Group Interventions for Children Having Separated Parents: A Systematic Narrative Review

The aims of this article are to review the current body of knowledge on group interventions for children with separated or divorced parents and to provide new insights into the evaluation of their efficacy. This review draws on a method of systematic narrative review (SNR). We provide a narrative synthesis of evidence from 29 studies conducted between 1980 and 2014, which were included in the SNR consistently with the inclusion criteria established. Three dimensions were considered: intervention characteristics, study characteristics, and intervention outcomes (i.e., types of outcomes and efficacy). Our findings showed a general inconsistency among the studies, which was discussed in the light of some important methodological issues.     

Leader–follower equilibria to examine investment decisions in grid resilience-enhancing measures

Large-area, long-duration power outages are increasingly common in the United States, and cost the economy billions of dollars each year. Building a strategy to enhance grid resilience requires an understanding of the optimal mix of preventive and corrective actions, the inefficiencies that arise when self-interested parties make resilience investment decisions, and the conditions under which regulators may facilitate the realization of efficient market outcomes. We develop a bi-level model to examine the mix of preventive and corrective measures that enhances grid resilience to a severe storm. The model represents a Stackelberg game between a regulated utility (leader) that may harden distribution feeders before a long-duration outage and/or deploy restoration crews after the disruption, and utility customers with varying preferences for reliable power (followers) who may invest in backup generators. We show that the regulator's denial of cost recovery for the utility's preventive expenditures, coupled with the misalignment between private objectives and social welfare maximization, yields significant inefficiencies in the resilience investment mix. Allowing cost recovery for a higher share of the utility's capital expenditures in preventive measures, extending the time horizon associated with damage cost recovery, and adopting a storm restoration compensation mechanism shift the realized market outcome toward the efficient solution. If about one-fifth of preventive resilience investments is approved by regulators, requiring utilities to pay a compensation of $365 per customer for a 3-day outage (about seven times the level of compensation currently offered by US utilities) provides significant incentives toward more efficient preventive resilience investments.     

A Smile Enhances 3‐Month‐Olds’ Recognition of an Individual Face

Recent studies demonstrated that in adults and children recognition of face identity and facial expression mutually interact ( Bate, Haslam, & Hodgson, 2009 ; Spangler, Schwarzer, Korell, & Maier‐Karius, 2010 ). Here, using a familiarization paradigm, we explored the relation between these processes in early infancy, investigating whether 3‐month‐old infants’ ability to recognize an individual face is affected by the positive (happiness) or neutral emotional expression displayed. Results indicated that infants’ face recognition appears enhanced when faces display a happy emotional expression, suggesting the presence of a mutual interaction between face identity and emotion recognition as early as 3 months of age.     

Does self-efficacy matter for burnout and sickness absenteeism? The mediating role of demands and resources at the individual and team levels

In team-based organizations, team members may share similar experiences, feelings and, consequently, susceptibility to burnout. This study explores the burnout process beyond the individual level of analysis and integrates Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) with the Job Demands-Resources Model (JD-R), emphasizing the role of self-efficacy in shaping the meaning that people ascribe to situations. A multilevel structural equation model was tested in which it was predicted that work self-efficacy beliefs would be associated with burnout both directly and indirectly via job demands and job resources, and at both the individual and the team level. Moreover, it was posited that, at the team level, registered sickness absences are predicted by burnout. A sample of 5406 call centre operators, clustered in 186 teams working in the same large Italian company, filled out a questionnaire, whereas team absence rates were provided by the company's HR department. The findings largely supported the hypothesized model: at both levels, job demands and job resources partially mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and burnout. Moreover, at the team level, burnout predicted subsequent sickness absenteeism. In addition, individual-level burnout was primarily associated with job demands, whereas team-level burnout was primarily associated with a lack of team-level resources.     

