Public hospitals in China: privatisation, the demise of universal health care and the rise of patient-doctor violence

Ensuring the safety of staff and patients has become a major problem for hospitals in China. This article examines whether one of the reasons for this violence may be the emerging injustice and inequality that have manifested in the Chinese health care system as a result of privatisation reforms since the early 1980s. It considers approaches to these issues that may assist the Chinese Government, and other nations contemplating similar policy changes, to create efficient but equity-based health care systems that minimise collateral trauma to patients and their families.     

Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses

William Roberts Clark University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies, ISR 4202 Box 1248, 426 Thompson Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248 Matt Golder Florida State University, Department of Political Science, 531 Bellamy Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2230 e-mail: thomas.brambor{at}nyu.edu e-mail: wrclark{at}umich.edu e-mail: matt.golder{at}nyu.edu (corresponding author) Multiplicative interaction models are common in the quantitativepolitical science literature. This is so for good reason. Institutionalarguments frequently imply that the relationship between politicalinputs and outcomes varies depending on the institutional context.Models of strategic interaction typically produce conditionalhypotheses as well. Although conditional hypotheses are ubiquitousin political science and multiplicative interaction models havebeen found to capture their intuition quite well, a survey ofthe top three political science journals from 1998 to 2002 suggeststhat the execution of these models is often flawed and inferentialerrors are common. We believe that considerable progress inour understanding of the political world can occur if scholarsfollow the simple checklist of dos and don'ts for using multiplicativeinteraction models presented in this article. Only 10% of thearticles in our survey followed the checklist.     

Communicating corporate social responsibility: an exploratory case study of a major UK retail centre

• Corporate 'social responsibility [CSR] is neither a fad nor an optional extra. The interest in it is reflective of a deeper change in the relationship between companies and their stakeholders. Healthy business requires a healthy community, and should be contributing to its creation and maintenance. The public increasingly wants to know about companies that stand behind the brands and products presented to them. And use their power to reward ‘good’ companies and punish the ‘bad’ ones. (Lewis, S. 2001 ).
• CSR is becoming ever more important in the modern business environment, as is evident by the fact that most leading public companies include a specific statement on their CSR policy within their annual reports. Indeed, changing societal expectations, increasingly intrusive media reporting, and ever more sophisticated and powerful pressure groups have caused all organizations to consider more carefully their wider social responsibilities not only out of altruistic reasons, but because of the need to consider the potential impact of their policies on their wider stakeholder relationships.
• It is argued in academic and professional writing that CSR orientated organizations benefit from a series of tangible and intangible benefits, when stakeholders are informed of their orientation. Corporations have reacted to these calls and this belief in a business case and are implementing CSR programmes or corporate change to bring about new corporate mindsets, and are in‐turn communicating the results of these programmes. However, in order to be able to effectively communicate it is necessary that organizations clearly understand the concept of CSR, both from a managerial perspective and homogeneous and individual stakeholder perspective.
• Aiming to help address this lack of understanding, the proposed paper provides a case examination of stakeholder and management perspectives of CSR in the North West of England in a retail setting. The study was conducted in 2003 around a Major UK retail centre using a mix method approach that drew out management cognate viewpoints on CSR and quantitatively tested these findings against stakeholder viewpoints on CSR. The study is served as a pilot for future studies into the area.
• It found that within the context of the case that the managers and stakeholders (when taken as one homogeneous group) shared a similar view of the concept of CSR. Additionally, the weaknesses of the research pilot brought to the surface methodological improvements that could impact on future researches into the area.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three species of insects collected from an adult human corpse above 3300 m in elevation: a review of a case from Colorado

We report on the colonization of an adult human corpse by three insect species at 3350 m (11,000 ft) in elevation. The adult silphid Thanatophilus coloradensis (Wickham), adults of the blow fly Calliphora coloradensis (Hough), and larvae and adults of Lucilia silvarum (Meigen) were all collected from the victim's body which had been wrapped in plastic. The victim was found in late June in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. This paper provides additional confirmation of the taxa utilizing a human corpse at high elevations in Colorado.     

