Ergonomic risk assessment of nasogastric tube placement and implications for design and training

The placement of nasogastric (NG) tubes is known to be prone to error and may lead to serious issues for patient safety and wellbeing. In some instances these have been catastrophic and resulted in the death of the patient. This study sought to explore the potential risks associated with this procedure through the use of systematic prospective risk assessment. The research team used the Prospective Hazard Analysis (PHA) toolkit developed by Ward et al (2010) . The study has shown a wide number of risks that cover equipment design, work organisation, and training issues. The link between equipment design and training provides an important example of the need for a systematic approach to reducing errors and improving resilience in this aspect of healthcare.     

The impact of the European Youth Guarantee on active labour market policies: A convergence analysis

The European Union’s (EU) Youth Guarantee aims to improve the labour market situation of young people. Rather than prescribing a uniform policy model, it acknowledges that supportive measures need to align with national, regional and local circumstances. It thus seeks to promote mutual policy learning through the open method of coordination. As an innovative measure, the EU has deployed funding programmes to support the domestic measures related to the Youth Guarantee. We therefore examined in this study whether this mix of recommendations and financial incentives has entailed a convergence of member state policies. Our analysis of policy outputs for the period 2007?2014 yields a mixed empirical picture. There is catching‐up convergence regarding policies’ sectoral coverage but increasing divergence concerning the number of adopted policy instruments. The first two years of financial incentives did not produce any effect on enhancing policy experimentation among less active member states. We offer an optimistic and a pessimistic interpretation of these findings.     

Net migration and migration effectiveness: A comparison between Australia and the United Kingdom, 1976–96

This paper explores the impact of net migration in Australia and the United Kingdom using measures of migration effectiveness computed from period-age migration data for four consecutive five-year periods. Results reported in Part 1 of this paper (Stillwellet al. 2000) suggest that while the overall effectiveness of net migration at the scale of city regions has declined over the twenty-year period in both countries, important geographical variations are evident. Part 2 considers how patterns of migration effectiveness vary by age and presents a single classification of all the city regions on the basis of age-specific effectiveness. More detailed analysis includes spatial patterns for particular age groups and net migration profiles of selected regions. Cohort effects are shown to be important for explaining changes between time periods in these regions.     

THE MEANING OF OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE SCORES:

This research reexamines the meaning of occupational prestige scores from the social psychological perspective of identity theory. Using comparable data for Canada and the United States, it analyzes the degree to which the education and income levels of occupations influence occupational prestige judgements by evoking affective associations (feelings about the goodness, powerfulness, and liveliness of occupational identities), as well as the extent to which these social sentiments are independent determinants of prestige. There has been a longstanding controversy about the normative content of occupational prestige scores. We find that moral worthiness (as measured by the Evaluation dimension of the semantic differential) is a determinant of the prestige of occupations with low and middle but not high levels of education and income. We also find that the impact of education on prestige scores is direct and cognitive, while a considerable proportion of the total effect of income is processed through feelings about the potency of occupations. The results for the two countries are very similar. One exception is that moral worthiness is a more important determinant of prestige in the United States than in Canada. We connect this finding to the literature comparing value differences between the two countries.     

Perceived importance of “social goals” in business organizations

Business organizations operate within a complex socio-technical environment. Interactions between these socio-technical dimensions and the managers' personal value systems are thought to influence managerial role patterns and decisions. This paper investigates shifts in perceived importance of “social goals” from a set of organizational goals. The research concludes that there has been no significant changes occurring in either the ordering or the clustering of organizational goals.     

Eating dysfunctions in college women: the roles of depression and attachment to fathers

The authors examined the roles of depression and attachment to fathers in college women's eating dysfunctions. Three-hundred six undergraduate women completed (1) a diagnostic measure of eating dysfunctions that categorized them as asymptomatic, symptomatic but not eating disordered, or eating disordered; (2) 3 dimensional measures of attachment to fathers; and (3) a dimensional measure of depression. Depression was directly related to severity of participants' eating dysfunction; the eating-disordered group had scores consistent with clinical depression. After controlling for depression, 3 facets of attachment to fathers significantly differentiated the 3 groups.     

An application of multiple objective linear programming to media selection

A multiple objective linear programming (MOLP) method utilizing interval criterion weights is applied to the problem of media selection. Using this technique, it is possible to analyze a problem more explicitly in terms of the several objectives inherent in many media selection situations. In order to illustrate the interval criterion weights approach, a multiple objective hierarchical media selection model is presented and its computer results discussed. In addition to being able to deal more directly with different decision criteria, a distinguishing feature of the mathematical analysis applied here is that its output enables the media-planner to be presented with a small cluster of candidate media schedules (rather than just one). Then, from this list, the media-planner should be in a position to qualitatively make a final choice as a close approximation to his optimal solution.     

Understanding the 2001 UK census migration and commuting data: the effect of small cell adjustment and problems of comparison with 1991

Summary.  Origin–destination statistics have been produced from the last three UK censuses. The paper describes what is new about the 2001 census interaction data on migration and commuting, considers the disclosure control methods that were applied to cells containing small values and demonstrates the problems that are associated with making comparisons with 1991 data. The effect of small cell adjustment procedures on the interaction data sets is investigated by means of selective analyses at different spatial scales. Some recommendations are made in light of the problems that were manifest in 2001.