The therapeutic misconception: a threat to valid parental consent for pediatric neuroimaging research

Neuroimaging research has brought major advances to child health and wellbeing. However, because of the vulnerabilities associated with neurological and developmental conditions, the parental need for hope, and the expectation of parents that new medical advances can benefit their child, pediatric neuroimaging research presents significant challenges to the general problem of consent in the context of research involving children. A particular challenge in this domain is created by the presence of therapeutic misconception on the part of parents and other key research stakeholders. This article revierws the concept of therapeutic misconception and its role in pediatric neuroimaging research. It argues that this misconception can compromise consent given by parents for the involvement of their children in research as healthy controls or as persons with neurological and developmental conditions. The article further contends that therapeutic misconception can undermine the research ethics review process for proposed and ongoing neuroimaging studies. Against this backdrop, the article concludes with recommendations for mitigating the effects of therapeutic misconception in pediatric neuroimaging research.     

Risk-Based Analysis of the Danish Pork Salmonella Program: Past and Future

The Danish pork Salmonella control program was initiated in 1993 in response to a prominent pork-related outbreak in Copenhagen. It involved improved efforts at slaughter hygiene (postharvest) and on-farm (preharvest) surveillance and control. After 10 years, 95 million Euros, significant reductions in seropositive herds, Salmonella positive carcasses, and pork-attributable human cases (PAHC), questions have arisen about how best to continue this program. The objective of this study was to provide some analysis and information to address these questions. The methods used include a computer simulation model constructed of a series of Excel workbooks, one for each simulated year and scenario ( http://www.ifss.iastate/DanSalmRisk ). Each workbook has three modules representing the key processes affecting risk: seropositive pigs leaving the farm (Production), carcass contamination after slaughter (Slaughter), and PAHC of Salmonella (Attribution). Parameter estimates are derived from an extensive farm-to-fork database collected by industry and government and managed by the Danish Zoonosis Centre ( http://www.food.dtu.dk ). Retrospective (1994–2003) and prospective (2004–2013) simulations were evaluated. The retrospective simulations showed that, except for the first few years (1994–1998), the on-farm program had minimal impact in reducing the number of positive carcasses and PAHC. Most of the reductions in PAHC up to 2003 were, according to this analysis, due to various improvements in abattoir processes. Prospective simulations showed that minimal reductions in human health risk (PAHC) could be achieved with on-farm programs alone. Carcass decontamination was shown as the most effective means of reducing human risk, reducing PAHC to about 10% of the simulated 2004 level.     

DOES A GOOD CENTRAL BANKER MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

The personalities of central bankers moved center stage during the recent financial crisis. Indeed, several central bankers even became “superstars.” In this article, we investigate whether superstar central bankers have an impact on economic performance. We employ school grades given to central bankers by the financial press, defining as superstars those central bankers receiving the top grade. First, we explain the grades in a probit estimation with measures of economic performance, institutional features, and personal characteristics. Second, we employ a matching approach to account for the endogeneity of grading with respect to economic performance. Using entropy balancing, we identify credible counterfactuals for top‐graded central bankers, that is, nonsuperstar central bankers who face similar situations. Comparing the economic performance of both groups, we find that superstars do indeed matter: a top‐graded central banker faces a significantly more favorable output‐inflation tradeoff than his peers. This effect is driven by outstanding central bankers in both advanced and emerging economies and is especially prevalent in the precrisis subsample. (JEL E52, E58)     

The Field of American Media Sociology: Origins,Resurrection, and Consolidation

This contribution is written against the backdrop of the historic dispersal of early American media sociology out from the core concerns of the discipline and into various importer academic disciplines (including communication, journalism, and media studies) and an ever‐growing pervasiveness of media in everyday life which is reflected by a resurgence of sociological scholarship in the United States since the early 2000s. The article divides the field in works that study media inwards – along the threefold dimensions of production and technologies, communication and discourse, reception and effects – and works that study media outwards. We argue that this latter perspective, examining broader theoretical, methodological, and substantive social implications of mass‐mediated communication, is the most promising one for a mature field of American media sociology. On this basis, we conclude with some suggestions regarding possible new, and as of yet understudied, lines of inquiry for future media sociologists.     

