A Qualitative Study on Home Modification of Rural Caregivers for People with Dementia

Opinions about the responsibility for procuring sheltered housing in Norway have been studied among people 50 and older. Until recently, Norway offered standard public provision, where the state has been the central provider and organizer of care for the elderly. The results indicate great support for public responsibility for providing sheltered housing for the frail elderly, which is only marginally affected by background characteristics. However, older people's attitudes as to whether they would choose private housing provision are affected by income, age, and knowledge of the market, and many are uncertain. Women and low-income groups are overrepresented among those who are uncertain.     

The Role of the Housing Allowance for the Elderly in Norway: Views of Recipients

This article concerns the housing allowance, an economic benefit provided to low-income households and the elderly in Norway. Ensuring a high quality of housing for the elderly has been a priority in the development of the Norwegian welfare state. This article is based on results from a qualitative study among elderly recipients of a housing allowance. The study shows that while these recipients viewed the financial support the allowance offered as crucial, they still felt impoverished. The study raises some questions about whether the housing allowance scheme encourages high-quality housing.     

Longitudinal Evaluation of a Teenage Pregnancy Case Management Program in Oklahoma

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a school-based case management intervention in reducing teen-pregnancy. A nonrandomized intervention/comparison schools mixed-method evaluation design was employed. Participants included 203 pregnant and parenting teens with annual follow-up over a 3-year period. The results indicated that the time to repeat pregnancy was delayed among pregnant teens, high school drop-out rates were reduced among parenting teens, and pregnant teens were less likely to deliver before 36 weeks in the intervention versus the comparison school. Case management at a school setting is a promising approach to decrease repeat teen pregnancy.     

Language Generativity,Response Generalization,and Derived Relational Responding

Language generativity can be described as the ability to produce sentences never before said, and to understand sentences never before heard. One process often cited as underlying language generativity is response generalization. However, though the latter seems to promise a technical understanding of the former at a process level, an investigation of definitions and approaches to the term “response generalization” that appear in the literature suggests that it does not do so. We argue that a more promising candidate for the role of key process underlying language generativity is derived relational responding. We introduce the latter concept and describe empirical research showing its connection with language. We subsequently present a relational frame theory (RFT) conceptualization of derived relations as contextually controlled generalized relational responding. We then review a series of recent studies on derived manding in developmentally delayed children and adults that arguably demonstrate the applied utility of a derived relations-based approach with respect to the phenomenon of generative language.     

Does the presence of independent and female directors impact firm performance? A multi-country study of board diversity

This study empirically analyzes whether gender diversity enhances boards of directors’ independence and efficiency. Using data from 3,876 public firms in 47 countries and controlling for a wide set of corporate governance mechanisms, we find that firms with more female directors have higher firm performance by market (Tobin’s Q) and accounting (return on assets) measures. The results also suggest that external independent directors do not contribute to firm performance unless the board is gender diversified. These results hold with respect to different estimation models and robustness tests. Overall, our findings provide evidence that the female directors enhance boards of directors’ effectiveness. Finally, we find that firms that are concerned with board independence, and that firms in more complex environments are more likely to have gender-balanced boards.     

Factors affecting user participation for elderly people with dementia living at home: a critical interpretive synthesis of the literature

ABSTRACT

Professional caregivers are expected to facilitate user participation for people with dementia. At the same time, an increasing number of elderly people with dementia are now being cared for at their homes. Research is scarce on user participation for people with dementia, especially for people with dementia who live at home. This article aims to systematically and critically review the factors affecting user participation for elderly people with dementia living at home from the viewpoint of the patients, family caregivers, professional caregivers and researchers. A systematic literature search and critical interpretive synthesis were conducted. The search yielded 1,957 articles. In total, 112 full-text articles were retrieved, of which 27 met the inclusion criteria. Five broad analytical themes were identified during the analysis: individual characteristics, professional caregiver characteristics, decision characteristics, relational characteristics and organisational characteristics. The results show that the value placed on user participation can differ between family caregivers and professional caregivers. People with dementia still experience stigmatisation, preventing user participation, and relations with both family and professional caregivers play a key role in enabling user participation for people with dementia.     

A parametric model fitting time to first event for overdispersed data: application to time to relapse in multiple sclerosis

In this article, we propose a parametric model for the distribution of time to first event when events are overdispersed and can be properly fitted by a Negative Binomial distribution. This is a very common situation in medical statistics, when the occurrence of events is summarized as a count for each patient and the simple Poisson model is not adequate to account for overdispersion of data. In this situation, studying the time of occurrence of the first event can be of interest. From the Negative Binomial distribution of counts, we derive a new parametric model for time to first event and apply it to fit the distribution of time to first relapse in multiple sclerosis (MS). We develop the regression model with methods for covariate estimation. We show that, as the Negative Binomial model properly fits relapse counts data, this new model matches quite perfectly the distribution of time to first relapse, as tested in two large datasets of MS patients. Finally we compare its performance, when fitting time to first relapse in MS, with other models widely used in survival analysis (the semiparametric Cox model and the parametric exponential, Weibull, log-logistic and log-normal models).     

Managing Differentiation‐Integration Duality in Supply Chain Integration*

Existing research focuses on the positive returns to operational performance of firms’ supply chain integration (SCI) with suppliers, buyers, and customers. We draw on differentiation‐integration duality and contingency theory to suggest that manufacturing firms should seek to achieve both integration through supply chain coordination activities and differentiation through modularity‐based manufacturing practices (MBMP). Using a sample of 261 manufacturing firms, we identify an inverse U‐shaped relationship between SCI and operational performance. Furthermore, we find support for the importance of differentiation‐integration duality as a fit between high levels of SCI and high levels of MBMP results in enhanced operational performance. We find support for a contingency perspective as fit is especially critical at higher levels of environmental uncertainty. Implications for theory, practice, and further research are suggested.