A scientific critique of the EPA Alsea II study and report, with the November 16, 1979 supplement

This report is a critique of a study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that found a statistically significant correlation between the application of the herbicide 2,4,5-T (dioxin) and miscarriages in the Alsea watershed. "If there is a relationship between herbicide use and miscarriages in the 'Alsea Basin' and its surrounding area, it is not apparent and cannot be tested using the data from the Alsea II study." (p.46) 92 p

Predicting substance abuse among youth with, or at high risk for, HIV

This article describes data from 4,111 males and 4,085 females participating in 10 HIV/AIDS service demonstration projects. The sample was diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, HIV status, and risk for HIV transmission. Logistic regression was used to determine the attributes that best predict substance abuse. Males who were younger; HN positive; homeless: involved in the criminal justice system; had a sexually transmitted disease (STD); engaged in survival sex; and participated in risky sex with men, women, and drug injectors were most likely to have a substance abuse history. For females, the same predictors were significant, with the exception of having an STD. Odds ratios as high as 6 to 1 were associated with the predictors. Information abut sexual and other risk factors also was highly predictive of substance abuse issues among youth

Sociology and the Virtual: Interactive Mirrors, Representational Thinking and Intensive Power

This article explores the role of images in the workings of contemporary power. It examines one of the central ways in which sociology has approached images as representations and proposes an alternative understanding of images through the concepts of interactivity, intensity and the virtual. Focusing on the examples of three interactive mirrors, one a piece of artwork, another designed to be located in a designer shop and the other a medical mirror for tracking ‘vital signs’, it suggests that the mirrors emphasize the screen and, in so doing, disrupt a notion of images of representations. Images are instead brought to life; intensively experienced rather than extensively read. The article engages, first, with the increasing prevalence of screens and, second, with the moves in sociology towards theorizing the value of the concept of the virtual. Arguing that images are felt and lived out, the article seeks to contribute to how sociology has dealt with, and might further develop, the concept of the virtual as a productive way of understanding the relationships between images, screens, power and life