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A decision to recall products by firms can lead to negative consequences such as erosion of shareholder wealth and loss of customer goodwill. Further, the way a recall is managed can lead to more negative consequences than the recall decision itself. Therefore the manner in which firms manage such decisions can help mitigate these negative consequences. This thesis examines two such decisions: recall restitution and time to recall. A firm’s decisions on restitution offered to affected customers and time to recall may evoke conflicting reactions from shareholders and customers, where serving the interests of one stakeholder affects the interests of the other. While higher restitutions and faster recalls improve customer goodwill, they lead to erosion of shareholder wealth. This finding is used to hypothesize the influence of organizational characteristics (position of the firm in the value chain, firm’s internal operations, and firm’s recall experience), and key crisis factors (ambiguity and severity) on these decisions. This thesis uses data on toy recalls issued in the U.S. from 1988 to 2011. The results show that firms tend to favor shareholders by offering lower restitutions to affected customers when they are situated farther from the customer in the supply chain, when they have more experience with recalls, when the crisis is severe, and when the cause of the crisis is ambiguous. When the recall is due to the internal operations of the firm, restitution offered to affected customers is lower only when the severity of the recall is high. Firms issue recalls quickly when the crisis is severe in order to reduce customer hazards and avoid negative publicity. Severe recalls, however, may be delayed when firms are experienced in recall management, and when such recalls are caused by the internal operations of the firm. The findings of this thesis highlight one of the dilemmas that firms face in a crisis decision making situation and help foster an understanding of the conditions under which firms manage shareholder versus customer reactions in order to mitigate the negative consequences of recall management decisions.

Understanding historic fire regimes to develop benchmarks for emulating historic natural disturbance processes in the interest of conserving biodiversity has been actively pursued for approximately 30 years. Mixed-severity fire regimes are increasingly becoming a recognized component of historic fire regimes. Mixed-severity fire regimes are inherently difficult to classify and characterize given the complexity of the process and the multiple scales at which this complexity is expressed. I utilized a systematic study design to gather fire scar and stand dynamic information in order to describe and classify the historic fire regime. I established the presence of mixed disturbance regime dominated by a mixed-severity fire regime. The historic fire regime was mixed-severity over time dominated by individual high severity fire events occurring at a frequency of 60-130 years with some areas that experienced lower severity fire events occurring at a frequency of 20 - 40 years. Twenty-one per cent of the current landscape was dominated by high-severity fire, 42% by mixed-severity and 37% had an unknown fire history. I developed a fire regime classification scheme that provides a useful tool for considering fire severity in mixed-severity system with forest species that generate strong establishment cohorts. I was able to combine time-since-fire methods with a systematic study design and this combination provided an excellent tool to explore mixed-severity fire characteristics in a complicated mixed-disturbance forest. I found limited relationships between topographic controls and fire severity. I found a number of significant relationships that fit the broadly held perceptions of how fire severity would affect species relative densities and stand structure attributes. The existing stand origin map and the Vegetation Resource Inventory stand age were largely accurate for high-severity 20th century fires but had decreasing accuracy in older forests and for mixed and unknown fire severity. The accuracy of the Vegetation Resource Inventory leading species accuracy was quantified at only 60%. My results have implications for fire and forest management in south-eastern British Columbia and in other forest systems that had historic mixed-severity fire regimes with tree species that have strong establishment cohorts. / Graduate / 0478 / 0329 / rick.kubian@pc.gc.ca

The recent increase in large fires in southwestern forests has prompted concern regarding their ecological consequences. Recognizing the importance of spatial patterns in influencing successional processes, I asked: (1) How do large fires change plant communities?; (2) What are the implications of these changes for ponderosa pine forests?; and (3) What is the relationship of fire severity to gradients of climate, fuels, and topography? To address the first two questions, I studied succession in the woody plant community at two sites that burned in high-severity fire: La Mesa fire in northern New Mexico (1977) and Saddle Mountain in northern Arizona (1960). After large fires, abiotic conditions, associated prefire plant distributions, and spatial patterns of burning interacted to result in particular successional outcomes. Variation in abundance and diversity of species that spread from a refuge of seed sources remaining after the fire followed the model of wave-form succession. I investigated the implications of large fires for ponderosa pine by examining the influence of spatial patterns of burning on regeneration. Tree density corresponded most closely with particular scales of seed dispersal kernel and neighborhood severity metrics. Spatial patterns of burning remained influential even after consideration of variables describing subsequent burning and the physical and biotic environment. Age structure of young forests indicated that populations spread in a moving front and by long-distance dispersal. To explore the relationship between fire severity and climate, I investigated how the spatial heterogeneity of high-severity patches varied among 20 fires across gradients in fire size and climate. The largest fires generally occurred during cool dry La Niña climates, however, several fires deviated from this trend. Some spatial properties of severity did not correspond to fire size or to changes in climate. Characteristics of fuels and topography altered spatial patterns of severity, but interactions with extreme burning conditions may have disrupted these local influences in both La Niña and El Niño fires. Spatial patterns of fire severity are central to understanding ecological dynamics following large fires in southwestern forests. Moreover, simplistic assumptions regarding the relation of fire severity to fire size and climate should be viewed with caution.

