In this Keynote Address, the author challenges the public perception of the “balance of nature.” He discusses the trend toward increasing legislation to regulate pesticides and to protect our environment, including endangered species. He deems the most immediate challenges facing the pest control industry are in relation to the media, the public, and the various legislatures and regulatory entities. He notes that society’s perspective has become “almost entirely risk-oriented rather than benefit-oriented,” concerning such matters as pest control methods. He elaborates on this perspective, challenging those involved in pest control to be in communication with media representatives to convey factual information about the benefits of managing for the good of humans and the environment.

Housing counseling agencies (HCAs) in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area have served as important resources for homeowners at risk of foreclosure. However, Asian American–serving HCAs have experienced increased segmentation in the nonprofit sector and also among HCAs because of language assistance. Using interviews with foreclosure counselors, this study finds that HCAs that provide Asian-language assistance experience similar challenges as other HCAs, but are also at a disadvantage in resources and capacity compared to other HCAs. The study has implications for how to better serve immigrant homeowners with language needs, particularly because they require more time and resources.

There have been a growing number of partnerships between universities and nonprofits to conduct community-based research to understand important racial group disparities and develop community capacity. However, these relationships can be unbalanced and fraught with challenges. This resource paper offers a discussion of seven considerations that can assist university researchers in developing accountable and equitable partnerships. We also provide suggestions on how these steps may vary for Asian American and Pacific Islander groups and how to create mutually beneficial agreements that respect both parties and their goals.

We show how genetic algorithms can be used to evolve strategies in oligopolistic markets characterized by asymmetric competition. The approach is illustrated using scanner tracking data of brand actions in a real market. An asymmetric market-share model and a category-volume model are combined to represent market response to the actions of brand managers. The actions available to each artificial brand manager are constrained to four typical marketing actions of each from the historical data. Each brand's strategies evolve through simulations of repeated interactions in a virtual market, using the estimated weekly profits of each brand as measures of its fitness for the genetic algorithm. The artificial agents bred in this environment outperform the historical actions of brand managers in the real market. The implications of these findings for the study of marketing strategy are discussed.