Delivery and funding are provincial matters in Canada

The following article is one of a series that deal with the provision of health care services around the world. Other countries in the series include Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United States. Countries scheduled for coverage in the series include Austria, France, Singapore, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The countries are described using a grid of characteristics so that comparisons may be made more easily. All of the analyses, along with further comparative data, will be gathered into a freestanding book to be published later in the year. Dr. Mendoza serves as editor for the project.     

Unplanned sexual activity as a consequence of alcohol use: a prospective study of risk perceptions and alcohol use among college freshmen

OBJECTIVE: The authors' goal was to show how risk perceptions regarding unplanned sexual activity following alcohol use are prospectively related to subsequent alcohol consumption. PARTICIPANTS: Undergraduate students (N = 380) completed questionnaires at 2 time points during their freshman year. METHODS: In the middle of the academic year (T1), students estimated their risk of engaging in unplanned sex and reported their alcohol use during the previous term. Four months later (T2), they again reported alcohol use and indicated whether they had engaged in unplanned sex since T1. RESULTS: Students who consumed more alcohol at T1 rated their risk of unplanned sex more highly, suggesting relative accuracy. Those with higher risk perceptions consumed more alcohol at T2 (controlling for T1 use), suggesting that they maintained the high-risk behavior. Last, those who were unrealistically optimistic (ie, estimated low risk at T1 yet had unplanned sex by T2) reported greater alcohol use at T2. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the role that risk perceptions regarding sexual activity may play in college students' alcohol use.     

What shapes plant and animal diversity on urban golf courses?

Recent concern over increasing loss of biodiversity has prompted considerable interest in the role of urban green spaces as reservoirs of local biodiversity. This study assessed the diversity of three indicator taxa - plants, ants and birds - on golf courses spanning a wide range of environmental variation in terms of climate, elevation, course age, size and connectivity to native woodland. Species richness and community composition was further compared between contrasting on-course habitat types that reflect different management intensities. We identified a set of taxon-specific environmental correlates indicating an intricate interplay of landscape- and local-scale variables that affect local species diversity. Our results show that floristic diversity is positively associated with the amount of rainfall, whereas ant and bird diversity are related to local-scale factors, particularly the number of trees and the size of water features on a site. The amount of on-course native habitat was a strong predictor of plant and ant diversity and was also associated with the number of unique species at the site level; this reinforces the value of remnant habitat patches as local biodiversity reservoirs that represent mini hot-spots in an otherwise species-poor urban landscape. Community composition for all three taxa differed markedly between non-playing and playing areas, with boundary and remnant habitats generally having more diverse, species-rich communities. Our results suggest that local floral and faunal biodiversity on urban golf courses can be enhanced by creating woody non-playing areas and, especially, by preserving, restoring or expanding remnant habitats.     

An Experiment in Helping Foster-Carers Manage Challenging Behaviour

A randomized controlled trial was implemented with groups offoster-carers to test the effectiveness of cognitive–behaviouralmethods in the management of difficult behaviour. Contrary toexpectations, no statistically significant differences werefound between the groups with regard to behaviour managementskills, the frequency and/or severity of behavioural problems,and placement stability. In contrast, foster-carers expressedsatisfaction with the overall training programme and increasedconfidence in dealing with difficult behaviour. Discussion ofthe results focuses on a number of competing explanations forsuch findings and concludes with recommendations for futurework.     

The collected works of john w. tukey

We describe novel, analytical, data-analysis, and Monte-Carlo-simulation studies of strongly heteroscedastic data of both small and wide range.Many different types of heteroscedasticity and fixed or variable weighting are incorporated through error-variance models.Attention is given to parameter bias determinations, evaluations of their significances, and to new ways to correct for bias.The error-variance models allow for both additive and independent power-law errors, and the power exponent is shown to be able to be well determined for typical physicalsciences data by the rapidly-converging, general-purpose, extended-least-squares program we use.The fitting and error-variance models are applied to both low-and high-heteroscedasticity situations, including single-response data from radioactive decay.Monte-Carlo simulations of data with similar parameters are used to evaluate the analytical models developed and the various minimization methods em-ployed, such as extended and generalized least squares.Logarithmic and inversion transformations are investigated in detail, and it is shown analytically and by simulations that exponential data with constant percentage errors can be logarithmically transformed to allow a simple parameter-bias-removal procedure.A more-general bias-reduction approach combining direct and inversion fitting is also developed.Distributions of fitting-model and error-variance-model parameters are shown to be typically non-normal, thus invalidating the usual estimates of parameter bias and precision.Errors in conventional confidence-interval estimates are quantified by comparison with accurate simulation results.     

Aiming for Excellence: Reflections on the Advanced Institute of Management Research and its Elite

In 2002, the UK government launched the Advanced Institute of Management Research, a major initiative intended to raise the quality of research in business schools. Rather than offering research grants in open competition, AIM deliberately funded a select few leading lights in management. Insufficient allowance was made for the Research Assessment Exercise, which measured research excellence in terms of papers published in top journals. The AIM's elite exploited its existing publishing advantage, and AIM provided further resources to aid their efforts. The AIM recruited willing acolytes to work with its elite in fashioning the sort of papers required by the top journals of management – positive papers, consensual and endlessly citable. Analysis of the publishing patterns of AIM senior fellows reveals research cliques and publication silos rather than a network organization. Much as the elite saw its AIM funding as recognition of its own excellence, so AIM itself came to be seen as acknowledgement of the excellence of management research as a whole. That AIM existed to raise management research from intellectual poverty was forgotten. The AIM was wound up in 2012, having spent £30 million, most of it on the subject's elite. The problems that beset management research remain.     

Fecundability, coital frequency and the viability of Ova

Summary An extension of Barrett and Marshall's model expressing fecundability as a function of coital pattern is proposed. In particular, this extension includes the probability that the ovum remains alive. The extended model has been applied to Barrett and Marshall's data, a series of cycles for which basal body temperature curves and the date of coitus have been recorded. It was thus possible to estimate the daily probabilities of fertilization and, under certain assumptions, the proportion of lost ova. This proportion was estimated to be above 50 per cent, and increases with age. The increase of fecundability with frequency of intercourse is more moderate than that predicted by Barrett and Marshall's model.     

Childhood Ethics: An ontological advancement for childhood studies

We describe an ontological approach to childhood studies that we refer to as Childhood Ethics. This involves an interdisciplinary hermeneutic orientation towards examining the morally meaningful dimensions of matters that affect young people. We draw on our empirical research with young people from 3- to 17-years old, examining their experiences in a diversity of contexts and geographical settings. Our investigations challenge dominant binary conceptions of young people along lines of decisional in/capacity and im/maturity. We argue for a view of children as active agents with meaningful relational engagements and participation interests and capacities and outline corresponding implications for research and practice.     

Self-perceived occupational stress and distress in a Scottish police force

Abstract

This paper describes an empirical study (n = 699) of occupational stress in a Scottish police force. The self-perceived stress associated with a variety of organizational and opearational stressors was examined along with the associated distress in the police officers in terms of symptoms of anxiety, somatic complaint, severe depression and social dysfunction. The analysis revealed that in spite of the potential that police work offers for exposure to adverse opeational situations such as violence or death, the highest levels of associated stress lie in relation to organizational factors such as officers' perceptions of staff shortages, inadequate resources, time pressures, lack of communication and work overload. Differential rates of perceived stress are reported accordng to gender, rank and working location. This paper further validates previsous research on stress in British police and addresses the situation from a Scottish perspective.