Opening up government data for Big Data analysis and public benefit

Governments around the world are posting many thousands of their datasets on online portals. A major purpose of releasing this data is to drive innovation through Big Data analysis, as well as to promote government transparency and accountability. This article considers the benefits and risks of releasing government data as open data, and identifies the challenges the Australian government faces in releasing its data into the public domain. The Australian government has ambitious aims to release greater amounts of its data to the public. However, it is likely this task will prove difficult due to uncertainties surrounding the reliability of de-identification and the requirements of privacy law, as well as a public service culture which is yet to fully embrace the open data movement.     

Police attitudes in assigning responsibility for wife abuse

Prevailing myths concerning wife abuse generally tend to blame the victim. The present study examines the degree of responsibility assigned by police officers to the wife, the husband, as well as the couple's socioeconomic situation in cases of wife abuse. The officer's position (neutral vs supportive) adopted toward the woman is also investigated. The influence of eight characteristics related either to the spouses or to the situation of violence on both the officer's position and the attribution of responsibility is analyzed. The characteristics are: couple's socioeconomic status, type of household, drinking by husband, alleged antagonism on the part of the wife, ambivalence of wife to press charges, type of abuse, history of assault, and violence toward children. The results are based on answers to case vignettes provided by 235 municipal police officers. The data were analyzed by performing a multivariate analysis of variance. Results indicate the type of abuse to be the characteristic with the greatest impact on police attitudes. While the husband is systematically considered more responsible than the wife, police officers always consider the wife somewhat responsible, particularly when there is alleged antagonism by the woman and when threats of violence are present.     

The impact of TUPE on compulsory competitive tendering: Evidence from employers

The transposing of the 1977 Acquired Rights Directive into UK law has resulted in prolonged uncertainty regarding whether its protection of terms and conditions of employment extends to workers transferred under compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). In this paper we examine briefly the origins and scope of the directive and the development of relevant case law. We then report the results of a survey of employers confirming the existence of widespread confusion over the legal position of transferred employees. We also provide evidence that terms and conditions of employment are commonly being revised following CCT transfers. Concentrating upon the responses of contractors we show that any experience of litigation tends to lead to a less favourable assessment of the overall success of CCT. We conclude by examining both the causes and consequences of the continuing legal confusion associated with CCT transfers and consider the policy implications of our findings.     

Organizational Learning and the Development of a Networked Company

Through use of an exploratory case study, this research examines the concepts that distinguish a networked company from other organization models. These concepts are then applied in a field case study to a networked company called the Port Arthur Remediation Team (PART). PART was formed in 1996 by an integrated petroleum company, an environmental engineering concern, and a heavy construction firm to manage the remediation of an oil refining facility. How this networked firm learned to organize, coordinate activities, attain goals, and link its operational components in a useful way are described.     

Personal Experience and Perceived Acceptability of Sibling Aggression

The perceived acceptability of sibling aggression as a function of personal experience was investigated. Participants read a scenario depicting sibling aggression and rated the perceived acceptability of the hypothetical siblings’ behaviors. Following ratings, participants completed a measure to describe their childhood experience of sibling aggression and violence. Findings supported the hypotheses that men were more accepting of sibling aggression, and that being a perpetrator of sibling aggression was associated with increased perceived acceptability of such behavior, especially for women. For men, being the victim of sibling violence was also associated with higher rates of perceived acceptability.     

The Acute and Enduring Consequences of Exposure to Violence on Youth Mental Health and Aggression

The bulk of “neighborhood effects” research examines the impact of neighborhood conditions cross-sectionally. However, it is critical to understand whether the effects of neighborhood context are situational and whether they endure over time. In this study, we take seriously the notion that there are enduring consequences of exposure to deleterious neighborhood conditions. Using a rich set of longitudinal data on adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, we estimate the effect of exposure to violence on both internalizing (depression and anxiety) and externalizing problems (aggression). We find that exposure to violence has both an acute and enduring effect on aggression, yet no effect on anxiety-depression, net of individual, family, peer, and neighborhood influences. Part of the enduring effect of violence exposure is explained by changes in social cognitions brought on by the exposure, yet much of the relationship remains to be explained by other causal mechanisms.