When Precaution Creates Misunderstandings: The Unintended Effects of Precautionary Information on Perceived Risks,the EMF Case

In the past decade, growing public concern about novel technologies with uncertain potential long‐term impacts on the environment and human health has moved risk policies toward a more precautionary approach. Focusing on mobile telephony, the effects of precautionary information on risk perception were analyzed. A pooled multinational experimental study based on a 5 × 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted in nine countries. The first factor refers to whether or not information on different types of precautionary measures was present, the second factor to the framing of the precautionary information, and the third factor to the order in which cell phones and base stations were rated by the study participants. The data analysis on the country level indicates different effects. The main hypothesis that informing about precautionary measures results in increased risk perceptions found only partial support in the data. The effects are weaker, both in terms of the effect size and the frequency of significant effects, across the various precautionary information formats used in the experiment. Nevertheless, our findings do not support the assumption that informing people about implemented precautionary measures will decrease public concerns.     

关于中国市政固体废弃物处理设施融资模式的分析与思考——以英国为研究对象的参照模式

市政固体废弃物处理是中国实现循环经济必须面对的一个大问题,除了市政固体废弃物处理方式等技术层面的问题,资金来源也是一道的棘手的难题。文章以英国市政固体废弃物处理设施融资的一种新方法,即私人计划融资方法为分析与研究对象,从政策走向和银行高储蓄两方面分析了在我国市政固体废弃物处理方面实施私人融资计划的可行性,并从制度、政策、法律、管理监督以及科学研究等5个层面给出了在我国市政固体废弃物处理领域实施私人融资计划的意见和建议。     

Affective and Cognitive Factors Influencing Sensitivity to Probabilistic Information

In study 1 different groups of female students were randomly assigned to one of four probabilistic information formats. Five different levels of probability of a genetic disease in an unborn child were presented to participants (within‐subject factor). After the presentation of the probability level, participants were requested to indicate the acceptable level of pain they would tolerate to avoid the disease (in their unborn child), their subjective evaluation of the disease risk, and their subjective evaluation of being worried by this risk. The results of study 1 confirmed the hypothesis that an experience‐based probability format decreases the subjective sense of worry about the disease, thus, presumably, weakening the tendency to overrate the probability of rare events. Study 2 showed that for the emotionally laden stimuli, the experience‐based probability format resulted in higher sensitivity to probability variations than other formats of probabilistic information. These advantages of the experience‐based probability format are interpreted in terms of two systems of information processing: the rational deliberative versus the affective experiential and the principle of stimulus‐response compatibility.     

中国城市化发展进程及展望

中国的城市化在改革开放后步入了平稳发展期,遵循城市化逻辑增长模型,利用1973-2008年的数据进行估计后得出:中国城市化年均增长速度为0.0412,远远快于0.01729的世界平均水平;2014年左右,中国将结束高速城市化过程,此时的城市化率将达50.11%;中国城市化的饱和值约为84.98%,而67%左右可能是中国未来20年城市化发展的顶部,此后城市化水平会在一个较长的时期维持在70%左右。     

Informed Public Preferences for Electricity Portfolios with CCS and Other Low‐Carbon Technologies

Public perceptions of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and other low‐carbon electricity‐generating technologies may affect the feasibility of their widespread deployment. We asked a diverse sample of 60 participants recruited from community groups in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to rank 10 technologies (e.g., coal with CCS, natural gas, nuclear, various renewables, and energy efficiency), and seven realistic low‐carbon portfolios composed of these technologies, after receiving comprehensive and carefully balanced materials that explained the costs and benefits of each technology. Rankings were obtained in small group settings as well as individually before and after the group discussions. The ranking exercise asked participants to assume that the U.S. Congress had mandated a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants to be built in the future. Overall, rankings suggest that participants favored energy efficiency, followed by nuclear power, integrated gasification combined‐cycle coal with CCS and wind. The most preferred portfolio also included these technologies. We find that these informed members of the general public preferred diverse portfolios that contained CCS and nuclear over alternatives once they fully understood the benefits, cost, and limitations of each. The materials and approach developed for this study may also have value in educating members of the general public about the challenges of achieving a low‐carbon energy future.     

公办高校债务危机的治理研究

化解公办高校债务风险问题迫在眉睫,为此论证了公办高校破产清算的可能性,在识别高校债务偿还主体的基础上,厘清了高校偿债资金的来源,总结了缓解公办高校债务危机的短期方法,并提出治理高校债务危机的长效机制.     

HIV Prevention,Gender and Sexual Health

Abstract

Drawing on a review of relevant literature as well as global experience, this paper focuses on aspects of the growing feminisation of the HIV epidemic, especially the combination of age and gender which makes young women particularly vulnerable to HIV. It also briefly touches upon the gender-constructed vulnerability of young men. The linkages between gender, sexual health and HIV-and what works to forge these linkages-have now been well established. Not acting on the basis of this knowledge in order to avert millions of infections and deaths due to HIV, is no longer an option.     

Sexuality and Contemporary Issues in Black Parenting

Negotiating the burgeoning sexuality of adolescent children is an age-old challenge for parents of every cultural background. Contemporary parents must also manage increasingly sexualized social media that allow children and adolescents to be sexually engaged in unprecedented ways. For Black parents, this quandary is exacerbated by racism and internalized racism-often expressed through the hypersexualization of African American males and females in music, videos, advertising, and popular culture in general. Additionally, as more diversity regarding sexual orientation in African American families emerges, the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning (LGBTQ) Black adolescents must be addressed This article will outline a conceptual framework for consideration of these issues and make recommendations to assist Black parents in successfully guiding Black adolescents through the development of safe and healthy sexuality.     

Now What Do People Know About Global Climate Change? Survey Studies of Educated Laypeople

In 1992, a mental‐models‐based survey in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, revealed that educated laypeople often conflated global climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion, and appeared relatively unaware of the role of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in global warming. This study compares those survey results with 2009 data from a sample of similarly well‐educated laypeople responding to the same survey instrument. Not surprisingly, following a decade of explosive attention to climate change in politics and in the mainstream media, survey respondents in 2009 showed higher awareness and comprehension of some climate change causes. Most notably, unlike those in 1992, 2009 respondents rarely mentioned ozone depletion as a cause of global warming. They were also far more likely to correctly volunteer energy use as a major cause of climate change; many in 2009 also cited natural processes and historical climatic cycles as key causes. When asked how to address the problem of climate change, while respondents in 1992 were unable to differentiate between general “good environmental practices” and actions specific to addressing climate change, respondents in 2009 have begun to appreciate the differences. Despite this, many individuals in 2009 still had incorrect beliefs about climate change, and still did not appear to fully appreciate key facts such as that global warming is primarily due to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the single most important source of this carbon dioxide is the combustion of fossil fuels.