Employment relations and dismissal regulations: Does employment legislation protect the health of workers?

Sociologists have long acknowledged that being in a precarious labour market position, whether employed or unemployed, can harm peoples' health. However, scholars have yet to fully investigate the possible contextual, institutional determinants of this relationship. Two institutions that were overlooked in previous empirical studies are the regulations that set minimum compensation for dismissal, severance payments, and entitlements to a period of notice before dismissal, notice periods. These institutions may be important for workers' health as they influence the degree of insecurity that workers are exposed to. Here, we test this hypothesis by examining whether longer notice periods and greater severance payments protect the health of labour market participants, both employed and unemployed. We constructed two cohorts of panel data before and during the European recession using data from 22 countries in the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (person years = 338,000). We find more generous severance payments significantly reduce the probability that labour market participants, especially the unemployed, will experience declines in self‐reported health, with a slightly weaker relationship for longer notice periods.     

Adoptive Mothers’ Perceptions of Reactive Attachment Disorder Therapy and its Impact on Family Functioning

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore adoptive mothers’ perceptions of attachment therapy and its impact on family functioning. Sixteen mothers were interviewed 3 years after therapy. Analysis of the data revealed two sets of parental perceptions: first, attachment therapy was consistently supportive, emotionally painful, and physically safe; second, therapy preserved family structure, mothers remained committed to their children, and parenting was continuously stressful. This study highlights the need for further research on the treatment of children with attachment disorders and is not intended as a treatise on the efficacy of attachment therapy as a treatment modality.     

Employee attitude surveys: Their interpretation and use

This paper evaluates the uses of attitude surveys as a guide to management decision-making and identifies some of the problems of carrying out such studies and implementing the results. The concepts of attitude, value, personality, motivation, morale and job satisfaction are reviewed and their relevance discussed. A model of the determinants of attitudes is developed and used as a basis for a consideration of the problems of effecting change and increasing job satisfaction. Finally, the types of action that might be recommended on the basis of attitude survey data are considered and the roles of management and researchers in the interpretation and implementation of conclusions discussed.     

Research Note/Note de recherche The ability to implement human rights legislation in Canada

Une analyse récente de dossiers de la Commission canadienne des droits de la personne indique que l'application des dispositions législatives contre la discrimination semble plus facile pour certains types de discrimination que pour d'autres. L'analyse d'un échantillon de dossiers de 1982–1983 montre que les plaintes relatives au sexe ou a une invalidité ont de meilleures chances d'être confirmées que les plaintes impliquant la race, la couleur, l'ethnicité ou l'origine nationale. Nous utilisons des techniques qualitatives et quantitatives, et montrons que, dans les cas impliquant sexe ou invalidité, le bien-fondé de la plainte a étéétabli au moyen une procédure investigative comparative, alors que dans les autres cas une procédure séquentielle a été utilisée.
A recent analysis of Canadian Human Rights Commission files suggests that the enforcement of legislated prohibitions on discrimination may be more easily implemented for some grounds of discrimination than for other grounds of discrimination. An analysis of a sample of 1982-83 case files, shows that complaints involving sex or disability are much more likely to be substantiated than cases based on race, colour, ethnicity or national origin. Using both qualitative and quantitative analytical procedures, the results show that for sex and disability cases, a comparative investigative procedure was employed to assess the validity of the complaint while a sequential style of investigation was used in race, colour, ethnic or national origin cases.     

Sample-based Maximum Likelihood Estimation of the Autologistic Model

New recursive algorithms for fast computation of the normalizing constant for the autologistic model on the lattice make feasible a sample-based maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of the autologistic parameters. We demonstrate by sampling from 12 simulated 420×420 binary lattices with square lattice plots of size 4×4, …, 7×7 and sample sizes between 20 and 600. Sample-based results are compared with ‘benchmark’ MCMC estimates derived from all binary observations on a lattice. Sample-based estimates are, on average, biased systematically by 3%–7%, a bias that can be reduced by more than half by a set of calibrating equations. MLE estimates of sampling variances are large and usually conservative. The variance of the parameter of spatial association is about 2–10 times higher than the variance of the parameter of abundance. Sample distributions of estimates were mostly non-normal. We conclude that sample-based MLE estimation of the autologistic parameters with an appropriate sample size and post-estimation calibration will furnish fully acceptable estimates. Equations for predicting the expected sampling variance are given.     

Orally disintegrating olanzapine: a possible alternative to injection of antipsychotic drugs

1. The orally disintegrating formulation of olanzapine dissolves rapidly on contact with saliva. 2. In certain cases, orally disintegrating olanzapine may be administered, instead of injection of an antipsychotic agent. 3. Orally disintegrating olanzapine is intended to deliver a dose analogous to regular olanzapine tablets.     

The development of personal space in primary school children

Personal space in school cafeteria queues was observed for 1,047 children in kindergarten through sixth grade in seven public schools. It was found that children segregate themselves both racially and sexually in the queues. In three of the schools that were racially mixed, the children stood closer in the lower grades than in the higher grades, they stood closer to same-sex children than to other-sex children, but there was no racial difference. In three of the schools where all of the children were white, there was an increase in personal space across grades for all sex combinations except male to male. In two of the schools where all of the children were black, there was no significant increase in personal space across grades. The children in the white schools had greater queue distances than children in the black schools throughout the upper grades. In general, the results were similar to those obtained in other studies involving observation in natural settings and different from results obtained using simulated interaction.     

A NOTE ON INTEGRATING INVENTORY AND PRODUCT SALES-MIX MODELS

In a recent issue of Decision Sciences, Raiborn and Harris [2] discussed the integration of inventory and product sales-mix models. While they formulated a model which reflected some of the interactions between product sales-mix and inventory decisions, the purpose of this note is to point out deficiencies in their decision rule analysis for solving such integrated models.