate subject effects at the individual level, and a reparameterization allows the inclusion of smooth non-linear effects of continuous covariates. The Inglehart index collected in the 1993 International Social Science Programme survey is analysed, and complex non-linear changes of item values with age, level of education and religion are identified. The model proposed provides a powerful tool for social scientists.     

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Environmental policymakers and regulators are often in the position of having to prioritize their actions across a diverse range of environmental pressures to secure environmental protection and improvements. Information on environmental issues to inform this type of strategic analysis can be disparate; it may be too voluminous or even absent. Data on a range of issues are rarely presented in a common format that allows easy analysis and comparison. Nevertheless, judgments are required on the significance of various environmental pressures and on the inherent uncertainties to inform strategic assessments such as “state of the environment” reports. How can decisionmakers go about this type of strategic and comparative risk analysis? In an attempt to provide practical tools for the analysis of environmental risks at a strategic level, the Environment Agency of England and Wales has conducted a program of developmental research on strategic risk assessment since 1996. The tools developed under this program use the concept of “environmental harm” as a common metric, viewed from technical, social, and economic perspectives, to analyze impacts from a range of environmental pressures. Critical to an informed debate on the relative importance of these perspectives is an understanding and analysis of the various characteristics of harm (spatial and temporal extent, reversibility, latency, etc.) and of the social response to actual or potential environmental harm from a range of hazards. Recent developments in our approach, described herein, allow a presentation of the analysis in a structured fashion so as to better inform risk‐management decisions.     

Official policies and informal transversal networks: Creating ‘pan‐European identifications’ through sport?

The idea that sport has been drawn into helping build a collective identity around the nation‐state, particularly in the immediate ‘era of independence’ after 1945, is well documented. However, it is only recently that sport has been linked to notions of moulding what we term here as ‘pan‐European identifications’. It is our argument that there are two distinctive forms to such identification. The first posits a tangible notion of identity based around territories such as nation‐states. Sport assists in this process through ‘official’ policies, such as declarations, reports and statements by the European Commission and other pan‐European institutions. The second form recognizes that increasing transversal interactions weakens ideas of territorialized identity, resulting in a looser ‘sense of belonging’. Sport helps craft identifications here in an informal manner through pan‐European sporting competitions, such as the UEFA Champions League and 2004 European football championships. This article is structured to look at both forms of this sport/identification interface whilst also considering the complex nature of sport and identity by explaining how sport can simultaneously erode such identifications.     

An Analysis of Autism as a Contingency-Shaped Disorder of Verbal Behavior

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - This paper analyzes autism as a contingency-shaped disorder of verbal behavior. Contingencies of reinforcement in effect during the first to third year of a...     

Self-advocates have the last say on friendship

This study reports the friendship experiences and aspirations of adults with intellectual disabilities. The findings of a larger study were reviewed by an expert group of self-advocates with intellectual disability. The expert group confirmed some of the interpretation of the original data and expanded on issues. Friendship is established as an issue of concern among adults with intellectual disability. Consequently, policy-makers and service providers need to be intentional about providing support for friendships. Participants asserted a positive self-identity of being a person with intellectual disability and how this could be a basis for friendship. Also, people with intellectual disability demonstrated how they should be considered experts in their own life experience and how they can be effectively included in the formulation, implementation, analysis and review of research.     

Is Autism a Preventable Disorder of Verbal Behavior? A Response to Five Commentaries

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - This paper presents a response to five commentaries on our article An Analysis of Autism as a Contingency-Shaped Disorder of Verbal Behavior (Drash &...     

论文明的发展趋势——生态文明

从属于地球共同体的人类文明走过了原始文明、农业文明,又演绎出今天的现代全球文明。现代文明的缺陷引起地球共同体终结的危机。因此人类文明需要进入新的发展过程,而走向生态文明就是人类和地球共同体的未来,这需要克服实证科学语言所具有的单一性,以东方占优势的类比思维来弥补西方实证科学逻辑思维的不足。无论是东方文明还是西方文明,都有着相互的关联。西方的逻辑、东方的关联和类比,都是走向生态文明的必须。