Differences in African American and White college students' drinking behaviors: consequences, harm reduction strategies, and health information sources

The authors explored the differences between African American and White college students' drinking behaviors and their attitudes toward consequences, harm-reduction strategies, and health information sources. They collected data from a randomly selected sample of 1,110 students in a large public university to examine the effects of a high-risk drinking prevention intervention. In the current analysis, they compared African American and White students on indicators of high-risk drinking, drinking consequences, harm-reduction strategies, the sources that students typically used for health information, and the believability of those sources. The African American students scored lower on drinking measures than the White students did, reported fewer negative consequences, and more regularly employed drinking-reduction strategies, with one exception--choosing a designated driver. Both African and White respondents reported that their parents were their most frequent and usual sources of health-related information and said that parents and health professionals were the most credible sources.     

Reducing integrins improves the quality of fly life

Integrins are cell surface receptors that mediate adhesion to the extracellular matrix. In this Perspective, we focus on the recent finding that a decrease in the levels of integrins yields fruit flies that retain youthful mobility as they age and display an increased mean life span. We discuss how the reduction of integrin activity might lead to the observed changes.     

Ethics in Confucian and Christian management behavior: Taiwan and the United States contrasted

The ethical foundations for management behavior are examined for the people in Taiwan and from those within the United States. The influences for ethical actions can be traced to Confucian teachings and Christian doctrines. The authors present the philosophical differences between humanism for Chinese people and spiritualism for Christian people in the United States. Comparisons are made on how these principles affect the management behavior within organizations.     

The relationship of chronobiology to sleep schedules and performance demands

This review is concerned with how chronobiological results concerning the human circadian timekeeping system ('biological clock'), its response to changes in schedule, and its influence on performance ability can be used to improve shift worker wellbeing, safety and productivity.     

Environmental Tobacco Smoke: Exposure-Response Relationships in Epidemiologic Studies

Demonstration of a dose-response relationship for environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is an important indication of causality. Central to the analysis and interpretation of dose-response relations as described in epidemiological studies is the relationship between dose and exposure. It must be recognized that in studies of ETS we have only surrogate measures of dose, and these surrogate measures (based on exposure) are imperfect. The question-based measures of ETS exposure generally have not been standardized, may have limited validity and reliability, and cannot comprehensively describe total ETS exposure, exposure to individual ETS components, nor doses of biologically relevant agents at target sites. Nevertheless, useful data have been yielded in epidemiologic studies linking ETS exposure to increased respiratory infection and symptoms, reduced lung growth in children, and increased lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. The more consistent exposure-response data for studies on acute health in children may reflect the greater difficulty in measuring exposure in studies of chronic health in adults.     

Palliative and curative care nurses' attitudes toward dying and death in the hospital setting

This paper explores the errors involved in the approximation of both the maximum and sum of two independent Beta random variables, each by another Beta random variable. The principal area of application is the time analysis of PERT networks, and the results are interpreted and discussed in terms of this application. The error was found to be acceptable for the greater part of the range of the parameters involved. The results will help practitioners estimate the mean and standard deviation of the completion time of PERT networks.     

Risk return approach to product portfolio strategy

This article describes how a risk-return portfolio analysis, as originally developed in economics and finance, can be applied to product-line decisions. This approach uses direct estimates of return, and explicitly considers risk, or variation in return; most of the product portfolio models in use today forecast return by correlation, and lack explicit treatment of risk. The approach provides guidance for new product development activities as well as for allocating resources among a corporation's existing product lines. The article explains how organizations can apply this approach to their own product portfolio decisions, and includes a detailed example of how one company used this model.     

Evaluating basic research strategies

A model has been developed to describe the pharmaceutical research and drug innovation process. The model originally served to show the range of results that could arise from research in the field of infectious disease chemotherapy over a sustained period of time. The main goal of the model was to illuminate the risk/reward/time tradeoff faced by management in selecting a particular research strategy. The results obtained with this model were one of several considerations influencing the research strategy decision of CIBA-GEIGY in 1976 to adapt and strengthen its research effort in infectious disease chemotherapy.This model has so far been applied only for the comparative evaluation of infectious disease chemotherapy research strategies. However, there is no conceptual reason why it should be limited to this field of drug research or indeed to pharmaceutical research at all. This type of analysis should be applicable wherever clear, product-oriented research goals can be identified and defined, where some reasonable financial reward can be attached to achieving these goals, and where an assessment—albeit subjective—can be made of the likelihood of achieving these goals.     

Building an innovative organization

Morton L. Mandel, CEO of Cleveland-based Premier Industrial Corporation, with brothers Jack and Joe, started selling automotive fasteners out of garage 50 years ago. Today, Premier's sales are running at a record $650m clip. The market value of the Mandel brothers' publicly-traded Premier shares earns all three a place on Forbes' list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. The family still holds about 60 per cent of the stock. Mort Mandel believes that gives the company independence and the ability to concentrate on nuts and bolts rather than politics. Mandel's nuts and bolts approach to managing has created stunning success—after-tax margins twice the average of Premier's industry, return on assets of 24 per cent, return on investment above 30 per cent, earnings per share compounded in excess of 17 per cent for the past 5 years, shareholders' equity that has grown close to 10 per cent annually for 20 years, and debt of less than 3 per cent of net worth. Mandel says it's simple: Treat customers as though they have the ‘right’ to superior service. Behave ethically, professionally and personally. Do good. Invest in people. Execute, execute, execute. What he calls Management 101. We suspected it wasn't quite that simple, and we wanted to know how he created a company that repeatedly outperforms its industry and many others, how he sustains a culture that generates 5000 written profit improvement ideas a year from Premier's 5400 employees. So we asked him some questions about his views on management and leadership that produced refreshing insights into the power, purity and timeless applicability of ‘management basics’. This interview was conducted at Premier's unpretentious executive offices, located in the Midtown Corridor of Cleveland, Ohio, a privately-sponsored urban renewal project inspired by Mort Mandel, who practices his preachings about ‘doing good’.     

On the derivation of a full life table from mortality data recorded in five-year age groups

Mortality data are often gathered using 5-year age groups rather than individual years of life. Furthermore, it is common practice to use a large open-ended interval (such as 85 and over) for mortality data at the older ages. These limitations of the data pose problems for the actuary or demographer who wishes to compile a full and accurate life table using individual years of life. The author devises formulae which handle these problems. He also devises methods for handling mortality during the 1st year of life and for dealing with other technical problems which arise in the compilation of the full life table from grouped data.