Trust and health in Eastern Europe: Conceptions of a new society

Little attention has been paid to why trends and levels of mortality and morbidity differ in Eastern Europe and few studies have addressed people's own perceptions of their new political system – perceptions which per se may be important for social development. The aim of the present study was to analyse the extent to which trust and economic circumstances affect self‐rated health in Poland, Estonia and Russia and how much health differences between the countries can be explained by these factors. A better economy and higher trust were related to better individual health, while economic factors seemed most important for inter‐country differences. It is probable that both institutional factors and individual perceptions contribute to people's well‐being, but in terms of social policy, an improved welfare system may be the most effective way forward.     

RESEARCHING RELATIONSHIPS FROM AN ATTACHMENT PERSPECTIVE: THE USE OF BEHAVIOURAL,INTERVIEW, SELF‐REPORT AND PROJECTIVE MEASURES

Having demonstrated its credentials as one of the more elegant and robust conceptualisations of human relationships, attachment theory has considerable relevance to social work. Attachment‐based research has flourished over the past few years and it now includes an impressive array of studies across the lifespan. This article considers four different measures used in attachment‐based research, although more discussion is devoted to interview and projective measures because they specifically embrace a psychodynamic approach in their design and analytic focus. The aim of the article is to provide a brief overview of each measure and to offer some illustrative examples using practice‐related material.     

Attenuating Initial Beliefs: Increasing the Acceptance of Anthropogenic Climate Change Information by Reflecting on Values

Anthropogenic climate change information tends to be interpreted against the backdrop of initial environmental beliefs, which can lead to some people being resistant toward the information. In this article (N = 88), we examined whether self‐affirmation via reflection on personally important values could attenuate the impact of initial beliefs on the acceptance of anthropogenic climate change evidence. Our findings showed that initial beliefs about the human impact on ecological stability influenced the acceptance of information only among nonaffirmed participants. Self‐affirmed participants who were initially resistant toward the information showed stronger beliefs in the existence of climate change risks and greater acknowledgment that individual efficacy has a role to play in reducing climate change risks than did their nonaffirmed counterparts.     

Building a partnership for social service delivery in Indonesia: state and faith‐based organisations

Contrary to the secularisation processes in modernisation theory, religions and faith‐based organisations (FBOs) are thriving in contemporary Indonesia. Strongly supported by community members, religious organisations have begun to extend their services beyond the traditional areas of education and health to operate in disaster relief and poverty alleviation programmes. These FBOs have been offering assistance to the disadvantaged whose needs have not been adequately met by the state. Social programmes run by the FBOs are an important safety net at the grass‐roots level in Indonesia; how to effectively coordinate and offer such services are important social policy issues. This paper will show that the Indonesian Government is keen to remain the key provider of social services and often perceives the services of FBOs as a threat. Some recent state policies to regulate the funding sources of Islamic organisations have posed a significant logistical challenge for their future operation. In addition, theological differences across various religious groups have made it difficult to form inclusive and extensive partnerships among the FBOs, who tend to compete with each another resulting in rivalry. These socio‐political contexts have limited the formation of effective partnerships for offering coordinated social services.     

Moment‐Independent Sensitivity Analysis Using Copula

In risk assessment, the moment‐independent sensitivity analysis (SA) technique for reducing the model uncertainty has attracted a great deal of attention from analysts and practitioners. It aims at measuring the relative importance of an individual input, or a set of inputs, in determining the uncertainty of model output by looking at the entire distribution range of model output. In this article, along the lines of Plischke et al., we point out that the original moment‐independent SA index (also called delta index) can also be interpreted as the dependence measure between model output and input variables, and introduce another moment‐independent SA index (called extended delta index) based on copula. Then, nonparametric methods for estimating the delta and extended delta indices are proposed. Both methods need only a set of samples to compute all the indices; thus, they conquer the problem of the “curse of dimensionality.” At last, an analytical test example, a risk assessment model, and the levelE model are employed for comparing the delta and the extended delta indices and testing the two calculation methods. Results show that the delta and the extended delta indices produce the same importance ranking in these three test examples. It is also shown that these two proposed calculation methods dramatically reduce the computational burden.     

