Measuring the impact of the Web: Rasch modelling for survey evaluation

In 2012, the World Wide Web Foundation launched for the first time the Web Index (WI), which combines the existing secondary data with new primary data to rank countries according to their progress and use of the Web. Primary data are gathered via a multi-country specifically designed questionnaire. The aim of our analysis is (1) to evaluate the measurement properties of the expert assessment survey and to provide survey designers with some insights into possible problematic questions and/or unexpectedly behaving countries and (2) to assess the experts’ perception of the state and the value of the Web. To do so the Rating Scale Rasch model is employed. Results show that about 10% of survey questions are detected as misfitting and need to be reworded. Possible reasons are: counter-orientation with respect to the WI polarity, difficulty in understanding the question's words or binary instead of the multiple response scale. Country analysis shows that no country can be considered as an outlier due to notable unexpected pattern of answers. Since the survey is to be expanded in future editions of the WI, the results of our analysis are very important in pin-pointing the questions most in need of refinement for the next edition of the Index.     

Ecological lands for conservation of vascular plant diversity in the urban environment

Conservation of biodiversity in urban areas has become crucial to urban green area management. There are several legislative solutions for preservation of species and habitats in cities. One of them is ‘ecological lands’ – a low-restrictive form of protected areas in Poland. We aimed to assess their efficiency in vascular flora biodiversity conservation in the urban environment in Poznań (W Poland; 550,000 inhabitants). We hypothesized that ecological lands which cover <2% of the city area comprise over 50% of taxonomic diversity and over 90% of functional trait-level range of the vascular flora. Analysis of five ecological lands, which covered 1.8% of the whole city area confirmed our hypothesis. In ecological lands studied, we found 564 species of vascular plants, which is 52.9% of the whole city flora. These species belonged to 23 of 29 phytosociological classes represented in the whole city (73.9%). Functional trait distributions in ecological lands studied comprised from 95.8 to 100% of trait distributions in the flora of the whole city. Ecological lands seem to be a good way for conservation of biodiversity in urban areas. The legislative simplicity and low restrictiveness for both land management and recreational utility make ecological lands a much easier form of nature conservation which may be adapted to other cities for more efficient biodiversity management.     

Twice as Smart? The Importance of Managers’ Formative‐Years’ International Experience for their International Orientation and Foreign Acquisition Decisions

This study examined how top management team's (TMT) international orientation influences perceptions of environmental uncertainty and how these perceptions impact international strategic decisions, in particular regarding ownership stakes taken in foreign acquisitions. We highlighted the need for the concept of TMT international orientation to encompass executives’ formative‐years’ international experiences along with their international career experiences and nationalities. Empirical tests based on a sample of 2122 international acquisitions completed by 561 UK firms over the period 1999–2008 showed that TMT international orientation positively moderated the negative impact of cultural differences and host country risk on acquisition ownership stakes. The results underscored the importance of considering decision‐makers’ attributes due to their experiences at a young age, beyond their demographic characteristics or professional experience, in the context of international strategic choices. We also discussed some implications of one of the possible consequences of executives’ formative international experience, namely biculturalism, for international business.     

Research Review: Risk and resilience in cases of emotional abuse

This paper examines risk and resilience in relation to emotional abuse. Research has identified numerous child and family factors that may increase the risk of emotional abuse occurring and has also identified numerous ways in which an experience of emotional abuse can enhance vulnerability to negative outcomes. However, relatively little is known about the factors that determine the extent to which an experience of emotional abuse predicts later psychosocial functioning. Factors that may determine risk and resilience in children who experience emotional abuse are discussed. These include predisposing factors such as early caregiving experiences; precipitating factors such as the frequency, intensity and duration of the abuse; factors intrinsic to the child such as working models of the self and others, internal or external attributions, behavioural and coping strategies, self‐esteem, and disposition; and external factors such as school and availability of supportive relationships. The need to pay attention to the particular vulnerabilities and protective factors pertaining to each emotionally abused child in order to most effectively enhance resilience is highlighted.     

