The Psychological and Health Consequences of Caring for a Spouse With Dementia: A Critical Comparison of Husbands and Wives

Caring for someone with dementia can be demanding, particularly for spouses living with the care recipient. The main goal of this study was to clarify differences in the experience of caregivers who were husbands and wives with respect to burden, health, healthy behaviors, presence of difficult care recipient behaviors, social supports, and the quality of the premorbid relationship. The results of this study support research demonstrating a difference between the caregiving experiences of women and men. It is becoming increasingly apparent that female gender is a marker that places them at increased risk of high burden and less support.     

Data-Intensive Science and Research Integrity

In this commentary, we consider questions related to research integrity in data-intensive science and argue that there is no need to create a distinct category of misconduct that applies to deception related to processing, analyzing, or interpreting data. The best way to promote integrity in data-intensive science is to maintain a firm commitment to epistemological and ethical values, such as honesty, openness, transparency, and objectivity, which apply to all types of research, and to promote education, policy development, and scholarly debate concerning appropriate uses of statistics.     

Factors Influencing Church Choice: An Exploration of Responses from New Attendees at Growing Canadian Mainline Churches

Seventy new attendees of growing Mainline Protestant churches in Canada agreed to be interviewed regarding what attracted them to, and kept them at, their current congregation. A variety of responses revealed that, in part, the new attendees were drawn to their Mainline Protestant church by aspects of Conservative Protestant theology. Contemporary theories of group membership are used to explore the links between Conservative Protestant theology, group cohesion, and, to a lesser extent, church growth. Soixante‐dix nouveaux participants provenant d'une église protestante traditionnelle au Canada en croissance ont accepté d’être interviewés au sujet des caractéristiques qui les ont attirés et qui les ont gardés à leur congrégation actuelle. Une variété de réponses a démontré que, en partie, les nouveaux participants ont été attirés par leur église protestante traditionnelle par les aspects de la théologie protestante conservatrice. Les théories contemporaines de l'appartenance au groupe sont utilisées pour explorer les liens entre la théologie protestante conservatrice, la cohésion du groupe, et dans une moindre mesure, la croissance de l’église.     

The Impact of Mega‐Catastrophes on Insurers: An Exposure‐Based Analysis of the U.S. Homeowners’ Insurance Market

Insurance is a key risk‐sharing mechanism that protects citizens and governments from the losses caused by natural catastrophes. Given the increase in the frequency and intensity of natural catastrophes over recent years, this article analyzes the performance effects of mega‐catastrophes for U.S. insurance firms using a measure of market expectations. Specifically, we analyze the share price losses of insurance firms in response to catastrophe events to ascertain whether mega‐catastrophes significantly damage the performance of insurers and whether different types of mega‐catastrophes have different impacts. The main message from our analysis is that the impact of mega‐catastrophes on insurers has not been too damaging. While the exact impact of catastrophes depends on the nature of the event and the degree of competition within the relevant insurance market (less competition allows insurers to recoup catastrophe losses through adjustments to premiums), our overall results suggest that U.S. insurance firms can adequately manage the risks and costs of mega‐catastrophes. From a public policy perspective, our results show that insurance provides a robust means of sharing catastrophe losses to help reduce the financial consequences of a catastrophe event.     

Smoking and Intention to Quit Among a Large Sample of Black Sexual and Gender Minorities

The purpose of this study is to more completely quantify smoking and intention to quit from a sample of sexual and gender minority (SGM) Black individuals (N = 639) through analysis of data collected at Pride festivals and online. Frequencies described demographic characteristics; chi-square analyses were used to compare tobacco-related variables. Black SGM smokers were more likely to be trying to quit smoking than White SGM smokers. However, Black SGM individuals were less likely than White SGM individuals to become former smokers. The results of this study indicate that smoking behaviors may be heavily influenced by race after accounting for SGM status.     

‘Racial’ referents: images of European/Aboriginal relations in Australian feature films, 1955–1984

The article discusses fifteen feature films which re-present aspects of European/Aboriginal relations. Through an analysis of the narrative structures of the films, three basic themes are identified and outlined, each of which could be implicated in the processes through which racist ideology inheres in the encoding/decoding nexus. The concept of ‘racial’ register is utilised to signify the limits to these forms of representations. It is argued that at both the levels of the narrative theme (intertextual) and the syntagmatic (intratextual), the ‘racial’ register works to reconstruct ‘race’ as an overdetermined ideological notion which cements ideas of essential difference and fixes them to ideas of place. The article concludes with an examination of three films which lie partially outside the ‘racial’ register.     

Municipal residency laws: Effects on police employment,compensation, and productivity

This paper offers an alternative model of the effects of residency laws in municipal labor markets. Unlike previous studies, the model assumes that public employee labor markets are characterized by conditions of excess supply and that public services are produced under noncompetitive conditions. The model also implies that productivity improvements increase rather than reduce labor demand, yielding different results with respect to the wage and employment effects of residency requirements. The non-clearing market model is tested using data on municipal police officers. The results are more compatible with the disequilibrium model than with models based on a competitive equilibrium.     

GIS,ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: THE ISSUE OF PRIVACY

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) offer a good technical solution for the handling of large data bases in public administration. However, GIS also poses a problem in terms of ‘information privacy’. At State and Federal levels of administration in Australia, the issue of privacy, is being addressed through various administrative and legislative processes. At Local Government level, GIS technology is now being introduced at a fairly rapid rate, but as yet, there has been little discussion of the issue of privacy at that level. This article discusses the issue of privacy at Local Government level, and suggests that there is a pressing need to introduce some administrative reforms.