An ecological-economic assessment of deregulation of international commerce under GATT Part I

Part II will appear inPopulation and Environment 15(6).     

Free trade versus community: Social and environmental consequences of free trade in a world with capital mobility and overpopulated regions

Free trade based on comparative advantage is a widely accepted economic doctrine. The pure logic of comparative advantage, within the context of its assumptions, is unassailable. However, in a world characterized by demographic explosion, ecological stress, and free capital mobility, free trade does not serve the interests of wage-earners in countries with a relatively higher standard of living; it tends to undermine the national community that embraces both labor and capital.For a more extended discussion of some of the issues raised here, see Herman E. Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr. (1989).For the common good: redirecting the economy toward community, the environment, and A sustainable future. Boston: Beacon Press.     

中国的马克斯·穆勒——记季羡林先生

马克斯·穆勒是闻名于世的语言学家和印度学家.季羡林先生也是闻名于世的语言学家和印度学家.印度德里大学知名学者哈拉普拉萨德*雷易教授认为,季羡林先生在学术方面代表了自己的时代,拓宽了我们许多人的视野,使得我们能够看到佛教与印中友谊的深刻意义.他还认为,对于我们所处的这个世界,季羡林先生的贡献无论在学术进步方面还是印中关系方面,都将同样长期有所裨益.原文系英文,载于1998年8月17日印度<政治家报>文学增刊头版.今年是季羡林先生94周岁华诞,特译此文以表祝贺.文章副题系译者所拟,所附脚注亦为译者所加.     

Hexavalent Chromium and Lung Cancer in the Chromate Industry: A Quantitative Risk Assessment

The purpose of this investigation was to estimate excess lifetime risk of lung cancer death resulting from occupational exposure to hexavalent-chromium-containing dusts and mists. The mortality experience in a previously studied cohort of 2,357 chromate chemical production workers with 122 lung cancer deaths was analyzed with Poisson regression methods. Extensive records of air samples evaluated for water-soluble total hexavalent chromium were available for the entire employment history of this cohort. Six different models of exposure-response for hexavalent chromium were evaluated by comparing deviances and inspection of cubic splines. Smoking (pack-years) imputed from cigarette use at hire was included in the model. Lifetime risks of lung cancer death from exposure to hexavalent chromium (assuming up to 45 years of exposure) were estimated using an actuarial calculation that accounts for competing causes of death. A linear relative rate model gave a good and readily interpretable fit to the data. The estimated rate ratio for 1 mg/m3-yr of cumulative exposure to hexavalent chromium (as CrO3), with a lag of five years, was RR=2.44 (95% CI=1.54-3.83). The excess lifetime risk of lung cancer death from exposure to hexavalent chromium at the current OSHA permissible exposure limit (PEL) (0.10 mg/m3) was estimated to be 255 per 1,000 (95% CI: 109-416). This estimate is comparable to previous estimates by U.S. EPA, California EPA, and OSHA using different occupational data. Our analysis predicts that current occupational standards for hexavalent chromium permit a lifetime excess risk of dying of lung cancer that exceeds 1 in 10, which is consistent with previous risk assessments.     

The affluent home owner: labour market position and the shaping of housing histories

This article draws on research designed to explore aspects of social stratification within owner occupation. The research reconstructed and compared the housing, employment and family histories of two groups of home owners in two contrasting localities in Bristol. This article focuses on the top end of the owner occupied market, a neglected area in the sociology of housing, and explores the connections between bargaining power in the labour market and the shaping of housing histories. It is argued that core workers in the labour market exercise choice in the housing market within a framework of job determined constraints. These constraints are accompanied by a range of subsidies and benefits which are unavailable to the majority of households. As a consequence it is suggested that this group's housing histories are shaped by qualitatively distinct processes which go beyond the single fact that their earned incomes are relatively large.     

Dealing with Ties in Failure Time Data

In dealing with ties in failure time data the mechanism by which the data are observed should be considered. If the data are discrete, the process is relatively simple and is determined by what is actually observed. With continuous data, ties are not supposed to occur, but they do because the data are grouped into intervals (even if only rounding intervals). In this case there is actually a non–identifiability problem which can only be resolved by modelling the process. Various reasonable modelling assumptions are investigated in this paper. They lead to better ways of dealing with ties between observed failure times and censoring times of different individuals. The current practice is to assume that the censoring times occur after all the failures with which they are tied.