Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment: Information Tools for Community Adaptation to Changes in Climate or Land Use

To inform local and regional decisions about protecting short-term and long-term quality of life, the Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment (CARA) provides data and tools (for the northeastern United States) that can help decision makers understand how outcomes of their decisions could be affected by potential changes in both climate and land use. On an interactive, user-friendly website, CARA has amassed data on climate (historical records and future projections for seven global climate models), land cover, and socioeconomic and environmental variables, along with tools to help decision makers tailor the data for their own decision types and locations. CARA Advisory Council stakeholders help identify what information and tools stakeholders would find most useful and how to present these; they also provide in-depth feedback for subregion case studies. General lessons include: (1) decision makers want detailed local projections for periods short enough to account for extreme events, in contrast to the broader spatial and temporal observations and projections that are available or consistent at a regional level; (2) stakeholders will not use such a website unless it is visually appealing and easy to find the information they want; (3) some stakeholders need background while others want to go immediately to data, and some want maps while others want text or tables. This article also compares what has been learned across case studies of Cape May County, New Jersey, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Hampton Roads, Virginia, relating specifically to sea-level rise. Lessons include: (1) groups can be affected differently by physical dangers compared with economic dangers; (2) decisions will differ according to decision makers' preferences about waiting and risk tolerance; (3) future scenarios and maps can help assess the impacts of dangers to emergency evacuation routes, homes, and infrastructure, and the natural environment; (4) residents' and decision makers' perceptions are affected by information about potential local impacts from global climate change.     

A modified false discovery rate multiple-comparisons procedure for discrete data, applied to human immunodeficiency virus genetics

Summary.  To help to design vaccines for acquired immune deficiency syndrome that protect broadly against many genetic variants of the human immunodeficiency virus, the mutation rates at 118 positions in HIV amino-acid sequences of subtype C versus those of subtype B were compared. The false discovery rate (FDR) multiple-comparisons procedure can be used to determine statistical significance. When the test statistics have discrete distributions, the FDR procedure can be made more powerful by a simple modification. The paper develops a modified FDR procedure for discrete data and applies it to the human immunodeficiency virus data. The new procedure detects 15 positions with significantly different mutation rates compared with 11 that are detected by the original FDR method. Simulations delineate conditions under which the modified FDR procedure confers large gains in power over the original technique. In general FDR adjustment methods can be improved for discrete data by incorporating the modification proposed.     

The twenty-percent majority: Pro-union bias in prevailing rate determinations

Each individual wage rate set by Davis-Bacon or by any similar state or local prevailing wage determination petrifies the outcome of competing views of how construction work should be staffed and paid on public works projects. Although presented with great precision (to tenths of a cent for both wages and fringe benefits), the level of wages themselves are of surprisingly little consequence: Those set at union levels soon rise, being automatically updated to new contracts and conditions; the rest fast become obsolete in any rising market, because surveys to update them are rare. But in addition to setting wage levels, determinations also delineate which jobs get to have rates set for them, and perhaps most critically, whether those delineated are identified as union or notunion. Whatever pattern is found may remain in effect for years or even decades, influencing which journeymen and laborers own what job tasks and who may perform what. Also, if a particular job happens to be set as union, it may bring with it dozens or even hundreds of related special job categories, grades of sub-groups, fine distinctions of fringe benefits, and complex divisions of geographic applicability based on local union jurisdictional areas. This study uses determinations recently made in Pennsylvania as an example to examine the mechanics of the wage-setting process. I find that, in addition to the endemic problems one might expect associated with a complex and partly judgmental process, every step of finding and setting prevailing rates includes overwhelming deference on the part of government towards union views and methods. It shows why unions representing less than 20 percent of the private construction work force consistently set the parameters controlling most of public construction. It ends with some suggestions on how better surveys and determinations could be made.     

ADDITIVE MODELS WITH PREDICTORS SUBJECT TO MEASUREMENT ERROR

This paper develops a likelihood‐based method for fitting additive models in the presence of measurement error. It formulates the additive model using the linear mixed model representation of penalized splines. In the presence of a structural measurement error model, the resulting likelihood involves intractable integrals, and a Monte Carlo expectation maximization strategy is developed for obtaining estimates. The method's performance is illustrated with a simulation study.     

Opposition to Solid Waste Incineration: Pre- Implementation Anxieties Surrounding a New Environmental Controversy*

Despite sociopolitical controversy surrounding the solid waste crisis, little sociological attention has focused on this crucial environmental issue. Drawing on research from the technological controversies, environmental concern, and solid waste literatures, this study examines the pre-implementation anxieties of a Louisiana community faced with a proposal to build an incinerator in its backyard. Utilizing survey data, a causal path model is developed in which the perceived advantages of the technology, general environmental concern, and support for recycling initiatives are identified as explanatory variables of incinerator opposition. Implications of these findings for the study of technical controversies and the larger solid waste crisis also are suggested.     

Small Business Success Among Men- and Women-Owned Firms in Rural Areas1

Abstract Rural women have difficulty finding good jobs. Ownership of small businesses offers an alternative but the sales and income of women-owned firms are significantly lower than those of men-owned firms. Compared with men, women owners are more likely to operate smaller and newer businesses; however, these differences do not completely account for the gap in gross sales between men- and women-owned businesses. The strongest influences on business success are firm size, corporate status, and industrial sector. Though significant, the owner's gender is less important than these organizational characteristics. The factors influencing success of small businesses generally are the same for men- and women-owned businesses. More research on business networks and the start-up phase of small businesses is necessary for a better understanding of the sources of gender differences in success.     

Clinical work with adolescents and their parents during family transitions: Transference and countertransference issues

This paper describes specific transference and counter-transference issues that commonly emerge in therapeutic work with adolescents and parents who are in the midst of family transitions such as divorce and remarriage. Psychoanalytic understanding and definitions of transference and countertransference are applied to short-term family-centered cases in which the parent-adolescent relationship is at particular risk. Case vignettes are presented in order to illustrate how transference and countertransference may guide or interfere with clinical interventions that are especially indicated with adolescents whose family structure has changed. Such interventions as well as the use of consultation are briefly described.At the time this paper was prepared, Ms. Springer was Associate Director and a senior clinician at the Center for the Family in Transition in Corte Madera, California. Funds for the research and clinical work that provided the basis for this paper were supplied by grants from the San Francisco Foudation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 66th Annual Meeting of the American Orthopsychiatry Association, New York City, March 31–April 4, 1989.     

Ninth-Grade Students' Attitudes Toward Nontraditional Occupations

This study explored how students choose careers, their attitudes toward vocational education, and whether or not they would consider enrolling in a nontraditional vocational education program.