In search of excellence: a case study of the first excellence initiative of Germany

As higher education policies are often associated with intense public spending, the evaluation and performance measurement of respective initiatives becomes increasingly crucial. An extensive and fruitful strand of literature has dealt with the assessment of university performance, yet mainly focused on point-in-time rather than period-of-time examinations. This study investigates the effects of Germany’s first Excellence Initiative, a political measure aimed at building up world-class universities to be able to compete in the globalizing research world. Relying on both qualitative and quantitative measures, taking into account a 15-year period from 1998 to 2012, we analyze the selection process and how and whether the Excellence Initiative fulfilled its ambitious goals. Our results suggest that not the political initiative per se, i.e. the treatment, but the announcement of the treatment triggered diverging performance paths within the German higher education system, thus positively contributed to augmented research performance of the promoted universities. Based on these findings, we provide policy recommendations and avenues for future research.     

Numerical solution of optimal allocation problems in stratified sampling under box constraints

Modern sampling designs in survey statistics, in general, are constructed in order to optimize the accuracy of estimators such as totals, means and proportions. In stratified random sampling a variance minimal solution was introduced by Neyman and Tschuprov. However, practical constraints may lead to limitations of the domain of sampling fractions which have to be considered within the optimization process. Special attention on the complexity of numerical solutions has to be paid in cases with many strata or when the optimal allocation has to be applied repeatedly, such as in iterative solutions of stratification problems. The present article gives an overview of recent numerical algorithms which allow adequate inclusion of box constraints in the numerical optimization process. These box constraints may play an important role in statistical modeling. Furthermore, a new approach through a fixed point iteration with a finite termination property is presented.     

Vertrauen bei Internet-Auktionen

The text replies to the article “Trust and Reputation in Internet-Auctions” (KZfSS, Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 674–693) by Diekmann and Wyder. In principle the authors’ consideration regarding a premium for reputation for trustworthy participants in internet auctions seems to be attractive. However, we object to the lacking definitions of the categories of trust and reputation as well as to the problematic design of their central indicator (reputation). With regard to their interpretation we criticize the missing consideration of qualitative — especially negative — statements in the public rating systems, underestimating the relevance of “critical incidents” to fragile trust relations on the internet. Finally we remark that Diekmann and Wyder misjudge the founding, cultivating and modifying activities (including imposing sanctions) of the platform owner towards this institution regulating the market.     

Workload Control and Order Release: A Lean Solution for Make‐to‐Order Companies

Protecting throughput from variance is the key to achieving lean. Workload control (WLC) accomplishes this in complex make‐to‐order job shops by controlling lead times, capacity, and work‐in‐process (WIP). However, the concept has been dismissed by many authors who believe its order release mechanism reduces the effectiveness of shop floor dispatching and increases work center idleness, thereby also increasing job tardiness results. We show that these problems have been overcome. A WLC order release method known as “LUMS OR” (Lancaster University Management School order release) combines continuous with periodic release, allowing the release of work to be triggered between periodic releases if a work center is starving. This paper refines the method based on the literature (creating “LUMS COR” [Lancaster University Management School corrected order release]) before comparing its performance against the best‐performing purely periodic and continuous release rules across a range of flow directions, from the pure job shop to the general flow shop. Results demonstrate that LUMS COR and the continuous WLC release methods consistently outperform purely periodic release and Constant WIP. LUMS COR is considered the best solution in practice due to its excellent performance and ease of implementation. Findings have significant implications for research and practice: throughput times and job tardiness results can be improved simultaneously and order release and dispatching rules can complement each other. Thus, WLC represents an effective means of implementing lean principles in a make‐to‐order context.