Structural fund programmes as instruments for sustainable regional development a review of Nordic effectiveness1

The environmental reputation of the Nordic countries makes them an interesting example to study in relation to their efforts to incorporate sustainable development (SD) perspectives. In practice, Denmark, Finland and Sweden have achieved different rates of progress and effectiveness with regard to formulating SD as a national initiative. They also have differentiated experience of attempts to conceptualize sustainable regional development, and this is illustrated through six project examples with an associated diversity of approaches. Regarding the contribution of the Structural Funds to this momentum, examination of 11 operational Objective 1 and Objective 2 programmes indicates that environmental factors have been well integrated, but SD has not been accommodated. Rather than the funds acting as a catalyst for national versions of sustainable regional development, most Nordic Structural Fund partnerships would benefit from studying the innovative methods used in parallel regional economic initiatives.     

The contribution of ergonomics to risk analysis in the design process: the case of a future control room

The aim of this paper is to highlight how ergonomics contributes to risk analysis and risk management in a design project for a new reactor, the French EPR (European Pressurized Reactor). An iterative ergonomics design process has been conducted over the last 10 years through a Human Factors Engineering program at the French energy company EDF. A parallel has been drawn between a risk management process and this ergonomics process based on International Organization for Standardization (ISO) publications such as ISO/IEC Guide 73, ISO Guide 51, etc. The contribution of ergonomics to risk analysis is illustrated by an example: the automatic diagnosis, which is a very important technical device for safety. Five main types of risk have been identified via ergonomic analyses during the different design stages. Counter-measures have been implemented and their efficacy tested within the scope of new campaigns to assess human factors. However, the management of risks in such a design project requires the participation both of the different design entities involved in the project and of other experts in aspects of risk management, such as human reliability. The organization of collaborative participation remains a challenge to be addressed.     

REWARDS, EXPERIENCE AND DECISION COSTS IN FIRST PRICE AUCTIONS

Consistent with a model of asymmetric risk aversion, subjects in first price auctions consistently bid above the risk neutral Nash prediction. It has been argued that this is due to low opportunity cost of deviating from the risk neutral bid. We increase opportunity cost (and payoff levels) by factors of 0, 1, 5, 10, and 20, from the normal levels generating payoffs up to $250 for risk neutral subjects and observe an insignificant increase in the slope of individual bid functions. The RMSE of bids declines significantly. This is consistent with a reward/decision cost model of bidding behavior.     

DHM simulation in virtual environments: a case-study on control room design

This paper will present the workflow developed for the application of serious games in the design of complex cooperative work settings. The project was based on ergonomic studies and development of a control room among participative design process. Our main concerns were the 3D human virtual representation acquired from 3D scanning, human interaction, workspace layout and equipment designed considering ergonomics standards. Using Unity3D platform to design the virtual environment, the virtual human model can be controlled by users on dynamic scenario in order to evaluate the new work settings and simulate work activities. The results obtained showed that this virtual technology can drastically change the design process by improving the level of interaction between final users and, managers and human factors team.     

Gambling activities of young Australians: developing a model of behaviour

As more gambling venues open in Australia, youth gambling as problem behaviour has been identified. The aim of this study was to assess youth gambling in a population with easy access to gambling, and to evaluate the adequacy of a model for predicting adolescent gambling frequency and problem gambling. The model comprised a combination of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), personality variables (venturesomeness, impulsiveness), and cognitive bias variables derived from Weinstein's (1980) propositions concerning unrealistic optimism about future life events. A sample of 1017 school- and university-based adolescents indicated relatively low frequencies of gambling and low scores on the problem gambling scale, with males scoring higher than females on both measures. The TRA was supported with about 30% of the variance of each of gambling behaviour and problem gambling accounted for by intentions, attitudes, and subjective norms. Personality factors added significantly to the prediction of gambling. The cognitive bias variables, although independently not statistically significant, further contributed to prediction.     

