[en] A study was conducted to evaluate how workers predict manufacturing production potentials given positively and negatively framed information. Findings indicate the existence of a bias toward positive information and suggest that this bias may be reduced with experience but is never the less maintained. Experts err in the same way non experts do in differentially processing negative and positive information. Additionally, both experts and non experts tend to overestimate production potentials in a positive direction. The authors propose that these biases should be addressed with further research including cross domain analyses and consideration in training, workplace design, and human performance modeling

No abstract available

[en] Relationships between risk managers (private or public industrialists, state employees, various experts, even certain elected representatives) and the population concerned by possible risks have often been marked by considerable mutual distrust. Moreover, with no 'relays' or spokesmen on the scale of the territories involved, risk managers generally resort to 'communication' policies inspired by marketing, whose effectiveness is far from certain. We aim here to develop the hypothesis that these ways of proceeding are based on the idea of a 'Great Divide' between risk managers on the one hand, and the population on the other. As a result of this divide, supposedly 'objective' knowledge becomes a discriminating factor, the prerogative of managers, without which the population is perceived as being of almost 'minor' importance. Our work in Lyons (France) on natural and industrial hazards shows the importance of risk-building work by those who, albeit non-specialists, are potentially subjected to them. Although these 'ordinary' representations of danger may sometimes differ considerably from 'accepted' forms, they are nevertheless logically and symbolically structured, by means of perceivable main themes, in a socio-anthropological perspective. What is more, the reputedly more 'rational' discourse of risk managers occasionally lets slip elements which could (scientifically speaking) be considered non-rational, but which can be given fresh meaning thanks, once again, to a socio-anthropological outlook. Both risk managers and the population can therefore be said to belong to the same human species: both react in their own specific - yet comparable - way, when confronted with danger, disease (in the case of chemical risks, for example) and in any case wit (potential) death. Here, then, is material for a different approach to communication policies in the field of urban risk. (authors)

[en] The author have tried to show that traditional risk analysis exhibits some severe shortcomings in areas where the danger is new and the scientific knowledge is limited and controversial. In such contexts, the traditional dichotomy between objective and subjective risk is not of much help, is not adapted here. The first elements of analysis proposed in the tentative paper suggest that in such contexts, risk communication should be based on participatory methods such as forums for debate. The stake is therefore the democratization of assessment procedure and the development of different means which allow to couple risk and technology assessment. (author)

[en] The purpose of this article is to discuss the way organisational factors are taken into account in the new breed of Probabilistic Risk Assessment methods. We evaluate these methods from two vantage points related to our respective research background on high-risk organisations: the sociologist view and the decision analysis view. More specifically, we discuss the self assigned objectives of these methods, the nature of the data on which they rely and the way the latter are related to the overall functioning of the organisation under study. (authors)

[en] The most likely scenario is the one in which South-east Asia acquires a greater autonomy, as in Scenario 1. The recomposition of ASEAN as a larger and yet solid entity is far-reaching and requires a lot of mutual internal efforts and policy coordination on external issues. As aforementioned, a situation somewhere between the two sub-scenarios of Scenario I could be achieved. The broadened identity of ASEAN will definitely contribute to the autonomization of South-east Asia as a whole, at least in general geopolitical and security terms. In addition, a greater convergence may develop in economic, strategic and even political areas and gradually produce a subregional order with its own local character and specificities

[en] The end of Cold War induced optimistic projections concerning disarmament, elimination of nuclear weapons, elimination of massive inequities - poverty, hatred, racism. All these goals should be achieved simultaneously, but little has been achieved so far

[en] The present international situation is the most favourable for eliminating nuclear weapons ever since they appeared 52 years ago. Still two different approaches to solve the problem exist. With the necessary political decisions the treat of nuclear weapons can be eliminated by the year 2020

[en] The effects of environmental tax policy in a dynamic overlapping-generations model of a small open economy with environmental quality incorporated as a durable consumption good have been studied. Raising the energy tax may deliver an efficiency gain if agents care enough about the environment. The benefits are unevenly distributed across generations since capital ownership, and the capital loss induced by a tax increase, rises with age. A suitable egalitarian bond policy can be employed in order to ensure everybody gains to the same extent. With this additional instrument the optimal energy tax can be computed. The authors further considered a tax reform that simultaneously lowers labour taxation and raises the energy tax. This policy delivers qualitatively similar consequences as the first scenario, though all changes are less pronounced. A double dividend may appear soon after the reform but vanishes in the course of the transition. 22 refs

No abstract available