Blood drones: using utopia as method to imagine future vital mobilities

ABSTRACT

How might we undertake life-saving vital mobilities, like moving blood, in future? Specifically, how might blood transfusion and drone technology – both war dividends – intersect? We explore four scenarios based on eclectic influences including cross-pollination between co-authors, a futures design workshop and exposure to science fiction. The scenarios are ‘ethnographic fragments’ from fictional futures, or conversely, imaginative time travel to possible futures. These are informed by and loosely correlate with established future-building scenario on the theme of carbon constraint: low-carbon society, digital lives, magic bullet technology and resource fights. Through the scenarios – Blood Bikes, HemoIkea, O Magic and Bloody Battles – we experiment with mobilizing utopia and dystopia as method to theorize vital mobilities. This experimental approach raises questions about possible and preferable futures of societal blood circulation and provokes a wider cultural imaginary surrounding blood and drone mobilities specifically, and vital mobilities generally.     

Conceptual and design issues in instrument development for research with bereaved parents

Many childhood deaths in the United States occur in pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) and parents have special needs in this death context. As an interdisciplinary research team, we discuss conceptual and design issues encountered in creating a new instrument, the Bereaved Parent Needs Assessment-PICU, for assessing parents' needs in this setting. Using a qualitative approach, our team previously explored how the culture and related ways of providing care in one urban Midwestern children's hospital PICU affected parents' bereavement needs and experiences. We describe using this qualitative foundation in the development of a new quantitative instrument to more widely validate and measure bereaved parents' needs around the time of a child's death across multiple PICUs. We highlight a series of issues that warrant consideration in designing a research instrument for this vulnerable population including setting and context, format and content, temporality, recruitment, and content expertise.     

Regression coefficient analysis for correlated binomial outcomes

At present, the generalized estimating equation (GEE) and weighted least-squares (WLS) regression methods are the most widely used methods for analyzing correlated binomial data; both are easily implemented using existing software packages. We propose an alternative technique, i.e. regression coefficient analysis (RCA), for this type of data. In RCA, a regression equation is computed for each of n individuals; regression coefficients are averaged across the n equations to produce a regression equation, which predicts marginal probabilities and which can be tested to address hypotheses of different slopes between groups, slopes different from zero, different intercepts, etc. The method is computationally simple and can be performed using standard software. Simulations and examples are used to compare the power and robustness of RCA with those of the standard GEE and WLS methods. We find that RCA is comparable with the GEE method under the conditions tested, and suggest that RCA, within specified limitations, is a viable alternative to the GEE and WLS methods in the analysis of correlated binomial data.     

Examining collaboration across organizations in an age-friendly community

ABSTRACT

Collaboration among organizations is fundamental to promoting age-friendly environments. This study questions: To what extent do organizations collaborate with other organizations in age-friendly communities to provide services to older adults? This study draws on 48 semi-structured qualitative interviews with representatives of organizations that provide services to older adults in an age-friendly community. Findings demonstrated that organizations can engage in collaboration and cooperation across multiple sectors of service delivery and across multiple types of organizations. Nevertheless, some organizations were not collaborating; older adults receiving services at these organizations may miss opportunities to connect to complementary services that can meet their holistic needs.     

Contemporary Political Communications: Audiences, Politicians and the Media in International Research

Research into political communication has grown rapidly in the past three decades, shifting from specific, quantitative and utilitarian studies to include a broad variety of research questions, methods and theoretical frameworks. Interdisciplinary work in political communication takes audiences, political actors (such as governments and politicians), and media content and media institutions as central foci. Research has traditionally focused on election campaign-specific studies within national contexts. Emerging research, however, is now addressing broader questions about media texts and organisations and also about representations and power. This research is working to trace technological changes and developments in an era of globalised media and political communication and developing new, complex conceptions of audience agency and reception.     

Psychometric Evaluation of the Affect Regulation Checklist: Clinical and Community Samples,Parent-Reports and Youth Self-Reports

The Affect Regulation Checklist (ARC) was designed to capture affect dysregulation, suppression, and reflection. Importantly, affect dysregulation has been established as a transdiagnostic mechanism underpinning many forms of psychopathology. We tested the ARC psychometric properties across clinical and community samples and through both parent-report and youth self-report information. Clinical sample: Participants included parents (n = 814; M_age = 43.86) and their child (n = 608; M_age = 13.98). Community sample: Participants included independent samples of parents (n = 578; M_age = 45.12) and youth (n = 809; M_age = 15.67). Exploratory structural equation modeling supported a three-factor structure across samples and informants. Dysregulation was positively associated with all forms of psychopathology. In general, suppression was positively associated with many forms of psychopathology, and reflection was negatively associated with externalizing problems and positively associated with internalizing problems.     

Estimations of parental and self intelligence as a function of parents’ status: A cross-cultural study in Germany and Spain

With reference to the extensively reported gender differences in estimated intelligence, we used a cross-cultural study to investigate whether employment status and education of mothers and fathers (at the time of data collection, in early childhood, and in later childhood) influenced the estimation of parents’ general intelligence. Data showed that mothers’ as well as fathers’ general intelligence was significantly predicted by their education and current employment status. We additionally found a similar relationship between women’s (men’s) and mothers’ (fathers’) intelligence compared with the relationship of intelligence ascribed to their fathers (mothers). Furthermore, women’s self-estimated intelligence was significantly predicted by their mothers’ current employment, whereas men’s self-estimated intelligence was predicted by their fathers’ education. We furthermore investigated how women’s and men’s estimations differ between Germany and Spain. Results indicate that the more pronounced gender segregation in Spain was not expressed in larger gender differences in self- or parents’ intelligence estimations.