Teaching Ethical Aptitude to Graduate Student Researchers

Limited time dedicated to each training areas, irrelevant case-studies, and ethics “checklists” have resulted in bare-bones Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training for present biomedical graduate student researchers. Here, we argue that science graduate students be taught classical ethical theory, such as virtue ethics, consequentialist theory, and deontological theory, to provide a basic framework to guide researchers through ethically complex situations and examine the applicability, implications, and societal ramifications of their research. Using a relevant biomedical research example to illustrate this point, we argue that proper ethics training for graduate student researchers not only will enhance current RCR training, but train more creative, responsible scientists.     

Book reviews

Disputed Histories: Imagining New Zealand's Pasts edited by Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney. University of Otago Press, Dunedin. 2006. 283 p. NZ$49.95 (paperback). ISBN 1877276161.

Historical Frictions: Maori Claims and Reinvented Histories by Michael Belgrave. Auckland University Press, Auckland. 2005. 388 p. NZ$49.95 (paperback). ISBN 1869403207.

New Zealand Identities: Departures and Destinations edited by James H Liu, Tim McCreanor, Tracey McIntosh, and Teresia Teaiwa. Victoria University Press, Wellington. 2005. 304 p. NZ$39.95 (paperback). ISBN 0864735170.

Revolution: The 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand, edited by Melanie Nolan. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch. 2006. 320 p. NZ$34.95 (paperback). ISBN 1877257400.

Sexuality Down Under: Social And Historical Perspectives edited by Allison Kirk‐man and Pat Moloney. University of Otago Press, Dunedin. 2006. 301 p. NZ$39.95 (paperback). ISBN 1877372102.

Geographies of Globalization by Warwick E. Murray. Routledge, London and New York. 2006. 392 p. NZ$69.95 (paperback). ISBN 0415317991.     

Estimating historic population data for small geographies using census housing information

Historical population data for small geographies (e.g. blocks, block-groups, and census tracts) are not available for periods earlier than 1980. In this research note, we propose a geographically-constrained housing unit method (GHUM) to estimate historic population for small geographies using housing age data available in the 1980–2000 censuses. The GHUM is a two-stage method. The first stage follows a traditional housing unit method and provides initial household and group quarter population estimates for small geographies. The second stage takes advantage of the availability of historic data for larger geographies (e.g. counties, states) to adjust the first stage estimates and to provide final estimates. The GHUM is used to estimate 1940–1990 county population and census tract population in Kentucky. The quality of the population estimates is assessed. A two-sample Kolmogorov–Smirnov test indicates that these estimates are statistically reliable at the 10 % significance level.     

Allocation rules for cooperative games with restricted communication and a priori unions based on the Myerson value and the average tree solution

We consider cooperatives games (TU-games) enriched by a system of a priori unions and a communication forest graph which are independent from each other. These two structures reflect the limitations of cooperation possibilities. In this framework, we introduce four Owen-type allocation rules, which are defined by a two-step application of an allocation rule à la Owen (in: Henn R, Moeschlin O (eds) Essays in mathematical economics and game theory, Springer, Berlin, 1977) to TU-games with a priori unions where the TU-game is replaced by Myerson’s (Math Oper Res 2:225–229, 1977) graph-restricted TU-game. The four possibilities arise by applying, at each step, either the Myerson value (Myerson 1977) or the average tree solution (Herings et al. in Games Econ Behav 62:77–92, 2008). Our main result offers comparable axiomatizations of these four allocation rules.

     

Effects of Video-Guided Group vs. Solitary Meditation on Mindfulness and Social Connectivity: A Pilot Study

Clinical Social Work Journal - Interest in mindfulness meditation continues to grow as accumulating evidence suggests mindfulness training encourages more positive functioning. However, basic...     

Causes,effects and mitigation of unreliable healthcare supplies

This study investigates the means by which hospitals can improve the reliability of their medical supply value streams. Field research involving pharmacy supplies in eight Australasian public sector hospitals utilised a rigorous, multi-method data collection procedure based around the uncertainty circle model. Value stream maturity, performance inhibitors and pathways to effective improvement are explored. The high levels of value stream uncertainty detected are commonly the result of process immaturity and poor inter-functional integration. Chief among the common root causes is failure by the executive to acknowledge the strategic value of medical supplies management, which ultimately leads to higher materials cost and increased risk of a medical mishap. The study demonstrates how managers can use systems thinking and a context-free performance benchmark to identify effective interventions and potentially transferable best practices.     

Stochastic Model Specification Search for Time-Varying Parameter VARs

This article develops a new econometric methodology for performing stochastic model specification search (SMSS) in the vast model space of time-varying parameter vector autoregressions (VARs) with stochastic volatility and correlated state transitions. This is motivated by the concern of overfitting and the typically imprecise inference in these highly parameterized models. For each VAR coefficient, this new method automatically decides whether it is constant or time-varying. Moreover, it can be used to shrink an otherwise unrestricted time-varying parameter VAR to a stationary VAR, thus providing an easy way to (probabilistically) impose stationarity in time-varying parameter models. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach with a topical application, where we investigate the dynamic effects of structural shocks in government spending on U.S. taxes and gross domestic product (GDP) during a period of very low interest rates.     

Multivariate testing and model-checking for generalized order statistics with applications

The exponential family structure of the joint distribution of generalized order statistics is utilized to establish multivariate tests on the model parameters. For simple and composite null hypotheses, the likelihood ratio test (LR test), Wald's test, and Rao's score test are derived and turn out to have simple representations. The asymptotic distribution of the corresponding test statistics under the null hypothesis is stated, and, in case of a simple null hypothesis, asymptotic optimality of the LR test is addressed. Applications of the tests are presented; in particular, we discuss their use in reliability, and to decide whether a Poisson process is homogeneous. Finally, a power study is performed to measure and compare the quality of the tests for both, simple and composite null hypotheses.     

A comparative study on production ramp-up: state-of-the-art and new challenges

In the context of globalisation, the companies are urged to innovate the products and the services they provide to their customers, in order to keep their competitive edge. New product introduction in an already existing production environment generates numerous perturbations to handle in the supply chain and operations management during the production ramp-up. The purpose of this article is to present a thorough state of the art on the production ramp-up. Different overviews of the research body are given: comparing definitions, characteristics and problems of the ramp-up phase, classifying research papers according to their industrial context and organising them in different classifications (by keywords, focus extent …). Interesting issues that could be addressed in future research about the production ramp-up phase are identified.