Editorial

This issue of the International Journal of Public Opinion Researchassembles six contributions—three articles and three researchnotes—that represent the diversity of subjects, methods,and research sites that we aim at. The first article is by agroup of (mostly) Ohio State University scholars (Lindsay H.Hoffman, Carroll J. Glynn, Michael E. Huge, Rebecca Border Sietman,and Tiffany Thomson) who used two surveys about a school districtballot issue to study the process of opinion formation. Drawingon     

A collaborative network for first responders: Lessons from the CapWIN case

It is increasingly important for government agencies to collaborate across jurisdictional and functional boundaries. Interorganizational systems supporting interagency collaboration must accommodate a wide range of factors from the external environment and participating organizations as part of their design and operation. This paper presents the findings from a case study of CapWIN, a collaborative network created to enable first responders to share information across jurisdictional and functional boundaries as they work together during emergencies and other critical events. The study examines how aspects of the external environment and the agency context impeded or facilitated the CapWIN collaborative network and the interorganizational system (IOS) that supports it. We identify factors affecting information sharing and collaborative processes, and describe how these factors interact to enable and constrain an IOS. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research on the interplay of environmental, organizational, and technical aspects of interagency collaboration networks as they evolve over time.     

Submaximal exercise and maturation in 12-year-olds

The aim of this study was to examine the maturation responses of young people to submaximal treadmill exercise. Body mass was controlled using both the conventional ratio standard and allometric modelling. Ninety-seven boys and 97 girls with a mean age of 12.2 years completed a discontinuous, incremental exercise test to voluntary exhaustion. We measured peak oxygen uptake (VO2peak) and VO2 when running at 8, 9 and 10 km x h(-1). Sexual maturation was assessed visually using Tanner's indices of pubic hair. Peak VO2 was significantly higher in boys (P<0.001); this was still the case when the influence of body mass was covaried out. During submaximal exercise, no significant differences in absolute VO2 were observed between the sexes (P>0.05); however, values of VO2, expressed both in ratio with body mass and adjusted for body mass using allometry, were significantly greater in boys than in girls (P<0.001). For absolute VO2, significant main effects (P<0.05) were seen for maturity at each exercise stage. With the influence of body mass controlled using either the ratio standard or allometry, no significant main effects (P>0.05) for maturity were observed. Our results indicate that boys are less economical than girls while running at 8-10 km x h(-1) and that, independently of body mass, maturation does not influence the VO2 response to submaximal exercise.     

The impact of collective efficacy beliefs on effort and persistence in a group task

Collective efficacy is an important determinant of the motivation of individuals within groups, with increases in collective efficacy producing more effort in a task and greater persistence when faced with failure. To test hypotheses concerning the impact of collective efficacy on effort and persistence, participants (n = 22) were assigned to triads (consisting of the participant and two confederates) and performed three time trials on cycle ergometers. After trial 1, the participants were assigned to either a high or low collective efficacy condition, receiving appropriate bogus performance feedback. All groups received failure feedback after trial 2. Effort was assessed by performance time and maximum heart rate (HRmax) achieved during performance. A 2 (collective efficacy condition) x 3 (trials) analysis of variance with repeated measures on trials revealed significant interaction effects for both performance time and HRmax. Fisher's least significant difference post-hoc tests indicated that, following efficacy manipulation, groups low in collective efficacy significantly reduced both their performance time and HRmax, whereas groups high in collective efficacy maintained performance and HRmax. However, predictions concerning the impact of failure on persistence were not supported. Our results provide partial support for the role of collective efficacy in team sports.     

GaIN (Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Information) study on health professionals' search requests and continuing education needs

Health sciences librarians are being called upon to be more proactive in their institutions' continuing education efforts. In an effort to identify whether search requests indicated CE needs, a study was conducted by a group of members of GaIN (Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Information). MEDLINE requests from health care professionals for subject specific clinical topics were collected during a six-month period via a standard search request form created for the study. Copies of all completed requests were collected and broad ICD-9 codes assigned to the search topics. Institutional reports were generated for each participating library to share with hospital CE coordinators. They were also compiled for the group as a whole, and reflected the "hottest" topics requested during the study period for physicians and for non-physicians (nurses, allied health, administrators). A survey to hospital librarians and CE educators showed some value in the reports, but greater potential for further collaboration between librarians and CE coordinators.     

Digital information evolution: the AIDS Library experience

The AIDS Library evolved out of consumer health activism in response to the need for the latest HIV information, materials, and technology. In 1998, staff implemented a microcomputer-based integrated automated library system with Web publishing capability to link catalogs, databases of Philadelphia regional services, online publications, and fact sheets. The Web site, , became "live" December 1, 1998. History leading to its development and future plans are presented.     

Efficient reverse k-nearest neighbor estimation

The reverse k-nearest neighbor (RkNN) problem, i.e. finding all objects in a data set the k-nearest neighbors of which include a specified query object, has received increasing attention recently. Many industrial and scientific applications call for solutions of the RkNN problem in arbitrary metric spaces where the data objects are not Euclidean and only a metric distance function is given for specifying object similarity. Usually, these applications need a solution for the generalized problem where the value of k is not known in advance and may change from query to query. In addition, many applications require a fast approximate answer of RkNN-queries. For these scenarios, it is important to generate a fast answer with high recall. In this paper, we propose the first approach for efficient approximative RkNN search in arbitrary metric spaces where the value of k is specified at query time. Our approach uses the advantages of existing metric index structures but proposes to use an approximation of the nearest-neighbor-distances in order to prune the search space. We show that our method scales significantly better than existing non-approximative approaches while producing an approximation of the true query result with a high recall.