The role of prevention in technological catastrophe

Abstract

This paper discusses the potential for and problems inherent in the prevention of stress resulting from technological catastrophe. Baum, Fleming, and Davidson's (1983) characterization of technological disaster is reviewed. These accidents, which involve the breakdown or failure of human‐made systems, differ from other types of disaster in their psychological impact. These differences are particularly important in accidents involving hazardous substances including radiation and chemical toxins. The continuing threat of future illness resulting from exposure to radiation and toxins contributes to feelings of uncertainty; and the fact that the accident resulted from a failure of human‐made systems means it is likely to be perceived as a loss rather than a lack of control. Because of their unique features, technological catastrophies are likely to result in long term effects including chronic stress in exposed populations. Because failures of human‐made systems would be prevented if the problem was foreseen and preventable, prevention concerns center around reducing stress where possible. Three domains of prevention activity are described. First, assessments aimed at predicting the stress inducing and reducing impact of intervention strategies can contribute to decisions about how to handle the accident once it has occurred. Second, some of the policy implications of these events are described. Finally, the ethics of stress reducing interventions in settings where a real danger is present are discussed.     

Transgender Individuals and Psychological Intimate Partner Violence: a National Study

Journal of Family Violence - Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive public health problem in which transgender individuals are at elevated risk. The present study examined associations...     

Classifying the torture experiences of refugees living in the United States

Few research studies have systematically categorized the types of torture experienced around the world. The purpose of this study is to categorize the diverse traumatic events that are defined as torture, and determine how these torture types relate to demographics and symptom presentation. Data for 325 individuals were obtained through a retrospective review of records from the Bellevue/NYU for Survivors of Torture. A factor analysis generated a model with five factors corresponding to witnessing torture of others, torture of family members, physical beating, rape/sexual assault, and deprivation/passive torture. These factors were significantly correlated with a number of demographic variables (sex, education, and region of origin). Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety, and depression symptoms were significantly correlated with the rape factor but no other factors were uniquely associated with psychological distress. The results offer insight into the nature of torture and differences in responses.     

Enforcing WTO Obligations: What Can We Learn from Export Subsidies?

Export subsidies provide a good example for discussing someinteresting questions underlying the debate over reforming thecurrent system of remedies for violations of World Trade Organization(WTO) obligations. If the purpose of trade agreements is tomaximize economic welfare, discussion of violations of WTO obligationswill need to take account of the form of both the requirementand the remedy. The requirement could take the form of a standardor a rule and may be more or less complex. The remedy couldtake the form of a property rule or a liability rule. Further,both the level and the form of the remedy will be important.Each type of violation needs to be examined separately to determinewhether flexibility to adapt to new circumstances should comethrough the requirement or the remedy. In the case of exportsubsidies, the current simple rule prohibiting export subsidiesis likely optimal but the remedies which support this rule needto be reformed. They are currently both over-inclusive and under-inclusiveand do not provide sufficient flexibility or incentive for efficientadjustment. This article considers some alternative remediesfor export subsidies and discusses the general lessons for thedebate on remedies for violations of WTO obligations.     

Mission Accomplished: The Wartime Election of 2004

The war in Iraq, so the widely accepted view, hurt the reelection of George W. Bush. We contend, to the contrary, that the war helped him get reelected. First, we show that his victory fits the dominant pattern of wartime elections in American history. Second, we find that Bush’s approval ratings benefited from a complex rally where the Iraq war prolonged rather than diminished the 9/11 effect; most Americans affirmed rather than disputed a link between the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Third, while Bush’s approval proves sensitive to U.S. casualties in the Iraq war, any damage to his standing prior to the election was mitigated by sufficient popular support for that war. And finally, on Election Day, Bush was able to garner the vote of two critical blocks with favorable feelings about the Iraq war, be it the decision to invade or the prospect of success.

Designing property rights for water: mediating market,government, and corporation failures

Recent decades have seen an acceleration in public concern about the allocation of increasingly scarce water supplies. There are many reasons for this concern, such as growth in urban populations. In this article, we focus on how surface water’s special qualities (the combination of spillovers, rent-seeking behavior, and common pool resources) complicate the assignment of property rights in any legal framework. These characteristics make specific market structures necessary in order to efficiently allocate rights. The state usually designs those structures. Yet, just like markets can fail, so can governments fail to effectively allocate those rights. So designers often turn to quasi-judicial conservancy boards as a second-best solution. We argue that those boards may themselves fail through a form of “corporation failure.” We address these three types of failures, and offer an analysis of two cases that suggests that the likelihood conservancy boards will suffer from corporate failure depends on the actions of the boards and outside stakeholders (like governments).

Fluorescent TiO2 powders prepared using a new perylene diimide dye: applications in latent fingermark detection

A new, highly fluorescent dye was synthesised using oleylamine combined with a perylene dianhydride compound. The new dye was characterised by 1H NMR, UV-vis spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy as well as quantum yield. The dye was absorbed onto titanium dioxide nanoparticles for use as a fingerprint detection powder. The new fluorescent powder was applied to latent fingermarks deposited onto different non-porous surfaces and compared with commercial fluorescent powders. The powder exhibits strong fluorescence at 650-700 nm under excitation at 505 nm. On glass surfaces, the new powder gave images showing tertiary-level detail of the fingermark ridges with almost no background development. Compared with current magnetic fluorescent powders, the new powder was slightly weaker in fluorescence intensity but produced significantly less background development, resulting in good contrast between the fingermark and the substrate.     

Ascertaining The Corporate Objective: An Entity Maximisation and Sustainability Model

Public companies play crucial roles in today's world, and it has been acknowledged that ascertaining the objective of such companies is a critical issue. However, there remains great uncertainty as to what that objective should be. This article examines the two predominant theories of the corporate objective, namely the shareholder primacy and stakeholder theories. This is followed by an explanation of and the case for a new model, the entity maximisation and sustainability model. This model focuses on the company as a separate legal entity and maintains that the objective of the company is to maximise the wealth of the entity as an entity and, at the same time, to ensure that the company is sustained financially.     

When men fight with women (versus other men): Limited offending during disputes

What transpires in a dispute, even a violent dispute, is affected by the tendency for adversaries to engage in “limited offending.” We focus on one restraint: the tendency of men to limit their aggression in their disputes with women. Analyses are based on an incident-level survey about interpersonal disputes administered to 503 men who are incarcerated and 220 men who had never been incarcerated. Using multinomial and logistic regression models, we examined the extent to which an adversary's gender predicted dispute-related behaviors. The evidence suggests that the chivalry norm has pervasive effects on the behavior of men during their disputes with women. Men are more likely to engage in remedial actions (e.g., apologies) when their adversary is a woman, as opposed to another man. In addition, men are less likely to make violent threats and engage in physical attacks when their adversary is a woman, even after they have themselves been physically attacked. When men are violent, they are less likely to injure a woman than a man. However, the chivalry norm does not inhibit verbal aggression in these disputes: men are just as likely to engage in verbal attacks and nonviolent threats when the adversary is a woman.