Transforming the Way We Live Together: A Model to Move Communities From Policy to Implementation

Most cities, counties, and neighborhoods are not designed for an aging population. By providing a range of services to all residents, Lifelong Communities allow individuals to age in place. Although the Lifelong Communities Initiative is based on established guiding principles, little information exists regarding the realities of moving from policy to implementation. The Atlanta Regional Commission conducted a case study in Mableton, Georgia, and found successful implementation requires a combination of support from local citizen groups and government. The Atlanta Regional Commission is replicating these best practices in other communities and providing support to those aspiring to launch or expand Lifelong Communities.     

The Statute of Kilkenny (1366): Legislation and the State

This article offers a re‐evaluation of the notorious Statute of Kilkenny by placing it within a broader context of English state development in the fourteenth century. It argues that the Statute needs to be understood as part of a wider political and legislative programme shaped by military expansionism and the upheaval of the Black Death. Although racially motivated, at least in part, the Statute should not be seen as attempting to engineer a form of apartheid in Anglo‐Ireland. Rather it was representative of a broader governing culture and compares closely with legislation enforced not only in the other Plantagenet dominions but also in England itself.     

Who Is Supporting Homeless Youth? Predictors of Support in Personal Networks

Homeless youth lack the traditional support networks of their housed peers, which increases their risk for poor health outcomes. Using a multilevel dyadic analytic approach, this study identified characteristics of social contacts, relationships, and social networks associated with the provision of tangible and emotional support to homeless youth (N = 419, M age = 20.09, SD = 2.80). Support providers were likely to be family members, sex partners, or non–street‐based contacts. The provision of support was also associated with contacts' employment and homelessness status, frequency of contact, shared risk behaviors, and the number of network members that were homeless and employed. The results provide insights into how homeless youth could be assisted to develop more supportive social networks.     

The effect of visualization method on the performance of simulated microsurgery tasks

The operating microscopes may be a significant cause of fatigue and discomfort in surgeons. The need for the microscope to be placed over the operating field forces surgeons to remain at the microscope's eyepieces at an uncomfortable posture for the entirety of the surgery. This study compared the effects on microsurgical task performance for four visualization methods: a monocular microscope, a binocular microscope, a three-dimensional (3D) flat-panel television display and a two-dimensional (2D) flat-panel television display. Eleven subjects each performed two microsurgical tasks and their performance was documented by video camera. The statistical analysis performed indicated utilization of the microscope as a visualization method increased subject performance. No significant difference in performance between the 2D and stereoscopic visualization methods.     

Counting Child Domestic Servants in Latin America

This paper summarizes trends in the use of child domestic servants in six Latin American countries using IPUMS-International census samples for 1960 to 2000. Child domestics are among the most vulnerable of child workers, and the most invisible. They may be treated kindly and allowed to attend school, or they may be secluded in their employers' home, overworked, verbally abused, beaten, and unable to leave or report their difficulties to kin. Estimates and imputations are based on labor force and relationship-to-head variables. We find that domestic service makes up a substantial fraction of girls' employment in some countries. We also analyze trends in live-in versus live-out status and school enrollment of child domestic servants. While all child workers are disadvantaged in enrollment relative to non-workers, domestics are sometimes better off than non-domestic workers. In some samples, live-ins are more likely to go to school than live-out child domestics. In others, they are substantially worse off.     

An Overview of and Rationale for Changes Proposed for Pathological Gambling in DSM-5

The fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is scheduled for publication in 2013. It will include several changes to the diagnosis of pathological gambling: the name of the disorder will be altered, the threshold for diagnosis will decrease, and one criterion will be removed. This paper reviews the rationale for these changes and addresses how they may impact diagnosis and treatment of the disorder, as well as potential for future research in the field.     

Governmentality within Children's Technological Play: Findings from a Critical Discourse Analysis

In many countries today, digital technology and instant communication are embedded in children's everyday lives to the extent that their play frequently incorporates smartphones, the Internet and other technologies. In this paper, we explore the recent historical conditions within the New Zealand context that have increased the accessibility of these technologies and imbued them with particular meanings. We suggest that from a Foucauldian perspective, these technologies can be seen as a form of subtle disciplinary power using techniques of governmentality through which children's ways of thinking are shaped to benefit societal requirements of the current historical era.     

Applications and Implementation DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS: AN EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT FOR DECISION MAKING

A laboratory experiment examined the effects of applying decision support system (DSS) technology to decision making in ill-structured problem environments under varying information conditions. Marketing executives participated in the experiment which investigated the effects of DSS availability, DSS training, and data availability on dependent variables that included: (1) the number of alternatives considered by a subject during decision making, (2) the period of time spent by a subject to complete the decision-making process, (3) the subject's perceived confidence in the decisions he or she had made, (4) the amount of data considered by a subject's during decision making, (5) the individual subject's decision processing, and (6) the subject's performance overall. Our results indicate that all three factors significantly affect the number of alternatives considered by subjects during the decision-making process. We therefore suggest that DSS training be coordinated with decision training in order to realize the potential of DSSs as described in the DSS literature.     

School Choice in London and Paris – A Comparison of Middle‐class Strategies

Education is one major public service in which quasi‐markets and other choice‐based mechanisms are now established methods of delivery. The types of school people choose, and the extent to which their choices are realized, have a fundamental impact on the outcomes of any mechanism of school choice. In this article, we provide a comparative analysis of the school choice strategies of middle‐class families in London and Paris. We draw on approximately 200 in‐depth interviews carried out across the two cities. This enables us to investigate the extent to which middle‐class school choice strategies transcend the institutional context provided by both the local (state and private) schools market and national education policy in England and France. We discuss these findings in the context of current school choice policy and consider their implications for future policy design.     

Children's Perceptions of Family Relationships as Assessed in a Doll Story Completion Task: Links to Parenting, Social Competence, and Externalizing Behavior

This study was designed to examine the links between parenting, children's perceptions of family relationships, and children's social behavior. Seventy‐four children (M age=6.01 years; 39 boys; 35 girls) and their parents took part in the study. Children completed relationship‐oriented doll stories that were coded for coherence, prosocial themes, and aggressive themes. Parents completed a report of their child's social behavior, a parenting scale, and a number of demographic items. Teachers also completed measures of children's social competence and externalizing behavior. Warm parenting predicted both a child's representation of prosocial themes in the doll stories and social competence, whereas harsh parenting predicted both a child's use of aggressive themes in the doll stories and a child's externalizing behavior. These findings support the idea that children are constructing models of relationships out of the early interactions with caregivers, and that they use these representations to guide their social behavior.