Vegetation type alters water and nitrogen budgets in a controlled,replicated experiment on residential-sized rain gardens planted with prairie,shrub, and turfgrass

Vegetation type alters surface hydrology and nitrogen (N) cycling by partitioning evapotranspiration (ET) and drainage, but has not been fully utilized for this purpose in the design of urban rain gardens. Replicated treatments of three vegetation types (prairie, shrub, and turfgrass) commonly planted in rain gardens, as well as bare soil (control), were evaluated 1 year after establishment in 12, free-drainage bioretention cells designed to specifications for residential rain gardens in the Midwestern United States. Water and N budgets were calculated to assess differences in ET, drainage, soil moisture, and N transport following three stormwater applications in July, August, and October of 2006. Evaporative demand was also estimated as potential or reference ET during the study period using Hamon, Priestley-Taylor, and FAO Penman-Monteith models. Results show that after 1 year of establishment, vegetation type changed the water budgets of rain gardens thus altering their provisioning of ecosystem services via observed tradeoffs between daytime evaporative cooling (ET), stormwater storage, N-load reduction, soil and plant N retention, and groundwater recharge (drainage). Vegetation effects on hydrology and N transport were most significant when evaporative demand was high during the middle of the growing season. Observed changes in ET, drainage, soil moisture, and N transport support the incorporation of different vegetation types into conceptual and numerical models of rain gardens to assess ecological outcomes and tradeoffs at a variety of spatiotemporal scales.     

Associations Among Attachment Style,Burnout, and Compassion Fatigue in Health and Human Service Workers: A Systematic Review

Health and human service workers are at risk for developing burnout or compassion fatigue due to the demanding nature of their work. Attachment theory makes specific predictions that may help explain why some workers experience burnout or compassion fatigue and others do not. The purpose of this systematic review is to identify and attempt to explain patterns and inconsistencies in results across studies that have examined the association between adult attachment style and burnout or compassion fatigue. Ten studies representing a diverse range of disciplines within the health and human service sectors were included in the research synthesis. The findings demonstrated consistent results for secure and anxious attachment, suggesting that attachment security is associated with lower levels of burnout, whereas attachment anxiety is associated with higher levels of burnout. Some studies found an association between avoidant attachment and burnout, whereas others did not. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the selection, training, and supervision of health and human service workers.     

Addressing Elder Abuse: The Waterloo Restorative Justice Approach to Elder Abuse Project

The Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) of Waterloo Region, in partnership with a number of other social service agencies, designed and implemented a restorative justice model applicable to older adults who have been abused by an individual in a position of trust. The project was very successful in building partnerships, as many community agencies came together to deal with the problem of elder abuse. The program also raised the profile of elder abuse in the community. However, despite intensive efforts, referrals to the restorative justice program were quite low. Because of this, the program moved to a new organizational model, the Elder Abuse Response Team (EART), which has retained the guiding philosophy of restorative justice but has broadened the mandate. The team has evolved into a conflict management system that has multiple points of entry for cases and multiple options for dealing with elder abuse. The team has developed a broad range of community partners who can facilitate referrals to the EART and also can help to provide an individualized response to each case. The transition to the EART has been successful, and the number of referrals has increased significantly.     

Addressing elder abuse: the Waterloo restorative justice approach to elder abuse project

The Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) of Waterloo Region, in partnership with a number of other social service agencies, designed and implemented a restorative justice model applicable to older adults who have been abused by an individual in a position of trust. The project was very successful in building partnerships, as many community agencies came together to deal with the problem of elder abuse. The program also raised the profile of elder abuse in the community. However, despite intensive efforts, referrals to the restorative justice program were quite low. Because of this, the program moved to a new organizational model, the Elder Abuse Response Team (EART), which has retained the guiding philosophy of restorative justice but has broadened the mandate. The team has evolved into a conflict management system that has multiple points of entry for cases and multiple options for dealing with elder abuse. The team has developed a broad range of community partners who can facilitate referrals to the EART and also can help to provide an individualized response to each case. The transition to the EART has been successful, and the number of referrals has increased significantly.     

