Examining the relationship between commuting patterns,employment growth and unemployment in the NSW Greater Metropolitan Region

This paper employs the Labour Market Accounts framework to explore how employment growth and commuting patterns interacted to determine changes in the spatial distribution of unemployment in Statistical Local Areas within the NSW GMR over the period 1996–2001. Separate regression models (including control variables) for men and women provide estimates of the relative strength of the relationships between these labour market adjustment responses and the percentage local employment change. The results show that employment growth between 1996 and 2001 has elicited substantial changes in commuting behaviour. Men reveal greater in‐commuting and migration responsiveness to employment growth. Unemployment changes in local areas of the Greater Metropolitan Sydney region have been swamped by commuting responses, potentially posing problems for locally targeted employment strategies.     

Validation of Multimedia Models Assessing Exposure to PAHs—The SOLEX Study

Polluted soils have become a public health problem. While population exposure to soil pollutants is generally quantified using multimedia models, their estimations have not been validated, and studies that attempted to do so are scarce. The objective of the SOLEX study was to compare the predictions of pyrene exposure levels (converted into 1 hydroxypyrene) computed by several models with the results of urinary 1-hydropyrene (1-HOP) assays among 110 employees working at three sites polluted during their past use as manufactured gas plants. Four models were used: AERIS (Canada), CalTOX (California, USA), CLEA (UK), and HESP (The Netherlands). Three occupational exposure scenarios--with office, mixed, and outdoor workers--were constructed, based upon job activities during two measurement campaigns, one in winter and one in summer. The exposure levels estimated by the four models could differ markedly (from 7 up to 80 times) according to the exposure scenario. Also, the predominant exposure routes differed according to the model (direct soil ingestion for HESP and CalTOX, inhalation for AERIS, and dermal absorption for CLEA). The predictions of CalTOX are consistent with the 1-HOP measurements for all the scenarios. For HESP, the consistency is observed for the scenarios, office and mixed, for which the pyrene level in the soil is low. AERIS and CLEA yield results that are systematically above the 1-HOP measurements. This study confirms that validation of the models is crucial and points out to the need to proceed to assess components of the models that are the most influential using appropriate statistical analysis in combination with true field data.     

ECONOMIC AND OTHER SOCIETAL DETERMINANTS OF THE PREVALENCE OF HIV: A Test of Competing Hypotheses

The spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is believed to result from HIV-infected individuals who are unaware of their infection and, thus, the possible consequences of their sexual behavior for others. However, differential rates of HIV infection between countries may reflect a different set of circumstances. We obtained data from the World Bank and several other sources to test eight alternative explanations for the global differences in prevalence of HIV infection: (1) economic underdevelopment, (2) inadequate public health care, (3) insufficient media, (4) political instability, (5) overurbanization, (6) social inequity, (7) religion, and (8) region. Our regression findings showed that income inequality and political instability had statistically significant positive effects on HIV/AIDS prevalence and that gender equality had a negative effect on HIV/AIDS prevalence. Religion and region were also important predictors, as countries that were predominately Muslim and Christian Orthodox generally had lower prevalence of HIV/AIDS, whereas West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa had a higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS. None of the public health and media indicators were statistically relevant.     

PREVALENCE OF FAMILY THERAPY MODELS: A RESEARCH NOTE

A survey was undertaken to assess the prevalence of family therapy models utilized by a sample of members in the American Association for Marital and Family Therapy. Frequencies and rankings of widely recognized therapeutic frameworks are reported. Brief discussion centers on the highest ranking choice, the notion of eclecticism, and cautious interpretation of the data.     

THE SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONIST “I” AS IRONIST: TOWARD ALTERNATIVE WORLDS*

Symbolic Interactionist Irony (SII) has as its aspiration, possibility, and achievement the creation of alternative worlds of seeing and doing. The constituent features of irony as detached from and skeptical of all available perspectives elevate its status to that as transcendental of extant reality. The internal logic-of-discovery and reflexive mood of SII conclude that all knowledge have an inseparable personal and autonomous basis. Hence, there are alternative ways but no final way of knowing. Knowledge without final truth value is–and can only be–an alternative world of seeing and doing. Nonetheless, an ironic alternative world is seen as an emergent that has its own integrity from the interaction of facts against analytic perspectives. The works of Erving Goffman and Joseph R. Gusfield, and their roots in the writings of Kenneth Burke, are read as having conceptual resonance for SII as an intellectual style. An ironic reading is thus offered of how SII practice is possible and how this practice refocuses the worlds of seeing and doing.     

A stratified Warner''s randomized response model

This paper proposes a new stratified randomized response model based on Warner's (J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 60 (1965) 63) model that has an optimal allocation and large gain in precision. It also presents a drawback of the Hong et al. (Korean J. Appl. Statist. 7 (1994) 141) model under their proportional sampling assumption. It is shown that the proposed model is more efficient than the Hong et al. (Korean J. Appl. Statist. 7 (1994) 141) stratified randomized response model. Additionally, it is shown that the estimator based on the proposed method is more efficient than the Warner (J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 60 (1965) 63), the Mangat and Singh (Biometrika 77 (1990) 439) and the Mangat (J. Roy. Statist. SQC. Ser. B 56 (1) (1994) 93) estimators under the conditions presented in both the case of completely truthful reporting and that of not completely truthful reporting by the respondents.     

The expected likelihood of transitivity: A survey

May developed an algebraic choice model to describe pairwise comparisons from an empirical study. A probabilistic choice variation of May's model has also been developed. This study presents a survey of work that considers the expected likelihood that a subject using the probabilistic model will have transitive responses for pairwise choices on a set of three alternatives. Of particular interest is the impact that various factors that influence the probabilistic choice model have on the expected likelihood of transitivity. These factors include the degree of accuracy with which the subject perceives the attributes of the alternatives, the number of attributes of comparison, and the consistency with which alternatives are ranked across attributes.This research was supported through a fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study of the University of Delaware.     

SMALL ACTS OF CUNNING:

The purpose of this paper is to offer a genealogy of some of the disciplinary practices that constitute the everyday life of contemporary postmodern America. I argue that we are witnessing the emergence of a new economy of illegalities, and with it, an increased tension between exceptional punishment and generalized surveillance. This physics of power is constituted, in part, through a new political technology of the body that directs a gaze of accountability on an individuals "life-style" and is often premised on regulating, probing or, measuring the body's functions, processes, characteristics or movements. In this way, the body is being used as a central element in the localization of contemporary power. All this, I believe, is made possible by the historical moment of late twentieth-century capitalism.