Commentary on Grandparents in Kinship Care: Help or Hindrance to Family Preservation

Invited commentary on Grandparents in Kinship Care: Help or Hindrance to Family Preservation

A Simulation Study Of The Impact Of Forecast Recovery For Control Charts Applied To ARMA Processes

Forecast-based schemes are often used to monitor autocorrelated processes, but the resulting forecast recovery has a significant effect on the performance of control charts. This article describes forecast recovery for autocorrelated processes, and the resulting simulation study is used to explain the performance of control charts applied to forecast errors

Evaluation of Intimate Partner Violence Screening in a Metropolitan Public Health Department

Routine intimate partner violence (IPV) screening has been recommended for all health care settings to prevent subsequent short and long term health consequences of survivors. However, provider adherence remains low. The purpose of this quality improvement project is to evaluate current screening practices, identify the needs of, and provide resources to three family planning clinics within a metropolitan public health department. The project utilized Donabedian’s Structure, Process, and Outcomes Model to map current protocols within three family planning clinics to identify current practices. A chart review including 105 patient charts was done to identify documentation of IPV screening/discussion as well as referrals following a positive victim response. A focus group composed of three clinic managers and seven individual interviews with clinical staff members were conducted to identify key themes and any barriers to screening. The mapping of practices revealed the overall clinic flow, resources within the clinics, and questions regarding IPV asked. The chart review revealed 47% patients were not asked about IPV and no information regarding subsequent referrals was provided. Five key themes were identified for both the focus group and the individual interviews. The focus group revealed only patient disclosure barriers, while the individual interviews revealed institutional and personal provider barriers, in addition to patient disclosure barriers. Following the individual interviews and focus group an educational session was conducted, resources were provided, and a post-intervention survey was distributed to assess readiness to screen. The post-intervention survey from the managers revealed more psychiatric support resources could be provided to enhance readiness. The clinical staff members had sufficient scores to consider them ready to screen. Overall the study found that additional interventions are needed to ensure providers are prepared to screen and appropriately refer survivors. Evaluation of Intimate Partner Violence Screening in a Metropolitan Public Health Department. Approximately 23 million women and 1.7 million men will experience intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2017). To address this alarming incidence of IPV, the Department of Health and Human Services has responded by guaranteeing access to preventive services, including IPV screening, under the Affordable Care Act (Ramachandran et al., 2013). Routine screening for IPV is now recommended by the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the CDC, and many more (DeBoer et al., 2013;Sormanti & Smith, 2009; Thackeray, Stelzner, Downs, & Miller, 2007). Despite national recommendations for routine intimate partner violence screening, provider adherence remains low. Studies assessing emergency departments reported that only 13% of patients were asked about IPV (Waalen et al., 2000). Additionally, studies found that only 10 to 39% of patients were screened for IPV at women’s health visits (Renker, 2008). Consequently, intimate partner violence is often underreported, unidentified, and improperly managed by health care providers

The megalith builders of Great Britain : one culture or one belief

On a recent visit to Western Europe I had the chance to observe a number of Neolithic sites such as, Stonehenge, Avebury, Salisbury Hill, Newgrange, etc.. I noticed there were parallels which could be drawn between their construction, astronomical alignments, and proximity to other similar sites. The question I am proposing for this research is as follows: does the archaeological evidence discovered at these sites corroborate the hypothesis of a single culture of megalith monument builders, or does the evidence suggest these monuments were created by multiple cultures? Although megalith sites, including stone circles, standing stones, and barrows are found all over Western Europe, I am focusing my research on the archaeological evidence found at the two Neolithic Megalith sites, Stonehenge (England) and Newgrange (Ireland). My goal is to get a better understanding of archaeology and history by examining the archaeological evidence at these two sites and by using this information to either support or disprove the hypothesis that these sites were built by a single culture

“States of Emergency”: Armed Youths and Mediations of Islam in Northern Nigeria

On November 14, 2013, the U.S. Department of State labeled Boko Haram and a splinter group, Ansaru, operating in northern Nigeria, “foreign terrorist organizations” with links to al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). This designation is debatable, since the groups are diffuse, with tendencies to split or engage other armed groups into violent actions, primarily focused on Nigerian national and state politics and the implementation of shari’a criminal codes. This essay offers two analytic perspectives on “states of emergency” in Nigeria and the affective, violent forms of “justice” that armed young men employed during the 2000 implementation of shari’a criminal codes in Kano State, important contexts for analyses of militant groups such as Boko Haram or Ansaru. One analysis is meant to capture the expressive aspects of justice, and the other presumes a-priori realms of public experience and understanding that mediate the suffering and the cultural, religious, and political forms of justice Muslim youths draw upon to make sense of their plight. Based on eight years of ethnographic research in northern Nigeria, I suggest the uneasy reliance in Nigeria on secular and religious legalism as well as on extrajudicial violence to assure “justice” (re)enacts real-virtual experiences of authorized violence as “justice” in Nigeria’s heavily mediated publics

Your Majesty\u27s Friend : Foreign Alliances in the Reign of Henri Christophe

In modern historiography, Henri Christophe, king of northern Haiti from 1816-1820, is generally given a negative persona due to his controlling nature and his absolutist regime, but in his correspondence, he engages in diplomatic collaborations with two British abolitionists, William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, in order to improve his new policies and obtain international recognition. This paper argues that the Haitian king and the abolitionists engaged in a mutual collaboration in which each party benefitted from the correspondence. Christophe used the advice of the British abolitionists in order to increase the power of Haiti into a powerful black state, and Wilberforce and Clarkson helped the king position Haiti as a self-sufficient nation to fuel their abolitionist argument of the potential of post-emancipation societies

Patient-reported depression measures in cancer: a meta-review

The patient-reported depression measures that perform best in oncology settings have not yet been identified. We did a meta-review to integrate the findings of reviews of more than 50 depression measures used in adults with, or recovering from, any type of cancer. We searched Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, and grey literature from 1999 to 2014 to identify 19 reviews representing 372 primary studies. 11 reviews were rated as being of high quality (defined as meeting at least 20 criteria in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement). The Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) was the most thoroughly evaluated measure, but was limited by cutpoint variability. The HADS had moderate screening utility indices and was least recommended in advanced cancer or palliative care. The Beck Depression Inventory was more generalisable across cancer types and disease stages, with good indices for screening and case finding. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale was the best-weighted measure in terms of responsiveness. This meta-review provides a comprehensive overview of the strengths and limitations of available depression measures. It can inform the choice of the best measure for specific settings and purposes

Faith-based and Graduate Adult Educator\u27s Negotiation of Similarities and Differences Among People as an Indicator of Their Multicultural Effectiveness

This study examined the relationship between adult educators‘ multicultural effectiveness scores and their negotiation of similarities and differences scores. The participants were in faith-based institutions, specifically Christian churches and in graduate adult education programs of universities and colleges in the United States. Multicultural effectiveness was measured by the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) that the authors reported measured multicultural effectiveness as the primary, encompassing variable. The MPQ is a five-point Likert scale with 91 items. The MPQ reliability was a Cronbach‘s alpha of .82 (Van der Zee & Van Oudenhoven, 2000). The Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale (M-GUDS) measured the negotiation of similarities and differences. The M-GUDS is a six-point Likert scale with 45 items on the long form and 15 items on the short form. Its internal consistency and reliability were high measuring Cronbach‘s alpha .89 (Miville et al., 1999). There were 40 participants in the study. A Pearson Correlation indicated a significant correlation, r(38)=.59,