Suicide with associated acts of arson: two cases from Colorado

We report on two cases of suicide in which the victims started fires before their deaths. In one case the victim died of a single self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head after setting several fires in his residence. In the second case the victim hung himself after setting several fires in his residence and an adjoining building. In both cases, the victim's position was not near the origin of the fires suggesting that the arson was not a failsafe device to the primary mechanism of suicide. Neither victim showed a significant percentage of carboxyhemoglobin, or thermal damage from the fires. Both cases are remarkable in that, had the fire caused more damage to the remains and dwellings, a finding of suicide may not have been reached. We discuss similar aspects between the two reported cases and discuss differences observed with similar events such as complex suicide, suicide by self-immolation, and concealed homicide by burning. Similar cases should be reported to broaden our understanding of these complex events.     

Group Differences in Fairness Perceptions and Decision Making in Voting Rights Cases

Participants recruited from one Historically Black University (HBU) and two predominantly White higher-education institutions evaluated and decided simulated voting rights case summaries in which the plaintiff was either a racially-defined (African American) or a nonracially-defined (farmers) minority group. Contrary to social identity and social justice findings of an in-group bias, the present study showed greater support at all institutions for the voting rights of the African Americans than for the rural farmers, and the greatest support for both minority groups was found at the HBU. Perceived evidence strength was a better predictor of decisions than perceived unfairness, and both of these predictor variables completely mediated the effects of institution-type and involvement of a racially-defined group on decisions.     

Lightning fatalities on the South African Highveld: a retrospective descriptive study for the period 1997 to 2000

A review of the Southern Africa medical literature shows a paucity of published data regarding lightning fatalities. The South African Highveld has a lightning ground flash density of 6 to 9 flashes/km/year, with a high incidence of thunderstorm days per year (some 40-70). The Highveld has a largely urban population, many of whom have low socioeconomic status and poor education, housing, and other infrastructures and hence (possibly) are at greater exposure risk. Thirty-eight victims of lightning-related death were identified from the records of the 6 large medicolegal mortuaries on the South African Highveld, serving a population of approximately 7 million, for the period 1997 to 2000. Analysis of the records revealed that 95% of all victims were black, 79% were male, and the average age was 36 years. Lightning strikes occurred from September through to April (normal summer rainfall period), and the most strikes took place in the late afternoon (3:00 pm to 6:00 pm). All except 1 case occurred outdoors. In the autopsy reports, mention was made of singeing of hair in 68% of cases, and mention of damage to clothing was made in 26% of cases. Cutaneous thermal injuries were noted in 34 of the 38 cases, with apparent electrothermal injuries of the feet noted in 4 cases. Fifty-two percent of victims sustained some form of associated blunt-force injury (including abrasions, contusions, etc). Specific keraunopathologic injuries were described in only 2 of the cases. Twenty-one cases had some form of internal organ injury. This study serves to illustrate the relatively high incidence of lightning strikes in the region and calls for a more systematic and detailed investigative protocol in lightning-related deaths.     

Role of chemical tests and scene investigation in determination of range of fire

Forensic pathologists have historically found several characteristics of the entrance wound invaluable in determining range of fire in gunshot fatalities. Among these characteristics are the pattern and constituents of any deposited material such as soot and/or gun powder residues. We describe a case in which the application of previously described characteristics, in the absence of laboratory testing and examination of the crime scene, would have led to an erroneous conclusion with potentially grave consequences. We suggest that all attempts be made to use available laboratory tests and to perform detailed examination of crime scenes in determining the circumstances surrounding fatal gunshot injuries.     

Two-Year Reliability of the Propensity for Abusiveness Scale

The Propensity for Abusiveness Scale (PAS; Dutton [1995a] J. Fam. Violence 10[2]: 203–221) has been shown to correlate with both physical and psychological abuse in a variety of samples including gay men, assaultive males, and male and female college students (Clift, 2001; Dutton et al., 2001). For the current study, 27 male and 37 female university students completed the PAS during the 1998–1999 and the 2000–2001 school years. A 2-year test–retest reliability coefficient of r = .851 was found for women and a reliability coefficient of r = .629 was found for men. The combined sample had a reliability coefficient of r = .774. Moderate test–retest reliability coefficients were also found for each of the subscales.