Resolving conflict realistically in today's health care environment.

Conflict is a natural part of human interaction, and when properly addressed, results in improved interpersonal relationships and positive organizational culture. Unchecked conflict may escalate to verbal and physical violence. Conflict that is unresolved creates barriers for people, teams, organizational growth, and productivity, leading to cultural disintegration within the establishment. By relying on interdependence and professional collaboration, all parties involved grow and, in turn, benefit the organization and population served. When used in a constructive manner, conflict resolution can help all parties involved see the whole picture, thus allowing freedom for growth and change. Conflict resolution is accomplished best when emotions are controlled before entering into negotiation. Positive confrontation, problem solving, and negotiation are processes used to realistically resolve conflict. Everyone walks away a winner when conflict is resolved in a positive, professional manner (Stone, 1999).     

Race,Ethnicity, and Culture in Studies of Families in Context

Family scholars have developed a greater sensitivity to the relative neglect of families of color in research. However, there are a number of limitations in the research on families of color; specifically, race and ethnicity are often confounded with socioeconomic indicators and community of residence. This makes it difficult to identify the true effects of ethnicity and culture. In addition, race and ethnicity may interact with chronic poverty in such a way as to further interfere with and reduce life opportunities. Here we discuss some of the theoretical and conceptual issues pertaining to race, ethnicity, and culture as they affect family functioning and children's development. In addition, we introduce a collection of papers that address family functioning and children's development among families who are diverse ethnically, racially, socioeconomically, and by geographical location and community. The issues posed in this paper and in the Special Section challenge the field to reconsider how we study families and child development from culturally grounded perspectives.     

Bargaining Experiments With Deadlines and Random Delays

In many bargaining environments there are random delays in the transmission of proposals. Two computerized bargaining experiments are designed to study behavior with this condition. A clock starts counting down from three minutes when the first offer is sent. In one experiment the clock is not stopped once the bargaining begins; in the other it is paused during the time an agent thinks about a counteroffer. All proposals are randomly delayed. Results are compared to a control design with no such delays. Delays create a first mover advantage, and agreements are more uniformly spread across a bargaining period.     

Conditional approval: discussion points from the PSI conditional approval expert group

The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products has recently completed the consultation of a draft guidance on how to implement conditional approval. This route of application is available for orphan drugs, emergency situations and serious debilitating or life-threatening diseases. Although there has been limited experience in implementing conditional approval to date, PSI (Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry) sponsored a meeting of pharmaceutical statisticians with an interest in the area to discuss potential issues. This article outlines the issues raised and resulting discussions, based on the group's interpretation of the legislation. Conditional approval seems to fit well with the accepted regulatory strategy in HIV. In oncology, conditional approval may be most likely when (a) compelling phase II data are available using accepted clinical outcomes (e.g. progression/recurrence-free survival or overall survival) and Phase III has been planned or started, or (b) when data are available using a surrogate endpoint for clinical outcome (e.g. response rate or biochemical measures) from a single-arm study in rare tumours with high response, compared with historical data. The use of interim analyses in Phase III for supporting conditional approval raises some challenging issues regarding dissemination of information, maintenance of blinding, potential introduction of bias, ethics, switching, etc.     

Norma Lang’s Use of Nondeliberative Approaches: Through a Multidimensional Lens of Activity in Social Work Groups

ABSTRACT

This article is intended to enter into a conversation with the significant work done by Norma Lang on nondeliberative approaches in social work with groups, and, in particular, her use of these approaches in working with people who have limited social skills. The intention is to locate significant strands of her conceptualizing, teaching, and practice within a discussion of the concept “activity”—a concept that social work with groups has uniquely contributed to social work theory and practice. It is proposed that aspects of “activity” can be more fully understood and analyzed using a number of intersecting dimensions: interaction, purpose, meaning, and analog.     

