POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND WATER RATES: A REPLY1

ABSTRACT: Mercer and Morgan provide several valid criticisms of a previous analysis on political influence and water rates. More sophisticated statistical analyses may be justified given the high degree of interdependence among regulated firm variables. Theoretically, there are numerous measures of political activity superior to the one employed in the original analysis; however, data unavailability precludes their use. A better (and yet practical) measure of consumer leverage may be relative dominance by a specific political party. Until relatively easy access is obtained to municipal election data, the possible political variables that can be employed in more elegant analyses are few in number, and each has theoretical limitations.     

Case study of landfill reclamation at a Florida landfill site

A landfill reclamation project was considered to recover landfill airspace and soil, reduce future groundwater impacts by removing the waste buried in the unlined area, and optimize airspace use at the site. A phased approach was utilized to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of the reclamation project; based on the results of these evaluations, approximately 6.8 ha of the unlined cells were reclaimed. Approximately 371,000 in-place cubic meters of waste was mined from 6.8 ha in this project. Approximately 230,600 cubic meters of net airspace was recovered due to beneficial use of the recovered final cover soil and reclaimed soil as intermediate and daily cover soil, respectively, for the current landfill operations. This paper presents the researchers’ landfill reclamation project experience, including a summary of activities pertaining to reclamation operations, an estimation of reclamation rates achieved during the project, project costs and benefits, and estimated composition of the reclaimed materials.     

A time‐lagged investigation of the impact of coworker behavior on the effects of demographic dissimilarity

Although it is clear that coworker absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover can influence an employee's actions, scholars have yet to consider the impact of relational demography on the adoption of these behavioral norms. Inspired by social identity, situational strength, and attraction‐selection‐attrition theories, we proposed that individuals who differ from their coworkers in age, sex, or racioethnicity would feel threatened by their outnumbered status and subsequently motivated to be absent, tardy, or more likely to turnover. However, we expected coworker withdrawal behavior to moderate whether or not dissimilar personnel act on these desires. Results from hierarchical multilevel modeling analyses of data from 470 U.S. call center workers nested in 51 work groups revealed that racioethnic dissimilarity was positively related to time‐lagged changes in absenteeism and tardiness as well as heightened turnover likelihood. These effects emerged only among employees whose coworkers engaged in greater withdrawal behavior. Importantly, racioethnically dissimilar employees working in more permissive climates (i.e., those with high levels of coworker absenteeism, tardiness, or turnover) exhibited the greatest increases in absenteeism and tardiness over three months and had the highest supervisor‐rated turnover likelihood. Implications for diversity management are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New Methodology for an Expert-Designed Map From International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) 3+ Severity Injury

Objective: There has been a longstanding desire for a map to convert International Classification of Diseases (ICD) injury codes to Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) codes to reflect the severity of those diagnoses. The Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM) was tasked by European Union representatives to create a categorical map classifying diagnoses codes as serious injury (Abbreviated Injury Scale [AIS] 3+), minor/moderate injury (AIS 1/2), or indeterminate. This study's objective was to map injury-related ICD-9-CM (clinical modification) and ICD-10-CM codes to these severity categories.

Methods: Approximately 19,000 ICD codes were mapped, including injuries from the following categories: amputations, blood vessel injury, burns, crushing injury, dislocations/sprains/strains, foreign body, fractures, internal organ, nerve/spinal cord injury, intracranial, laceration, open wounds, and superficial injury/contusion. Two parallel activities were completed to create the maps: (1) An in-person expert panel and (2) an electronic survey. The panel consisted of expert users of AIS and ICD from North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The panel met in person for 5 days, with follow-up virtual meetings to create and revise the maps. Additional qualitative data were documented to resolve potential discrepancies in mapping. The electronic survey was completed by 95 injury coding professionals from North America, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand over 12 weeks. ICD-to-AIS maps were created for: ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM. Both maps indicated whether the corresponding AIS 2005/Update 2008 severity score for each ICD code was AIS 3+, 1/2, or indeterminable. Though some ICD codes could be mapped to multiple AIS codes, the maximum severity of all potentially mapped injuries determined the final severity categorization.

Results: The in-person panel consisted of 13 experts, with 11 Certified AIS specialists (CAISS) with a median of 8 years and an average of 15 years of coding experience. Consensus was reached for AIS severity categorization for all injury-related ICD codes. There were 95 survey respondents, with a median of 8 years of injury coding experience. Approximately 15 survey responses were collected per ICD code. Results from the 2 activities were compared, and any discrepancies were resolved using additional qualitative and quantitative data from the in-person panel and survey results, respectively.

Conclusions: Robust maps of ICD-9-CM and ICD-10-CM injury codes to AIS severity categories (3+ versus <3) were successfully created from an in-person panel discussion and electronic survey. These maps provide a link between the common ICD diagnostic lexicons and the AIS severity coding system and are of value to injury researchers, public health scientists, and epidemiologists using large databases without available AIS coding.     

A critical and empirical analysis of the national-local ‘gap’ in public responses to large-scale energy infrastructures

A national-local ‘gap’ is often used as the starting point for analyses of public responses to large scale energy infrastructures. We critique three assumptions found in that literature: the public's positive attitudes, without further examining other type of perceptions at a national level; that local perceptions are best examined through a siting rather than place-based approach; that a gap exists between national and local responses, despite a non-correspondence in how these are examined. Survey research conducted at national and local levels about electricity transmission lines in the UK confirm these criticisms. Results do not support a gap between national and local levels; instead, both differences and similarities were found. Results show the value of adopting a place-based approach and the role of surveys to inform policy making are discussed.