Normes,théorie des jeux et pratiques participatives: le poids réel des travailleurs dans les économies libérales

Les auteurs analysent l'effet de la directive européenne relative à l'information et à la consultation des travailleurs sur les pratiques participatives en entreprise au Royaume‐Uni et en Irlande. Dans une analyse conceptuelle et empirique, qui fait appel à la théorie des jeux, ils formulent trois hypothèses explicatives, qu'ils cherchent à vérifier avec des données qualitatives recueillies auprès de seize entreprises. La démonstration permet de comprendre pourquoi la coopération, gage de gains mutuels, n'est pas la solution qui l'emporte dans les pays examinés, et elle nous en dit un peu plus sur l'effet des normes sur la gestion participative dans les économies de marché libérales.     

Improving Risk Management: From Lame Excuses to Principled Practice

The three classic pillars of risk analysis are risk assessment (how big is the risk and how sure can we be?), risk management (what shall we do about it?), and risk communication (what shall we say about it, to whom, when, and how?). We propose two complements as important parts of these three bases: risk attribution (who or what addressable conditions actually caused an accident or loss?) and learning from experience about risk reduction (what works, and how well?). Failures in complex systems usually evoke blame, often with insufficient attention to root causes of failure, including some aspects of the situation, design decisions, or social norms and culture. Focusing on blame, however, can inhibit effective learning, instead eliciting excuses to deflect attention and perceived culpability. Productive understanding of what went wrong, and how to do better, thus requires moving past recrimination and excuses. This article identifies common blame‐shifting “lame excuses” for poor risk management. These generally contribute little to effective improvements and may leave real risks and preventable causes unaddressed. We propose principles from risk and decision sciences and organizational design to improve results. These start with organizational leadership. More specifically, they include: deliberate testing and learning—especially from near‐misses and accident precursors; careful causal analysis of accidents; risk quantification; candid expression of uncertainties about costs and benefits of risk‐reduction options; optimization of tradeoffs between gathering additional information and immediate action; promotion of safety culture; and mindful allocation of people, responsibilities, and resources to reduce risks. We propose that these principles provide sound foundations for improving successful risk management.     

Dose‐Response Models Incorporating Aerosol Size Dependency for Francisella tularensis

The effect of bioaerosol size was incorporated into predictive dose‐response models for the effects of inhaled aerosols of Francisella tularensis (the causative agent of tularemia) on rhesus monkeys and guinea pigs with bioaerosol diameters ranging between 1.0 and 24 μm. Aerosol‐size‐dependent models were formulated as modification of the exponential and β‐Poisson dose‐response models and model parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood methods and multiple data sets of quantal dose‐response data for which aerosol sizes of inhaled doses were known. Analysis of F. tularensis dose‐response data was best fit by an exponential dose‐response model with a power function including the particle diameter size substituting for the rate parameter k scaling the applied dose. There were differences in the pathogen's aerosol‐size‐dependence equation and models that better represent the observed dose‐response results than the estimate derived from applying the model developed by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP, 1994) that relies on differential regional lung deposition for human particle exposure.     

An Individual Mixed‐Evaluation Method for Career Intervention

Economic issues linked to career counseling are a cause for concern to policy makers in developed countries because they expect career practitioners to provide evidence of the efficiency of career counseling interventions. The aim of this study was to test an individual evaluation method mixing time series (outcomes) and life narrative (processes). The method used 5 items related to 1 client's career decision self‐efficacy and studied the evolution of those items throughout the intervention of 1 career counselor (43 days). Changepoint analysis helped in identifying the changes that have to be taken into account for time series and which are contextualized in the client's verbatim analysis. This mixed method highlighted that the career counselor's intervention increased the client's career decision self‐efficacy. Practitioners could use the methodology proposed in this article to evaluate their interventions. They could also report their practice to clients, employers, and decision makers.     

Practical procedures to deal with common support problems in matching estimation

This paper assesses the performance of common estimators adjusting for differences in covariates, such as matching and regression, when faced with the so-called common support problems. It also shows how different procedures suggested in the literature affect the properties of such estimators. Based on an empirical Monte Carlo simulation design, a lack of common support is found to increase the root-mean-squared error of all investigated parametric and semiparametric estimators. Dropping observations that are off support usually improves their performance, although the magnitude of the improvement depends on the particular method used.