Comparison of Conflict of Interest Policies and Reported Practices in Academic Medical Centers in the United States

The authors reviewed the conflict of interest policies of 9 academic medical centers in the United States and interviewed members of the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and Conflict of Interest Committees (COICs) at those institutions. They found that many institutions used processes for reporting and managing conflicts of interest that were more decentralized than the processes described in their policies. Also, most institutions had no clear and comprehensive policy to guide investigators regarding disclosure of conflicts of interest to potential research participants. Considerable differences in understanding of conflict of interest policies were observed between IRB and COIC officials.     

The transnational lives and third space subjectivities of British Nigerian girls

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in 2012 on British Nigerian young women who have gone to boarding school in Nigeria and returned to attend university in the UK, I use the concept of third space as a heuristic device for understanding their transnational subjectivities and practices. I argue that, for some, this third space is a transgressive one in which they can craft alternative subjectivities and narratives about African culture and political economy. Applying insights from decolonial theory, I seek to build on the transgressive nature of this third space. In positioning themselves variously as Londoners, Nigerians, dual and post‐nationals, they express key features of contemporary transnational European subjectivities. Yet, parental expectations that they marry Nigerians and members of the Nigerian diaspora serve to reproduce the racial distinctions and nationalist rhetoric of colonial modernity that their third space subjectivities contest.     

How Distinctive Are Canadian Research Methods?*

l'auteure de cet article aborde la question de la spécificité des méthodologies de recherche canadiennes, en examinant d'abord les grands modeles de méthodologies utilisés dans les articles empiriques publiés dans les principales revues canadiennes à partir des années 1960, comment ils ont changé au cours des temps et comment ils ont différé chez les anglophones et les francophones du Canada. Elle examine aussi la question de l'influence américaine soulevée par le débat qui s'est tenu sur la canadianisation. Il en ressort qu'au cours des dernières années les différences dues à la spécificité des sexes qui traversent ces divisions nationales ont été les plus importantes. l'effet final est que le modèle canadien global a quelque chose en commun avec ceux enregistrés dans les autres pays, quoique, à un niveau plus circonstancié, il soit spécifiquement canadien ou québécois. Les raisons des similarités et des différences sont analysées. This paper addresses the question of the distinctiveness of Canadian research methods by looking first at the broad pattern of methods used in empirical articles published in leading Canadian journals from the 1960s, how these have changed over time, and how they have differed between Francophone and Anglophone Canada. Issues of U.S. influence raised by the earlier Canadianization debate are also addressed. It is found that, for the more recent period, gender differences that cut across these “national” divisions have been the more salient. The net effect is that the total Canadian pattern has something in common with that recorded for other countries, although at a more detailed level there are specifically Canadian or Québécois effects. Reasons for the similarities and differences are discussed.     

A Matter of Time: Examining Collective Memory in Historical Perspective in Postwar Berlin

Abstract  This article examines how officially designated memorial sites marking resistance to and persecution by the Nazi regime in Berlin have changed in the postwar era. Clearly the content of memorial culture changes over time. So, however, do the political and bureaucratic channels through which memorial landscapes themselves are created, and thus the avenues through which states (in this case the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic) construct landscapes of official collective memory. Such an analysis reveals not only the changes and continuities in the form and content of official representations, but also the changing relationship between a state, its people, and the collection of officially approved objects in the urban landscape designed to convey representations of a city's and a country's past. Looking closely at these intersections also makes clear that the landscape of official memorials must not be identical with collective memory understood more broadly.     

Evaluating the Use of Residential Mailing Addresses in a Metropolitan Household Survey

On-site enumeration is generally regarded as the most comprehensivemethod for developing sampling frames for area household surveys.However, the time and expense associated with on-site enumerationoften precludes it from being a viable option for many householdsurveys. Residential mailing lists provide an alternative thatenables in-person surveys to be done cheaper and faster thanis possible with on-site enumeration. The primary drawback ofmailing lists is that the completeness of the lists is unknown.In this article, we evaluate the coverage of mailing addressesthat were used as a sampling frame for a probability-based surveyof 15,000 households in Dallas County, TX. The addresses wereobtained from the Delivery Sequence File (DSF) offered by theU.S. Postal Service (USPS) through a nonexclusive license agreementwith private companies. The DSF is a computerized file thatcontains all delivery point addresses serviced by the USPS,with the exception of general delivery. To evaluate the coverageof the mailing addresses, we used Kish's Half-Open Interval(HOI) procedure to search for missed housing units in the intervalbetween the selected address and the next address in deliverysequence order. A total of 46 missed addresses (1.9 percent)were found among the 2,380 HOIs randomly selected for examination.In addition, we discovered that the vast majority of personswho maintained a residential P.O. box also have mail deliveredto their street address. Finally, the mailing addresses yieldeda 90 percent occupancy rate, which is consistent with metropolitanhousehold surveys that use on-site enumeration methods.     

Examining Factors Associated With Program Completion Among Women Participants in a Statewide Drug Court Program

The study purpose was to examine factors affecting women in completing drug court. Participants were 212 women drug court participants selected via stratified random sampling (by county) from the larger Kentucky Drug Court participant population. Various secondary data sources were used (e.g., participant assessment, Management Information System), and multivariate logistic regression examining 17 independent variables showed 4 variables were significantly associated with program completion for women: employment at program assessment, intravenous opiate use, number of times hospitalized for psychological or emotional problems, and conviction of a misdemeanor-eligible violent crime before drug court. Study findings can be used by social workers and other practitioners to better understand women’s drug court participation and to identify ways to tailor program services for women’s unique needs.