Intimate Partner Violence,Minority Stress,and Sexual Risk-Taking Among U.S. Men Who Have Sex With Men

This article examines the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) among a national sample of Internet-recruited U.S. men who have sex with men (MSM) (n = 1,575), and associations between reporting of IPV, minority stress, and sexual risk-taking. Five outcomes are examined: experiences of physical and sexual violence, perpetration of physical and sexual violence, and unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) at last sexual encounter. MSM who reported experiencing more homophobic discrimination and internalized homophobia were more likely to report experiences of IPV. The results point to the need for prevention messages to address the external and internal stressors that influence both violence and sexual risk among MSM.     

Bayesian Classifiers Applied to the Tennessee Eastman Process

Fault diagnosis includes the main task of classification. Bayesian networks (BNs) present several advantages in the classification task, and previous works have suggested their use as classifiers. Because a classifier is often only one part of a larger decision process, this article proposes, for industrial process diagnosis, the use of a Bayesian method called dynamic Markov blanket classifier that has as its main goal the induction of accurate Bayesian classifiers having dependable probability estimates and revealing actual relationships among the most relevant variables. In addition, a new method, named variable ordering multiple offspring sampling capable of inducing a BN to be used as a classifier, is presented. The performance of these methods is assessed on the data of a benchmark problem known as the Tennessee Eastman process. The obtained results are compared with naive Bayes and tree augmented network classifiers, and confirm that both proposed algorithms can provide good classification accuracies as well as knowledge about relevant variables.     

Blood Transfusion in Room 223

How educators handle conflicting views of Populism is important in engaging students in critical thinking.     

Human Health Risk Assessment of Penicillin/Aminopenicillin Resistance in Enterococci Due to Penicillin Use in Food Animals

Penicillin and ampicillin drugs are approved for use in food animals in the United States to treat, control, and prevent diseases, and penicillin is approved for use to improve growth rates in pigs and poultry. This article considers the possibility that such uses might increase the incidence of ampicillin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (AREF) of animal origin in human infections, leading to increased hospitalization and mortality due to reduced response to ampicillin or penicillin. We assess the risks from continued use of penicillin-based drugs in food animals in the United States, using several assumptions to overcome current scientific uncertainties and data gaps. Multiplying the total at-risk population of intensive care unit (ICU) patients by a series of estimated factors suggests that not more than 0.04 excess mortalities per year (under conservative assumptions) to 0.14 excess mortalities per year (under very conservative assumptions) might be prevented in the whole U.S. population if current use of penicillin drugs in food animals were discontinued and if this successfully reduced the prevalence of AREF infections among ICU patients. These calculations suggest that current penicillin usage in food animals in the United States presents very low (possibly zero) human health risks.     

A not so strange silence: Why qualitative researchers should respond critically to the qualitative data archive

A driving force behind the establishment of a qualitative data archive in the United Kingdom has been the oral historian, Paul Thompson. He has complained that there is a ‘strange silence’ among qualitative sociologists on re‐analysis, and that many have been reluctant to deposit data. The first part of the paper suggests that the common ethical and practical objections can be overcome in establishing an archive in Australia. However, there is a more serious underlying ideological objection: that archiving promotes and institutionalises a narrow empiricist version of qualitative research. The rest of the paper makes this case by examining teaching materials on a British website, by reviewing Thompson's arguments, and by considering some examples of re‐analysis by sociologists. It is argued that qualitative researchers should respond critically, but that it is possible to address and overcome these problems when developing an Australian archive.     

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Bipolar Disorder: Implications for Clinical Social Workers

ABSTRACT

The purposes of this review article are to orient clinical social workers to cognitive-behavioral theory, intervention, and research on bipolar disorder (BD); identify pros and cons of applying cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to social work clients with BD; and identify specific implications for clinical social work practice. Of the 545 articles that were obtained via the systematic review, 18 studies were identified as being potentially eligible for inclusion, and 9 of those studies ultimately satisfied the inclusion criteria. The results of each study were summarized via identifying statistically significant (p< .05) differences that existed between experimental cohorts who received CBT (plus pharmacotherapy) and control cohorts who received treatment as usual. Outcomes showed CBT cohorts as having significant improvement over their respective control groups. The review's implications for clinical social workers and the need for future research are discussed.     

Relationships among JIT practices: an interpretive modeling approach

Abstract

This research develops a model of relationships among components of Total-JIT, including JIT-information, JIT-manufacturing, JIT-purchasing, and JIT-selling, to establish an implementation hierarchy based on relative importance. The data collected relates to the relationships among JIT components and two performance measures, supply chain competency and organizational performance. Two groups are used in the research, one group of five operations management academics and another group of 30 practicing operations managers working in U.S. manufacturing firms. An interpretive structural modelling methodology is used to develop alternative structural models. The academics’ data show JIT-information emerging as lynchpin of relationships, directly impacting all other JIT practices and both performance measures. The practitioners’ data indicates that all JIT practices and performance measures are interactive as components and outcomes. This study is the first to apply interpretive structural modelling to investigate the interplay among total-JIT components and the performance measures of supply chain competency and organizational performance.     

Developing community leadership through the arts in Southside Virginia: Social networks, civic identity and civic change

This paper describes a strategy designed to catalyse a processof civic dialogue and social learning in an economically distressedsection of Virginia typically referred to as Southside or theDan River Region. The model underpinning this initiative employsthe arts and a grassroots leadership programme simultaneouslyto encourage a broad-scale civic conversation concerning thepast and potential future of the principal communities locatedin the Southside region. The combination of broad participationand development of an effective leadership cadre at the grassrootslevel should encourage the creation of robust community problemsolving coalitions across the region. The initiative aims toengender specific forms of locally driven community-based problem-solvingcoalitions: those that emphasize inclusiveness and value thefull participation of historically disenfranchised individuals.The project also employs non-traditional forums to promote creativedialogue and to encourage reflection among the broader citizenryon the significance and possible character of a new and regionalidentity.     

On the power of goodness-of-fit tests for the exponential distribution under progressive Type-II censoring

The aim of this article is to review existing goodness-of-fit tests for the exponential distribution under progressive Type-II censoring and to provide some new ideas and adjustments. In particular, we consider two-parameter exponentially distributed random variables and adapt the proposed test procedures to our scenario if necessary. Then, we compare their power by an extensive simulation study. Furthermore, we propose five new test procedures that provide reasonable alternatives to those already known.     

Lex Cantandi,Lex Credendi: A Content Analysis of Organizational Identity-Constructing Pronouns in Pre- and Post-Vatican II Catholic Hymns

This article asks whether hymns written prior to and following the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) differ significantly in their use of self- and divine-referential pronouns and answers this question by content analyzing the lyrics of 196 hymns in two different hymnals used in Catholic parishes today. It finds that hymns written post-Vatican II contain significantly more self-referential pronouns as well as an interestingly different mix of divine-referential pronouns than hymns written pre-Vatican II. These findings contribute to our knowledge of how shifts in religious organizations’ identities find expression in liturgical texts, which is important for understanding how the religious identities of individuals and communities are socially constructed over time.