Shifting Concepts of Autonomy in the Hong Kong Hospital Authority

The Hong Kong Hospital Authority is the main provider of public health care services in Hong Kong. It operates 41 public hospitals, 74 general out-patient clinics and 45 specialist out-patient clinics. This article examines the reason for its establishment as a statutory body in 1990 and offers an assessment of its success in meeting the goals of the reformers. A belief that health care service delivery would be improved is largely supported by the evidence, but this may have more to do with budget and policy consistency than management autonomy and flexibility. Statutory independence, with its promise of improved efficiency, has its limits in the highly complex field of health where there are multiple players and where professional autonomy remains a key claim. In recent times, the authority has been subject to several reform attempts and, together with the SARS epidemic in 2003, these have had a significant impact on its organizational structure and practices, in particular, on its degrees of autonomy.

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Common correlates of suicidal ideation and physical assault among male and female university students in Hong Kong

This study examined prevalence and correlates of suicidal ideation and dating partner violence in a cohort of 651 university students in social sciences classes at three universities in Hong Kong. A standard questionnaire was completed within one class period to examine the rates of occurrence of physical assault perpetration and suicidal ideation. Separate rates are presented for male and female perpetrators and for severe and overall levels of violence. The differences between subjects having suicidal ideation are compared using t tests. Logistic regression is used to predict the presence or absence of physical assault in the preceding year of reporting and suicidal ideation based on the variables such as Personal Relationship Profile, age, relationship length, and socioeconomic status. Results showed that 55% of suicidal persons had a history of violence, whereas 39% of violent people had a history of suicidal ideation. Logistic regression showed that physical assault shared a total of seven associated factors with suicidal ideation. Suicidal ideation seems to have no direct relation to physical and sexual assault, but they do share some common associated factors that are essential for the development of suicide prevention.     

A Simple Algorithm for the Mathematical Programming Approach to Joint Cost Allocation for Decision Making (Demand-Adjusted-Sales-Value Algorithm)*

This paper investigates the mathematical programming (MP) approach for decision making and cost allocation in the context of joint products. Through analysis of the MP approach to marginal-value-based cost allocations, an algorithm is developed to show that the allocations contain two elements: an element that is specific to individual joint products due to differences in demand elasticities, and an element based on relative adjusted sales values. If demand elasticities are identical for all joint products, then the traditional sales value method will generate the same cost allocation as the MP method. The new algorithm, the demand-adjusted-sales-value algorithm (DASV), is especially helpful for solving the MP model with linear demand functions. The DASV algorithm provides an easy way to generate costs that are useful for optimal decision making.     

Effect of shoe type on descending a curb

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of shoe type on the performance of women during curb descent. Performance during curb stepping may be explained by biomechanical research that has evaluated the kinematics of overground walking and stair ascent and descent. Studies have reported that women exhibit performance differences when wearing high heels, flip flops and sneakers during overground walking and stair ascent and descent. Thus, in addition to features of the curb, the type of shoe being worn may also affect performance. Although several studies have investigated curb stepping, no known studies have investigated the effects of different types of footwear on curb descent performance. This research was conducted in a real-world environment where participants wore three different types of shoes and performed a series of activities that involved curb stepping. The subjects were videotaped while descending a curb, allowing for observation of changes in gait parameters. Results of this study indicate that wearing high heels leads to performance differences as compared to wearing flip flops or sneakers.     

Divergent trajectories of democratic deepening: comparing Brazil,India, and South Africa

Theory and Society - This article argues that democratic deepening is shaped by shifting civil society-state relations that can only be understood by disaggregating democratic deepening into its...     

A Ridge-Regression Sidelight

A useful matrix result is applied in ridge regression to cast light on the form of the ridge-regression residual sum of squares as a power series in the ridge parameter. An example illustrates that the series may diverge or else converge very slowly, depending on the value of the ridge parameter.     

Lampshade Game for lean manufacturing

The purpose of this article is to introduce a new simulation game named the ‘Lampshade Game’ that can be helpful in educating students and industry professionals on lean manufacturing principles. The Lampshade Game is an active learning tool that is capable of demonstrating the advantages and disadvantages of some of the key principles of lean manufacturing (such as quality focus, pull system, flexible manufacturing and visual organisation) in comparison to craft and mass manufacturing by manually simulating the production of lampshades for each of the process types. The game enables the comparison of these three manufacturing methods using different operational and financial metrics such as inventory levels, manufacturing cycle time, customer fill rate, production yield and cost and profit. This article describes the game, its objectives, and shares experiences from several classroom implementations including an analysis of pre- and post-surveys.     

Blue‐collar Emigration from India and Governance

Indian expatriates numbering about 6.5 million, i.e. one‐third of the Gulf population, have been engaged in skilled, semi‐skilled and unskilled work since the time of the oil boom in the Persian Gulf regions. Putting monetary benefits to one side, emigrants' problems, such as false promises of recruiting agents, high visa charges, hurdles at workplaces and a defective system to address the grievances of Indian workers in the 18 Emigration Check Required (ECR) countries, are still unaddressed. With this background, the aim of this article is to concentrate on emigration from India to the 18 ECR countries listed by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), Government of India (GoI). The GoI has identified these 18 countries because they are not labour‐ (emigrant‐) friendly, and are vulnerable to exploitation with regard to their labour standards. The article begins with conceptualizing ‘emigration’ in the Indian context. By focusing only on the ECR countries, the real picture concerning the situation of Indian emigrants is unfolded. These 18 ECR countries are almost the same in their treatment of blue‐collar emigrants. So, only this category of countries is selected for this work. The following key areas are discussed in this article: the role of the MOIA and the respective state governments in supporting and protecting these emigrants and their families; shortcomings in Indian embassies' administrative structure in protecting blue‐collar Indian workers; and the existing legislative provisions and welfare schemes for Indian emigrants working in the 18 ECR countries. In addition, the existing programmes at both central and state government level for returning and deporting workers are covered in this article.