Environmental indicators are the first line of warning against hazards caused by humans or nature catastrophes to prevent diseases and death of living organisms. The present book covers a large variety of environmental indicators from physical-chemistry through economical, bioinformatics, electromagnetic irradiation and health aspects, all dealing with environmental pollution. This volume has been intended to environmentalists, engineers, scientists and policy makers as well to anybody interested in the latest development in the indicator field.
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This paper reviews the development of the field of social indicators from its origins in the 1960s to the present. Three classes of social indicators are identified: normative welfare indicators, which focus on direct measures of welfare and are subject to the interpretation that if they change in the right direction while other things remain equal things have gotten better or people are better off; satisfaction indicators, which measure psychological satisfaction, happiness, and life fulfillment by using survey research instruments that ascertain the subjective reality in which people live; and the most inclusive category, descriptive social indicators, which are indexes of social conditions (i.e. contexts of human existence) and changes therein for various segments of a population. Correspondingly, two conceptions of how social indicators are to be interpreted and used are discussed: One, which emphasizes the policy-analytic uses of social indicators, presumes that the proper relationship of social indicators to social policy occurs at the level of operating or managing organizations; the other, which emphasizes the uses of social indicators in social reporting, presumes that the proper role of social indicators is public enlightenment and the formation of general as opposed to operational policy. Three sociological contributions to the descriptive social indicators/enlightenment approach are described: the development of replication and longitudinal studies, the production of analytical studies of social change and social reports, and the creation of formal models for the analysis of data on social change. Current research problems that are identified include the development of social accounting systems, the construction of indicators of institutional values and structures, and the production of improved social forecasts and forecasting techniques. It is concluded that, while issues of public concern may change from time to time, the critical public and private sectors continue to need statistical information about current social conditions and trends.
"Tom DeMark, creator of the widely known and respected DeMark indicators, served as mentor to author Jason Perl. Perl defines and explains how the indicators bring a successful trading decision to conclusion, and offers aggressive or conservative alternative indications. With a chart or graphic explaining each indicator and a foreword by Tom DeMark"--Provided by publisher
"Subjective indicators have been proven to possess predictive power for a large array of social and economic outcomes. However, most of these measures face serious psychometric shortcomings, namely that the items used are not psychometrically investigated. Further, for the assessment of one and the same construct various different item phrasing and response formats are used in different surveys. In the present paper several recommendations are made to increase the quality and by that also the acceptance and usage of subjective indicators. These include to develop more ultra-short but multi-item measures for subjective indicators. Further, surveys should try to use the same form of measurement, i.e. the same item phrasings and the same response scales. In terms of psychometric properties it is recommended to investigate reliability and validity of the indicators in as much depth as possible. In addition suggestions are made how to investigate the respondent's judgmental process for the subjective indicators' measures which allows to obtain a clearer picture of how the item is understood by the respondent and on which cues he bases his judgment." [author's abstract]
