Development and Validation of a Tool to Improve Physician Identification of Elder Abuse: The Elder Abuse Suspicion Index (EASI)©

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to develop and validate a brief tool for physician use to improve suspicion about the presence or absence of elder abuse. A literature review on elder abuse, obstacles to its identification, limitations of detection tools, and characteristics of screeners employed by physicians were used to generate elder abuse detection questions for critique by 31 doctors, nurses, and social workers in focus groups. Six resulting questions became the Elder Abuse Suspicion Index (EASI) administered by 104 family doctors to 953 cognitively intact seniors in ambulatory-care settings. Findings were compared to a recognized, detailed elder abuse Social Work Evaluation (SWE) later administered to participants by social workers blinded to the results of the EASI. The EASI had an estimated sensitivity and specificity of 0.47 and 0.75, usually took less than 2 minutes to ask, and 97.2% of doctors felt it would have some or big practice impact. This research is a first phase in the development and validation of a user-friendly tool that might sensitize physicians to elder abuse and promote referrals of possible victims for in-depth assessment by specialized professionals.     

Communication of the Decision to Divorce: A Retrospective Qualitative Study

Parents' ability to effectively communicate the decision to divorce can assist children in positively adjusting to this major life change. Using written responses to open-ended questions, this study investigated how 30 adult children of divorced parents recalled and evaluated the nature of their parents' communication of the divorce decision. A thematic analysis of the participants' responses identified salient themes that might assist divorcing parents in communicating the decision to their children. These themes included breaking the news together, avoiding negative talk about the other spouse, taking responsibility for the decision to divorce, leaving out details in the explanation, and inviting questions.     

Common Beliefs About Child Sexual Abuse and Disclosure: A College Sample

ABSTRACT

Adults’ common beliefs about child sexual abuse and disclosure were explored. Participants (N = 670) were questioned about key areas of child sexual abuse that could affect decision-making processes of jurors evaluating child sexual abuse cases. These areas included victim and perpetrator characteristics, medical and behavioral indicators of child sexual abuse, memories for the event, and disclosure of the event. The scientific literature pertaining to these same areas are reviewed. While individual beliefs were consistent with some areas of the scientific literature (e.g., victim and perpetrator characteristics), they strongly contrasted the literature in other important areas (e.g., memories for the event, indicators of child sexual abuse, and the likelihood of denial and recantation). Implications, including the option of providing expert testimony to reduce discrepancies, are discussed.     

Exploring the Influence of Reporting Delay on Criminal Justice Outcomes: Comparing Child and Adult Reporters of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Delay between disclosure and reporting child sexual abuse is common and has significant implications for the prosecution of such offenses. While we might expect the relationship to be a linear one with longer delay reducing the likelihood of prosecution, the present study confirms a more complex interaction. Utilizing data from 2,079 police records in Northern Ireland, the study investigated the impact of reporting delay on pretrial criminal justice outcomes for child and adult reporters of child sexual abuse. While teenagers were found to be the group most disadvantaged by reporting delay, increased delay actually appeared advantageous for some groups, notably adult females reporting offenses that occurred when they were 0 to 6 years old. Conversely, adult males reporting child sexual abuse did not appear to benefit from increased delay, suggesting both an adult and gender bias within decision-making processes. The implications for future research are discussed.     

Voices in the Adjudication of Compulsory Adoption in Israel: The Hegemonic Voice of the Professional Expert and the Unheard Voice of the Biological Parents

Ambiguity in the definitions of “parental incapability” and “child's best interests” in the Israeli law of adoption allows for different “voices” to determine their meaning. With regard to compulsory adoption, findings from texts of the judicial discourse in Israel portray the voice of the professional expert as hegemonic and that of the biological parents as unheard, revealing the nature of the practices that lead to the deligitimization of the parents’ voice. To bring about a balanced representation of the different voices, the article proposes a moralization of the legal procedure of adoption that stresses its rehabilitative rather than condemnatory character.     

Developing Expert Systems

Summary

This article provides an overview of the general procedure and steps involved in developing expert systems. The first consideration is to select a suitable problem. Actual development of the expert system begins with formulating and representing the knowledge base. Then a programming tool is selected for use in developing the expert system and a working prototype is developed. After a period of evaluation and reformulation the full expert system is completed. Finally, the performance of the expert system is formally evaluated, final modifications are made, and the expert system is put into everyday use. Additional resources are provided for further reference.     

大学生职业决策自我效能感及与一般自我效能感的关系研究

运用大学生职业决策自我效能感量表和一般自我效能感量表,对重庆6所高校400名学生进行调查.结果发现：大学生的职业决策自我效能感处于中等偏上水平;年级、性别和专业在职业决策自我效能感上存在显著性差异,学校性质在职业决策自我效能感上差异不显著;一般自我效能感与职业决策自我效能感呈显著正相关,且对职业决策自我效能总分及各因子都具有显著的预测作用.     

《机床电气系统装调与检修》项目化课程的设计与实施

剖析了传统高职《机床电气系统装调与检修》课程教学过程中普遍存在的问题,提出了进行课程项目化改革的思路：基于工作任务重构课程目标、课程结构、课程内容和课程评价,采用任务驱动等多种教学方法实施教学活动,加强实训条件和师资建设。教学实践证明,项目化教学有利于学生职业能力的提高和职业素质的养成。     

考虑恢复依赖的基础设施网络应急恢复决策

在大规模突发事件发生后,基础设施恢复任务之间会形成复杂的依赖关系,本文考虑了在此条件下基础设施系统的恢复设计与调度决策问题。基于网络流理论,以累积恢复效能最大化与成本最小化为目标,构建了涵盖阻塞依赖、选项依赖和效率依赖三类恢复依赖关系的集成恢复设计与调度决策混合整数规划模型,并且设计了求解模型的启发式算法。最后,以长沙市真实基础设施数据集为基础,构造了突发事件后的损毁场景实例,利用模型求解得出了受损基础设施的恢复设计与调度决策方案,并且分析了决策周期长度与工作组数量对累积恢复效能和成本的影响。结果表明：(1)该模型在突发事件后的基础设施恢复决策中具有应用可行性;(2)决策周期长度显著影响累积恢复效能,随着决策周期长度与恢复过程中各组件恢复耗时契合度的提升,累积恢复效能获得有效增长,并且,在决策周期长度的取值范围内,总成本存在最小值;(3)随工作组数量的增加,累积恢复效能呈增长趋势,增长率逐渐减小,同时,总成本呈减少趋势,减少率也逐渐减小。     

An integrated model of supply chain performance evaluation and decision-making using structural equation modelling and fuzzy AHP

This paper aims to propose a comprehensive evaluation tool and decision model, which can help the practitioners to gauge their supply chain performance and guide them in decision-making for further improvements. The model provides a salient notion of integrated supply chain performance evaluation approach distilled from the literature. The five important performance evaluation criteria (supply chain planning performance, supply chain partnership performance, production performance, delivery and logistic performance and customer service and satisfaction performance) and corresponding 19 sub-criteria have been identified. An integrated methodology of structural equation modelling (SEM) and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) have been applied to the proposed model to a real case study of Indian textile–apparel–retail supply chain network.