Work/Care Regimes: Institutions,Culture and Behaviour and the Australian Case

Increasingly around the industrialized world, labour markets rely upon the paid work of women, many of whom have dependents. Such changing patterns of paid work by women — and by men — are located within work/care regimes that are more or less hostile to the needs of paid workers who care for others. This article sets out a model of work/care regimes and locates the Australian case within international and historical contexts. In Australia, the unchanging normative male worker archetype dominates institutions of work and care, while the cultures of motherhood and fatherhood remain stoically resistant to renovation. In the meantime, the behaviour of working women runs ahead of these unchanging cultures and institutions, creating a policy interest in ‘reconciling’ work and care, but a failure to provide it. The reasons for this failure are outlined.     

The expressive and communicative functions of preschool children's smiles in an achievement-situation

Two studies examined how different social contexts determine whether preschoolers' smiles in an achievement-game serve an expressive function indicating success versus failure experiences and/or a communicative function. Facial behavior was coded with the Facial Action Coding System. Unexpectedly, in Study 1 children (N=19) smiled more often after failure than after success. Study 2 investigated the influence of face-to-face contact with the experimenter on preschoolers' smiles (N=20). However, there were no differences between success and failure, but with face-to-face contact subjects exhibited more smiles than without. Features of the social situation that are supposed to determine the predominance of the communicative or expressive function of a smile are discussed.We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Detlef Friedrich and Katja Johann in the data collection and Signe Preuschoft in coding and analyzing the data.     

Parents and patients: Members of an interdisciplinary team on an adolescent inpatient unit

In a six-year study on a locked psychiatric hospital unit for adolescents, first patients and then their families became integrated into the interdisciplinary treatment team. The results were universally beneficial. After initial resistance and some fine tuning of their skills, the staff became strong supporters of the program. Parents, no longer one down, developed a close working relationship with the therapists and milieu staff. Treatment planning and implementation was enriched by the interaction and dissension was minimized. Most important of all, the adolescents improved more rapidly and hospital stays were significantly shortened.     

Economics of Radiation Protection: Equity Considerations

In order to implement cost-benefit analysis of protective actions to reduce radiological exposures, one needs to attribute a monetary value to the avoided exposure. Recently, the International Commission on Radiological Protection has stressed the need to take into consideration not only the collective exposure to ionising radiation but also its dispersion in the population. In this paper, by using some well known and some recent results in the economics of uncertainty, we discuss how to integrate these recommendations in the valuation of the benefit of protection.     

Restoring sanity through comic relief: Parody television viewers and political outlook

Parody news programs regale viewers with satirical, witty, and humorous exposés of the political world and news coverage, but they have also been criticized for creating cynicism and political disengagement. This study found that parody news viewers are self-efficacious and more politically active than viewers of CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, or broadcast television news. Moreover, reliance on parody news shows does not lead to political polarization or government distrust.     

Heterogeneity in treatment effects across diverse populations

Differences in patient characteristics, including age, sex, and race influence the safety and effectiveness of drugs, biologic products, and medical devices. Here we provide a summary of the topics discussed during the opening panel at the 2018 Johns Hopkins Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation symposium on Assessing and Communicating Heterogeneity of Treatment Effects for Patient Subpopulations: Challenges and Opportunities. The goal of this session was to provide a brief overview of FDA-regulated therapeutics, including drugs, biologics and medical devices, and some of the major sources of heterogeneity of treatment effects (HTE) related to patient demographics, such as age, sex and race. The panel discussed the US Food and Drug Administration's role in reviewing and regulating drugs, devices, and biologic products and the challenges associated with ensuring that diverse patient populations benefit from these therapeutics. Ultimately, ensuring diverse demographic inclusion in clinical trials, and designing basic and clinical research studies to account for the intended patient population's age, sex, race, and genetic factors among other characteristics, will lead to better, safer therapies for diverse patient populations.