Adoptive Mothers’ Perceptions of Reactive Attachment Disorder Therapy and its Impact on Family Functioning

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore adoptive mothers’ perceptions of attachment therapy and its impact on family functioning. Sixteen mothers were interviewed 3 years after therapy. Analysis of the data revealed two sets of parental perceptions: first, attachment therapy was consistently supportive, emotionally painful, and physically safe; second, therapy preserved family structure, mothers remained committed to their children, and parenting was continuously stressful. This study highlights the need for further research on the treatment of children with attachment disorders and is not intended as a treatise on the efficacy of attachment therapy as a treatment modality.     

Employee attitude surveys: Their interpretation and use

This paper evaluates the uses of attitude surveys as a guide to management decision-making and identifies some of the problems of carrying out such studies and implementing the results. The concepts of attitude, value, personality, motivation, morale and job satisfaction are reviewed and their relevance discussed. A model of the determinants of attitudes is developed and used as a basis for a consideration of the problems of effecting change and increasing job satisfaction. Finally, the types of action that might be recommended on the basis of attitude survey data are considered and the roles of management and researchers in the interpretation and implementation of conclusions discussed.     

Research Note/Note de recherche The ability to implement human rights legislation in Canada

Une analyse récente de dossiers de la Commission canadienne des droits de la personne indique que l'application des dispositions législatives contre la discrimination semble plus facile pour certains types de discrimination que pour d'autres. L'analyse d'un échantillon de dossiers de 1982–1983 montre que les plaintes relatives au sexe ou a une invalidité ont de meilleures chances d'être confirmées que les plaintes impliquant la race, la couleur, l'ethnicité ou l'origine nationale. Nous utilisons des techniques qualitatives et quantitatives, et montrons que, dans les cas impliquant sexe ou invalidité, le bien-fondé de la plainte a étéétabli au moyen une procédure investigative comparative, alors que dans les autres cas une procédure séquentielle a été utilisée.
A recent analysis of Canadian Human Rights Commission files suggests that the enforcement of legislated prohibitions on discrimination may be more easily implemented for some grounds of discrimination than for other grounds of discrimination. An analysis of a sample of 1982-83 case files, shows that complaints involving sex or disability are much more likely to be substantiated than cases based on race, colour, ethnicity or national origin. Using both qualitative and quantitative analytical procedures, the results show that for sex and disability cases, a comparative investigative procedure was employed to assess the validity of the complaint while a sequential style of investigation was used in race, colour, ethnic or national origin cases.     

Sample-based Maximum Likelihood Estimation of the Autologistic Model

New recursive algorithms for fast computation of the normalizing constant for the autologistic model on the lattice make feasible a sample-based maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of the autologistic parameters. We demonstrate by sampling from 12 simulated 420×420 binary lattices with square lattice plots of size 4×4, …, 7×7 and sample sizes between 20 and 600. Sample-based results are compared with ‘benchmark’ MCMC estimates derived from all binary observations on a lattice. Sample-based estimates are, on average, biased systematically by 3%–7%, a bias that can be reduced by more than half by a set of calibrating equations. MLE estimates of sampling variances are large and usually conservative. The variance of the parameter of spatial association is about 2–10 times higher than the variance of the parameter of abundance. Sample distributions of estimates were mostly non-normal. We conclude that sample-based MLE estimation of the autologistic parameters with an appropriate sample size and post-estimation calibration will furnish fully acceptable estimates. Equations for predicting the expected sampling variance are given.     

Orally disintegrating olanzapine: a possible alternative to injection of antipsychotic drugs

1. The orally disintegrating formulation of olanzapine dissolves rapidly on contact with saliva. 2. In certain cases, orally disintegrating olanzapine may be administered, instead of injection of an antipsychotic agent. 3. Orally disintegrating olanzapine is intended to deliver a dose analogous to regular olanzapine tablets.     

