Perceptions of the availability of recreational physical activity facilities on a university campus

OBJECTIVE: The author's purpose in this study was to assess perceptions of recreational physical activity (PA) facilities on a university campus. PARTICIPANTS: Four-hundred and sixty-seven undergraduate students participated in this study (women = 293; men = 174). RESULTS: The author found a significant percentage difference between women and men concerning the availability of racquetball courts on campus, 47% vs 63%, t (465) = -3.274. The author similarly found a significant percentage difference between women and men's perceptions concerning the availability of tennis courts. Twenty-seven percent of women were unaware or did not know tennis courts were available for PA, in comparison with 19% of men t (465) = -2.413. Awareness of recreational facilities revealed significant differences (Pillai's Trace = .189, p < .05) between freshmen and upperclassmen. Freshmen perceived themselves to have access to fewer recreational facilities on campus. CONCLUSION: More efforts to increase awareness of PA facilities are needed on university campuses.     

Our favourite melodies: musical consumption and teenage lifestyles

The present study explores the determinants and lifestyle correletes of musical preferences among a large sample of high school students in Toronto, Ontario. Our work is informed by theory and research on cultural stratification and adolescent subcultures. In terms of cultural stratification, we engage with Bourdieu's (1984) and Peterson's (1996) conceptualizations of elite taste, while subcultural theory encourages us to focus upon more dissenting tastes and to explore connections between musical tastes and peer group activity. Our findings suggest that racial and ethnic identity, school experiences and cultural capital are significant sources of variation in musical tastes that loosely correspond to existing typologies; they also confirm what has often been inferred - that musical tastes and peer group cultural practices are closely linked. Our findings are then discussed in the light of current debates about the nature and dimensions of listening audiences for music.     

Motivation and Commissioning: Perceived and Expressed Motivations of Care Home Providers

Commissioning of social care for older people has seen major changes since the early 1990s. Considerable responsibility now rests with local authority staff, whose views of care home providers’ motivations, their perceived strengths and weaknesses as service providers, will have a bearing on commissioning decisions. We examine commissioners’ views of provider motivations in eight English local authorities and compare their perceived motivations with providers’ expressed motives. Data were collected through semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews with commissioners and care home providers. Providers are generally perceived by commissioners as highly altruistic, but also relatively financially motivated individuals. Further analysis revealed significantly different views towards profit‐maximizing, which commissioners perceive as very important, while providers consider it to be of little motivational value. Private sector providers are described by commissioners as significantly more motivated by personal income. Associations are found between commissioners’ perceptions of motivations and the nature of their relationships with providers. Perceptions of providers’ motivations appear important within the commissioning framework.     

Market‐Based Allocation with Indivisible Bids

We study multiunit double auctions accepting bids with indivisibility constraints. Modeling the auction problem as a Multiple Choice Knapsack Problem and using dynamic programming, we show that incremental computations during bid processing can speed the handling of key auction operations such as clearing and quoting. We propose different price‐quote policies and study their influence on the efficiency of market‐based allocation. Using a reconfigurable manufacturing scenario where agents trade large quantities of multiple goods, we demonstrate potential benefits of supporting indivisibility constraints in bidding. These benefits are highly sensitive to the form of price quote provided, indicating interesting tradeoffs in communication and allocation efficiency.     

Multicultural and International Research in Four Career Development Journals: An 11‐Year Content Analysis

In an increasingly diverse and global society, it is important to evaluate the cultural responsiveness of vocational research. The authors examined trends in the publication of multicultural‐focused articles from 2005 to 2015 in 4 journals: The Career Development Quarterly, the Journal of Career Assessment, the Journal of Career Development, and the Journal of Vocational Behavior. Methodological, thematic, and construct trends were examined across the identity categories of gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability status, religion/spirituality, age, immigration status, and international research. Results showed increases in social class and international research but continued neglect of sexual orientation, gender identity, and ability status. The themes of career exploration and promoting agency received the most attention; equity in work settings received the least. Findings suggest that more research with underrepresented groups is needed and that counselors may need to rely on resources outside the current literature to ensure best practices with these clients.     

The Impact of Estimation: A New Method for Clustering and Trajectory Estimation in Patient Flow Modeling

The ability to accurately forecast and control inpatient census, and thereby workloads, is a critical and long‐standing problem in hospital management. The majority of current literature focuses on optimal scheduling of inpatients, but largely ignores the process of accurate estimation of the trajectory of patients throughout the treatment and recovery process. The result is that current scheduling models are optimizing based on inaccurate input data. We developed a Clustering and Scheduling Integrated (CSI) approach to capture patient flows through a network of hospital services. CSI functions by clustering patients into groups based on similarity of trajectory using a novel semi‐Markov model (SMM)‐based clustering scheme, as opposed to clustering by patient attributes as in previous literature. Our methodology is validated by simulation and then applied to real patient data from a partner hospital where we demonstrate that it outperforms a suite of well‐established clustering methods. Furthermore, we demonstrate that extant optimization methods achieve significantly better results on key hospital performance measures under CSI, compared with traditional estimation approaches, increasing elective admissions by 97% and utilization by 22% compared to 30% and 8% using traditional estimation techniques. From a theoretical standpoint, the SMM‐clustering is a novel approach applicable to any temporal‐spatial stochastic data that is prevalent in many industries and application areas.     

GET OUT THE (COSTLY) VOTE: INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN FOR GREATER PARTICIPATION

We examine two commonly discussed institutions inducing turnout: abstention penalties (used in 32 countries) and lotteries rewarding one randomly chosen participant (as proposed on the 2006 Arizona ballot). We analyze a benchmark model in which voters vary in their information quality and participation is costly. We illustrate that both institutions can improve collective outcomes, though lotteries are a more effective instrument asymptotically. Experimentally, we provide strong evidence for selective participation: lab voters participate more when better informed or when institutionally induced. Lotteries fare better than fines, suggesting that they may be a useful alternative to commonly used compulsory voting schemes. (JEL C92, D72, D02)     

The effect of unconditional preferences on Sen’s paradox

Theory and Decision - Sen’s Liberal paradox describes a conflict between weak Pareto, minimal liberalism, and either transitivity or a best element over a domain of individual preferences....     

‘The Hidden Holocaust’: The East Timor Alert Network (ETAN) and Human Rights Claims in Canada, 1985–1998

This article examines the East Timor Alert Network's (ETAN) claims-making strategies regarding support for human rights and self-determination of East Timor during the Indonesian occupation from 1975–1998. This research seeks to understand how ETAN attempted to persuade Canadians to care about a geographically distant horror. I examine various claims-making strategies that ETAN used to encourage Canadian audiences to evaluate the problem as an object of public concern, the Timorese as victims deserving of their sympathy, and Canadian government as condemnation-worthy.     

Charismatic,ideological, & pragmatic (CIP) model of leadership: A critical review and agenda for future research

Criticisms of the dominant leadership perspectives in the literature are increasing and, as such, a growing number of scholars are calling for more complex and conceptually sound theories of leadership. With a multi-faceted perspective on effective leadership, detailed conceptual underpinnings, and increasing body of empirical support, the Charismatic, Ideological, and Pragmatic (CIP) model of leadership has the potential to address many of these concerns and substantively contribute to our understanding of effective leadership. Despite such advantages, however, wide scale proliferation of the model remains elusive. As such, this effort provides the first comprehensive review of the CIP model to analyze its potential to expand our understanding of leadership in science and practice. In doing so this review frames and organizes the existing CIP literature, identifies key strengths of the model, addresses key limitations of the model, and outlines future research opportunities that would benefit from adopting a CIP perspective.