Drinking to cope and self-medication: Characteristics of jobs in relation to workers' drinking behavior

This research extends recent studies of the relationship between characteristics of jobs and patterns of workers' alcohol consumption. Working within a ‘generalization perspective ’whereby job conditions are seen as having important effects on the mental health and behaviors of workers in non-work settings, the current research derives and tests a model of four job-related factors as they influence three aspects of alcohol use; the simple frequency—quantity of drinking, escapist-oriented reasons for drinking, and a combination of heavier drinking with escapist-oriented definitions which is labeled ‘self-medication’. Analyses of data drawn from the 1973 Quality of Employment Survey (QES) indicate that the relationship between jobs and drinking behavior is more complex than previously conceptualized. Specifically, we find evidence that for working men characteristics of jobs affect levels of alcohol consumption and the incidence of self-medicating drinking. These findings support and refine job-based explanations of drinking behavior. The implications of these findings for subsequent research and model-specification are discussed.     

Regional characteristics of land use in Northeast and Southern Blue Ridge Province: Associations with acid rain effects on surface-water chemistry

The Direct/Delayed Response Project (DDRP) is one of several studies being conducted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency to assess risk to surface waters from acidic deposition in the eastern United States. In one phase of DDRP, land use, wetland, and forest cover data were collected for statistical samples of 145 Northeast lake and 35 Southern Blue Ridge Province stream watersheds in the United States. Land-use and other data then were extrapolated from individual to target watershed populations. Project statistical design allows summarization of results for various subsets of the target population. This article discusses results and implications of the land-use and land-cover characterization for both regions. Forest cover was the primary land use in both regions. In the Northeast, developed (agriculture and urban) land was positively associated with surface-water chemistry values for acid neutralizing capacity, Ca plus Mg, pH, and sulfate in the Pocono/Catskill subregion. Extensive wetlands and beaver activity occur in parts of the Northeast region, whereas topography limits wetland and riparian development in the Southern Blue Ridge Province. Northeast soils have low sulfate adsorption capacity, most watersheds are near sulfur steady state, and lake sulfate concentrations are controlled principally by levels of sulfur deposition. Net annual sulfur retention in Northeast watersheds is positively correlated with occurrence of wetlands and beaver impoundments. In contrast, most Southern Blue Ridge Province soils have high sulfate adsorption capacities, resulting in high net watershed sulfur retention. At the present time, stream sulfate concentrations and percent sulfur retention are controlled principally by soil chemical properties related to adsorption rather than atmospheric deposition and land use. The information in this document has been funded wholly by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. It has been subjected to the agency's peer and administrative review, and it has been approved for publication as an EPA document. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.     

Can intensive management increase carbon storage in forests?

A possible response to increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentration is to attempt to increase the amount of carbon stored in terrestrial vegetation. One approach to increasing the size of the terrestrial carbon sink is to increase the growth of forests by utilizing intensive forest management practices. This article uses data from the literature and from forest growth and yield models to analyze the impact of three management practices on carbon storage: thinning, fertilization, and control of competing vegetation. Using Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) as example species, results from experiments with computer simulation models suggest that, for these two species, thinning generally does not increase carbon storage and may actually cause a decrease. The exception is thinning of very dense young stands. Fertilization generally increases carbon storage, although the response can be quite variable. The largest gains in carbon storage are likely to come from fertilizing lower-quality sites and from fertilizing thinned or less dense stands. Forests usually show increased growth in response to fertilization over a wide range of ages. Simulation of the growth of loblolly pine indicates that controlling competing vegetation at an early age helps to maximize stand growth and carbon storage. The research described in this article has been funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency. This document has been prepared at the EPA Environmental Research Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon, through contract number 68-C8-0006 to NSI Technology Inc. It has been subjected to the agency’s peer and administrative review and approved for publication. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.     

Estimating the costs of corrective action at land disposal facilities

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed regulations that would require corrective action (e.g., soil excavation and groundwater removal and treatment) at municipal solid waste landfills (MSWLFs) and hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities (TSDFs). This paper presents an overview of the proposed corrective action regulations, and discusses their relationship to proposed or existing closure and post-closure care regulations. The paper then presents estimated corrective action cost curves for various MSWLF scenarios defined by landfill area, average waste thickness, and the presence or absence of a clay liner. The paper finally illustrates the economic benefits of sound closure and postclosure care by comparing estimated costs of corrective action to estimated costs of closure and postclosure care at MSWLFs.     

Ethics and the Genetic Engineering of Food Animals

Biotechnology applied to traditional foodanimals raises ethical issues in three distinctcategories. First are a series of issues that arise inthe transformation of pigs, sheep, cattle and otherdomesticated farm animals for purposes that deviatesubstantially from food production, including forxenotransplantation or production of pharmaceuticals.Ethical analysis of these issues must draw upon theresources of medical ethics; categorizing them asagricultural biotechnologies is misleading. The secondseries of issues relate to animal welfare. Althoughone can stipulate a number of different philosophicalfoundations for the ethical assessment of welfare,most either converge on Bernard Rollins principle ofwelfare conservation (Rollin, 1995), or devolve intodebates over the ethical significance of animaltelos or species integrity. The principle of welfareconservation prohibits disfunctional geneticengineering of food animals, but would permit alteringanimals biological functions, especially when (as inmaking animals less susceptable to pain or suffering)do so improves an individual animals well being.Objections to precisely this last form of geneticengineering stress telos or species integrity asconstraints on modification of animals, and thisrepresents the third class of ethical issues. Most whohave formulated such arguments have failed to developcoherent positions, but the notion of species being,derived from the 19th century German tradition,presents a promising way to analyze the basis forresisting the transformation of animal natures.     

Polymerase chain reaction analysis of the cystic fibrosis ΔF508 mutation in human blastomeres following oocyte injection of a single sperm from a carrier

The efficiency of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in detecting the cystic fibrosis (CF) ΔF508 mutation (which is the most common mutation of CF) was assessed in single human blastomeres. Twenty-one human immature oocytes (germinal-vesicle-stage oocytes) that had been donated for research were matured in vitro and a single spermatozoon from a carrier of the CF ΔF508 mutation was injected into the ooplasm. Fourteen embryos were obtained after intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). PCR analysis was carried out on 70 single blastomeres isolated from these 14 embryos. The results showed that the efficiency of DNA amplification by PCR in single nucleate blastomeres was 94 per cent (59/63). There were no false-positive results since none of the blank samples or the blastomeres without a nucleus showed an amplified signal. We found that nine embryos were homozygous for the unaffected genotype and that four embryos were heterozygous since they contained both the unaffected and the ΔF508 genotype. In a four-cell embryo, we observed the homozygous unaffected genotype in one blastomere and a heterozygous ΔF508/unaffected genotype in the other three blastomeres.