Sexually Open Marriage

In this article the author describes sexually open marriage in the lives of 71 individuals. These persons make up three groups—persons in open relationships, persons divorced or separated after an open relationship and secondary partners of persons in open relationships—and are described as they experience their open relationships and then, two years later, as they evaluate the changes in their open sexual relationships. Similarities and differences among these three groups are discussed. In addition, this article looks at the ground rules that are established, jealousy issues and their management, and it discusses the role of equity and equality in sexually open relationships.     

Government policy and its impact on the motor industry

Frequent changes are potentially damaging to companies in sectors where there are long investment lead times and which are unable to respond quickly to changes in government policy. This paper demonstrates the risks which governments run by not providing a consistent, considered policy framework which would allow companies to plan their strategies with a reasonable degree of certainty.     

Preheating primes pruners. Gentle warming charges up protein-chopping system in human skin cells

Volunteers fill sandbags while storm clouds are brewing so the sacks will be ready when floodwaters rush in. Similarly, skin cells prepare for a flood of molten proteins by reinforcing a protein-chopping system, according to new research. This boost might explain how cells and organisms protect themselves from severe stress.     

Modeling Event Times with Multiple Outcomes Using the Wiener Process with Drift

Length of stay in hospital (LOS) is a widely used outcome measure in Health Services research, often acting as a surrogate for resource consumption or as a measure of efficiency. The distribution of LOS is typically highly skewed, with a few large observations. An interesting feature is the presence of multiple outcomes (e.g. healthy discharge, death in hospital, transfer to another institution). Health Services researchers are interested in modeling the dependence of LOS on covariates, often using administrative data collected for other purposes, such as calculating fees for doctors. Even after all available covariates have been included in the model, unexplained heterogeneity usually remains. In this article, we develop a parametric regression model for LOS that addresses these features. The model is based on the time, T, that a Wiener process with drift (representing an unobserved health level process) hits one of two barriers, one representing healthy discharge and the other death in hospital. Our approach to analyzing event times has many parallels with competing risks analysis (Kalbfleisch and Prentice, The Statistical Analysis of Failure Time Data, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1980)), and can be seen as a way of formalizing a competing risks situation. The density of T is an infinite series, and we outline a proof that the density and its derivatives are absolutely and uniformly convergent, and regularity conditions are satisfied. Expressions for the expected value of T, the conditional expectation of T given outcome, and the probability of each outcome are available in terms of model parameters. The proposed regression model uses an approximation to the density formed by truncating the series, and its parameters are estimated by maximum likelihood. An extension to allow a third outcome (e.g. transfers out of hospital) is discussed, as well as a mixture model that addresses the issue of unexplained heterogeneity. The model is illustrated using administrative data.     

An ecological approach to facilitate successful employment outcomes among people with multiple chemical sensitivity

Many adults with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) must prematurely exit the workforce because of the severity of their MCS symptoms, the resulting disability stigma, and their unmet needs for on-the-job accommodations. To help individuals with MCS continue working or re-enter employment, rehabilitation professionals must understand the barriers resulting in unemployment and implement interventions to reduce or remove those barriers. In this article, the Ecological Model of Career Development is presented as a scheme for identifying barriers and implementing rehabilitation interventions to improve the employment outcomes among people with MCS.