Continuity of carer and partnership. A review of the literature

The purpose of this paper was to conduct a critical review of the literature to determine whether there is convincing evidence that continuity of carer is fundamental to midwives forming a partnership relationship with women. Electronic databases and text were searched. The research findings did not support the notion that continuity of carer was a high priority of the women nor was it found to be a clear predictor for women's satisfaction. Continuity of care throughout the childbirth experience was found to increase midwives job satisfaction and autonomy but did not necessarily lead to midwives developing meaningful relationships with women. The lack of research support for continuity of care may be a matter of lack of well-designed studies or it may be a real finding. Further research is required to determine whether continuity of carer is essential to the partnership relationship.     

A mixture model with Poisson and zero-truncated Poisson components to analyze road traffic accidents in Turkey

The analysis of traffic accident data is crucial to address numerous concerns, such as understanding contributing factors in an accident''s chain-of-events, identifying hotspots, and informing policy decisions about road safety management. The majority of statistical models employed for analyzing traffic accident data are logically count regression models (commonly Poisson regression) since a count – like the number of accidents – is used as the response. However, features of the observed data frequently do not make the Poisson distribution a tenable assumption. For example, observed data rarely demonstrate an equal mean and variance and often times possess excess zeros. Sometimes, data may have heterogeneous structure consisting of a mixture of populations, rather than a single population. In such data analyses, mixtures-of-Poisson-regression models can be used. In this study, the number of injuries resulting from casualties of traffic accidents registered by the General Directorate of Security (Turkey, 2005–2014) are modeled using a novel mixture distribution with two components: a Poisson and zero-truncated-Poisson distribution. Such a model differs from existing mixture models in literature where the components are either all Poisson distributions or all zero-truncated Poisson distributions. The proposed model is compared with the Poisson regression model via simulation and in the analysis of the traffic data.     

Adolescent daughters’ perceptions of their fathers’ levels of communication and care: How these variables influence female adolescent sexual behaviors

This study examines the relationship between female adolescents’ perceptions of their fathers’ level of communication and care, and the influence of these variables on their adolescent daughters’ sexual behaviors. Data was extracted from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health from 1994–2008, which consisted of a sample (N=629) of adolescent girls in grades 7–12 in the United States during the 1994–1995 school year. Study results show fathers’ caring as statistically significant at the .05 level. As fathers’ caring increased, the number of sex partners decreased among adolescent girls. Fathers’ communication was not statistically significant at the .055 level. However, as the daughters’ perception of their fathers’ communication improved, the number of daughters’ sex partners decreased. The high rates of unintended pregnancy, unprotected sex, and sexually transmitted infections (STI’s) among U.S. adolescent females show the need for a greater understanding of how fathers contribute to their daughters sexual risk-taking behaviors. Implications for practice and future research is discussed.     

An ‘undeliberate determinacy’? The changing migration strategies of Polish migrants in the UK in times of Brexit

This paper reformulates classical questions regarding the plans and strategies of Polish migrants in the UK – such as decisions to leave or remain in the host country, or be ‘deliberately indeterminate’ about future plans – from a sociologically situated ‘rights-based’ perspective. This approach considers migrants’ attitudes towards specific ‘civic integration’ measures in a medium-term time frame, as well as in the new context created by the UK’s vote to leave the EU. Based on the quantitative analysis of original survey data, we investigate the factors behind Polish migrants’ migration strategies, and we argue that basic socio-economic and demographic factors are inadequate, on their own terms, to explain future migration and civic integration plans. Instead, we find that aspects such as interest in and awareness of one’s rights, as well as anxieties about the ability to maintain one’s rights in the future are stronger determinants.     

