Effect of immediate and continuous mother–infant skin-to-skin contact on breastfeeding self-efficacy of primiparous women: A randomised control trial

ObjectiveTo evaluate the effect of mother–infant immediate skin-to-skin contact on primiparous mother's breastfeeding self-efficacy.Study designA randomised control trial.SettingsThe study was conducted in Omolbanin obstetrics hospital (large tertiary hospital), Mashhad, Iran.Participants114 18–35 year-old primiparous, Iranian, healthy and full term mothers who anticipated normal vaginal delivery and intended to breastfeed their babies.InterventionSkin-to-skin contact immediately after birth and then controlling breastfeeding self-efficacy at 28 days postpartum.Main outcome measureMaternal breastfeeding self-efficacy at 28 days postpartum and success in first breastfeeding and mean time of first breastfeeding initiation.ResultsA total of 92 mother–infant dyads (47 dyads in skin-to-skin care skin-to-skin contact group and 45 dyads in routine care group) were monitored and analysed. In skin-to-skin contact group, breastfeeding self-efficacy was 53.42 ± 8.57 SD as compared to 49.85 ± 5.50 SD in routine care group which is significantly higher in skin-to-skin contact group (p = 0.0003).Successful breastfeeding initiation rate was 56.6% in skin-to-skin contact group as compared to 35.6% in routine care group (p = 0.02).Time to initiate first feed was 21.98 ± 9.10 SD min in SSC group vs. 66.55 ± 20.76 min in routine care group (p < 0.001).ConclusionMother–infant immediate skin-to-skin contact is an easy and available method of enhancing maternal breastfeeding self-efficacy. High breastfeeding self-efficacy increases exclusive breastfeeding duration.     

Is there an Expectations Gap in the Roles of Independent Directors? An Explorative Study of Listed Chinese Companies

This paper investigates whether an expectations gap exists in the control, strategic and resource provision roles that independent directors play in the corporate governance of listed Chinese firms and the factors that affect their performance of these roles. For this purpose, we interviewed Chinese executive directors, independent directors, institutional investors and stock exchange regulators. We find a performance gap but no reasonableness gap with respect to the control and strategic roles. The results suggest that the performance gap may be attributed to such factors as the ill‐defined roles, independent directors' limited amount of time commitment and their lack of competence and objectivity. Interestingly, there is disagreement over the protection of minority interest as the objective of the control role. We find no consensus on the desirability, reasonableness and effectiveness of independent directors' resource provision role, perhaps because of a pejorative interpretation of this role as an exercise of guanxi.     

Economic development and political transformation

Conclusion Social structure and economic development largely influence the nature of social conflicts and political transformation. A combination of low political and economic integration and a high level of consolidation results in reformist conflicts. Low state intervention in the allocation and accumulation of capital reduces the probability that class conflict will be directed against the state. When state intervention is low, depoliticized, abstract market forces determine capital allocation and accumulation. In addition, low political and economic integration may give the state the appearance of serving societal interests rather than the interests of the upper class. This appearance of autonomy is reinforced by the institutions of formal democracy. As a consequence, class conflict is contained within civil society and deflected from the state. When consolidation is high, reformist conflicts against holders of capital may emerge. The United States experienced such movements in the 1930s. During the Great Depression, the state was drawn into some conflicts, but was not attacked by the working class. Today, the United States, like other advanced industrial societies, is less receptive to consolidation because of moderate levels of economic polarization, greater economic resilience, and high social differentiation. When state intervention and consolidation are low, organized groups with resources may gain economic benefits through segmented class conflict, whereas collectivities with weak solidarity and few resources remain inactive. Such is the case in the United States today.The combination of a high level of state intervention in capital allocation and accumulation with a high level of consolidation increases the likelihood of revolutionary conflict. High state intervention in capital allocation and accumulation has crucial social consequences. First, it politicizes other-wise abstract market relations. Second, it clearly reveals the state to be allied with a small circle of upper-class entrepreneurs, thereby discrediting the state's claim to serve societal interest. As a consequence, class conflict can readily assume a political character, expanding its target to include the state. A high level of consolidation enhances the capacity of challenging groups to act collectively to resist repression and seize power. Consolidation is more likely in societies with a high level of economic polarization, highly dependent economies, and low social differentiation. Russia in 1917 and Iran and Nicaragua in 1979 are revealing examples. The Russian and Nicaraguan revolutions were carried out primarily by workers and peasants, which helps explain the socialist orientation of the new leadership. In contrast, in Iran, the revolution was largely based on the conflicts and struggles of the traditional middle class, which eventually led to the formation of the theocratic state. A combination of high state intervention and low consolidation generates segmented conflict directed against the state. Many Third World societies are experiencing such a conflict today.To conclude, Marx's analysis focused primarily on social classes underemphasizing the significance of the state and its relation to society and economy. Skocpol's analysis, on the other hand, primarily focused on the state and the upper class, and failed to specify the proper, determining variables. If the analysis presented here is useful in specifying the conditions and forms of social conflicts, we must pay greater attention to social structural analysis, the nature of the relationship between the state, economy, social classes, and solidarity structures.     

