The Research Environment Norm Inventory (RENI): a study of integrity in research administrative systems

University research administrators have been generally ignored in basic studies of research integrity. Hensley noted that research administrators are "essential... to the achievement of the specific missions of postsecondary institutions... and to science and the academic infrastructure". The following study sought to extend the scope of research on research integrity to research administrative structures with a new instrument called the Research Environment Norm Inventory or RENI. University research administrators and their professional association were targeted for data collection. Evidence suggested that research administration in the United States supports integrity in the research environment through: (1) respect for community; (2) respect for institutional boundaries; (3) professionalism; (4) respect for authority structures; (5) sensitivity to system conflicts. The study suggested that integrity structures are dictated largely by the institutional settings and environments.     

Camera-Related Behaviors during Video Recorded Medical Interactions

Video recording provides an objective record of the content of medical interactions. However, there is concern that cameras may be reactive measurement devices that alter what normally transpires during interactions. This study addressed potential reactivity of cameras in medical interactions. Interactions between 45 patients and 14 medical oncologists were video recorded and coded for camera-related behaviors. Eleven of 45 patients performed none of the behaviors. Among the other patients, camera-related behaviors were infrequent and, on average, constituted about 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of total interaction time. Behaviors occurred most often in very early stages of interactions, and when physicians were absent from the room. Seven physicians showed camera-related behaviors, comprising less than 0.1% of the time they were in the interaction. Results suggest video recording can provide nonreactive means of studying medical interactions.

Protecting the paediatrician: responding to recrimination

Doctors involved in child abuse proceedings may be subjected to much blame and pressure because of their role as ‘messenger’. They frequently need assistance with complaints procedures, disciplinary proceedings, public inquiries, litigation, media problems and other threats to their professional integrity and reputation. The medical model of support which may be offered by the defence organizations has much to commend it to other workers in the field. The author is a medico-legal adviser at the Medical Defence Union, and was extensively involved in assisting doctors at the Cleveland and Orkney Inquiries. From this privileged position he surveys the various procedures which may be used by parents and others to challenge paediatricians, and sets out possible ways in which practical support may be given.     

Foreign-born emigration: A new approach and estimates based on matched CPS files

The utility of postcensal population estimates depends on the adequate measurement of four major components of demographic change: fertility, mortality, immigration, and emigration. Of the four components, emigration, especially of the foreign-born, has proved the most difficult to gauge. Without "direct" methods (i.e., methods identifying who emigrates and when), demographers have relied on indirect approaches, such as residual methods. Residual estimates, however are sensitive to inaccuracies in their constituent parts and are particularly ill-suited for measuring the emigration of recent arrivals. Here we introduce a new method for estimating foreign-born emigration that takes advantage of the sample design of the Current Population Survey (CPS): repeated interviews of persons in the same housing units over a period of 16 months. Individuals appearing in a first March Supplement to the CPS but not the next include those who died in the intervening year, those who moved within the country, and those who emigrated. We use statistical methods to estimate the proportion of emigrants among those not present in the follow-up interview. Our method produces emigration estimates that are comparable to those from residual methods in the case of longer-term residents (immigrants who arrived more than 10 years ago), but yields higher--and what appear to be more accurate--estimates for recent arrivals. Although somewhat constrained by sample size, we also generate estimates by age, sex, region of birth, and duration of residence in the United States.     

Do marriages forget their past? Marital stability in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia

This paper assesses the impact of three main destabilizing factors on marital stability in Cambodia: the radical reformation of marriage under the Khmers Rouges (KR); the imbalanced gender ratio among marriageable adults resulting from gendered mortality during the KR regime; and, after decades of isolation from the West, a period of rapid social change. Although there is evidence of declining marital stability in the most recent period, marriages contracted under the KR appear as stable as adjacent marriage cohorts. Thesefindings suggest that the conditions under which spouses were initially paired matter less for marital stability than does their contemporaneous environment.