Evaluating positive leadership: pilot study on the psychometric properties of a reduced version of the Positive Leadership Assessment Scale / Evaluando el liderazgo positivo: estudio piloto de las propiedades psicométricas de una versión reducida del Positive Leadership Assessment Scale

Positive leadership is considered a fundamental factor which contributes significantly to the development of healthy organizations. Positive leadership has been address via other leadership models, primarily transformational and authentic leadership, with which some affinities have been established. Although there is a large body of literature on positive leadership, especially related to its practical aspects, the construct is not properly delimited and there are only a few relevant contributions on how to measure it. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a pilot study to examine the psychometric properties of a reduced version of the PLAS (Positive Leadership Assessment Scale). Results from a confirmatory factorial analysis show that a five-correlated factors model achieves a good fit with the empirical data (on a sample of Spanish students). Likewise, this study also offers a range of evidence of validity, showing a relationship with the constructs of both transformational and authentic leadership and engagement.     

Comparison of the Sexual Well-Being of Individuals with and Without a Herpes and/or Human Papillomavirus Infection Diagnosis

ABSTRACT. This study compared individuals with and without herpes and/or human papillomavirus (HPV) on several aspects of sexual well-being. We also investigated whether gender and relationship status moderated these relationships. Participants were 183 individuals with herpes and HPV and 299 without a diagnosis who completed measures of sexual activity, sexual concerns, and sexual cognitive–affective factors. Individuals with herpes and HPV reported being less sexually satisfied and were more likely to experience a distressing sexual problem than were those with no sexually transmitted infections. However, they reported high-quality sexual well-being overall and, contrary to prediction, reported more positive sexual well-being compared with individuals without a diagnosis on some dimensions. Outcomes were largely the same regardless of gender and relationship status. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of examining a broad range of factors related to sexuality to understand the potential impact of herpes and HPV on sexual well-being.     

Ethical dilemmas in social problems research: A theoretical framework

Interest in ethical issues in social science has increased greatly in recent years. However, no comprehensive framework for the prediction and elimination of ethical dilemmas has been presented in the literature. This paper first analyzes reasons for increased interest in ethical issues, and then presents a broad framework for prediction and analysis of ethical problems. This framework is based on exchange theory, and shows the interdependencies between five “publics” in the research process: sponsors, researchers, subjects, the media, and the general public. The model also utilizes the sociological concepts of role of each public, the configuration of ascribed and achieved status, and norm abeyance. The primary exchange concepts used are cost, benefit, and trust. The model is illustrated with four actual research projects where ethical dilemmas occurred, and is found to be predictive of ethical problems if there are great disparities in cost/benefit ratios between subjects and researchers or sponsors, if there is great discrepancy between the status of the subjects and the researchers or sponsors, and if the researchers engage in norm abeyance. the author ofMethods of Social Research and numerous articles on research methods. Bailey also is interested in theory and ecology. This research was partially funded by UCLA Senate Research Committee Grant #2884.     

Measuring the Unmeasurable—A Study of Domestic Violence Risk Prediction and Management

ABSTRACT

The prevention of domestic violence (DV) have aroused serious concerns in Taiwan because of the disparity between the increasing amount of reported DV cases that doubled over the past decade and the scarcity of social workers. However, most common collaborations for DV prevention, between academic researchers and advocacy groups or governments outsourcing, often fail to produce effective prevention strategies. Hence, Data for Social Good Initiative (D4SG) worked with Taipei City Government to improve the efficiency of DV prevention and risk management on two levels—project collaboration level and data level. On the project collaboration level, we adopted a platform strategy and utilize public-private partnership (PPP) to connect and empower change agents across data silos from pilot runs to actual project execution. On the data level, we helped social workers differentiate the risk level of new cases by building a repeat victimization risk prediction model using random forest method with the 2015 data from Taipei City government’s DV database. The accuracy and F1-measure of our model were 96.3% and 62.8%. This projects’ PPP approach and quantification method successfully improved DV prevention process. These methodologies have also been applied to other work fields including firework prediction, emergency healthcare management as a paradigm.     