Theories of collective action and the Iranian revolution

Most analyses of the collective actions that led to the Iranian revolution rest upon one of two classical models: social breakdown or social movement. These explanations emphasize such factors as the politicization of recently uprooted migrants, the growth of a new middle class opposing autocracy, the authority of the clergy, and specific aspects of Shiite Islam. Conflicts of interest, capacity for mobilization, coalition formation, and the structure of opportunities that shaped the collective actions of various groups and classes are ignored or downplayed. This paper argues that mobilization and collective action against the monarchy resulted from the adverse effects of state development policies on bazaaris, industrial workers, white-collar employees, and professionals. Bazaaris' mobilization provided an opportunity for other social groups and classes to oppose the government. A coalition of disparate interests, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, brought down the monarchy.Iran's two major twentieth-century revolutions, and especially the second, appear so aberrant. They do not fit very closely widespread ideas of what modern revolutions should be like. Yet there is no doubt that the Islamic revolution in 1978–79 provided a thoroughgoing overthrow of the old political, social, and ideological order (Keddie, 1983:580).     

Contingency tables with structural zeros

In this paper, the method of Hocking and Oxspring (1971) to estimate multinomial probabilities when full and partial data are available for some cells is extended to estimate the cell probabilities of a contingency table with structural zeros. The estimates are maximum likelihood, and the process is sequential. The gain in precision is due to the use of partial data and the bias of the estimates is also investigated.     

Some aspects of maximum likelihood estimation of multistage cancer dose-response odels with application

Quantitative cancer dose-response models play an important role in cancer risk assessment. They also play a role in regulatory processes associated with potential occupational or environmental exposures. The multistage model is currently the most widely used cancer dose-response model. This paper describes the construction of the likelihood function in the special case of the multistage cancer dose-response models. The concavity of the likelihood function is also established. A criterion is developed to determine the degree of the polynomial portion of the multistage model. Finally, the restricted and unrestricted maximum likelihood estimators are considered and applied to some experimental data sets.     

Evaluating the potential contribution of urban ecosystem service to climate change mitigation

Urban Ecosystems - Promoting urban greenery through tree planting strategies has been considered as a measure to mitigate climate change. While it is essential to understand the temporal dynamics...     

The Limited Role of Formal Statistical Inference in Scientific Inference

ABSTRACT

Such is the grip of formal methods of statistical inference—that is, frequentist methods for generalizing from sample to population in enumerative studies—in the drawing of scientific inferences that the two are routinely deemed equivalent in the social, management, and biomedical sciences. This, despite the fact that legitimate employment of said methods is difficult to implement on practical grounds alone. But supposing the adoption of these procedures were simple does not get us far; crucially, methods of formal statistical inference are ill-suited to the analysis of much scientific data. Even findings from the claimed gold standard for examination by the latter, randomized controlled trials, can be problematic.

Scientific inference is a far broader concept than statistical inference. Its authority derives from the accumulation, over an extensive period of time, of both theoretical and empirical knowledge that has won the (provisional) acceptance of the scholarly community. A major focus of scientific inference can be viewed as the pursuit of significant sameness, meaning replicable and empirically generalizable results among phenomena. Regrettably, the obsession with users of statistical inference to report significant differences in data sets actively thwarts cumulative knowledge development.

The manifold problems surrounding the implementation and usefulness of formal methods of statistical inference in advancing science do not speak well of much teaching in methods/statistics classes. Serious reflection on statistics' role in producing viable knowledge is needed. Commendably, the American Statistical Association is committed to addressing this challenge, as further witnessed in this special online, open access issue of The American Statistician.     

An Improved Security Requirement for Data Perturbation with Implications for E‐Commerce

With the rapid increase in the ability to store and analyze large amounts of data, organizations are gathering extensive data regarding their customers, vendors, and other entities. There has been a concurrent increase in the demand for preserving the privacy of confidential data that may be collected. The rapid growth of e‐commerce has also increased calls for maintaining privacy and confidentiality of data. For numerical data, data perturbation methods offer an easy yet effective solution to the dilemma of providing access to legitimate users while protecting the data from snoopers (legitimate users who perform illegitimate analysis). In this study, we define a new security requirement that achieves the objective of providing access to legitimate users without an increase in the ability of a snooper to predict confidential information. We also derive the specifications under which perturbation methods can achieve this objective. Numerical examples are provided to show that the use of the new specification achieves the objective of no additional information to the snooper. Implications of the new specification for e‐commerce are discussed.