Connecting Print Patrons to Electronic Holdings with Shelf Dummies

After a two-year renovation, the Kent State University Music Library reopened as the Performing Arts Library. Before the closure, some serials were sent to the depository or reclassified within the library. In order to assist patrons browsing print journals or searching for articles in the stacks, library staff created shelf dummies detailing print and electronic holdings information as well as indexing for each title. Patron feedback has been positive, and the project has helped both library staff and patrons better understand accessibility and location of journals.     

A joint model for longitudinal data profiles and associated event risks with application to a depression study

Summary.  In many longitudinal studies, a subject's response profile is closely associated with his or her risk of experiencing a related event. Examples of such event risks include recurrence of disease, relapse, drop-out and non-compliance. When evaluating the effect of a treatment, it is sometimes of interest to consider the joint process consisting of both the response and the risk of an associated event. Motivated by a prevention of depression study among patients with malignant melanoma, we examine a joint model that incorporates the risk of discontinuation into the analysis of serial depression measures. We present a maximum likelihood estimator for the mean response and event risk vectors. We test hypotheses about functions of mean depression and withdrawal risk profiles from our joint model, predict depression from updated patient histories, characterize associations between components of the joint process and estimate the probability that a patient's depression and risk of withdrawal exceed specified levels. We illustrate the application of our joint model by using the depression data.     

Understanding Vulnerability: From Categories to Experiences of Young Congolese People in Uganda

This article problematises the ‘vulnerables’ category that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees applies to groups of refugees. Drawing on 9 months’ qualitative research with young Congolese refugees in Uganda, it presents research subjects’ self‐identification and lived realities that do not correspond to the homogenous, fixed ‘vulnerables’ ideal. Moreover, it argues that the ‘vulnerables’ categorisation approach can provoke a number of counter‐productive effects, including a focus on symptoms rather than causes, inflated numbers of ‘vulnerables’ and undermining indigenous support structures. An alternative approach that interrogates and addresses the contextual and relational aspects of vulnerability is proposed.     

INFORMING RETIREMENT SAVINGS DECISIONS: A FIELD EXPERIMENT ON SUPPLEMENTAL PLANS

Although supplemental saving plans can be an important part of an individual's financial security in retirement, contribution rates remain low, particularly among those with lower salaries and less education. We report findings from an intervention that provided information on key aspects of the employer‐provided supplemental saving plans to older public employees in North Carolina. Among workers participating in a supplemental plan, individuals who received an informational flyer increased their contributions in the months following the intervention relative to the control group. In contrast, individuals who were not enrolled in a retirement saving plan were not moved to begin contributing to a supplemental plan. The results suggest that informational interventions can induce workers who are already engaged in the saving process to reassess their level of retirement preparedness. (JEL C93, D14, D9)     

Co‐Present Conversation as “Socialized Trance”: Talk,Involvement Obligations,and Smart‐Phone Disruption

In an era where digital and co‐present involvements become entangled, the role of face‐to‐face conversation now vies with mediated communication. Applying insights provided by Erving Goffman, we explore conversational interaction and consider how engrossing face‐to‐face conversation can be understood as a form of socialized trance. We explore how this interaction represents one type of “involvement obligation” that can become disrupted and, increasingly, uniquely impacted by mediated involvements that are enabled through mobile and “smart” devices. The crux of the argument is considered in the context of a burgeoning digital era where conversation is found to become meshed together in uneven ways with mediated interaction. We highlight the efficacy of Goffman's approach with regards to the current information environment, providing insights into how engrossing conversation and its involvement obligations are impacted by mediated interactions and how breaches of conduct are experienced. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/ulL8mMN4oig .     

Union administrative practices: A comparative analysis

In response to growing challenges, many labor organizations are reevaluating themselves in an effort to become more efficient and effective. Their efforts, however, are limited by their frames of reference. Seldom do unions compare practices across labor movements. To expand these frames of reference we compare union administrative practices in three countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Two specific areas of union administration are examined — human resource/personnel practices and strategic planning. Results from these countries are presented and analyzed to identify and explain similarities and differences.     

The Autodriven interview: A photographic viewfinder into children's experience

As children have been increasingly conceptualized as active participants in their own social worlds, researchers have sought methods able to reveal children's perspectives as arbiters of their own experience. In an autodriven interview, photographs of the child's experiences serve as the basis for a child‐directed interview. Studies using this method illustrate its benefit for revealing child‐relevant content. In a study of childhood chronic illness, autodriving encouraged the child's free recall, sense of personal control, and ability to reflect upon photographed events.     

Cue-Reactive Rationality,Visual Imagery and Volitional Control Predict Cue-Reactive Urge to Gamble in Poker-Machine Gamblers

Poker-machine gamblers have been demonstrated to report increases in the urge to gamble following exposure to salient gambling cues. However, the processes which contribute to this urge to gamble remain to be understood. The present study aimed to investigate whether changes in the conscious experience of visual imagery, rationality and volitional control (over one’s thoughts, images and attention) predicted changes in the urge to gamble following exposure to a gambling cue. Thirty-one regular poker-machine gamblers who reported at least low levels of problem gambling on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), were recruited to complete an online cue-reactivity experiment. Participants completed the PGSI, the visual imagery, rationality and volitional control subscales of the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI), and a visual analogue scale (VAS) assessing urge to gamble. Participants completed the PCI subscales and VAS at baseline, following a neutral video cue and following a gambling video cue. Urge to gamble was found to significantly increase from neutral cue to gambling cue (while controlling for baseline urge) and this increase was predicted by PGSI score. After accounting for the effects of problem-gambling severity, cue-reactive visual imagery, rationality and volitional control significantly improved the prediction of cue-reactive urge to gamble. The small sample size and limited participant characteristic data restricts the generalizability of the findings. Nevertheless, this is the first study to demonstrate that changes in the subjective experience of visual imagery, volitional control and rationality predict changes in the urge to gamble from neutral to gambling cue. The results suggest that visual imagery, rationality and volitional control may play an important role in the experience of the urge to gamble in poker-machine gamblers.     

Use of Quality-Adjusted Life Year Weights with Dose-Response Models for Public Health Decisions: A Case Study of the Risks and Benefits of Fish Consumption

Risks associated with toxicants in food are often controlled by exposure reduction. When exposure recommendations are developed for foods with both harmful and beneficial qualities, however, they must balance the associated risks and benefits to maximize public health. Although quantitative methods are commonly used to evaluate health risks, such methods have not been generally applied to evaluating the health benefits associated with environmental exposures. A quantitative method for risk-benefit analysis is presented that allows for consideration of diverse health endpoints that differ in their impact (i.e., duration and severity) using dose-response modeling weighted by quality-adjusted life years saved. To demonstrate the usefulness of this method, the risks and benefits of fish consumption are evaluated using a single health risk and health benefit endpoint. Benefits are defined as the decrease in myocardial infarction mortality resulting from fish consumption, and risks are defined as the increase in neurodevelopmental delay (i.e., talking) resulting from prenatal methylmercury exposure. Fish consumption rates are based on information from Washington State. Using the proposed framework, the net health impact of eating fish is estimated in either a whole population or a population consisting of women of childbearing age and their children. It is demonstrated that across a range of fish methylmercury concentrations (0-1 ppm) and intake levels (0-25 g/day), individuals would have to weight the neurodevelopmental effects 6 times more (in the whole population) or 250 times less (among women of child-bearing age and their children) than the myocardial infarction benefits in order to be ambivalent about whether or not to consume fish. These methods can be generalized to evaluate the merits of other public health and risk management programs that involve trade-offs between risks and benefits.