International Migration and Gender in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis

We review census data to assess the standing of five Latin American nations on a gender continuum ranging from patriarchal to matrifocal. We show that Mexico and Costa Rica lie close to one another with a highly patriarchal system of gender relations whereas Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic are similar in having a matrifocal system. Puerto Rico occupies a middle position, blending characteristics of both systems. These differences yield different patterns of female relative to male migration. Female householders in the two patriarchal settings displayed low rates of out-migration compared with males, whereas in the two matrifocal countries the ratio of female to male migration was much higher, in some case exceeding their male counterparts. Multivariate analyses showed that in patriarchal societies, a formal or informal union with a male dramatically lowers the odds of female out-migration, whereas in matrifocal societies marriage and cohabitation have no real effect. The most important determinants of female migration from patriarchal settings are the migrant status of the husband or partner, having relatives in the United States, and the possession of legal documents. In matrifocal settings, however, female migration is less related to the possession of documents, partner's migrant status, or having relatives in the United States and more strongly related to the woman's own migratory experience. Whereas the process of cumulative causation appears to be driven largely by men in patriarchal societies, it is women who dominate the process in matrifocal settings.     

Contrast function estimation for the drift parameter of ergodic jump diffusion process

In this paper, we consider an ergodic diffusion process with jumps whose drift coefficient depends on an unknown parameter. We suppose that the process is discretely observed. We introduce an estimator based on a contrast function, which is efficient without requiring any conditions on the rate at which the step discretization goes to zero, and where we allow the observed process to have nonsummable jumps. This extends earlier results where the condition on the step discretization was needed and where the process was supposed to have summable jumps. In general situations, our contrast function is not explicit and one has to resort to some approximation. In the case of a finite jump activity, we propose explicit approximations of the contrast function such that the efficient estimation of the drift parameter is feasible. This extends the results obtained by Kessler in the case of continuous processes.     

Assessing the effectiveness of a performance evaluation system in the public health care sector: some novel evidence from the Tuscany region experience

Since 80’s the introduction of New Public Management principles has promoted the use of performance measurement to drive a more efficient, effective and accountable public sector. The adoption of a sophisticated and comprehensive multidimensional performance measurement system, which looks beyond traditional financial measures, based on organization strategies, such as the balanced scorecard, has thus been suggested. This revolution in the public management came together with the devolution processes that involved most European public health systems. Set within this context, in the last decade, each of the twenty Italian regions developed its own management tools. Among others, the Tuscan performance evaluation system (PES) has been valued as a particularly innovative and comprehensive system. This paper reports the novel experience of the Tuscan PES; in particular, it measures PES effectiveness and discusses the critical factors that could have led to the PES success. Five are the critical success factors identified by researchers: the visual reporting system, the linkage between PES and CEO’s reward system, the public disclosure of data, the high level of employees and managers involvement into the entire process and the strong political commitment. All those factors run together to achieve better results; however, the process of development of the system plays a pivotal role. Scholars suggest the use of a constructive approach in order to gain effective changes in human organization. According to this stream of literature, this paper contributes by the novel experience of the Tuscan PES in addressing as a further fruitful application of the constructivist approach in healthcare.     

Cost–Benefit Analysis and the Rates of Return of Infrastructure Projects: Evidence from International Organizations

In this paper we analyse data on the rates of return of investment projects sponsored by three international institutions: the European Union (EU), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the World Bank (WB). The focus of the paper is on the variability of ex-ante economic rate of returns (ERR), of financial rates of return (FRR, available for EU and EBRD) and ex-post or re-estimated economic rates of return (RERR, available for WB only), along with the co-financing rate (EU). We propose a framework of analysis of FRR and ERR variations across projects, sectors, financing institutions and time, of the wedge between ERR and FRR, and of the gap between ERR and RERR. Our main conclusions are that the informational content of projects’ rates of return is valuable and is needed for cost–benefit analyses, and that sectors, countries, time and funding institutions explain much of the variability of these rates. We advocate the collection of standardized and comparable data since our framework could be used for comparing rates of return variability of development projects across countries, time of approval or completion, or any other relevant sampling criterion.