The sensitivity of subjective probability to time and elicitation method

The paper reports the results of a survey designed to elicit probability judgements for different types of events: ‘pure chance’ events, for which objective probabilities can be calculated; ‘public’ events, about which there may be some discussion in social groups and the media; and ‘personal’ events, such as those relating to crime or accidental injury. Even among respondents deemed to be ‘well-calibrated’ in the domain of pure chance events we find limited sensitivity to the ‘temporal scope’ of public and personal events—this being especially marked for personal events. We discuss possible reasons and some implications for policy-related survey work.

The QAP-polytope and the graph isomorphism problem

In this paper we propose a geometric approach to solve the Graph Isomorphism (GI in short) problem. Given two graphs \(G_1, G_2\), the GI problem is to decide if the given graphs are isomorphic i.e., there exists an edge preserving bijection between the vertices of the two graphs. We propose an Integer Linear Program (ILP) that has a non-empty solution if and only if the given graphs are isomorphic. The convex hull of all possible solutions of the ILP has been studied in literature as the Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) polytope. We study the feasible region of the linear programming relaxation of the ILP and show that the given graphs are isomorphic if and only if this region intersects with the QAP-polytope. As a consequence, if the graphs are not isomorphic, the feasible region must lie entirely outside the QAP-polytope. We study the facial structure of the QAP-polytope with the intention of using the facet defining inequalities to eliminate the feasible region outside the polytope. We determine two new families of facet defining inequalities of the QAP-polytope and show that all the known facet defining inequalities are special instances of a general inequality. Further we define a partial ordering on each exponential sized family of facet defining inequalities and show that if there exists a common minimal violated inequality for all points in the feasible region outside the QAP-polytope, then we can solve the GI problem in polynomial time. We also study the general case when there are k such inequalities and give an algorithm for the GI problem that runs in time exponential in k.     

Neuropsychology and cognitive health in healthy older adults: a brief overview for psychiatric nurses

This article contains a brief synopsis on nonpathological aspects of the neuropsychology of aging and cognitive health. In nonpathological aging, normal subtle decline occurs in a number of cognitive domains such as executive functioning, speed of processing, memory, language, and psychomotor ability; however, some domains of cognitive functioning appear to increase with age, such as vocabulary and crystallized intelligence. In the neuropsychology and the cognitive aging literatures, several hypotheses for such age-related declines are proposed, including the diminished speed-of-processing hypothesis, the common cause hypothesis, and the frontal aging hypothesis. As these age-related changes diminish cognitive reserve, the decline in the related cognitive domains emerges. Ways to protect and improve cognitive health are suggested to encourage positive neuroplasticity and discourage negative neuroplasticity. Implications for nursing practice are provided.     

Tracking the defining moments of crisis process and practice

Crisis holds the potential for profound change in organizations and industries. The past 50 years of crisis management highlight key shifts in crisis practice, creating opportunities for multiple theories and research tracks. Defining crises such as Tylenol, Exxon Valdez, and September 11 terrorist attacks have influenced or challenged the principles of best practice of crisis communication in public relations. This study traces the development of crisis process and practice by identifying shifts in crisis research and models and mapping these against key management theories and practices. The findings define three crisis domains: crisis planning, building and testing predictive models, and mapping and measuring external environmental influences. These crisis domains mirror but lag the evolution of management theory, suggesting challenges for researchers to reshape the research agenda to close the gap and lead the next stage of development in the field of crisis communication for effective organizational outcomes.     

Intervention of drudgery reducing technologies in agriculture and impact evaluation

Agriculture is main source of livelihood for majority of the population in India. Agriculture has been established as one of the drudgery prone occupation of unorganized sector due to lack of access to improved agricultural technologies. The present study was planned to assess intervention of drudgery reducing technologies in agriculture and its impact evaluation. The drudgery areas/activities in agriculture were identified. Participatory field level skill training for proper use of the ergonomically improved farm technologies were given to men and women in separate groups. An intervention package consisting of improved sickle, wheel hand hoe, capron, cot bag and protective gloves was introduced in village Shahpur. Data were collected to quantify the impact of intervention on the level of drudgery of worker before and after the technology intervention from sample of 30 respondents (15 male and 15 female) selected randomly from village Shahpur. Gain in knowledge and change in awareness level were calculated after the training.Evaluation of field validation of technology on drudgery of men & women was done after its use in the field conditions. A significant gain in awareness was observed among both men(2.6) & women (3.0) whereas the gain in knowledge was more among men (6.6) than women (4.5). In evaluation of field validation of technology on drudgery it was found that all the five technologies reduced the drudgery of men as well as women. However wheel hand hoe was used successfully by men in comparison to women who preferred to use their conventional technology i.e improved long-handled hoe. Evaluation of validation trials of the technologies reported that improved sickle was used successfully by both men & women farmers. More than half of the men farmers (53.3%) & only 13.3 percent women farmers preferred the wheel hand hoe over the traditional one as they found it four times more efficient in terms of time, energy & money saving. Cot bag was preferred by the entire sample. Capron was preferred by four-fifth of the men farmers (80.0%) whereas women farmers did not prefer it much. Only one third of men (33.3%) & 26.7 percent of women farmers preferred using gloves while harvesting of guar & picking of cotton.     

Musculoskeletal disorders in caregivers of children with cerebral palsy following a multilevel surgery

The patients of cerebral palsy need assistance for their self activities which expose the caregivers to different risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders. But there is a scarcity of studies revealing the prevalence and the risk factors present among the caregivers of the cerebral palsy children. This lead to formulate a study to identify prevalence and risk factors among the caregivers of cerebral palsy children. Result revealed that most of the caregivers among both the groups were female (63.4% and 69.3%). The common age group of the children who underwent multilevel surgery was at the age group of 6 - 10 years. It has been observed that among the study group 56.5% were totally cooperative children. The Caregiver Strain Index value showed there is no significant difference among both the groups. Regional body pain of shoulder, elbow, upper back, lower back and ankle revealed a higher prevalence among the study group. Clinical diagnosis revealed prevalence of MPS, FMS and TOS among the study group were 27.6%, 24.5% and 23.0% respectively. Study further revealed that cooperativeness of the child was significantly associated with lower back pain, MPS, FMS and TOS among the study group.     

TIME‐USE AND ACADEMIC PEER EFFECTS IN COLLEGE

This paper examines academic peer effects in college. Unique new data from the Berea Panel Study allow us to focus on a mechanism wherein a student's peers affect her achievement by changing her study effort. Although the potential relevance of this mechanism has been recognized, data limitations have made it difficult to provide direct evidence about its importance. We find that a student's freshman grade point average is affected by the amount her peers studied in high school, suggesting the importance of this mechanism. Using time diary information, we confirm that college study time is actually being affected. (JEL I20, F21, J01)     

Exploring global recognition of quality midwifery education: Vision or fiction?

Background

Midwifery education is the foundation for preparing competent midwives to provide a high standard of safe, evidence-based care for women and their newborns. Global competencies and standards for midwifery education have been defined as benchmarks for establishing quality midwifery education and practice worldwide. However, wide variations in type and nature of midwifery education programs exist.