Mental Health Literacy and Eating-Disordered Behavior: Beliefs of Adolescent Girls Concerning the Treatment of and Treatment-Seeking for Bulimia Nervosa

This research examined the “mental health literacy” of adolescents concerning eating-disordered behavior. A vignette describing a fictional 16-year old female meeting diagnostic criteria for bulimia nervosa was presented to 522 female high school students, followed by a series of questions concerning treatment of and treatment-seeking for the problem described. Results indicated that primary care practitioners, mothers and close female friends were most highly regarded as potential sources of help. Self-help interventions, including the use of vitamins and minerals, were also highly regarded, whereas participants were less positive about the benefits of mental health specialists and ambivalent about the use of anti-depressant medication. Most participants believed that the problem described would be difficult to treat, and that relapse was likely even given appropriate treatment. An additional finding of note was that among participants with a high level of eating disorder symptoms (n=36, 6.9%), recognition of an eating problem was poor. We conclude that beliefs likely to be conducive to low and/or inappropriate treatment-seeking for eating problems may be common among adolescent girls. In addition, the findings suggest that prevention programs for the eating disorders need to target not only at-risk individuals, but also individuals in their immediate social environment.     

Coal and nuclear technologies: creating a false dichotomy for American energy policy

The American electric utility industry is entering a moment of transition. Once viewed as a stable and secure consortium of publicly regulated monopolies that produce and distribute electricity, the industry has weathered market restructuring only to face the ever-present risk of natural disasters, price fluctuations, terrorist attacks, and blackouts. This paper uses five criteria—technical feasibility, cost, negative externalities, reliability, and security—to evaluate the broad portfolio of energy technologies available to American electricity policymakers. Upon close inspection, energy efficiency practices, renewable energy systems, and small-scale distributed generation technologies appear to offer many advantages over large and centralized nuclear and fossil fueled generators. Contrary to the mimetic commentary produced by the media, these three approaches would present policymakers a superior alternative for curbing electricity demand, minimizing the risk of fuel interruptions and shortages, helping improve the fragile transmission network, and reducing environmental harm     

Strikes are more common in countries with majoritarian electoral systems

Strikes are more common in those OECD countries where the legislature is elected in single member districts (SMD) than in those where it is elected by proportional representation (PR). Furthermore, more working days are lost due to industrial conflict in countries with SMD. I suggest a politico-economic explanation for these rarely noticed empirical regularities. Further empirical testing – including controls drawn from previous strike research – reveals that they hold up in a variety of econometric specifications.     

Asymmetric payoffs in simultaneous and sequential prisoner’s dilemma games

We investigate the role of payoff asymmetry in laboratory prisoner’s dilemma games. Symmetric and asymmetric games are examined in simultaneous and sequential settings. In the asymmetric sequential games, we study the impact of having payoff advantaged players moving either first or second. Asymmetry reduces the rates of cooperation in simultaneous games. In sequential games, asymmetry interacts with order of play such that the rate of cooperation is highest when payoff disadvantaged players move first.     

Israel and Palestine: the slow road to peace or the fast track to mutual annihilation?

This paper outlines the nature of the post World War II conflict between Israel and Palestine over land and borders. It demonstrates the weaknesses in the political systems of both countries that make it difficult to resolve outstanding differences. It examines the nature of bargaining costs, distinguishing clearly between the Coase and the Machiavelli theorem. It uses the hawk–dove game model to explain war and peace relationships between Israel and Palestine evident over the period 1948–2007. It evaluates the implications for the peace process of some future proliferation of nuclear arms that breaks Israeli nuclear hegemony in the Middle East.     

A minimax procedure for electing committees

A new voting procedure for electing committees, called the minimax procedure, is described. Based on approval balloting, it chooses the committee that minimizes the maximum Hamming distance to voters’ ballots, where these ballots are weighted by their proximity to other voters’ ballots. This minimax outcome may be diametrically opposed to the outcome obtained by aggregating approval votes in the usual manner, which minimizes the sum of the Hamming distances and is called the minisum outcome. The manipulability of these procedures, and their applicability when election outcomes are restricted in various ways, are also investigated. The minimax procedure is applied to the 2003 Game Theory Society election of a council of 12 new members from a list of 24 candidates. By rendering outlying voters less influential and not antagonizing any voters too much, it arguably would have produced a committee more representative of the interests of all voters than the minisum committee that was elected.     

The Haunting of Alice: Local Approaches to Justice and Reconciliation in Northern Uganda

Through the story of a former rebel fighter, this article examinessome of the justice and reconciliation challenges in northernUganda today. While talks between the Lord's Resistance Army(LRA) and Government of Uganda have generated the best chancefor peace in the 20-year conflict, the International CriminalCourt's indictment of rebel leaders threatens this process.The rebels refuse to disarm if indicted; the Chief Prosecutorrefuses to withdraw indictments as he believes withdrawal willfoster impunity. To resolve this dilemma, local cultural andreligious leaders advocate adapting local justice and reconciliationmechanisms to the situation, arguing that these will both holdrebels accountable and achieve peace. However, little is knownabout local justice processes or their potential to foster reconciliationin war-torn northern Uganda. On the basis of participatory research(2004–2006) with war-affected persons, the article seeksto address this gap, illustrating the potential and limitationsof such locally relevant mechanisms.