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POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES (PACS), ORGANIZATIONS ESTABLISHED TO CHANNEL CAMPAIGN FUNDS TO CANDIDATES, ACCOUNT FOR A MAJOR SHARE OF CAMPAIGN FUNDS. THE QUESTION OF WHETHER THESE IDEOLOGICAL PACS ARE TRULY CONCERNED WITH ELECTORAL COMPETITION OR SIMPLY GOING THROUGH MOTIONS IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE ONLY IN COMPETITVE RACES ARE VOTERS PRIVIDED A SERIOUS CHOICE. THIS PAPER EVALUATES THESE PAC'S DEGREE OF COMMITMENT TO ELECTORAL INFLUENCE. AS A FIRST STEP, THE CAMPAIGN TACTICS WHICH DISTINGUISH IDEOLOGICAL PACS ARE PRESENTED, AND THE WAY IN WHICH THESE TACTICS MAY SERVE AS PART OF EITHER (1) AN ELECTORAL OR (2) A FUND RAISING STRATEGY WILL BE EXPLAINED. THEN, CURRENT EVIDENCE REGARDING IDEOLOGICAL PACS' CONTRIBUTION TACTICS WILL BE REVIEWED. FOLLOWING THIS, A SAMPLE OF 24 IDEOLOGICAL PACS HEAVILY RELIANT ON DIRECT MAIL FUND RAISING WILL BE IDENTIFIED, AND THESE PACS' 1986 SENATE AND HOUSE CAMPAIGN SPENDING ARE COMPARED WITH CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURES BY NON-CONNECTED PACS AND ALL PACS GENERALLY. THESE SAMPLE PACS' CAMPAIGN SPENDING ARE EXAMINED FOR EVIDENCE OF AN ELECTORAL INFLUENCE STRATEGY. FINALLY, IMPLICATIONS FOR PAC ALLOCATIONS AND POLICY INFLUENCE ARE DISCUSSED.

INTRODUCTION: Dysbaric osteonecrosis (DON) in people working under increased atmospheric pressure is well documented. It is generally less common in military and commercial divers than in caisson workers, except in some high-risk groups, such as in many indigenous diving industries where workers have little or no understanding of decompression principles. With the increasing popularity within the recreational diving community of deep air and mixed-gas decompression diving ('technical diving'), it is likely that diving physicians may see an increase in the prevalence of DON in this group in the future. METHODS: The case report is presented of a technical diving instructor, with a 30-year history of deep diving, who developed bilateral humeral head DON and required a right shoulder hemi-arthroplasty. A focused literature search was also undertaken to identify published cases of DON in recreational divers. RESULTS: The frequency, duration and depth of exposure to pressure, inadequate decompression, the occurrence of DCS and increasing age have been common features associated with DON in both divers and caisson workers. Many of these features were present in this technical diver. CONCLUSIONS: Whilst DON is uncommon in recreational air scuba divers, all the above risk factors are present to a greater degree in technical diving. It is suggested that medical review for DON is merited from time to time in this potentially high-risk group of recreational divers.

A sequence of linear, monotonic, and nonmonotonic test problems is used to illustrate sampling‐based uncertainty and sensitivity analysis procedures. Uncertainty results obtained with replicated random and Latin hypercube samples are compared, with the Latin hypercube samples tending to produce more stable results than the random samples. Sensitivity results obtained with the following procedures and/or measures are illustrated and compared: correlation coefficients (CCs), rank correlation coefficients (RCCs), common means (CMNs), common locations (CLs), common medians (CMDs), statistical independence (SI), standardized regression coefficients (SRCs), partial correlation coefficients (PCCs), standardized rank regression coefficients (SRRCs), partial rank correlation coefficients (PRCCs), stepwise regression analysis with raw and rank‐transformed data, and examination of scatter plots. The effectiveness of a given procedure and/or measure depends on the characteristics of the individual test problems, with (1) linear measures (i.e., CCs, PCCs, SRCs) performing well on the linear test problems, (2) measures based on rank transforms (i.e., RCCs, PRCCs, SRRCs) performing well on the monotonic test problems, and (3) measures predicated on searches for nonrandom patterns (i.e., CMNs, CLs, CMDs, SI) performing well on the nonmonotonic test problems.