An Ecological Model for Quantitative Risk Assessment for Schistosomiasis: The Case of a Patchy Environment in the Coastal Tropical Area of Northeastern Brazil

We developed a stochastic model for quantitative risk assessment for the Schistosoma mansoni (SM) parasite, which causes an endemic disease of public concern. The model provides answers in a useful format for public health decisions, uses data and expert opinion, and can be applied to any landscape where the snail Biomphalaria glabrata is the main intermediate host (South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa). It incorporates several realistic and case‐specific features: stage‐structured parasite populations, periodic praziquantel (PZQ) drug treatment for humans, density dependence, extreme events (prolonged rainfall), site‐specific sanitation quality, environmental stochasticity, monthly rainfall variation, uncertainty in parameters, and spatial dynamics. We parameterize the model through a real‐world application in the district of Porto de Galinhas (PG), one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil, where previous studies identified four parasite populations within the metapopulation. The results provide a good approximation of the dynamics of the system and are in agreement with our field observations, i.e., the lack of basic infrastructure (sanitation level and health programs) makes PG a suitable habitat for the persistence and growth of a parasite metapopulation. We quantify the risk of SM metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction and the time to metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction. We evaluate the sensitivity of the results under varying scenarios of future periodic PZQ treatment (based on the Brazilian Ministry of Health's plan) and sanitation quality. We conclude that the plan might be useful to slow SM metapopulation growth but not to control it. Additional investments in better sanitation are necessary.     

Introductory Statistics Textbooks and the GAISE Recommendations

The six recommendations made by the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) committee were first communicated in 2005 and more formally in 2010. In this article, 25 introductory statistics textbooks are examined to assess how well these textbooks have incorporated the three GAISE recommendations most relevant to implementation in textbooks (statistical literacy and thinking; use of real data; stress concepts over procedures). The implementation of another recommendation (using technology) is described but not assessed. In general, most textbooks appear to be adopting the GAISE recommendations reasonably well in both exposition and exercises. The textbooks are particularly adept at using real data, using real data well, and promoting statistical literacy. Textbooks are less adept—but still rated reasonably well, in general—at explaining concepts over procedures and promoting statistical thinking. In contrast, few textbooks have easy-usable glossaries of statistical terms to assist with understanding of statistical language and literacy development. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Psychological Mediators of the Sport Injury—Perceived Risk Relationship

Drawing upon both heuristic‐ and threat‐based approaches, we sought to examine whether perceived similarity with injury‐prone people and perceived control over injury occurrence would directly contribute to perceived risk and whether these variables would mediate the previous injury–perceived risk relationship. Judokas (n = 207) reported the number of injuries experienced in the past year and then completed measures of perceived similarity, perceived control, and injury risk perception. Analyses revealed that perceived similarity and perceived control directly contributed to perceived risk of injury; only perceived similarity acted as a partial mediator of the injury–perceived risk relationship. These findings are discussed in relation to the potential influence of the sport context, which universally involves the acceptance of a high risk of injury.     

Industrial relations and adjustments to the crisis: A comparative micro‐statistical analysis of France and Great Britain

In this comparative study, the authors analyse the relationships between industrial relations and workforce or wage adjustments in response to the 2007–08 crisis, using two highly comparable establishment‐level surveys conducted in Great Britain (WERS) and France (REPONSE) in 2010–12. Notwithstanding contextual differences in the countries’ productive systems and the timing and impact of the crisis, the relationships between industrial relations and adjustment strategies appear to have been similar (trade union presence not preventing adjustments). Differences in industrial relations are therefore not found to provide an explanation for the different modes of adjustment observed at the macroeconomic level.     

Patterns of alcohol use and marijuana use among students at 2- and 4-year institutions

Objective: The objective of this study was to understand substance use patterns of alcohol, marijuana, and simultaneous alcohol and marijuana (SAM) use among 2- and 4-year college students. Participants: Participants were 526 young adults aged 18–23 (n?=?355 4-year students; n?=?171 2-year students) recruited from February 2015 to January 2016 who were participating in a larger longitudinal study. Methods: Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify past-month classes of alcohol, marijuana, and SAM use. Results: Among both 2- and 4-year students, a four-class solution yielded the best-fitting model, with 2-year classes tending to include greater marijuana use and less alcohol use and 4-year classes tending to include heavy alcohol use. Demographic characteristics were largely similar across classes. Conclusions: Classes of alcohol, marijuana, and SAM use differed by education status. Screening and prevention efforts for 4-year students may need to be tailored for the needs of 2-year students.     

Depoliticising literature,politicising diversity: ethno-racial boundaries in Dutch literary professionals’ aesthetic repertoires

Although still a neglected area, over the years a growing body of sociological research on the position of ethno-racial minorities in Western artistic fields has emerged. With this article we aim to contribute to this research area by focusing on ethno-racial diversity in the Dutch literary field. Through in-depth interviews, we analyse how gatekeepers mobilise specific cultural repertoires and by doing so draw ethno-racial boundaries when discussing acquisition, assessing quality and positioning themselves in the literary field. We argue that literary publishers and other professionals (selectively) employ an ‘old school’ modernist repertoire that especially values the formal aspects of literary products, by which non-white writers and publishers concerned with diversity are often positioned in an identity politics framework. Their work is said to take in a less prestigious ‘political’/’subjective’ position rather than a ‘literary’/‘universal’ one. As such, this paper informs on how gatekeepers’ practices shape the position of non-white authors in the Dutch literary field.     

'You cannot get enough of them!’ The rise (and fall) of complementary therapies in British nursing practice in the 1980s and 1990s

This paper examines the emerging use of complementary therapies in British nursing practice at the end of the twentieth century. Many nurses turned to complementary therapies as a means to provide a closer therapeutic relationship with their patients and this paper will establish how nurses were informed and empowered. The paper places complementary practices in the context of nursing developments in the closing decades of the twentieth century and concludes that the extent of the supporting networks that encouraged nurses to incorporate these therapies into their work was more significant than has been previously recognised and exemplifies a distinct period in the history of modern nursing.