Reactions of potential jurors to a hypothetical malpractice suit: alleging failure to perform a prostate-specific antigen test

We conducted focus groups with 47 potential jurors who were presented with different scenarios in a hypothetical malpractice case involving failure to order a PSA test. Better documentation that a patient made an informed decision to decline a PSA test appeared to provide more medical-legal protection for physicians, especially with the use of a decision aid.     

Entrepreneurs,expectations and business expansion: Lessons from Lithuania

This article applies a multinomial logit estimator to investigate which factors affect SME owners' expectations to grow their businesses in Lithuania. Our findings provide evidence that SME owners' human capital (education) matters and that growth expectations are positively related to exporting. In addition, we analyse the link between the perceptions of business constraints and growth expectations and find that the factors, which are perceived as main business barriers, are not necessarily those which are associated with reduced growth expectations. However, perceptions of corruption seem to affect growth expectations the most.     

Empowering Victim Advocates: Organizing Against Anti-gay/lesbian Violence in Canada

This article provides an account of an emancipatory, community-based response to anti-gay/lesbian violence in Canada by outlining the model developed by The 519Church Street Community Centre Anti-Violence Programme (The 519), previously known as the Victim Assistance Programme. The data for this article was obtained through participant observation over a five year period from1993–1997. The goal of this article is to document and critique the model developed at The 519 by focussing on advocacy, policing issues, education, and the production of knowledge about anti-gay/lesbian violence. While the Committee's inclusionary agenda seems to be the most strategic approach to gaining equity in services in existing institutions, contradictions arise which suggest that ruptures exist between the promise of mainstream institutional change and resistance to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ) activism. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Disentangling the racial test score gap: Probing the evidence in a large urban school district

We examine the size and distribution of the gap in test scores across races within New York City public schools and the factors that explain these gaps. While gaps are partially explained by differences in student characteristics, such as poverty, differences in schools attended are also important. At the same time, substantial within‐school gaps remain and are only partly explained by differences in academic preparation across students from different race groups. Controlling for differences in classrooms attended explains little of the remaining gap, suggesting little role for within‐school inequities in resources. There is some evidence that school characteristics matter. Race gaps are negatively correlated with school size—implying small schools may be helpful. In addition, the trade‐off between the size and experience of the teaching staff in urban schools may carry unintended consequences for within‐school race gaps. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY HEALTH POLICY AND THE STATE: A CASE STUDY OF SUDAN

Medical anthropologists have frequently limited themselves to studying cultural factors in illness, curing or resistance to the acceptance of modern Western medical services. This prevailing "socioculturalist" approach has serious analytical shortcomings resulting from underestimating the importance of the social formations in which cultural factors occur. Consequently, the policy recommendations produced in medical anthropology are often crippled by theoretical limitations. It is argued that the historically specific constellation of social relations governing production and the appropriation and distribution of the economic surplus-commonly embodied in the functions of the state-have profound effects on the pattern of health and illness as well as on the availability of health services. In underdeveloped countries an analysis of the role of the state in health is especially important, since the organs of state power play a stronger role in health care than in countries with well developed markets for medical services.
In the case of Sudan, the interests of the state in colonial and postindependence periods required a development strategy involving large-scale irrigated agriculture utilizing seasonal migrant labor. The labor and health policies aimed at economic productivity and political stability are analyzed here in relation to the adverse health effects and serious maldistribution of health services which resulted.     

Measuring the frequency occurrence of handwritten numeral characteristics—An expanded list

In the third of a series of studies and reports, the authors expand on the frequency occurrence proportions of various handwritten features. The first study culminated in the publication of “Measuring the Frequency Occurrence of Handwriting and Handprinting Characteristics.” That study was followed by “Measuring the Frequency Occurrence of Handwritten Numeral Characteristics.” The premise of this current and future follow‐up studies is to expand on the initial lists of information incrementally by expanding the number of features and the number of writers. This study expands on the list of numeral features. A total of 34 numeral features was selected by the authors as candidates for this study and tested through an attribute agreement analysis. Based on the results of the testing, 17 new features have been added to the list of proportions. The original 1410 handwritten numeral specimen forms were utilized and pared to 1024 to obtain a proper population sampling for the United States. Interdependency testing was conducted on 783 pairs of inter‐character numerals. A coefficient of correlation between ?0.2 and +0.2 was found in 534 (68.20%) of these pairs. As of this report, there are now a total of 42 numerals with measured frequencies of occurrence. This material has already borne fruit as the combined frequency of occurrence studies were explained during an unsuccessful exclusion hearing in court with an explanation as to how these studies support the reliability of forensic document examination.