Moving “Up and Out” Together: Exploring the Mother–Child Bond in Low‐Income,Single‐Mother‐Headed Families

Bearing children is often viewed as negatively impacting the social mobility of low‐income single mothers. This analysis draws on 66 in‐depth interviews with low‐income, single‐mother participants in an antipoverty program in Boston. The author argues that the mother–child relationship is at the center of efforts by these single mothers to move out of poverty. Interviewees repeatedly expressed the primacy of their children's needs being met in order for them to move forward. Mothers tried to include their children in efforts to move out of poverty, thus fulfilling the role of a “good mother” while exhibiting proper behavior for a poor person trying to achieve economic independence. The data here highlight the limitations of policy initiatives that fail to acknowledge the centrality of children's well‐being to the lives of single mothers and suggest that the mother–child bond may be an untapped resource for policies and programs serving this community.     

The role of sex steroid hormones in benign prostatic hyperplasia

Introduction: The etiology of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) remains a mystery to scientists; estrogen/androgen imbalance in aged men has been implicated.

Methods: Thirty (30) apparently healthy men and newly diagnosed BPH patients were recruited from the Ghana Police Hospital. Lower urinary tract syndrome (LUTS) and prostate volume were assessed via the prostate symptom score sheet (IPSS) and abdominopelvic scan, respectively. Laboratory assays for total prostate specific antigen (tPSA) and hormones [androstenedione (AED), testosterone (T), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), androstanedioladiol (3α-adiol), androstanediol (3β-diol), estrone (E1) and estradiol (E2)] were performed via ELISA techniques. Non-parametric analyses were employed. p?Results: AED was significantly higher in controls compared to the BPH patients. AKRIC2 (3α-diol/DHT) was significantly higher in the BPH group (p?p=?0.029). Age correlated negatively with T, while a negative correlation was observed between TIPSS and 3β-diol and AKRIC1. Also, prostate volume correlated negatively with fT.tPSA correlated positively with E2 and aromatase activity (E2/T) and negatively with fT. On multiple linear regression, DHT and 3β-diol remained independent predictors for TIPSS and fT for tPSA.

Conclusion: Estrogens and androstanediols seem to play a role in BPH development.     

A National Superannuation Scheme for Australia?

It is shown that the cost of pensions represents a significant transfer of funds, and that if pensions are to be increased to the ‘poverty line’ as a minimum at the same time as abolition of the Means Test, it will become essential to adopt a national contribution scheme. It is suggested that Australia adopt the two-tier system of national superannuation such as is now in use in Sweden and is about to be adopted in Canada and the United Kingdom. This would provide for a basic pension for all, to which would be added an Earnings Related Supplement.     

Divergent Paths of Immigration Politics in the United States and Australia

The United States and Australia converged by the mid‐1980s on receptive and expan sive immigration policies reflecting “client” politics. Australia has since pursued a more restrictive and selective course while the United States has resisted pressures toward such a stance. The authors account for these differences by assessing the theoretical perspectives of interests, rights, and states. Conflicts among groups with direct interests in policy outcomes are the principal source of immigration politics, but a comparison of the roles of rights and state institutions helps explain peculiarities of the two cases. The distinctive Australian policy trajectory is shaped by greater volatility of public opinion about immigration and multiculturalism, and by political institutions that are more responsive to popular sentiment.     

Utilizing the moral nobility of older Chinese women in governance: The uses of humility,empathy, and an ethics of care in moral clinics in Huzhou city

This paper examines the emergence of the role of “moral doctors” who volunteer in what are called “moral clinics” in Huzhou city. In these moral clinics, the characteristics, experiences, and attributes of older women, in particular, are highly valued and viewed as being essential to the role of the moral doctor. These moral doctors act as moral exemplars and conflict mediators in their local communities. Their moral capital and professionalism, combined with their gender, age, familial and neighborhood attributes, contribute to the accumulation of an affective feminized labor which employs the techniques of care, reason, and moral fortitude to govern the self and others. We unpack these ethical virtues exemplified by moral doctors and nurses in order to show how a female-centric “ethic of care” can become a set of techniques in governing others. In this paper, we elaborate on the role that these moral doctors perform to support the aims of the moral clinics in terms of fostering pro-social behavior and moral obligation in local communities. We argue that the performance of this type of “moral work” is both a mechanism of discipline and a process of self-actualization. We contribute to the current literature on “therapeutic governance” in China by showing how the non-expert medicalization of social ills by moral doctors is incorporated into the reproduction of social control.