When Precaution Creates Misunderstandings: The Unintended Effects of Precautionary Information on Perceived Risks,the EMF Case

In the past decade, growing public concern about novel technologies with uncertain potential long‐term impacts on the environment and human health has moved risk policies toward a more precautionary approach. Focusing on mobile telephony, the effects of precautionary information on risk perception were analyzed. A pooled multinational experimental study based on a 5 × 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted in nine countries. The first factor refers to whether or not information on different types of precautionary measures was present, the second factor to the framing of the precautionary information, and the third factor to the order in which cell phones and base stations were rated by the study participants. The data analysis on the country level indicates different effects. The main hypothesis that informing about precautionary measures results in increased risk perceptions found only partial support in the data. The effects are weaker, both in terms of the effect size and the frequency of significant effects, across the various precautionary information formats used in the experiment. Nevertheless, our findings do not support the assumption that informing people about implemented precautionary measures will decrease public concerns.     

“Every Place Has a Ghetto…”: The Significance of Whites' Social and Residential Segregation

The residential and social segregation of whites from blacks creates a socialization process we refer to as “white habitus.” This white habitus limits whites' chances for developing meaningful relationships with blacks and other minorities spatially and psychologically. Using data from the 1997 Survey of College Students' Social Attitudes and the 1998 Detroit Area Study, we show that the spatial segregation experienced by whites from blacks fosters segregated lifestyles and leads them to develop positive views about themselves and negative views about blacks. First, we document the high levels of whites' residential and social segregation. Next, we examine how whites interpret their own self‐segregation. Finally, we examine how whites' segregation shapes their racial expressions, attitudes, cognitions, and even their sense of aesthetics as illustrated by their views on the subject of interracial marriage.     

New flexible models generated by gamma random variables for lifetime modeling

In this paper we introduce a new three-parameter exponential-type distribution. The new distribution is quite flexible and can be used effectively in modeling survival data and reliability problems. It can have constant, decreasing, increasing, upside-down bathtub and bathtub-shaped hazard rate functions. It also generalizes some well-known distributions. We discuss maximum likelihood estimation of the model parameters for complete sample and for censored sample. Additionally, we formulate a new cure rate survival model by assuming that the number of competing causes of the event of interest has the Poisson distribution and the time to this event follows the proposed distribution. Maximum likelihood estimation of the model parameters of the new cure rate survival model is discussed for complete sample and censored sample. Two applications to real data are provided to illustrate the flexibility of the new model in practice.     

COWORDS: a probabilistic model for multiple word clouds

Word clouds constitute one of the most popular statistical tools for the visual analysis of text documents because they provide users with a quick and intuitive understanding of the content. Despite their popularity for visualizing single documents, word clouds are not appropriate to compare different text documents. Independently generating word clouds for each document leads to configurations where the same word is typically located in widely different positions. This makes it very difficult to compare two or more word clouds. This paper introduces COWORDS, a new stochastic algorithm to create multiple word clouds, including one for each document. The shared words in multiple documents are placed in the same position in all clouds. Similar documents produce similar and compact clouds, making it easier to simultaneously compare and interpret several word clouds. The algorithm is based on a probability distribution in which the most probable configurations are those with a desirable visual aspect, such as a low value for the total distance between the words in all clouds. The algorithm output is a set of word clouds that are randomly selected from this probability distribution. The selection procedure uses a Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation method. We present several examples that illustrate the performance and visual results that can be obtained by our algorithm.     

New two-stage sampling designs based on neoteric ranked set sampling

Neoteric ranked set sampling (NRSS) is a recently developed sampling plan, derived from the well-known ranked set sampling (RSS) scheme. It has already been proved that NRSS provides more efficient estimators for population mean and variance compared to RSS and other sampling designs based on ranked sets. In this work, we propose and evaluate the performance of some two-stage sampling designs based on NRSS. Five different sampling schemes are proposed. Through an extensive Monte Carlo simulation study, we verified that all proposed sampling designs outperform RSS, NRSS, and the original double RSS design, producing estimators for the population mean with a lower mean square error. Furthermore, as with NRSS, two-stage NRSS estimators present some bias for asymmetric distributions. We complement the study with a discussion on the relative performance of the proposed estimators. Moreover, an additional simulation based on data of the diameter and height of pine trees is presented.     

The expected impact of the 2019 Brazilian pension reform on survivors’ pensions

This study analyses the expected changes in survivors’ pensions resulting from the permanent rules of the 2019 pension reform in Brazil. Actuarial annuities are used for representative worker profiles. The dispersion in the replacement rate values decreases, except for the highest income level. The rates needed to finance survivors’ pensions decrease relatively more than do the rates for old-age pensions. The internal rates of return significantly decrease. There is a heterogeneous change in the distributive aspects of the pension system. The reform shall affect the adequacy and intragenerational equity of old-age and survivors’ pensions.     

Sexual Beliefs and Sexual Functioning: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Distraction

Dysfunctional sexual beliefs are vulnerability factors for sexual dysfunction. This cross-sectional study aimed to test the mediating role of cognitive distraction on the relationship between dysfunctional sexual beliefs about sexual functioning shared by men and women and sexual function. The authors used a sample of 421 cisgender heterosexual participants involved in a monogamous relationship. The hypothesized mediation model was tested using a bootstrapped cross product of coefficients approach. Results showed a significant negative, indirect effect between dysfunctional sexual beliefs and women's sexual function through cognitive distraction. The discussion of this study highlights the importance of cognitive factors in sexual functioning.     

Conscription of children in armed conflict—a form of child abuse. A study of 19 former child soldiers

Armed combat in childhood is a form of child abuse. It may lead to serious consequences, including post‐traumatic stress disorder. The inherent emotional abuse and acts or omissions by caregivers may cause behavioural, cognitive, emotional or mental disorder in the child. Nineteen former child soldiers were interviewed in a rehabilitation centre using a standard questionnaire. Reasons for recruitment included: volunteered (18), hatred of enemy (revenge) (5), virtue of being a freedom fighter (martyrdom) (9), as a means of supporting their family (economic) (3). One child was abducted, 7 joined for fear of the ‘enemy’ abducting them, and in 5 a family member was killed by ‘enemy’ or own group. The children were involved in manual labour (15), guard duty (15), front‐line fighting (7), bomb manufacture (5), setting sea/land mines (5) and radio and communication (2). Fifteen were trained in firearms and 14 in self‐destruction. Twelve children attempted to or did run away and 11 refused to obey orders or argued. This led to various punishments, including kitchen duty, beatings, imprisonment, blackmail or death threats. A majority of the children felt sad and emotionally upset when they remembered their mother and family. Children's involvement in war, whatever the ‘justifications’ may be, should always be considered as forced, as they cannot truly comprehend their action in war. The responsibility must be taken by the adult caregivers. The following definition of the abuse of children in armed conflict is proposed: ‘The involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children and adolescents in armed conflict they do not truly comprehend, to which they are unable to give informed consent, and which adversely affects the child's right to unhindered growth and identity as a child’. Firm international agreement on guidelines for the lower age limit of recruitment of children into armed forces is required. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.