Perception of Earthquake Risk in Taiwan: Effects of Gender and Past Earthquake Experience

This study explored how individuals in Taiwan perceive the risk of earthquake and the relationship of past earthquake experience and gender to risk perception. Participants (n= 1,405), including earthquake survivors and those in the general population without prior direct earthquake exposure, were selected and interviewed through a computer‐assisted telephone interviewing procedure using a random sampling and stratification method covering all 24 regions of Taiwan. A factor analysis of the interview data yielded a two‐factor structure of risk perception in regard to earthquake. The first factor, “personal impact,” encompassed perception of threat and fear related to earthquakes. The second factor, “controllability,” encompassed a sense of efficacy of self‐protection in regard to earthquakes. The findings indicated prior earthquake survivors and females reported higher scores on the personal impact factor than males and those with no prior direct earthquake experience, although there were no group differences on the controllability factor. The findings support that risk perception has multiple components, and suggest that past experience (survivor status) and gender (female) affect the perception of risk. Exploration of potential contributions of other demographic factors such as age, education, and marital status to personal impact, especially for females and survivors, is discussed. Future research on and intervention program with regard to risk perception are suggested accordingly.     

Cleveland 20 years on: themes of disruption and repair in the trauma narratives of children,adults and society

This is the second of two linked papers which explores coherent and incoherent narratives emerging from Cleveland. It draws a parallel between the disrupted narratives of child and adult survivors of child sexual abuse and professional and societal narratives of Cleveland. The paper looks at the therapeutic task of individual repair using attachment‐based therapy, illustrated by clinical examples. It identifies five key challenges relevant to repair in the interpersonal, intra‐personal and societal domains. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Shared Presentation: Two Disabled Women on Video

In this paper we share our collaborative experience of making a video in which disabled women present their lives as they wish to portray them. We undertook what we hope will be perceived as emancipatory research, in which disabled and non-disabled women work together to create audio-visual teaching materials. We include a preliminary discussion about the representation of disability on British television broadcasts between October 1991 and March 1992. We look at negative imagery, charity fund raising, and positive images. The paper uses comments by disabled broadcasters and disabled academics, and reflects on their work.     

Quantifying urban forest structure,function, and value: the Chicago Urban Forest Climate Project

This paper is a review of research in Chicago that linked analyses of vegetation structure with forest functions and values. During 1991, the regions trees removed an estimated 5575 metric tons of air pollutants, providing air cleansing worth 9.2 million. Each year they sequester an estimated 315 800 metric tons of carbon. Increasing tree cover 10% or planting about three trees per building lot saves annual heating and cooling costs by an estimated 50 to 90 per dwelling unit because of increased shade, lower summertime air temperatures, and reduced neighborhood wind speeds once the trees mature. The net present value of the services trees provide is estimated as 402 per planted tree. The present value of long-term benefits is more than twice the present value of costs.     

Safety training: An overview of current needs

Abstract

This article considers the changing nature of the demands and pressures faced by today's training practitioner. It emphasizes that safety is no longer a matter of ‘tin hats, safety guards and first aid boxes’, and explores the problems created by new legislation and rapidly changing technology. It also points up the skills required by the safety practitioner in effectively dealing with his/her organization, and the constraints placed on them by social and economic factors. The article reviews the training implications of this developing scenario.     

Grey Advantage: New strategies for the old

With nearly one fifth of the population of the industrialized world soon to be beyond a traditional retirement age, businesses need to re-appraise their attitudes towards both older workers and older customers. Whilst some public and private sector organizations may have signalled such intentions, the gap between the rhetoric and reality of ‘third age’ employment and grey market development is still substantial. Analysing the ‘Age-Quake’, this article reviews current ageing population trends and associated business agendas. Using case study analysis, it then challenges three perceived ‘grey discontinuities’, as well as the traditional perception of simplistic step-change declines in physical and mental abilities and economic activity at the traditional retirement age. Deriving from this, the article challenges the older received wisdom by offering the individual assessment of ‘third-agers’ in terms of abilities as employees and tastes as customers as two generic strategies to assist managers in the strategic alignment of their organizations in pursuit of “grey advantage”.     

Promoting small business in Northern Ireland

During the last 10 years, Northern Ireland has suffered the same economic fate as the rest of the United Kingdom—a severe decline in its manufacturing base, and with this a substantial growth in unemployment to unacceptable levels. In response, a strategy for regeneration has been constructed. The main thrust of this strategy has been three-fold:

1. (1) To seek Inward Investment.

2. (2) To stimulate New Firms.

3. (3) To encourage Existing Firms to grow.

The strategy has involved a wide range of schemes of advice and assistance, managed through the Department of Economic Development, the Industrial Development Board (IDB), the Local Enterprise Development Unit (LEDU), as well as local enterprise organizations.

However, whilst many of the problems encountered, for which various schemes have been devised, can be seen replicated elsewhere in the United Kingdom, the basic problems in Norther Ireland are different in character.     

Slippery discrimination: a review of the drivers of migrant and minority housing disadvantage

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to identify housing disadvantages faced by migrants and ethnic minorities; the legal, policy and market forces that shape them; how they have developed over time; how they are manifest nationally and locally; and how they are being responded to locally by those concerned with mitigating them. The paper thereby intends to provide a foundation to inform future research and policy and to engage with local actors to develop ways of overcoming migrant housing disadvantage and challenging discrimination. The paper finds that the interplay of legal changes, which have increasingly differentiated migrants since the 1940s, and shifting housing markets, has driven exclusion of migrants and minorities such that considerable disadvantage is revealed by analysis of census data. However, attention to local specificity provides evidence of positive responses. Examples are presented in relation to access to affordable housing, enactment of homelessness duties and community actions. Methodologically, this paper highlights the importance of simultaneous consideration of migration and ethnicity as markers of difference and exclusion, and the potential of co-production approaches for socially meaningful research concerned with inequalities.     

The personalisation agenda: the case of the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme

As part of the international trend towards personalisation, in 2013 Australia launched a major disability scheme aiming to give participants greater choice and control over services. The scheme aims to cover a wide diversity of disabilities, services and significant geographical area – resulting in a highly complex system of local overlapping markets. At four years into implementation a range of challenges have emerged. In this paper we firstly describe the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme, then explore a range of implementation challenges it currently faces as a large-scale personalisation scheme. Based on these experiences we pose a range of questions for similar schemes internationally.