Bivariate pointing movements on large touch screens: investigating the validity of a refined Fitts' Law

On the basis of three empirical studies Fitts' Law was refined for bivariate pointing tasks on large touch screens. In the first study different target width parameters were investigated. The second study considered the effect of the motion angle. Based on the results of the two studies a refined model for movement time in human-computer interaction was formulated. A third study, which is described here in detail, concerns the validation of the refined model. For the validation study 20 subjects had to execute a bivariate pointing task on a large touch screen. In the experimental task 250 rectangular target objects were displayed at a randomly chosen position on the screen covering a broad range of ID values (ID= [1.01; 4.88]). Compared to existing refinements of Fitts' Law, the new model shows highest predictive validity. A promising field of application of the model is the ergonomic design and evaluation of project management software. By using the refined model, software designers can calculate a priori the appropriate angular position and the size of buttons, menus or icons.     

Researching the Social Impact of Arts and Disability: Applying a New Empirical Tool and Method

This paper has a twofold focus: to establish a method of assessing the potential social impact of arts and disability projects and to apply this method to ten such projects. It does so by using a newly developed ‘ripple’ model that conceptualises social impact in terms of the development of active citizenship on the part of all participants over time. The model identifies ten factors (programme activity, welcoming, belonging, programme social values, individual social values, programme networks, individual networks, skills and creativity, programme wider social impact, and individual wider social impact) which evolve through four progressive stages. The original model is empirically adapted for application to arts and disability projects. Qualitative data were collected in the form of interviews, surveys and media reports across ten case studies, each representing a major arts and disability project offering a professional outcome for an external audience. The qualitative data were coded to provide a simple scoring tool for each case. The results support the application of the model in this context. Furthermore, findings indicate three critical conditions which enable projects to generate considerable positive social impact beyond the individual; ensemble in nature; project embeddedness; and networks and partnerships.     

Exploring user experience and technology acceptance for a fall prevention system: results from a randomized clinical trial and a living lab

Background

Falls are common in older adults and can result in serious injuries. Due to demographic changes, falls and related healthcare costs are likely to increase over the next years. Participation and motivation of older adults in fall prevention measures remain a challenge. The iStoppFalls project developed an information and communication technology (ICT)-based system for older adults to use at home in order to reduce common fall risk factors such as impaired balance and muscle weakness. The system aims at increasing older adults’ motivation to participate in ICT-based fall prevention measures. This article reports on usability, user-experience and user-acceptance aspects affecting the use of the iStoppFalls system by older adults.

Methods

In the course of a 16-week international multicenter study, 153 community-dwelling older adults aged 65+ participated in the iStoppFalls randomized controlled trial, of which half used the system in their home to exercise and assess their risk of falling. During the study, 60 participants completed questionnaires regarding the usability, user experience and user acceptance of the iStoppFalls system. Usability was measured with the System Usability Scale (SUS). For user experience the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale (PACES) was applied. User acceptance was assessed with the Dynamic Acceptance Model for the Re-evaluation of Technologies (DART). To collect more detailed data on usability, user experience and user acceptance, additional qualitative interviews and observations were conducted with participants.

Results

Participants evaluated the usability of the system with an overall score of 62 (Standard Deviation, SD 15.58) out of 100, which suggests good usability. Most users enjoyed the iStoppFalls games and assessments, as shown by the overall PACES score of 31 (SD 8.03). With a score of 0.87 (SD 0.26), user acceptance results showed that participants accepted the iStoppFalls system for use in their own home. Interview data suggested that certain factors such as motivation, complexity or graphical design were different for gender and age.

