Review Essay: On Wayne Booth

Booth, Wayne C. (2004). The rhetoric of rhetoric: The quest for effective communication.Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Booth, Wayne C. (2006). My many selves: The quest for a plausible harmony.Logan, UT: Utah State University Press.     

Conservatism of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program HRA Procedure

This paper presents a limited assessment of the conservatism of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program (ASEP) human reliability analysis (HRA) procedure described in NUREG/CR-4772. The data for this study are derived from simulator examination reports from the NRC requalification examination cycle for nuclear power plant operators. The ASEP procedure was used to estimate human error probability (HEP) values for critical tasks, and the HEP results were compared with the failure rates observed in the examinations. The ASEP procedure was applied by PNNL operator license examiners who supplemented the limited information in the examination reports with expert judgment based upon their extensive simulator examination experience. Comparison of the average of the ASEP HEP values with the fraction of the population actually failed and demonstrated that the ASEP HEP values are larger (conservative) by a statistically significant average factor of two. Partitioning of tasks into subgroups based on the ASEP HEP values and comparison of the subgroup average ASEP HEP values with observed subgroup failure rates showed little or no conservatism for small ASEP HEP values, but considerable conservatism for larger ASEP HEP values.     

Facilities and HIV prevention in bathhouse and sex club environments

This project evaluated the extent to which businesses with a primary purpose of providing opportunities for sexual encounters between men (e.g., bathhouses and sex clubs) have implemented strategies that target their customers with important HIV and STD prevention messages. Between October 1996 and February 1997, we conducted structured telephone interviews with 63 businesses throughout the United States in order to describe their facilities and their HIV education and prevention efforts. Types of facilities offered were related to what businesses called themselves and the kinds of sex space they provided. All of the businesses reported that they provided condoms and lubricant on site; 95% provided educational materials such as posters and flyers about HIV/AIDS; and 40% provided HIV testing on site, with half of these also providing some type of STD testing. Although some level of HIV prevention and educational efforts by these businesses are described, further investigation into their efficacy is required.     

A simulation study of the operations of a telephone bureau

This paper presents a priority queueing situation: a telephone bureau which has to deal with two distinct classes of caller. The first group are making urgent calls which must be dealt with as soon as possible, while the second group are making a variety of different types of routine enquiry which are not considered to be as important. Management are concerned with a number of issues associated with the operations of their bureau, these include the levels of service offered to the different groups of caller, the effects of different levels of staffing, and the effects of changing the mix of call types. The use of applied probability theory to analyse this situation is briefly discussed, and then simulation proposed as a means to analyse the operations of the bureau. The development of this simulation is outlined, some typical results presented and its usefulness discussed.     

The application of microcomputers in production management

The findings reported result from a questionnaire survey, and a number of company interviews. Further questions which need to be answered are identified, and a research project to provide these answers is outlined.     

Index of marine degradation:log-linear model approach

Log-linear models are used extensively in the analysis of cross-tabulated data. Starting with the saturated model, which describes all the complex interrelationships in a multidimensional table and then testing for the significance of higher-order interactions, the simplest model providing a satisfactory explanation of the data can be arrived at. This approach was adopted to identify any discernible quantitative pattern in the data on the average number of fledgelings per nest of osprey in the northeast US for 1969–83. These models are then used to obtain an index of marine ecosystem degradation.     

Social Contagion of Risk Perceptions in Environmental Management Networks

An important requisite for improving risk communication practice related to contentious environmental issues is having a better theoretical understanding of how risk perceptions function in real‐world social systems. Our study applied Scherer and Cho's social network contagion theory of risk perception (SNCTRP) to cormorant management (a contentious environmental management issue) in the Great Lakes Basin to: (1) assess contagion effects on cormorant‐related risk perceptions and individual factors believed to influence those perceptions and (2) explore the extent of social contagion in a full network (consisting of interactions between and among experts and laypeople) and three “isolated” models separating different types of interactions from the full network (i.e., expert‐to‐expert, layperson‐to‐layperson, and expert‐to‐layperson). We conducted interviews and administered questionnaires with experts (e.g., natural resource professionals) and laypeople (e.g., recreational and commercial anglers, business owners, bird enthusiasts) engaged in cormorant management in northern Lake Huron (n = 115). Our findings generally support the SNCTRP; however, the scope and scale of social contagion varied considerably based on the variables (e.g., individual risk perception factors), actors (i.e., experts or laypeople), and interactions of interest. Contagion effects were identified more frequently, and were stronger, in the models containing interactions between experts and laypeople than in those models containing only interactions among experts or laypeople.     

Race and ethnic differences in depressed mood following the transition from high school

Young adulthood is a period of increased mental health risk, with evidence linking psychological disorder to problematic role transitions. To our knowledge, there has been little or no research that examines the forces shaping minority mental health at this time. Using a diverse, urban sample of young adults who are followed over a two-year period, this paper examines the link between race/ethnicity and depressed mood and the transitional roles and interpersonal experiences that mediate this association. Findings indicate that blacks and Hispanics have elevated depressed mood relative to whites and Asian Americans, independent of socioeconomic background factors. The underrepresentation of blacks and Hispanics in four-year colleges largely explains the differences in depressed mood between members of these groups and Asian American youth. In contrast, comparisons of black and Hispanic youth to white youth highlight problems in peer and parental relations among individuals in the former groups. Overall, findings suggest that the heightened depressed mood among Hispanics and blacks relative to whites and Asian Americans reflects their increasingly disadvantaged pathways into adulthood, characterized by poorer prospects for educational advancement and more problematic relationships subsequent to the high school years.