An Empirical Study into the Psychosocial Reactions of Staff Working as Helpers to those Affected in the Aftermath of two Traumatic Incidents

Correspondence to Professor Dorota Iwaniec, Institute of Child Care Research, Queen's University Belfast, 5a Lennoxvale, Belfast BT9 5BY, Northern Ireland, UK. Summary This paper will address the outcome of the first empirical studyon the psychosocial impact on four groups of professional staffinvolved as helpers in the aftermath of two major incidents.The two incidents selected were the Kegworth Air disaster thatoccurred in the East Midlands area of England in 1989 and aterrorist bombing on the Shankill Road Belfast, Northern Ireland(NI) in 1993. The four groups of staff chosen for the research,both in England and Northern Ireland, were social workers, ambulancepersonnel, accident and emergency nurses and clergy. The policyand practice implications of the study were used to developa training programme for those who have to cope with traumain their workplace. The need for such training was based onthe hypothesis that pre-training will help to ameliorate anynegative reactions that may be experienced by the helpers. Theresults from both incidents were compared to highlight the impactof the work on helpers working with victims from a single incidenttrauma and in a situation where there was multiple incidenttraumatization.     

Maternal mental health and faltering growth in infants

This study reports on the first phase of a large‐scale, longitudinal, multidisciplinary community study examining the growth, learning and development of young children with a particular focus on failure to thrive without organic cause. However, the group identified in this study may be better described as weight faltering. This paper examines the psychological data collected using the Parenting Stress Index, Rosenberg Self‐Esteem and the General Health Questionnaire in relation to child growth. There were no significant differences between the mothers of the weight faltering and control children in terms of parenting stress, maternal depression, maternal perceptions of their parenting competence or maternal self‐esteem. Maternal sensitivity to comments about child size, regardless of direction, had a negative impact on mood. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Egalitarian property for power indices

In this study, we introduce and examine the Egalitarian property for some power indices on the class of simple games. This property means that after intersecting a game with a symmetric or anonymous game the difference between the values of two comparable players does not increase. We prove that the Shapley–Shubik index, the absolute Banzhaf index, and the Johnston score satisfy this property. We also give counterexamples for Holler, Deegan–Packel, normalized Banzhaf and Johnston indices. We prove that the Egalitarian property is a stronger condition for efficient power indices than the Lorentz domination.     

The Quality of Parenting of Individuals Who had Failed to Thrive as Children

Correspondence to Professor Dorota Iwaniec or Dr Helga Sneddon, Institute of Child Care Research, The Queen's University of Belfast, 5a Lennoxvale, Belfast BT9 5BY, UK. E-mail: d.iwaniec{at}qub.ac.uk, h.sneddon{at}qub.ac.uk Summary Parenting behaviour is determined by a range of factors includingpersonality, psychopathology, values, social support, childcharacteristics and socio-cultural influences. It has also beensuggested that an individual's style of child-rearing is influencedby the style of parenting that they experienced as children.The relationships between children who fail-to-thrive and theirparents are often characterized by interactional difficulties.Previous research using retrospective accounts suggested thatmothers of children who fail-to-thrive for non-organic reasonsthemselves showed high levels of abuse, neglect, and deprivationduring their childhoods. However, to date no one has investigatedprospectively what kinds of parents failure-to-thrive individualsbecome. This paper examines the parenting experiences of individualswho had received psychosocial intervention for their non-organicfailure-to-thrive as children over 20 years ago. Results suggestthat where initial intervention failed to bring about long-termchanges in family interactional patterns, there was a greaterincidence of failure-to-thrive in the next generation. Thesefamilies were characterized by dissatisfaction with the child,high levels of stress associated with the parenting role, andlow levels of social support. However, where the family environmentin the original study had changed substantially, the formerclients' outcomes were more positive with their own children.These parents tended to find interaction with their childrenmore rewarding, had good support networks and low levels ofstress. The characteristics of particular cases are discussedin detail to illustrate differences between these two groupsof individuals.