Family Check Up effects on adolescent arrest trajectories: Variation by developmental subtype

This study examines the effect of the Family Check Up intervention on the probability of arrests from ages 12 to 17 years for youth following heterogeneous developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior. Latent Growth Mixture Modeling results supported the presence of three developmental trajectories of arrests, including a large group of youth with few police contacts, a smaller group of youth showing early onset and chronic arrests, and a group with adolescent-onset arrests. In line with hypotheses, effects of intervention were seen within the adolescent-onset group, but not in the early onset chronic arrest trajectory group, or those youth with little police contact. The trajectory groups were differentiated by peer, family, behavioral and academic risk variables at age 11.     

Application of the user-centred design process according ISO 9241-210 in air traffic control

Designing a usable human machine interface for air traffic control is challenging and should follow approved methods. The ISO 9241-210 standard promises high usability of products by integrating future users and following an iterative process. This contribution describes the proceeding and first results of the analysis and application of ISO 9241-210 to develop a planning tool for air traffic controllers.     

Transmitting intended and suggested routes in ship operations: cognitive off-loading by placing knowledge in the world

Transmission of intended and suggested routes to and from electronic chart systems has been identified as a user need. The idea was discussed during a focus group meeting and two field studies in fringe fields like search and rescue (SAR) and ice breaking. A prototype test was then conducted during a SAR drill. The features were very well received by all the participants in the drill. A system simulation with two ships and a VTS station was also conducted in a full mission bridge simulator. Preliminary results are very promising. Behavior with vessels in conflicting situations suggested that the intended routes could facilitate understanding when negotiating with or without VHF communication. No major concerns were expressed by the professional crew members that participated.     

Factors influencing the success of PPP at feasibility stage – A tripartite comparison study in Hong Kong

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) have been used extensively in both developing and developed countries in delivering various types of projects, ranging from road construction, railway transport systems to health care facilities and schools. Critical success factors of PPP schemes at the implementation stage were identified. It is however more important for decision-makers to identify the factors for feasibility evaluation of adopting the PPP at the outset. This study aims to explore the key successful ingredients to be assessed at the initial stage of PPP projects as perceived public sector, private consortium and general community so as to attain a “triple win” scenario, via a questionnaire survey and a series of expert interviews conducted in Hong Kong. Survey results indicate that the most critical factor for evaluating the feasibility of PPP projects, especially to the general community, is an acceptable level of tariff. Cost effectiveness and financial attractiveness are the most important evaluation factors as ranked by the public sector and private consortium respectively. In addition, the existence of a long-term demand for the proposed services, availability of strong private consortium, alignment with government’s strategic objectives, as well as reliable service delivery are also rated as highly important to the success of PPP schemes. Addressing the tripartite expectations is indispensable to ensure the feasibility and successful delivery of public services and infrastructure projects via PPP schemes.     

An ‘unholy alliance’ of existential proportions: Negotiating discourses with men's experiences of cancer and aging

Little is understood about how experiencing cancer and aging together can disrupt people's socio-personal worlds and lead to existential questions about identity, life ambiguity, and death. Toward this end, we interpreted the metaphors that three aging men with cancer used in a focus group to describe their existential concerns. We also considered how two dominant cultural discourses around cancer and aging, generally referred to as discourses of “progress” and “decline”, figured into the participants' meanings. Finally, we compared the men's attitudes toward cancer and aging to dominant ideas about how men respond to these life events. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis, informed by critical phenomenology, we came to three conclusions. First, the men's interpretations of cancer and aging shared similar existential themes of tragedy and transcendence. Second, these existential concerns were informed by dominant discourses of cancer and aging, in that they followed the culturally constructed trajectories of decline and progress, respectively. The men's metaphors point to a negotiation of these two discourses. A third and related point is that the men predominantly contradicted gendered assumptions about dealing with life adversity but in some ways repeated them. This research indicates that people interpret cancer and aging in somewhat shared ways, via dominant cultural discourses, but also in individual ways depending on personal life histories. As discourses and life histories seem to influence how people make sense of aging life with cancer, it may be useful to be aware of these contexts when providing psycho-social care to aging cancer patients.     

"To rid oneself of the uninvited guest": Robert Koch, Sergei Winogradsky and competing styles of practice in medical microbiology

Does an infectious disease have one, singular pathogenic cause, or many interacting causes? In the discipline of medical microbiology, there is no definitive theoretical answer to this question: there, the conditions of aetiological possibility exist in a curious tension. Ever since the late 19^th century, the “germ theory of disease”–“one disease, one cause”– has co‐existed with a much less well known theory of “multifactorality”–“one disease, many interacting causes”. And yet, in practice, it is always a singular and never a multifactorial aetiology that emerges once the pathogenic world is brought into the field of medical perception. This paper seeks to understand why. Performing a detailed, genealogical reading of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, it foregrounds a set of links that connect the practical diagnostic tools at work within contemporary, 21^st century laboratories to the philosophical assumptions at work within late‐19^th century understandings of the “germ theory of disease”.     

The impact of remittances from Canada's seasonal workers programme on Mexican farms

Based on a survey of participants in Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, the authors’ three‐stage least squares estimation of a simultaneous equation model finds that migrants’ remittances enhance on‐farm investments in Mexico, which, in turn, increase farm income. Remittances are also found to have a positive influence on non‐farm income in Mexico, by giving respondents the possibility of starting a new business and diversifying their investments. These results support the hypothesis underlying the “new economics of labour migration” that remittances contribute to economic development by relaxing the credit constraint on the investment function of family farms.     

Response to “Becoming Visible: The Case of Collette”

The clinician’s experiences of race outside of the treatment room contribute to the formation of a racialized self, which influences clinical work with all clients notwithstanding race. Multiracial individuals at times must balance their external physical presentation—and the corresponding race-related categories that others place on them—with their own internally constructed racial identifications. The mechanisms of identification and disidentification can provide safety for the multiracial individual. How can clinicians effectively acknowledge their own identifications and disidentifications as lenses for seeing the multiracial person’s racialized self and selves so as to more effectively work with the multiracial?