Dying at home: A qualitative study of the perspectives of older South Asians living in East London

South Asians constitute the single largest ethnic minority group in the United Kingdom, yet little is known about their perspectives and experiences on end-of-life care. Aim: To explore beliefs, attitudes and expectations expressed by older South Asians living in East London about dying at home. Methodology and methods: Five focus groups and 29 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 55 older adults (24 men and 31 women) aged between 52 to 78 years. Participants from six South Asian ethnic groups were recruited via 11 local community organisations. Data were analysed using a constructive grounded theory approach. Findings: Two key themes were identified. The theme of ‘reconsidering the homeland’ draws on the notion of ‘diaspora’ to help understand why for many participants the physical place of death was perceived by many as less important than the opportunity to carry out cultural and religious practices surrounding death. The second theme ‘home as a haven’ describes participants’ accounts of how their home is a place in which it is possible to perform various cultural and religious rituals. Cultural and religious practices were often seen as essential to achieving a peaceful death and honouring religious and filial duties. Conclusion: Older people of South Asian ethnicity living in East London perceive home as more than a physical location for dying relatives. They make efforts to adhere, but also adapt, to important social and cultural values relating to death and dying as part of the wider challenge of living in an emigrant society

Financial Anxieties of Large, Medium and Small Enterprises in japan

In our previous article (2005), we investigated financial anxieties over the economy of Japan by treating the conditional variances of TARCH model as the financial anxieties. However we did not distinguish between large enterprises and small enterprises, though we differentiated the financial anxieties between all enterprises and small enterprises. The reason was that we implicitly assumed that the financial anxieties of large firms were smaller than those of small firms in the period of financial distrss, since lerge firms could access the credit markets directly through stock and bond market. Small firms which were more dependent of bank loans were supposed to have much more finanncial anxieties in the finanncial panic than large firms.In this article, we have quantified the financial anxieties for four different catedories of enterprises:large enterprises, medium enterprises, small enterprises and adding altogether (viz., large + medium + small) as all enterprises. Also another new aspest is that we have used EGARCH model instesd of TARCH, because in this model there is no need for non-negative constraints on the parameters and more importantly, it also allows for asymmetries in the variance equation. Then we have compared and explained financial anxieties for all categories through the line of history of the deflationary economy of Japan.Our findings show the opposite results that was expected. That is to say, large firms respond to financial distress more strongly than small firms

Financial Anxieties in Japanese Economy

In this article, financial anxieties over the economy of Japan have been investigated. Some researchers analyzedthis anxiety using the level economic variables in TARCH model without showing time series properties. If the time series involved are nonstationary, naive application of time series analysis may yieldspurious correlation. So, an attempt has been made to recalculate the anxieties in a more optimum way over the period1976-2005. Our results are able to capture the anxieties consistent with the economic point of views. Further discussions are given for the difference of financial anxieties between all enterprises andsmall ones, focusing our attention on the public financial institutions that played the special role for small enterprises

Probabilistic projections of HIV prevalence using Bayesian melding

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has developed the Estimation and Projection Package (EPP) for making national estimates and short-term projections of HIV prevalence based on observed prevalence trends at antenatal clinics. Assessing the uncertainty about its estimates and projections is important for informed policy decision making, and we propose the use of Bayesian melding for this purpose. Prevalence data and other information about the EPP model's input parameters are used to derive a probabilistic HIV prevalence projection, namely a probability distribution over a set of future prevalence trajectories. We relate antenatal clinic prevalence to population prevalence and account for variability between clinics using a random effects model. Predictive intervals for clinic prevalence are derived for checking the model. We discuss predictions given by the EPP model and the results of the Bayesian melding procedure for Uganda, where prevalence peaked at around 28% in 1990; the 95% prediction interval for 2010 ranges from 2% to 7%.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOAS111 in the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Globalization intentions in tension: The case of Singapore

10.1177/0020872810371202International Social Work535671-68

Estimation of Precautionary Demand Caused by Financial Anxieties

Pioneering work of modelling financial anxieties was given by Kimura et al. (1999) as psychological change of people due to financial shocks. Since they regressed financial position (easy or tight) by nonstationary interest rate, their results exhibit high peaks not only in financial crisis period of 1997 and 1998, but also in the bubble economy period of 1987 to 1989, which seems to be a spurious regression. Furthermore, defining financial anxieties as the conditional variance in TARCH model, one of estimated coefficients does not satisfy sign condition. We got rid of these difficulties by introducing a growth rate model, where a change of financial position (toward ’tight’) under a change of interest rate (toward ’fall’) is regarded as financial anxieties. Such anxieties are quantified by conditional variance of EGARCH model and shown to be stationary. Precautionary demand caused by financial anxieties is estimated in VEC model and it is shown that money adjusted by precautionary demand satisfies a long-run equilibrium relationship in the system (adjusted money, real GDP, interest rate) even in the interval 1980q1 to 2003q2

