Threat,Knowledge, and Support for a Collective Response to Urban Flooding1

The most realistic solution to recurring urban flooding in most American cities is some form of land use planning (zoning), i.e., an integrated, collective response to this type of threat to the community. Yet there is frequently little public support for such action. The present study surveyed persons living in and around a notorious urban floodplain to assess support for such land use planning as a function of (a) threat, i.e., the motivational effect of proximity to the floodplain, ownership of property at risk, personal flooding history, perceived likelihood of one's home being flooded in the next 5 years, and the presence of small children in the home; and (b) amount of knowledge about variables affecting flooding, i.e., the cognitive element. Although proximity was related strongly to expressions of concern, none of the measures of threat was related to support for land use planning. Knowledge of the variables involved, however, was positively related to support for a planning solution. The findings are discussed in terms of theoretical implications of the cognitive element in collective responses to environmental hazards.     

COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF SENSORY RELATEDNESS OF ODOURS

Measures of relatedness of odours were obtained by means of two psychophysical methods and one electrophysiological technique. The psychophysical data consisted of similarity judgments and confusion measures. The electrophysiological data were based upon statistical treatment of the responses of single units in the olfactory bulb of the frog. Significant rank correlations were obtained between the results of the three methods. The significance of psychological relatedness data for the study of basic receptor processes is discussed.     

SEX DIFFERENCES ON PROBLEM-SOLVING TASKS

The question of sex differences in problem solving is discussed and some findings reported. Female subjects did as well as males on practical construction problems presented in writing. No sex difference was found on a 'function-naming' test, but female subjects were found to be superior when the task was to list replacements for missing implements.     

Protecting research integrity

It is not contoversial to state that acts of fraud do not belong in the academic world. What is debated is the best way to minimise the risk of fraudulent behaviour. Broadly speaking there are two different approaches to this problem. They differ with regard to whether the main focus is on internal or external control. In this article I argue that the main emphasis should be on internal structures in order to achieve the desired end. Only when the internal structures are in place is it meaningful to adopt external, supportive means to the same end. Invitation to the academic project as such, education and training in research ethics and good research practice, the implementation of good documentation procedures and the implementation of a procedure for investigation of suspicions of fraud which is characterised by efficiency, impartiality and competence are the four primary ingredients in the cure. The first three are suggested to build up the necessary foundation before a structure of investigation procedures are established. An earlier version of this paper was presented at a symposium, Scientific Misconduct: An International Perspective, organised by The Medical University of Warsaw, 16 November, 1998.     

THE FALSE PROMISES OF RISK ANALYSIS

The relatively new discipline of risk analysis promises to provide objective guidance in some of the most controversial issues in modern high-technology societies. Four conditions are discussed that must be satisfied for this promise to be fulfilled. Since none of these conditions is satisfied, risk analysis does not keep its promise. In its attempts to reduce genuinely political issues to technocratic calculations, it neglects many of the factors that should influence decisions on risk acceptance. A list of tentative guidelines is given for numerical decision support that encourages democratic decision-making instead of trying to evade it.     

Ethical Criteria of Risk Acceptance

Mainstream moral theories deal with situations in which the outcome of each possible action is well-determined and knowable. In order to make ethics relevant for problems of risk and uncertainty, moral theories have to be extended so that they cover actions whose outcomes are not determinable beforehand. One approach to this extension problem is to develop methods for appraising probabilistic combinations of outcomes. This approach is investigated and shown not to solve the problem. An alternative approach is then developed. Its starting-point is that everyone has a prima facie moral right not to be exposed to risk. However, this right can be overridden if the risk-exposure is part of an equitable system for risk-taking that works to the advantage of the individual risk-exposed person.     

Back to Basics: Belief Revision Through Direct Selection

Studia Logica - Traditionally, belief change is modelled as the construction of a belief set that satisfies a success condition. The success condition is usually that a specified sentence should be...     

The naïve intuitive statistician: a naïve sampling model of intuitive confidence intervals

The perspective of the na?ve intuitive statistician is outlined and applied to explain overconfidence when people produce intuitive confidence intervals and why this format leads to more overconfidence than other formally equivalent formats. The na?ve sampling model implies that people accurately describe the sample information they have but are na?ve in the sense that they uncritically take sample properties as estimates of population properties. A review demonstrates that the na?ve sampling model accounts for the robust and important findings in previous research as well as provides novel predictions that are confirmed, including a way to minimize the overconfidence with interval production. The authors discuss the na?ve sampling model as a representative of models inspired by the na?ve intuitive statistician.     

Names Introduced with the Help of Unsatisfied Sortal Predicates: Reply to Aranyosi

In this paper I answer Aranyosi’s (Axiomathes 19(2):223–224, 2009) criticism of my “Is Phosphorus Hesperus?” (Axiomathes 19(1):101–102, 2009).