Human Health Risk Assessment of Penicillin/Aminopenicillin Resistance in Enterococci Due to Penicillin Use in Food Animals

Penicillin and ampicillin drugs are approved for use in food animals in the United States to treat, control, and prevent diseases, and penicillin is approved for use to improve growth rates in pigs and poultry. This article considers the possibility that such uses might increase the incidence of ampicillin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (AREF) of animal origin in human infections, leading to increased hospitalization and mortality due to reduced response to ampicillin or penicillin. We assess the risks from continued use of penicillin-based drugs in food animals in the United States, using several assumptions to overcome current scientific uncertainties and data gaps. Multiplying the total at-risk population of intensive care unit (ICU) patients by a series of estimated factors suggests that not more than 0.04 excess mortalities per year (under conservative assumptions) to 0.14 excess mortalities per year (under very conservative assumptions) might be prevented in the whole U.S. population if current use of penicillin drugs in food animals were discontinued and if this successfully reduced the prevalence of AREF infections among ICU patients. These calculations suggest that current penicillin usage in food animals in the United States presents very low (possibly zero) human health risks.     

Institutionalization or Decoupling? An Exploratory Analysis of the UN Global Compact LEAD Initiative

Institutionalization occurs when organizations adopt policies and practices in an attempt to increase their legitimacy and competitive position. This process assumes that an organization's formal policies (macro‐level) are translated into organizational practices (micro‐level). This translation, however, can fail to occur, resulting in organizational decoupling and de‐institutionalization. Drawing on an institutionalization typology based on different levels of legitimacy (macro) and taken‐for‐grantedness (micro), the article draws on data from an assessment of the United Nations Global Compact LEAD initiative, assessing the extent to which this initiative is being institutionalized in the member firms and examining the implications for the LEAD initiative and our thinking about institutionalization.     

Ferment in LGBT studies and queer theory: personal ruminations on contested terrain

The tensions between queer and gay rights theorists, not surprisingly, have grown as queer theory has developed and matured. In this self-reflexive essay, the "contested terrain" between these distinct perspectives is explored, particularly within the discipline of communication studies. The assumptions of queer theory are summarized briefly, and the author takes an autoethnographic approach to demonstrate the constant interplay between lived experience and the basic assumptions of queer theory. The author challenges both LGBT theorists and queer theorists to always consider the implications of their theories and practices.     

Opting out of workers’ compensation: Non-subscription in Texas and its effects

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty - Texas is the only state that does not mandate that employers carry workers’ compensation (WC) insurance coverage. In place of traditional WC, companies can...     

An extended semiparametric model for short-term and long-term hazard ratios

In survival analysis, one way to deal with non-proportional hazards is to model short-term and long-term hazard ratios. The existing model of this nature has no control over how fast the hazard ratio is changing over time. We add a parameter to the existing model to allow the hazard ratio to change over time at different speed. A nonparametric maximum likelihood approach is used to estimate the model parameters. The existing model is a special case of the extended model when the speed parameter is 0, which leads naturally to a way of testing the adequacy of the existing model. Simulation results show that there can be substantial bias in the estimation of the short-term and long-term hazard ratio if the speed parameter is fixed incorrectly at 0 rather than estimated. The extended model is fitted to three real data sets to shed new insights, including the observation that converging hazards does not necessarily imply the odds are proportional.     

Personality and Sexual Orientation: Extension to Asexuality and the HEXACO Model

Previous research has examined self-identified sexual orientation in relation to self-reports on the Big Five personality factors. Here we extend this research by including asexuality as a fourth sexual orientation and by assessing the HEXACO personality factors, using self-report data from a large anonymous online sample (N ≈ 100,000). A large overlap was observed among all sexual orientation groups on all six HEXACO dimensions, but notable group differences also emerged. All nonheterosexual groups, particularly bisexual people, averaged higher in openness to experience than did heterosexuals. Heterosexual men averaged much lower in emotionality than heterosexual women, but only a small difference was observed between gay men and lesbians on this dimension. Asexual men and women averaged lower in extraversion and in some facets of emotionality (specifically, dependence and sentimentality) than did the other sexual orientation groups of the same sex. Results are discussed in relation to the different social realities that each sexual orientation group often experiences, along with the (gender-related) developmental influences hypothesized to underlie in part the origins of sexual orientation.     

Exploring types of interference between work and non-work: using a diary study approach

Studies of work and family issues have used predominately between-subject cross-sectional designs. While some researchers have called for more longitudinal studies, others have suggested that a more strategic way forward for the field is the use of daily diary studies (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992). This study explores different types of interference between work and non-work domains, using a diary study methodology. This study consisted of a two-week diary study among 12 Irish employees. Analysis involved a two-step procedure involving both content analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results indicated that while individuals reported strain-based and time-based interference, evidence was also found of interference concerning persistent and intrusive thoughts. Despite some limitations to the study, this paper demonstrates that diary studies represent an opportunity for researchers to explore work and non-work experiences in a sensitive and ecologically valid way.