This thesis describes studies into the psychometric properties of a Swedish language version of the Adolescent Drug Abuse Diagnosis (ADAD) instrument. The psychometric properties of this instrument have been examined in two previous studies: an American study was conducted by the developers of the interview, Friedman and Utada (1989), and a Swiss study was undertaken by Bolognini et al. (2001). The American and the French (as used in the Swiss study) versions of ADAD exhibit good validity and reliability, in the form of both interrater reliability and the internal consistency of the composite scores. Study I evaluated the psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the ADAD interview in normal adolescents and adolescents with antisocial problems. It was found that the instrument has good interrater reliability, that the composite scores exhibit moderate internal consistency, and that the concept validity was acceptable and similar to that of the American and Swiss versions. The results also showed that the problem areas of ADAD produced meaningful correlations. The interviewer ratings, the adolescent’s ratings and the composite scores were compared and discussed. Some problems concerning the composite scores were discovered and will need to be analyzed in future studies. Study II investigated the utility and problems associated with the composite scores in the ADAD within and between normal adolescents and adolescents with antisocial problems. When comparing interviewer severity ratings and composite scores within the two groups, the composite scores were found to behave differently to the interviewer ratings. For normal adolescents, the composite scores are generally higher than the interviewer ratings, but for the adolescents with antisocial problems the reverse is true. The interviewer severity ratings seem to be the most appropriate outcome when the objective is to separate antisocial and normal groups of adolescents from each other. The difference between the two groups is smaller as measured by composite scores. The composite scores appear to function as viable indicators of current problems in all areas except for Medical and Alcohol problem area. The critical items within the Medical and Alcohol composite scores are explored and discussed.  Study III investigated the concurrent and predictive validity of the ADAD Psychological status and problem area. Concurrent validity was demonstrated by significant correlations between the ADAD, Youth Self Report (YSR) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores. The predictive validity of this problem area of the ADAD was tested by exploring its correlations with the YSR, BDI, and DICA problem ratings; moderate correlations were observed, suggesting that in clinical practice, the ADAD Psychological status and problem area may be a useful tool for the assessment and measurement of current psychological problems. The utility obtained by making decisions using the test is substantial. Overall, the results of these studies indicate that the Swedish version of ADAD appears to be a psychometrically good instrument for assessing the severity of adolescents’ problems and their need for treatment, but there are some problems with the Medical and Alcohol composite scores.

Asthma affects over 2.2 million people in Australia. Asthma morbidity is increasing while mortality is decreasing. People with asthma experience shortness of breath as their airways narrow and become inflamed. After an episode of acute asthma many patients experience a relapse requiring further emergency department care. Numerous studies have been undertaken to identify the determinants of asthma morbidity and these studies have primarily used asthma oriented and co-morbidity scales such as anxiety and depression indices. Other studies in this area have indicated psychosocial factors such as coping, asthma attitudes and beliefs that may be linked to people with asthma who are non-compliant or adherent to treatment. Currently, there is no research available that has examined the link between general health promoting behaviours, an individual’s risk behaviour assessment and a brief asthma education encounter that is patient-centred. This study provides a description of the health promoting and risk taking behaviours of people who attend the emergency department with acute asthma. Secondly, it examines the effectiveness of patient-centred education compared with standard education. One hundred and forty-six people with acute asthma who attended the emergency departments of the Princess Alexandra and Mater Adult Public Hospitals were enrolled in this study. Participants self-reported health promoting and risk taking behaviours by completing the questionnaire that contained the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile (HPLPII) and the Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) instruments. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was also incorporated into the questionnaire to ascertain levels of anxiety and depression in this acute asthma group of people. The asthma education curriculum had the same topics for both the standard education and the patient-centred groups. However, the patient-centred group were able to prioritise the order of the topics according to their identified need. Secondly, the patient-centred group were asked two questions to ascertain the most important issue and asthma issue for them at that point in time. Both groups of participants were educated using the Asthma Foundation Leaflet “Asthma - Basic Facts” during the individual education session. There were 56% females and 44% males with a mean age (+SD) of 34 (13.8) years with 70.3% reported year 12 or above education and 49% of participants earned less that $20,000. Nearly half of the participants were admitted to a hospital ward following emergency department assessment and care. A large proportion of the participants had either moderate or severe asthma. The health behaviour findings from this study suggest people with acute asthma follow preventive health recommendations and safety guidelines more so than the wider community. However, they did not self-initiate home based health actions such as breast self-examination. At the time of attendance to the emergency department with acute asthma there were no statistical difference between the patient-centred education and standard format education groups for age, gender, education, income, asthma control and previous emergency department attendances. The patient-centred education group had fewer re-attendances in the four months after the education intervention when compared with prior emergency department attendances than the control group (p=0.057; p=0.486). In conclusion, people with acute asthma report undertaking a number of preventive health behaviours and actions according to national guidelines and safety recommendations. They report a lack of self-initiated home based health behaviours. Further research is required to investigate the impact on the National Asthma Council’s recommendations of the importance of asthma action plans on people who follow preventive health guidelines and who lack self-initiative abilities. In terms of asthma education, patient-centred education when compared to standard format education may be useful in reducing further emergency department attendances for acute asthma. More research is required to identify other key education issues for people with acute asthma.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karol. inst., 2002. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2002. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping : Univ., 2003. / Härtill 6 uppsatser.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, 2006 / Typescript (photocopy)