The Triple P‐Positive Parenting Programme: a universal population‐level approach to the prevention of child abuse

The Triple P‐Positive Parenting Programme is described as an example of an evidence‐based universal parenting initiative that provides a tiered continuum of interventions of increasing strength but narrowing reach in an effort to make parenting programmes more accessible to parents. Interventions within the system range from the use of the media and brief messages to intensive family interventions for parents where parenting problems are complicated by multiple additional sources of family adversity. Several issues concerning the role of training and organizational factors that influence the successful uptake and implementation of the programme are discussed. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Bayesian Microbial Subtyping Attribution Model: Robustness to Prior Information and a Proposition

Attributing foodborne illnesses to food sources is essential to conceive, prioritize, and assess the impact of public health policy measures. The Bayesian microbial subtyping attribution model by Hald et al. is one of the most advanced approaches to attribute sporadic cases; it namely allows taking into account the level of exposure to the sources and the differences between bacterial types and between sources. This step forward requires introducing type and source‐dependent parameters, and generates overparameterization, which was addressed in Hald's paper by setting some parameters to constant values. We question the impact of the choices made for the parameterization (parameters set and values used) on model robustness and propose an alternative parameterization for the Hald model. We illustrate this analysis with the 2005 French data set of non‐typhi Salmonella. Mullner's modified Hald model and a simple deterministic model were used to compare the results and assess the accuracy of the estimates. Setting the parameters for bacterial types specific to a unique source instead of the most frequent one and using data‐based values instead of arbitrary values enhanced the convergence and adequacy of the estimates and led to attribution estimates consistent with the other models’ results. The type and source parameters estimates were also coherent with Mullner's model estimates. The model appeared to be highly sensitive to parameterization. The proposed solution based on specific types and data‐based values improved the robustness of estimates and enabled the use of this highly valuable tool successfully with the French data set.     

Dementia with cerebrovascular disease

In this case study, we review the symptoms, cognitive testing, brain imaging, and brain pathology of a woman with dementia, for whom the neuropathological findings suggest a prominent contribution of cerebrovascular disease. Vascular dementia is the term commonly used for persons with dementia resulting from strokes, either clinically evident or subclinical "silent" events. "Mixed dementia" is the term used when there is an admixture of pathological findings related to Alzheimer's disease (AD) and cerebrovascular disease, as in this situation. In some cases of mixed dementia, the pathological involvement of AD may be the principal contributory cause of the cognitive symptoms, and in others, the vascular changes may give the greater contribution.     

Actions Speak Louder than Words: Close Relationships between Humans and Nonhuman Animals

Symbolic interactionism and other sociological perspectives traditionally have not attended to a significant form of close relationship—that which exists between people and the companion animals with whom they share their everyday lives. After a brief presentation of a portion of the relevant literature that deals with how humans understand and interact with their animal companions, I present the process by which caretakers come to define the unique identities of their animals and the ways in which the human‐animal couple identity shapes public interaction. Since play, mutual gaze, and “speaking for” animals are key elements of friendly human‐animal interaction, I discuss these activities as central to the process by which caretakers establish and express intersubjective connections with their animals. Finally, I maintain that attention to human‐animal relationships holds promise for advancing an appreciative understanding of how personhood, mind, and culture are constructed in the process of interaction. Of special significance to the broadening of the interactionist perspective is that the understandings and emotional connections that bind people and their animals are created and maintained in the absence of a shared body of linguistic symbols.     

Quantifying costs of forecast errors: A case study of the warehouse environment

Our study evaluates the impact of forecast errors on organizational cost by simulating a labor-intensive warehouse environment using realistic cost data from a case study. Unlike past studies that measure forecast error in terms of forecast standard deviation, our study also considers the impact of forecast bias, and the complex interaction between these variables. Two cases of organizational cost curves are considered, with differing and asymmetric structures. Results find forecast bias to have a considerably greater impact on organizational cost than forecast standard deviation. Particularly damaging is a high bias in the presence of high forecast standard deviation. Although biasing the forecast in the least costly direction is shown to yield lower costs, sensitivity analysis shows that increasing bias beyond the optimum point rapidly increases costs. ‘Overshooting’ the optimal amount of bias appears to be more damaging than not biasing the forecast at all. Given that managers often deliberately bias their forecasts, this finding underscores the importance of having a good understanding of organizational cost structures before arbitrarily introducing bias. This finding also suggests that managers should exercise caution when introducing bias, particularly for forecasts that inherently have large errors. These findings have important implications for organizational decision making beyond the simulated warehouse, as high forecast errors are endemic to many labor-intensive organizations.