Privatization and the Working Conditions of Health Care Support Staff

Using an assisted survey approach, we compare health care service employees' perceptions of work between public and privatized health care settings. Results indicate that laundry, maintenance, food service, and housekeeping staff employed by privately managed medical institutions have more negative perceptions of job rewards than their public sector counterparts, with no difference in perceptions of supervisor support, work stress, autonomy, and opportunity. A supplementary analysis comparing three organization types: pure-public, pure-private, and public-private shows that workers perceive higher work stress and lower rewards in public-private organizations, while workers at pure-private organizations perceive low rewards, low supervisor support, and low opportunity. Our interpretation is that privatization lowers workers' perception of rewards in completely privatized organizations and in public organizations that privatize a proportion of services.     

Legal Causes and Council in Reproductive Health

To study Judicial determinants of the ordered obstetrical and fertility interventions. Nature, corresponding laws, decisions upon the 37 expounded holdings at the Probate, Trial, District, Appellate, and Supreme Courts are studied in 92 published materials identified through the ACOG, RCOG, SOCG portals, and Legal Scholarship Repository. Hearings are held in the US (83.8 %), Canada (10.8 %) and U.K (5.4 %). Of all the hearings reviewed, 27 % concern mentally impaired, 37.8 %-maternal incompetence, and 21.6 % cases are of criminal nature. The Judicial determinants vary from country to country. In Canada, the ordered medical interventions are effected by the child protection legislation, whereas in the US, by court orders. In majority of cases, orders are obtained by dismissing the patriae petitions for involuntary sterilizations of mentally impaired sui juris adults (57 %); coerced obstetrical interventions (33.3 %), fetal custody (50 %); enforcement of surrogacy contracts (62.5 %) in favor of the Common Humanity Benefit clause; and recognizing the rights to inherit in posthumously conceived children (80 %) pursuant to the Social Security Act, Law of obviousness, Law of inherent anticipation, and Intestacy statute. Current study prioritizes two questions: (1) whether it is justified to override the wishes of a competent patient purportedly in her best interests; and (2) whether the patient’s autonomy and competence is an absolute concept. With the law unsettled as to a woman’s right to assent a treatment and contradict her fetus, parties concerned with fetal rights should consider exercising of screening tools on maternal judgmental fitness jointly developed by medical and legal practitioners. Further, given the advances in gamete conservations, states consider enacting legislation in order to safeguard the orderly administration of estates disrupted by claims from posthumously conceived children. A balance must be struck between the child’s right to inherit, the state’s interest, as well as the interests of prior born children.     

Isolating cells from non-sperm cellular mixtures using the PALM microlaser micro dissection system

Use of the Positioning Ablation Laser MicroBeam (PALM) microlaser system to isolate specific cellular components from somatic cellular mixtures (blood and saliva) prior to DNA extraction and typing is compared with routine DNA extraction and typing of the same mixture samples. Mixtures of blood and saliva at differing ratios generated complex DNA profiles that included allele peaks originating from each of the donors, or just those of the major contributor. Isolation of cells with the PALM microlaser prior to DNA extraction allowed informative, single-source, DNA profiles to be generated from a known cell type/origin.     

The transfer of human DNA by Lucilia cuprina (Meigen) (Diptera: Calliphoridae)

Blowflies leave deposits, termed artefacts, through the processes of excretion and regurgitation. To date, little consideration has been given to the possibility of adult blowflies consuming biological material and subsequently acting as vectors of human DNA through these artefacts. In this study, Lucilia cuprina (Meigen) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) were fed either human blood or human semen ad libitum and their artefacts were analysed for human DNA content. Samples containing 1, 10, 30 and 50 artefacts were tested. Quantifiable and typeable levels of human DNA were found in samples derived from both food sources, and even in samples containing a single artefact. Semen-derived artefacts contained significantly more human DNA than artefacts produced after a blood meal. Consequently a smaller number of artefacts was required to collect sufficient DNA for genotyping. These findings are forensically important as it provides investigators with another potential source of DNA at a crime scene where a body has been moved, or an attempt has been made to clean up biological material. They also highlight how fly artefacts could potentially contaminate and compromise evidence.     

The difficult issue of age assessment on pedo-pornographic material

The issue of juvenile pornography has seen an increase in the past few years of the number of expert opinions requested to forensic pathologists, paediatricians and other various experts within the forensic and medical fields concerning the age of represented individuals. Regardless of the entity of the problem, no actual method exists which can allow us to give an objective and scientific answer, particularly in the postpubertal stage. Using parameters related to sexual maturation can be very dangerous. Nonetheless some experts still insist with similar types of “expertises”. This study aims at verifying the ability of different experts in assessing age of postpubertal individuals represented in pornographic material. Results underline the difficulties and major uncertainties of age evaluation by visual observation of photographic material particularly when the subjects have reached the sexual maturation stage – and therefore in verifying whether the individual is above or below 18 years of age (an important age limit for most European countries as far as this type of crime is concerned). Furthermore the study stresses the need both to search for an alternate approach and to apply extreme caution in judicial evaluation.     

Social class,socialization practices,and psychosomatic ailments in adolescents

The relationships among social class, socialization practices, and psychosomatic ailments have been reported by several psychological and sociological studies. However, a careful review of these studies reveals some contradictory results. In addition to inadequate sample size, these studies have been carried out on children of preschool and grade school ages. We collected data from 1518 high school aged adolescents who had unbroken families and who might be regarded as products of their families' class and socialization practices. Our findings suggest definite effects of socioeconomic status on the mental health of the developing female children. The effects of some socialization practices, such as parental dominance, restrictiveness, punishment types, and warmth, on psychosomatic incidences are further examined. Implications of the present study are discussed.Received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. Major interests include sociology of mental illness and deviant behavior. Currently he is working on a book concerning the mentally ill.Received his Ph.D. from Iowa State University. Major interests include methodology and social disorganization. Current research is in social gerontology and applied statistics.     

'Give it the Shade': Paul Celan and the Politics of Apolitical Poetry

This article analyses the political impact of Paul Celan's poetry to illustrate the potential for social transformation contained in seemingly apolitical practices of speaking and writing. Celan's work epitomizes the search for thinking space in the immediate post-war period. Much of the German language at the time was so closely associated with the horrors of the Nazi regime that it was difficult to address critically many important social issues. In dealing with this dilemma, Celan recognized that politics ought to deal with language, with how we have come to objectivize the dilemmas that surround us. His poetry tried to stretch the boundaries of the German language such that it became possible to speak once more, critically, dialogically, humanely. By scrutinizing the potential and limits of this process, the present article addresses various issues that are at stake in the interaction between language, politics and society.     

Electoral terms and terrorism

Many terror attacks occur at the beginning of electoral terms. We present a game theoretical model with incomplete information to account for this empirical pattern. Both terrorists and governments can be of weak or strong types. We find that the risk of terror attacks is highest at the beginning of electoral terms, because striking early allows the terrorists to collect valuable information about the government’s type, and also because terrorists know that even initially weak governments sometimes retaliate to show toughness closer to an upcoming election. The model’s predictions are consistent with anecdotal evidence.