How costly is “clean”? An analysis of the benefits and costs of Superfund site remediations

The cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program is governed by a number of legislative and regulatory constraints. Congress passed legislation in 1986 directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to pursue permanent remedies that embodied stringent cleanup standards. The agency has chosen to use conservative assumptions in risk assessments at hazardous waste sites, including a presumption that on‐site risks for hypothetical future residents should be calculated in the site remediation process. This article offers the first comprehensive assessment of the cost‐effectiveness of these Superfund cleanups. Our results reveal that many EPA Superfund remediations fail a partial benefit‐cost test. For a sample of the 150 Superfund sites, we find that at the majority of sites the expected number of cancers averted by remediation is less than 0.1 cases per site and that the cost per cancer case averted is over $100 million. The analysis demonstrates the importance of explicitly calculating the trade‐offs embodied in environmental cleanup decisions. © 1998 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Effects of prefrontal cortical stimulation on aggressive and antisocial behavior: A double-blind,stratified, randomized,sham-controlled,parallel-group trial

Journal of Experimental Criminology - This study examines the influence of high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) on aggressive behavior...     

A 'Week that Changed the World': Britain and Nixon's China Visit of 21-28 February 1972

British diplomats considered President Nixon's China visit of February 1972 a major political success. But while they admired the Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger, the President's National Security Adviser, they were irritated by his reticence regarding the initiative, and by the way in which this impeded their own efforts to raise the status of Britain's diplomatic mission in Peking. Initial American objections to any change in Britain's stance on the admission of the People's Republic to the UN weakened their negotiating position, and led to a protracted tussle with Peking over the status of Taiwan. Marginalized by Kissinger's conduct, the British drew some satisfaction from the fact that the State Department seemed equally by-passed     

On the social cost of individuals’ extra effort

Most methodological work on project appraisal in developing countries have so far been primarily concerned with industrial projects and distortions in the foreign trade sector.¹ In this paper interest is focused on projects in the rural sector and in particular on a neglected aspect of labour cost valuation, viz. valuation of individuals’ work effort expended.     

Getting Rich and Staying Connected: the organizational medium of Chinese capitalists

This article answers the following question: ‘What is the organizational medium that has allowed a few Chinese businesspeople in East and Southeast Asia to accumulate considerable wealth and economic power?’ In the course of giving an answer, we show the organizational differences between traditional business networks in the late Qing and early Republican periods and the Chinese business networks in modern capitalist Asia. We argue that, throughout the twentieth century, Chinese business people outside of China proper began to adapt Western corporate structures for their own purposes and that this organizational innovation allowed Chinese to develop and sustain personal networks through which wealth and power could be concentrated.     

Spatial patterning of vulture scavenged human remains

This article presents the results of a pilot study on the effects of vulture modification to human remains. A donated body from the Willed Body Donation Program was placed at the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility (FARF), an outdoor human decomposition laboratory located at Texas State University-San Marcos. The effects of vulture scavenging on the timing and sequence, and the rate of skeletonization, disarticulation, and dispersal were observed via a motion sensing camera and direct observation. Using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and GPS (Global Positioning System) technologies and spatial analytical methods, the transport of skeletal elements was mapped in order to analyze dispersal and terrain-influenced patterns of active vulture scavenging. Results showed that the initial scavenging took place 37 days after placement at FARF. This delay in scavenging differs from previous research. After the initial appearance of the vultures, the body was reduced from a fully-fleshed individual to a skeleton within only 5h. This underscores the potential for errors in postmortem interval estimations made at vulture scavenged scenes. Additionally, spatial analysis showed that skeletal elements were dispersed by vultures to lower elevations, and that the disarticulation and dispersal of the skeletal elements occurs early in the scavenging sequence.