The importance of end-of-life care in nursing home settings is not diminished by a disaster

The emphasis in disaster situations is on preserving life, and this goal is both appropriate and laudable. There is a risk, however, that the needs of people who are dying can become lost when there is a sudden surge of people needing acute intervention. There are significant ethical considerations inherent in society's prioritization of care needs across the acute, rehabilitative, and palliative spectrum in general, let alone in a disaster situation. These ethical conundrums are not the focus of this article. Rather, we anchor our discussion on the assumption that care needs are equally valid, and our purpose is to explore the issues that impact the provision of quality end-of-life care in nursing home settings for those who require this care when a disaster occurs. Nursing home residents, in particular, are at heightened risk for experiencing negative disaster-related outcomes due to compromised physical or mental health that requires skilled nursing care. Moreover, within the already vulnerable nursing home population are many people who are receiving palliative end-of-life services when a disaster strikes. Education and training in end-of-life services for nursing home staff, disaster emergency responders, and other lay people is vital to build capacity for adapting the delivery of these services in disaster situations in the interest of equity and human rights. Given the present lack of guidance in the literature as to what end-of-life care looks like when adapted to the context of disaster response, there is also a pressing need for research to inform this discussion. The purpose of this article is to draw attention to this topic and highlight some of the critical issues, gaps, and opportunities.     

Opportunism in Distribution Networks: The Role of Network Embeddedness and Dependence

Prior research documents the value of network relationships to firm behavior but is relatively silent on how networks influence opportunism in distribution channels. Focusing on a common type of distribution networks in which multiple distributors serve a single, dominant supplier, this study moves beyond a dyadic view to examine how a focal distributor's relational and structural embeddedness in such a distribution network influences its opportunism toward the dominant supplier. In particular, we postulate that a distributor's relational embeddedness in the network curbs its opportunism, whereas its network centrality, as a form of structural embeddedness in the network, promotes its opportunism. Moreover, we propose that relational embeddedness magnifies the role of a focal distributor's dependence on the supplier in suppressing the distributor's opportunism, whereas network centrality buffers such a role. We first empirically test these hypotheses using data collected from car dealers in China; the results provide support for the hypotheses. We then develop an analytical model to validate and further explain the underlying mechanisms of the network effects. Our analytical results not only validate the empirical results but also provide guidance for managers on controlling opportunism in distribution networks.     

Bibliography

In this article, we explore how those taking part in an interview about sex and risk reflected on their participation and what, if any, impact it had on them. All 22 individuals who were interviewed in an initial study were invited to document their thoughts and feelings about the research process in a short follow-up exercise. The data relating to the 11 people who shared their reflections on the interview were subjected to a thematic analysis. The themes that emerged describe the value participants placed on honest and open interaction within neutral and non-judgmental environments. They also illustrate how being interviewed about prior behaviour can facilitate a sense-making process and might provide some degree of cathartic benefit. The findings help improve our understanding of how individuals reflect on their interview participation, which can in turn help to inform the development of ethically sensitive qualitative data collection.     

Does Counting Count for 3‐ to 4‐year‐olds? Parental Assumptions about Preschool Children's Understanding of Counting and Cardinality

Research indicates that children do not typically understand the connection between counting and cardinality for several months after learning to count, yet parents speak to 3‐year‐olds as though they already understood the significance of counting. The present research was designed to investigate mothers’ awareness of the discrepancy between children's procedural and conceptual mastery of counting. In Study 1 mothers of a hundred 3‐ to 4¹/₂‐year‐olds completed an anonymous questionnaire asking them to anticipate how their child would respond to a series of real‐life vignettes based on widely used experimental measures of cardinal understanding. Most anticipated that their child, irrespective of age, would (1) understand the significance of the last word of a count, and (2) be able accurately to give a specified non‐subitizable number of objects. Comparison with the performance of 54 children from the same local population supported the hypothesis that parents overestimate children's understanding of the cardinal significance of counting. Mothers reported a range of impromptu number‐related activities in which their child had recently participated at home; most of these involved simple procedural counting. In Study 2, 35 mothers of 3‐ to 4¹/₂‐year‐olds completed a modified questionnaire concerning procedural aspects of counting as well as cardinality; their responses were then compared with the performance of their own children. Again, mothers overestimated their children's cardinal understanding, but this was shown not to be a result of a general tendency to overestimate their counting abilities. It is suggested that preschoolers’ counting generally occurs during joint activities in which caregivers may be unaware of the support that they provide, and, provided that the jointly executed count procedures are error‐free, parents implicitly assume a ‘common knowledge’ regarding the cardinal significance of counting.     

生命选择什么

在一个明媚的春日午后,我和一个朋友坐在校园的石凳上闲聊.阳光下是静静的湖畔、人来人往的青草地、飘逸的柳枝、欢叫的鸟儿……空气中四散着风信子的味道.     

Blurring Boundaries? Immigration and Exogamous Marriages in Hong Kong

This article uses micro‐data from the Hong Kong census since 1991 to report trends in the integration of Chinese residents who were born either in Colonial Hong Kong or in Mainland China. We focus on marital exogamy by nativity for women aged 25–34. From 1991 to 2011, we found an increasing likelihood for Hong Kong native men and Mainland women to be married to one another. This increase reflects cross‐border marriages. Such exogamous marriages were associated with a lower degree of educational homogamy, since Hong Kong‐born men tend to be more educated than their Mainland spouses. They are also older than their immigrant wives. Implications for social distance between natives and immigrants in this context of exogamous marriages are discussed.     

Patrick Geddes: founder of environmental sociology

On the basis of a close reading of two early articles by Patrick Geddes, which form the basis of his later approach to sociology, it is argued that Geddes should be reclaimed by sociologists from the geographers and the town planners, as the founder of a distinctive environmental sociology in Britain at around the turn of the last century. Certain of Geddes’ arguments are seen to be comparable with those of Durkheim, in particular, and Marx to a somewhat lesser extent. Moreover, his work contains a distinctively sociological account of the ‘structuring’ of social (and environmental) reality via the creative agency of human beings actively working in a variety of environments. Geddes’ naïve optimism may make him as much Utopian as sociological, but does not invalidate his contribution to the development of a classical environmental sociology.