Book Review

Review of the following: LEONARD EVANS, TRAFFIC SAFETY AND THE DRIVER. (Van Nostrand Reinhold 1991) [404 pp.] About the author, author index, figures, notes, preface, subject index, tables. LC 90-44233, ISBN 0-4421-00163-0. [Cloth $51.95. P.O.B. 668, Florence KY 41022-0668.

Book Review (Anne Tramposh\u27s Avoiding the Cracks: A Guide to the Workers\u27 Compensation System)

ANNE TRAMPOSH, AVOIDING THE CRACKS; A GUIDE TO THE WORKERS\u27 COMPENSATION SYSTEM (Greenwood Press 1991) [216 pp.] Appendices, bibliography, glossary, index, preface. LC-90-21171; ISBN 0-275-93650-3

The relationship between burglary, crime rates and "fear of crime" measures: a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

"Fear of crime" is an area that has attracted considerable research attention in recent decades. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the influence of crime-related predictors on perceptions and behaviours relevant to domestic burglary - a crime traditionally deemed to be of little importance. The 153 subjects were selected on the basis of victimization status. Subjects were divided into three groups - victims of domestic burglary, indirect victims of domestic burglary and nonvictims. A severity index was developed to investigate the influence of burglaries of different severities. Subjects were also selected from three areas of Palmerston North, representative of high, medium and low burglary risk areas. "Fear of crime" measures included responses to crime perceptions measures and protective actions engaged in. Crime perceptions measures included an individual's assessment of his/her perceived likelihood of future victimization and assessments of the base rate of burglary. Results did not support the presence of victimization effects. There were no significant differences on any of the variables between victims, indirect victims and nonvictims, despite estimations tending in the expected directions. The definition of a victim used in the current study (up to one year post-burglary) may have been insensitive to the presence of victimization effects. Future research should address this issue. Despite no significant findings pertaining to the severity index this is also an area identified as requiring further investigation. The burglary rate of an area had no influence on one's assessment of personal vulnerability. However, respondents were aware of the relative "safety" (in terms of burglary rates) of their neighbourhoods and generally viewed their own neighbourhood as being "safer" than Palmerston North as a whole. Despite this realistic appraisal of relative burglary rates, estimates of burglary rates were far in excess of the official incidence of burglary. Future research should address why these estimates were so inflated and what are the implications of these findings. Results about protective actions revealed that on the whole the public was ill­ informed about options available to them, and that there was considerable variability in the number of protective actions undertaken. The results of the present study indicate that a neighbourhood level approach to crime prevention and information dissemination would be most appropriate

How Costly is it to Ignore Breaks when Forecasting the Direction of a Time Series?

Empirical evidence suggests that many macroeconomic and financial time-series are subject to occasional structural breaks. In this paper we present analytical results quantifying the effects of such breaks on the correlation between the forecast and the realisation, and on the ability to forecast the sign or direction of a time-series that is subject to breaks. Our results suggest that it can be very costly to ignore breaks. Forecasting approaches that condition on the most recent break are likely to perform better over unconditional approaches that use expanding or rolling estimation windows, provided that the break is reasonably large

Absolute angle-differential elastic cross sections for electron collisions with diacetylene

We report measured and calculated differential elastic cross sections for collisions of low-energy electrons with diacetylene (1,3-butadiyne). A generally satisfactory agreement between theory and experiment has been found. The calculated cross sections provide interesting insight into the underlying resonant structure

Electron scattering in ethene: Excitation of the ã 3B1u state, elastic scattering, and vibrational excitation

Experimental and calculated absolute differential cross sections for the scattering of low-energy electrons from ethene are presented. Emphasis is on the excitation of the ã 3B1u 3(pi,pi*) state, but selected elastic and vibrational excitation cross sections are also given. In contrast to earlier calculations, which were nearly a factor of 2 too large, the present calculation agrees very well with the experimental triplet excitation cross section in the threshold region. The improvement is due primarily to the inclusion of target polarization, which results in proper positioning of the pi* resonance, whose high-energy tail dominates the triplet state excitation near threshold. The present experimental elastic cross sections agree very well with recent calculations taking into account target polarization

Observations of changes in marine boundary layer clouds

Recent research outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the response of marine boundary layer (MBL) clouds to warming associated with increasing greenhouse gases as a major contributor to uncertainties in model projections of climate change. Understanding how MBL clouds respond to increasing temperatures is hampered by the relative scarcity of marine surface observations and the difficulty of retrieving accurate parameters remotely from satellites. In this study we combine data from surface observations with that from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), CloudSat and CALIPSO, with a view to investigating the spatial distribution and variations in MBL cloud fraction and cloud liquid water path (LWP). These results are then compared with the treatment of MBL clouds in the UK Met Office HadGEM models. Future work will assess how variations in LWP impact the top of atmosphere radiative energy balance using data from the Geostationary Earth Radiation Budget (GERB), in order to quantify the response of MBL clouds on interannual timescales to a changing climat

Book Review

Review of: VALERIE M. FOGLEMAN, HAZARDOUS WASTE CLEANUP, LIABILITY AND LITIGATION: A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO SUPERFUND LAW. (Quorum Books 1992) [320 pp.] Acronyms, index, preface, selected bibliography. LC 91-47999, ISBN 0-89930-647-0. [$59.95 cloth. 88 Post Road West; Westport CT 06881.