Estimation of Benchmark Dose of Lifetime Cadmium Intake for Adverse Renal Effects Using Hybrid Approach in Inhabitants of an Environmentally Exposed River Basin in Japan

The aim of this study is to estimate the reference level of lifetime cadmium intake (LCd) as the benchmark doses (BMDs) and their 95% lower confidence limits (BMDLs) for various renal effects by applying a hybrid approach. The participants comprised 3,013 (1,362 men and 1,651 women) and 278 (129 men and 149 women) inhabitants of the Cd‐polluted and nonpolluted areas, respectively, in the environmentally exposed Kakehashi River basin. Glucose, protein, aminonitrogen, metallothionein, and β₂‐microglobulin in urine were measured as indicators of renal dysfunction. The BMD and BMDL that corresponded to an additional risk of 5% were calculated with background risk at zero exposure set at 5%. The obtained BMDLs of LCd were 3.7 g (glucose), 3.2 g (protein), 3.7 g (aminonitrogen), 1.7 g (metallothionein), and 1.8 g (β₂‐microglobulin) in men and 2.9 g (glucose), 2.5 g (protein), 2.0 g (aminonitrogen), 1.6 g (metallothionein), and 1.3 g (β₂‐microglobulin) in women. The lowest BMDL was 1.7 g (metallothionein) and 1.3 g (β₂‐microglobulin) in men and women, respectively. The lowest BMDL of LCd (1.3 g) was somewhat lower than the representative threshold LCd (2.0 g) calculated in the previous studies. The obtained BMDLs may contribute to further discussion on the health risk assessment of cadmium exposure.     

Justice and Tyranny: Bringing “Rural” Back into the Sociology of Food and Agriculture

In the current polarizing political climate, what constitutes just has become increasingly questioned and debated in the public arena. Tyrants seem everywhere to shape people's understanding of who belongs in communities and nation-states and, therefore, who should be given a voice and what should be valued. This paper unpacks the mechanisms of tyranny and the pursuit of justice in the global agri-food system. The first section discusses justice and tyranny as sociological concepts and practice, followed by the second section that examins two types of tyrannies in the globalized agri-food system: neoliberal capitalism and community. I argue that neoliberal capitalism and community are the logics for organizing social relations and the sites of enacting tyrannies and justice. Third, I argue that in the tension between capitalism and community in achieving justice, rural becomes critical both theoretically and empirically for understanding the current transformations and the future challenges for transforming agri-food systems. Finally, the paper concludes with possible contributions of rural sociological imaginations to shaping the discourse of justice and explore the process of justice.     

Assessing NGO Empowerment in Housing Development Frameworks: Discourse and Practice in the Philippines

Amid the rise of democratization movements since the 1980s, many governments in developing countries have proactively introduced the ideas of decentralization and devolution into the policy arena. In the pursuit of democratic planning processes where civil society is encouraged to be a part of the formal decision-making system, articles advocating the empowerment of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been included into a series of legislations. This shift was soon reflected in housing development frameworks for the poor, leading to the formulation of a new approach called "enablement." The Philippines' experience for the last two decades follows this line of development. Filipino NGOs are now prescribed as a catalyst to add further dynamism to the improvement of substandard living environments. Empirical findings of this study exemplify that NGO empowerment has been increasingly accelerated by the combination of NGOs' self-endeavors and governments' initiatives. By utilizing the paradigm shift under the enablement approach, NGOs are engaged in the attempt of alliance-formation and network-building to expand their influence. Contrary to ideals, however, NGO empowerment may reveal some adverse effects such as excessive dependency on NGOs and distorted representation by NGOs. Moreover, the professionalization of NGOs is an additional factor which generates hierarchization at the grass-roots level. This study suggests that further research analyze the depth and width to which NGO empowerment has been penetrated in order to precisely capture the processes and consequences resulting in disempowerment.     

Involvement in the Juvenile Justice System for African American Adolescents: Examining Associations with Behavioral Health Problems

While researchers have found that African American youth experience higher levels of juvenile justice involvement at every system level (arrest, sentencing, and incarceration) relative to their other ethnic counterparts, few studies have explored how juvenile justice involvement and number of contacts might be correlated with this broad range of problems. A convenience sample of 638 African American adolescents living in predominantly low-income, urban communities participated in a survey related to juvenile justice involvement. Major findings using logistic regression models indicated that adolescents who reported juvenile justice system involvement versus no involvement were 2.3 times as likely to report mental health problems, substance abuse, and delinquent or youth offending behaviors. Additional findings documented that the higher the number of juvenile justice system contacts, the higher the rates of delinquent behaviors, alcohol and marijuana use, sex while high on drugs, and commercial sex. These findings suggest that identifying and targeting youth who have multiple juvenile justice system contacts, especially those in low-resourced communities for early intervention services, may be beneficial. Future research should examine whether peer network norms might mediate the relationships between juvenile justice involvement and youth problem behaviors.     

A Single Garbage Can Model and the Degree of Anarchy in Japanese Firms

This paper refreshes an empirical examination ofthe garbage can model, particularly in a sample drawnfrom Japanese firms. The garbage can model oforganizational decision making was originally developed by Cohen, March, and Olsen (1972) to describeorganized anarchy. This paper incorporates twomethodologies in an attempt to both validate and extendthe garbage can model: Simulation is first used togenerate a research hypothesis, then several surveys areconducted to test that hypothesis and to empiricallydevelop an ex-post model of decision ambiguity, flight,and anarchy. The data support our hypothesis and we find out new conditions of ambiguity:(i) fluid participation, (ii) divorce of solution fromdiscussion, and (iii) job performance rather thansubjective assessments, which are clearly related to the simulation assumption of our single garbagecan model. By using our new conditions of ambiguity, wedevelop a measure of degree of anarchy, and theregression analysis indicates a linear relationship between the flight ratio and the degree ofanarchy.     

Asymptotic expansions in non-linear renewal theory

We obtain first order asymptotic expansions for the distribution of the excess of a standard normal random walk over a curved boundary and the error probabilities of some repeated significance tests. The key step in the analysis is an asymptotic expansion for the conditional probability that the random walk has not crossed the boundary before the N step, given that it is near the boundary after the n^th step.     

Gender gaps in STEM in Japanese academia: The impact of research productivity,outside offers,and home life on pay

To understand differences in labor market outcomes between genders, economists must examine a complex array of potentially significant factors, such as institutional context, productivity differences, child-bearing and home production, and bargaining behavior. Many of these factors are not well captured by standard data sources. We use a new survey of academics in Japan to better understand the sources of gender pay differences. We find a 6% pay gap which persists when we control for research productivity, despite an institutional context shaped by explicit salary tables. We do not find a motherhood wage penalty, and the gender salary we document is not affected by differences in outside job offers.