Conclusions

The results suggest that the iStoppFalls system has good usability, user experience and user acceptance. It will be important to take these along with factors such as motivation, gender and age into consideration when designing and further developing ICT-based fall prevention systems.

     

Shoplifters of the World Unite! Law and Culture in Financialized Times

The last two decades have seen significant growth and change in the character of the interactions between working-class households and financial markets. Individuals and households are bearing more and more of the risks that were once managed by governments and employers, and financial markets have developed a vast range of products to facilitate that risk transfer. This has put households at the centre of financial innovation, requiring the extension of regulation and consumer protection into a whole new suite of financial products and a project of financial literacy and advice. Along with this financial development and its associated regulatory demands has come a new cultural project of capital seeking to normalize the expanded integration of individuals and households into capital's frontiers of accumulation. The project invites and invokes new forms of subjectivity (and subjugation) on the part of households. The developmental project required of state regulatory regimes is increasingly articulating not just a discourse of financial literacy but subordination to the individualism and discipline implicit in financial calculation. Contrary to its conception as spontaneous and individualist, this is an intentional and universalizing project of producing and managing labour's financial risks. In the collective self-management of these risks, the household is now not just a site of risk absorption; it is a major source of investment products (and, therefore, at the frontier of accumulation). Increasingly also, in the name of financial stability, households – not just those reliant on state support – are becoming subjects of surveillance and administration in their internal financial functioning. It is these dual aspects of households as both consumers and producers of financial claims that give materiality to conceptual and historical claims about the financialization of everyday life.     

Chlamydia trachomatis infection in a male college student population

Male university students were studied to evaluate the merit of routine screening for chlamydia urethritis. Two hundred fourteen sexually active male students answered a questionnaire about symptoms of urethritis and exposure to and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). All subjects were screened for chlamydia by enzyme immunoassay (Chlamydiazyme, Abbott Laboratories). Overall, Chlamydiazyme was positive in 42 of 214 subjects (19.6%). Eighty-six subjects had no symptoms and no history of untreated exposure to STD; 6 of these had positive Chlamydiazyme assays. Based on our results, we conclude that the proportion of male urethral chlamydia infections that are asymptomatic may be much higher than has previously been believed. We further conclude that asymptomatic sexually active male students on this campus are a high-risk population for whom routine chlamydia screening is appropriate.     

Adolescent Psychological Well‐being,Radicalism, and Activism: The Mediating Role of Social Disconnectedness and the Illegitimacy of the Authorities

The identification of factors that counter youth’s radicalization while promoting democratic activism is a timely social issue. This paper examines the association of psychological well‐being (PWB) with violent radicalism and nonviolent activism, by focusing on the mediating role of both social disconnectedness (SD) and the perceived illegitimacy of the authorities (PIoA). Two mediation structural equation models (full vs. partial) were applied to data collected from 328 Italian adolescents (14–19 years). The results showed how SD and PIoA fully mediated the link of PWB with radicalism (negatively) and activism (positively). This model was further supported when compared with an alternative one proposing PWB as a mediator between SD and PIoA. The findings are discussed in light of the existing literature and provide potential implications for practice.     

An Evaluation of a Community Collaboration Approach to Psychosocial Rehabilitation

ABSTRACT

This article reports on the results of a multiagency collaboration demonstration project that was designed to replicate the salient features of an exemplary practice, single-agency program of psychosocial rehabilitation for persons with serious mental illness (SMI). The community collaboration extended over two phases for 2 years and involved over 20 mental health service providers. The demonstration project itself was designed to be a replication of the Village Integrated Services Agency (Village ISA) of Long Beach, California. Additionally, this article reports the results of a rigorous evaluation of the project. The treatment group outcomes were substantially superior to all control group measures at or beyond the 0.05 level of significance. With due regard for limitations imposed by a small sample size (n = 50), the project demonstrates that the replicated model of intervention can be effectively implemented through a collaborative organizational structure involving a coalition of agency service providers.