The development of personal space in primary school children

Personal space in school cafeteria queues was observed for 1,047 children in kindergarten through sixth grade in seven public schools. It was found that children segregate themselves both racially and sexually in the queues. In three of the schools that were racially mixed, the children stood closer in the lower grades than in the higher grades, they stood closer to same-sex children than to other-sex children, but there was no racial difference. In three of the schools where all of the children were white, there was an increase in personal space across grades for all sex combinations except male to male. In two of the schools where all of the children were black, there was no significant increase in personal space across grades. The children in the white schools had greater queue distances than children in the black schools throughout the upper grades. In general, the results were similar to those obtained in other studies involving observation in natural settings and different from results obtained using simulated interaction.     

FORECASTING VOLATILITY IN THE PRESENCE OF MODEL INSTABILITY

Recent advances in financial econometrics have allowed for the construction of efficient ex post measures of daily volatility. This paper investigates the importance of instability in models of realised volatility and their corresponding forecasts. Testing for model instability is conducted with a subsampling method. We show that removing structurally unstable data of a short duration has a negligible impact on the accuracy of conditional mean forecasts of volatility. In contrast, it does provide a substantial improvement in a model's forecast density of volatility. In addition, the forecasting performance improves, often dramatically, when we evaluate models on structurally stable data.     

Approxmating the distribution of the maximum of a dependent stationary sequence based on estimatimates from a genrating function

A method based on estimating the coefficients of a generating function is used to approximate the distribution of the maximum term of a stationary dependent sequence. In a numerical comparison of our approximation with other apporoximations, our method yielded uniformly closer estimates to the exact distribution. In the examples we considered, statisfactory estimates of the distribution were obtained by our method based on a knowledge of the tri-variate distribution of the underlying random sequence. Knowledge of higher variate distributions can be incorporated to yield even more accurate estimates.     

Quantifying soil health and tomato crop productivity in urban community and market gardens

Food production in cities offers a framework for local self-reliance and resilience. However, there are concerns about urban soil quality and a general lack of data on productivity in urban gardens. This study investigated soil health via a comprehensive nematode food web analysis and crop productivity via tomato fruit yield in community and market gardens in Cleveland, Ohio, USA over a two-year period. Results revealed that market gardens had significantly higher soil organic matter (SOM) and NH₄-N than community gardens in 2011. While there was no difference between market gardens and community gardens in terms of nematode abundances (except bacteria-feeding nematodes in 2011), market gardens had higher nematode combined maturity index than community gardens in 2011. However, plant-parasitic index was lower in market gardens than in community gardens in 2011. There was no difference in tomato fruit yield in either year between the garden types, but tomato growth responses including leaf dry weight ratio, and plant surface area differed between market and community gardens in 2012. Different weather and related soil and growing conditions likely contributed to the large variation observed between 2011 and 2012; still, soils in market gardens tended to support greater growth and yield than community gardens. Regardless, there was no direct evidence that the gardens were nutrient limited, thereby minimizing the potential for nutrient limitations to contribute to yield differences. Overall, fruit yield ranged from 1.47 to 15.72 kg/m², which is consistent with U.S. national average for commercial production systems.     

myCourtroom: Rosie’s family go to court; the use of simulations in preparing social workers for court

The role of social workers in court, how they prepare, train, write and present their reports, has been the focus of much debate. Key messages from research tell us that social workers often find court work stressful; they can lack confidence in writing reports giving evidence and being cross-examined. Pre-qualification training in this area can be patchy, with many workers reporting they often learn ‘on the job.’ This article documents the journey from analysing primary and secondary research findings, via a partnership between the University of Kent Centre for Child Protection and Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), to develop a training simulation for practitioners to increase their knowledge, preparation and practice for court. The partnership turned these research findings into an interactive, immersive simulation to give practitioners the space to reflect upon and critique their experiences of court. Findings from an initial evaluation of the simulation were positive with participants highly rating its usefulness in developing courtroom skills and knowledge.