Probabilistic projections of HIV prevalence using Bayesian melding

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has developed the Estimation and Projection Package (EPP) for making national estimates and short-term projections of HIV prevalence based on observed prevalence trends at antenatal clinics. Assessing the uncertainty about its estimates and projections is important for informed policy decision making, and we propose the use of Bayesian melding for this purpose. Prevalence data and other information about the EPP model's input parameters are used to derive a probabilistic HIV prevalence projection, namely a probability distribution over a set of future prevalence trajectories. We relate antenatal clinic prevalence to population prevalence and account for variability between clinics using a random effects model. Predictive intervals for clinic prevalence are derived for checking the model. We discuss predictions given by the EPP model and the results of the Bayesian melding procedure for Uganda, where prevalence peaked at around 28% in 1990; the 95% prediction interval for 2010 ranges from 2% to 7%.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/07-AOAS111 in the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Ethnic Minorities and their Health Needs: Crisis of Perception and Behaviours

There is considerable evidence to suggest that racial and ethnic disparities exist in the provision of emergency and wider healthcare. The importance of collecting patient ethnic data has received attention in literature across the world and eliminating ethnic and racial health equalities is one of the primary aims of healthcare providers internationally. The poor health status of certain racial and ethnic groups has been well documented. The improvement of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare is at the forefront of many public health agendas. This article addresses important policy, practice, and cultural issues confronted by the pre-hospital emergency care setup. This aspect of care plays a unique role in the healthcare safety net in providing a service to a very diverse population, including members of ethnic and racial minorities. Competent decision making by the emergency care practitioners requires patient-specific information and the health provider's prior medical knowledge and clinical training. The article reviews the current ethnicity trends in the UK along with international evidence linking ethnicity and health inequalities. The study argues that serious difficulties will arise between the health provider and the patient if they come from different backgrounds and therefore experience difficulties in cross-cultural communication. This adversely impacts on the quality of diagnostic and clinical decision making for minority patients. The article offers few strategies to address health inequalities in emergency care and concludes by arguing that much more needs to be done to ensure that we are hearing the voices of more diverse groups, groups who are often excluded from engagement through barriers such as language or mobility difficulties

New provincial CO2 emission inventories in China based on apparent energy consumption data and updated emission factors

This study employs “apparent energy consumption” approach and updated emissions factors to re-calculate Chinese provincial CO2 emissions during 2000–2012 to reduce the uncertainty in Chinese CO2 emission estimates for the first time. The study presents the changing emission-socioeconomic features of each provinces as well. The results indicate that Chinese provincial aggregated CO2 emissions calculated by the apparent energy consumption and updated emissions factors are coincident with the national emissions estimated by the same approach, which are 12.69% smaller than the one calculated by the traditional approach and IPCC default emission factors. The provincial aggregated CO2 emissions increased from 3160 million tonnes in 2000 to 8583 million tonnes in 2012. During the period, Shandong province contributed most to national emissions accumulatively (with an average percentage of 10.35%), followed by Liaoning (6.69%), Hebei (6.69%) and Shanxi provinces (6.25%). Most of the CO2 emissions were from raw coal, which is primarily burned in the thermal power sector. The analyses of per capita emissions and emission intensity in 2012 indicates that provinces located in the northwest and north had higher per capita CO2 emissions and emission intensities than the central and southeast coastal regions. Understanding the emissions and emission-socioeconomic characteristics of different provinces is critical for developing mitigation strategies

Systems of education governance and cultures of justice in Ireland, Scotland and Pakistan

This chapter compares the issue of cultures of justice in the systems of education governance in three education systems: Ireland, Scotland and Pakistan. The focus for the comparison are the current policies which shape the regulation of education. These policies were reviewed to identify key issues relating to social justice and equality, decision-making and accountability. From the analysis of each system, three central issues were identified: firstly, the improvement of a state education system; secondly, the degree of decentralisation and centralisation in governance structures and thirdly, the expectations placed on school leaders. The chapter concludes by discussing the tensions between the drive for system improvement and opportunities for school leaders to build strategies to address issues of inequality in schools