ENHANCING EVACUATION WARNING COMPLIANCE: SUGGESTIONS FOREMERGENCY PLANNING*

This review of incentives to evacuate is meaningful largely in the context of planning for and managing the consequences of the impact of riverine floods. Of course, incentives do not constitute an emergency plan. At best, they should be seen as suggestions for structuring some elements of a plan. Furthermore, the enumeration of incentives presented here is meant to be suggestive rather than exhaustive. A primary objective of this paper has been to underscore the importance of advance planning in coping with hazards and to argue that, even though limited, existing research can be productively used in the planning process. The incentives described here are based upon or drawn from empirical research on people's performance under flood disaster conditions. This reflects the view that it is important to build emergency planning around people's known reaction patterns. Too often emergency plans which are administratively devised turn out to be based upon misconceptions of how people react (cf. Drabek and Stephenson, 1971, p. 202; Dynes et al., 1972, p. 31) and, therefore, potentially create more difficulties than they solve. One must be cautioned, however, that although our data indicate that people say they would support the idea of various evacuation incentives examined here, these are attitudinal data and not performance data. Thus, the real test of evacuation incentives lies in their implementation and in evaluation data on pilot programs which, unfortunately, do not presently exist. The outlook for the feasibility of developing and utilizing evacuation incentives appears to be positive, though, judging from responses to our interviews. In the final analysis, it would appear to be wise to develop emergency plans which guide and channel citizen actions into complementary and productive protection behavior patterns. The present discussion of incentives to evacuate is intended to encourage data-based emergency planning.     

Is there a link between children's motor abilities and unintentional injuries?

PROBLEM: The common view is that clumsy children experience unintentional injury more frequently. Empirical evidence supporting this position is mixed. METHOD: One hundred 6- and 8-year-olds completed a battery of nine tasks designed to assess motor ability. Mothers completed a lifetime injury history measure about their children and families completed a 2-week injury diary assessing frequency and severity of daily injuries. RESULTS: Internal reliability for the motor ability battery was good. Correlations between motor ability measures and injury risk were nonsignificant and near zero. DISCUSSION: Motor ability does not appear to be directly related to injury risk. Possible explanations include: (a) coordinated and clumsy children engage in hazardous activities with differing frequency; or (b) other individual difference factors may interact with motor ability to explain children's injury risk. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: Children's motor abilities do not appear to be directly linked to rate of unintentional injury, but instead may influence risk for injury in conjunction with other factors. Results could have implications to the engineering of children's toys and playground equipment and to the design of appropriate supervision strategies for children engaging in potentially dangerous activities.     

Ink utilization by mesopelagic squid

Remotely operated vehicle dive video recordings of deep-sea squid ink release were examined to determine species, ink release type, release depth, and accompanying behavior/s. Ink release was commonly observed between the surface and 1,842.1 m in Monterey Bay, CA, and surrounding waters. Six ink release types were observed: pseudomorphs, pseudomorph series, ink ropes, clouds/smokescreens, diffuse puffs and mantle fills. Each species released ink throughout all or most of its depth range; inking was not limited to shallow, sunlit waters. Individuals of each species produced one ink release type more commonly than other types, however, multiple ink types could be released by individuals of all species. Common behaviors preceded and/or followed each release type; pseudomorphs and pseudomorph series were generally associated with escape behaviors, while ink ropes, clouds, and puffs normally involved the animal remaining adjacent to or amid the ink. Deep-sea squids may use ink for defensive purposes similar to those of shallow-dwelling species when they release pseudomorphs, pseudomorph series, or large clouds, and may use ink puffs in intra-specific communication. The function of ink ropes and mantle fills is unknown.     

At a tipping point? How the debate on biofuel standards sparks innovative ideas for the general future of standardisation and certification schemes

Consumer demand for environmentally and socially responsible products is the driving force behind the expansion of competing certification systems. Paradoxically, this has led to an increasingly crowded marketplace for labels and confusion among stakeholders such as producers, retailers and buyers, rather than providing clear and reliable product information as intended. The situation has sparked a debate about the future of certification schemes and the need for a more streamlined system. This article explores some of the innovative ideas coming from the current discussion regarding biofuel certification and standardisation and outlines how those ideas can be applied to create a global generic standard-setting scheme for natural resources.     

Governing sexual behaviour through humanitarian codes of conduct

Since 2001, there has been a growing consensus that sexual exploitation and abuse of intended beneficiaries by humanitarian workers is a real and widespread problem that requires governance. Codes of conduct have been promoted as a key mechanism for governing the sexual behaviour of humanitarian workers and, ultimately, preventing sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA). This article presents a systematic study of PSEA codes of conduct adopted by humanitarian non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) and how they govern the sexual behaviour of humanitarian workers. It draws on Foucault's analytics of governance and speech act theory to examine the findings of a survey of references to codes of conduct made on the websites of 100 humanitarian NGOs, and to analyse some features of the organisation‐specific PSEA codes identified.