Negotiating user preferences, discrimination, and demand for migrant labour in long-term care

The restructuring of long-term care for older people has been marked both by the role of the market and by the role of migrant labor. This article develops the analysis of these processes at the microlevel of the provision of care. It draws on data collected as part of a cross-national comparative study on the employment of migrant care workers in residential care homes and home care services for older people in England and Ireland. The article examines, first, the ways in which divisions of race, ethnicity, and citizenship shape the preferences of service providers/employers and some service users as regards who provides care. Second, it examines how the institutional context of quasi-markets in long-term care shapes the negotiation of demand for migrant labor, the racialized preferences of individual users, alongside the rights of care workers to non-discrimination. It is argued that market-oriented policies for personalization, as well as for cost containment, raise implications for divisions of race, ethnicity, and citizenship in the provision of long-term care. At the same time, those divisions point to the limits of framing care in terms of the preferences of the individual as opposed to the social relations in which care is embedded.     

Screening for elder abuse in hospitalized older adults with dementia

When older adults with dementia are hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, which elder abuse screen to use is questionable. This article reviews screens to identify desirable characteristics. For clinician completion, the Elder Assessment Instrument and the Brief Abuse Screens for the Elderly are recommended. For the older adult, the brief Hwalek-Sengstock Elder Abuse Screening Test is suitable. The Modified Conflict Tactics Scale, which can be used by both the older adult and the nonprofessional caregiver, has many of the recommended characteristics. Research is necessary in the application of these screens within hospitals to detect elder abuse within this specialized population.     

Relationship between Online Retailers’ Reputation and Product Returns

Customer product returns are key cost drivers that eat into online retailers’ profits. However, management research has neglected to examine ways of reducing return rates without causing a concomitant decrease in sales. Drawing from signalling and dissonance theories, we investigate the relationship between online retailers’ reputation and product return rates. Two experiments designed to produce causal conclusions show that reputation reduces return rates (Studies 1 and 2) and that return motivation is a boundary condition for that relationship (Study 2). A field study based on an online consumer panel demonstrates the robustness of the negative impact of online retailer reputation on product returns in a setting that emphasizes external validity (Study 3), in comparison with Studies 1 and 2, which maximize internal validity. Study 3 also examines managerially important contingencies of the causal relationship by considering three variables: purchase frequency; retailer type; and customer gender. Overall findings indicate that an online retailer's reputation is a powerful means of reducing product return rates. The findings also show that the strength of the relationship between reputation and product returns is influenced by return motivation and the three variables investigated in the field study.     

Climate shocks and migration: an agent-based modeling approach

This is a study of migration responses to climate shocks. We construct an agent-based model that incorporates dynamic linkages between demographic behaviors, such as migration, marriage, and births, and agriculture and land use, which depend on rainfall patterns. The rules and parameterization of our model are empirically derived from qualitative and quantitative analyses of a well-studied demographic field site, Nang Rong district, northeast Thailand. With this model, we simulate patterns of migration under four weather regimes in a rice economy: (1) a reference, “normal” scenario; (2) 7 years of unusually wet weather; (3) 7 years of unusually dry weather; and (4) 7 years of extremely variable weather. Results show relatively small impacts on migration. Experiments with the model show that existing high migration rates and strong selection factors, which are unaffected by climate change, are likely responsible for the weak migration response.     

Chemical Scoring by a Rapid Screening of Hazard (RASH) Method

A rapid screening of hazard method (RASH) is presented for deriving relative potency estimates for hazardous substances. The method utilizes data from any available toxicological database such as the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances (RTECS) or EPA's GENE-TOX database on genetic activity profiles. The method has been applied to derive relative potency values and permissible environmental concentrations for 278 chemicals. The derived values have been compared with recommendations of expert committees where possible, and substantial agreement is found.     

The U. S. Supreme Court and Value Legitimacy: An Experimental Approach With Older Americans

This study was designed to test the designed to test the legitimacy-conferring hypotheses as it relates to the United States Supreme Court. Conventional wisdom has long asscrted that the Court, in its role as interpreter of the Constitution, is a major force influencing the values and attitudes of Americans. However, little empirical research has been conducted on the issue, and that which has been conducted has been ambiguous. Using a split-ballot experimental technique, we found support for the legitimacy-conferring hypothesis among a sample of older Americans from twenty-two different states across the U. S. We found five of nine proposals to be more strongly endorsed when their attributed source was the Supreme Court rather than the U. S. Congress or when the source was unattributed. A factor analysis of the items was used to discover underlying value-orientations described by the nine items. An analysis to three derived factors added to our confidence in the legitimacy-conferring hypothesis.     

The flood control saga in the Passaic River Basin

Flooding is a natural phenomenon which engineers and politicians have attempted to control since the beginning of time. The Passaic River Basin in northern New Jersey has been recognized as a significant floodprone area in the United States since colonial times. Several State and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposals have been abandoned because of both economic and environmental objections to expensive public works projects. During the early part of the Twentieth Century, houses were built in the floodway of the Passaic River, an area where lives and personal belongings were at highest risk.The Army Corps of Engineers has proposed a $1.0 billion flood control tunnel plan while a local watershed association, the Passaic River Coalition, has recommmended a buy-out of the houses at highest risk at a cost of $103 million. This paper introduces that innovative concept for flood management—relocating people out of the rivers path—in the most urban area in the United States.