居民参与城市生态文明建设的影响因素分析及对策建议——以哈尔滨市问卷调查为例

随着我国城市化进程的加快,城市已成为生态文明建设的重点。城市居民作为城市生态文明建设的主体,其参与情况决定着城市生态文明建设的成败。通过对哈尔滨市进行问卷抽样调查,并利用SAS统计分析软件进行描述性统计分析和影响因素关联性分析,结果表明:越是在国企、事业单位工作的年轻居民对垃圾的可循环回收情况越了解,越愿意将垃圾回收资金作为小区建设资金;虽然年轻居民比年长居民更愿意配合垃圾分类,但是目前进行垃圾分类的却常常是年长的已婚居民;文化程度越高、居住时间越短的年轻居民越倾向于自己出资开展小区绿化工作;文化程度越高的居民越注意绿色标识;在人均月收入较高的居民中,已婚有孩子的居民在购买家电时不会考虑节能因素,未婚的居民出门经常不带购物袋。为此,需要加强舆论宣传,完善个人信用体系建设,建立可行的居民参与制度和有效的社区组织制度,提高居民之间以及居民对社区的信任程度,从而促使更多的居民为了获得良好的社区环境而参与到城市生态文明建设中来。     

水墨意象的视觉文化诠释

水墨视觉是墨色辅之以水的渲染所形成的色调变化,这是自然界事物的本质色彩,看似无色,实为丰富.它通过空间的韵度性,时间的节奏性,表现出了民族的视觉审美心理和价值取向.通过对水墨视觉文化价值比较的机能、本质的融通、标准的诠释,以期在传承视觉传统精神的基础上求新,探究现代视觉设计之路.     

A Statistical Approach to Thermal Management of Data Centers Under Steady State and System Perturbations

Temperature control for a large data center is both important and expensive. On the one hand, many of the components produce a great deal of heat, and on the other hand, many of the components require temperatures below a fairly low threshold for reliable operation. A statistical framework is proposed within which the behavior of a large cooling system can be modeled and forecast under both steady state and perturbations. This framework is based upon an extension of multivariate Gaussian autoregressive hidden Markov models (HMMs). The estimated parameters of the fitted model provide useful summaries of the overall behavior of and relationships within the cooling system. Predictions under system perturbations are useful for assessing potential changes and improvements to be made to the system. Many data centers have far more cooling capacity than necessary under sensible circumstances, thus resulting in energy inefficiencies. Using this model, predictions for system behavior after a particular component of the cooling system is shut down or reduced in cooling power can be generated. Steady-state predictions are also useful for facility monitors. System traces outside control boundaries flag a change in behavior to examine. The proposed model is fit to data from a group of air conditioners within an enterprise data center from the IT industry. The fitted model is examined, and a particular unit is found to be underutilized. Predictions generated for the system under the removal of that unit appear very reasonable. Steady-state system behavior also is predicted well.     

Missing data: Discussion points from the PSI missing data expert group

The Points to Consider Document on Missing Data was adopted by the Committee of Health and Medicinal Products (CHMP) in December 2001. In September 2007 the CHMP issued a recommendation to review the document, with particular emphasis on summarizing and critically appraising the pattern of drop‐outs, explaining the role and limitations of the ‘last observation carried forward’ method and describing the CHMP's cautionary stance on the use of mixed models. In preparation for the release of the updated guidance document, statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry held a one‐day expert group meeting in September 2008. Topics that were debated included minimizing the extent of missing data and understanding the missing data mechanism, defining the principles for handling missing data and understanding the assumptions underlying different analysis methods. A clear message from the meeting was that at present, biostatisticians tend only to react to missing data. Limited pro‐active planning is undertaken when designing clinical trials. Missing data mechanisms for a trial need to be considered during the planning phase and the impact on the objectives assessed. Another area for improvement is in the understanding of the pattern of missing data observed during a trial and thus the missing data mechanism via the plotting of data; for example, use of Kaplan–Meier curves looking at time to withdrawal. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.