Žumberak: A Sixteenth-Century Refugee Settlement Zone

This article examines the movement of Orthodox Christian refugees from Bosnia to the Habsburg Monarchy in the 1530s and their settlement in a district called ?umberak. The movement of these Uskoks has never been examined in the context of refugee studies. This study of a refugee movement and settlement over a five-century period offers the possibility of reaching a better understanding of the long-term outcome of refugee movements. Ultimately, this article suggests that the refugees affected the land they settled as much as the settlement zone affected them, and that, in this case, the refugees were able to define their own outcome.     

College students with congenital heart disease: A critical time for transition

As medical and surgical advances improve, more young adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) are attending college. This case study illustrates some of the issues that these young adults may face as they attend college and discusses the role that college health practitioners can play in easing that transition. Participants: A case of a male with CHD presenting to the college health clinic with a new onset headache. Methods: The authors discuss some of the unique challenges that college health practitioners may face when caring for students with CHD. In addition, they make recommendations on how best to care for these patients and how best to coordinate care with CHD students other care providers. Results: This student with a history of coarctation of the aorta presented with new onset headaches and was found to have high blood pressure. He was diagnosed with recurrent coarctation, underwent percutaneous treatment with stenting and quickly resumed classes. Conclusions: As more students with CHD enter college, college health providers will need to understand some of the health risks that CHD students face. In addition, understanding some of the optimal ways to coordinate care with CHD providers can ease the transition that CHD students face as they enter college.     

Competency-Based Training: Objective Structured Clinical Exercises (OSCE) in Marriage and Family Therapy

The field of marriage and family therapy (MFT) has recently engaged in the process of defining core competencies for the profession. Many MFT training programs are adapting their curriculum to develop more competency-based training strategies. The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is widely used in the medical profession to assess clinical competence. These examinations involve using simulated clinical situations as a tool in conducting summative evaluations of trainee competence. This article describes an adaptation of the OSCE procedures for competency-based training of MFT students. Instead of using the procedures as a summative examination as is typical in medical education, this article proposes how to use them as formative exercises in the development of student competence. The development of the OSCE is discussed, including “blueprinting,” focused competencies, procedures, and feedback protocols. The article concludes with suggestions of how to continue the development of the OSCE for evaluation in MFT education.     

Why social status matters for understanding the interrelationships between testosterone,economic risk‐taking,and gender

We conduct an extensive review of the literature on testosterone and economic risk‐taking behavior. In sum, there is evidence of a positive association between testosterone and economic risk taking, although it is unlikely to be a strong association given the abundance of null results. However, we argue that the existing literature may overstate the causal effects of testosterone on economic risk taking (or even report a spurious correlation) because this research has not considered the potentially confounding role of social status. Status could concurrently influence both testosterone and economic risk taking, given that testosterone is a social hormone with a reciprocal relationship with social status, and social status has been found to drive risk‐taking behavior. We also argue against using findings from this literature to make gender essentialist claims, primarily because social phenomena influence the size—and existence—of gender differences in economic risk‐taking behavior. We conclude with suggestions for future research.     

The Inability of Self-affirmations to Decrease Defensive Bias Toward an Alcohol-Related Risk Message Among High-Risk College Students

Abstract

Objective: To examine the efficacy of a self-affirmation task in deterring college alcohol misuse and the importance of preexisting beliefs in predicting subsequent behavior change. Participants: Heavy-drinking undergraduates (N = 110) participated during the 2011–2012 academic year. Methods: Participants were randomized to complete an affirmation or control task before reading an alcohol risk message. Alcohol-related beliefs and behaviors were assessed. Participants completed a 2-week online follow-up assessing alcohol-related behaviors. Results: Both groups reported increased perceived problem importance, but neither group displayed changes in personal risk. Follow-up assessment revealed similar, significant declines in peak consumption in both groups, with no significant between-group differences. Preexisting beliefs accounted for 5% to 10% of variance in drinking outcomes. Conclusions: An affirmation task does not seem to decrease defensive processing or alter high-risk drinking behaviors among college students and should not be utilized in lieu of more effective strategies.     

Data envelopment analysis in the presence of measurement error: case study from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators® (NDNQI®)

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is the most commonly used approach for evaluating healthcare efficiency [B. Hollingsworth, The measurement of efficiency and productivity of health care delivery. Health Economics 17(10) (2008), pp. 1107–1128], but a long-standing concern is that DEA assumes that data are measured without error. This is quite unlikely, and DEA and other efficiency analysis techniques may yield biased efficiency estimates if it is not realized [B.J. Gajewski, R. Lee, M. Bott, U. Piamjariyakul, and R.L. Taunton, On estimating the distribution of data envelopment analysis efficiency scores: an application to nursing homes’ care planning process. Journal of Applied Statistics 36(9) (2009), pp. 933–944; J. Ruggiero, Data envelopment analysis with stochastic data. Journal of the Operational Research Society 55 (2004), pp. 1008–1012]. We propose to address measurement error systematically using a Bayesian method (Bayesian DEA). We will apply Bayesian DEA to data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators^® to estimate nursing units’ efficiency. Several external reliability studies inform the posterior distribution of the measurement error on the DEA variables. We will discuss the case of generalizing the approach to situations where an external reliability study is not feasible.