A comparison of educational processes at similar U. K. and U. S. institutions of higher learning

The structure and organization of the middle tier of higher education in similar institutions in the U. K. and U. S. are compared to draw conclusions on the effect which differences and similarities have upon the quality of the educational process, its cost-effectiveness, student independence and maturity, faculty load, relationships with business, industry and government.     

Gender and cultural patterns of suicidal behavior: young Hindustani immigrant women in the Netherlands

Patterns of suicidal behavior vary among cultures and along gender. Young Hindustani immigrant women attempt suicide four times more often than young Dutch women. This article explores multi-disciplinary explanations for suicidal behavior in this group. The interconnection of Durkheimian concepts of social integration and regulation with ecological insights into family relations and psychological and psychiatric theories on individual distress are relevant. It is suggested that young Hindustani women who display suicidal behavior possess certain personality and cognitive constellations that are interlocked with specific parenting styles in stressful family environments. These families are embedded in a context of moral transformations resulting from migration to a Western culture and may be facing difficulties accompanying the transitional processes encountered in the West, particularly those regarding gender roles. Durkheimian fatalistic and anomic suicides elucidate this. The Hindustani women who appear most at risk are those facing contradictory norms and overregulation, which prevent them from developing autonomy.     

Fatal dog maulings associated with infant swings

We present three cases of fatal dog maulings of infants placed in mobile infant swings, a phenomenon not previously described in the literature. In each case, the victim was left in a mobile swing, unsupervised by an adult, and the attacking dog was a family pet. Case 1 involved an 18-day-old male infant attacked by a pit bull; Case 2 involved a 3-month-old male infant attacked by a Chow Chow and/or a Dachshund, and Case 3 involved an 18-day-old female infant attacked by a Labrador-pit bull mix. These cases not only underscore the importance of not leaving young children unattended in the presence of pet dogs, but also raise the possibility that mobile swings may trigger a predatory response in dogs and thus may represent an additional risk factor for dog attack.     

Death of an exception or much ado about nothing

Hospitals often engage in physician recruitment in an effort to fulfill a community need for a particular medical specialty. In doing so, the hospital must comply with the regulatory requirements of the physician recruitment exception of the Stark law, which over the years has generated a great deal of discussion and perhaps confusion. The publication of the Stark II, Phase II regulations in March 2004 was supposed to provide guidance and clarity, but the new regulations have raised a number of new issues and concerns, particularly regarding the requirements imposed on recruiting arrangements involving group practices. This Article reviews the regulatory requirements of the new physician recruitment exception and addresses several of the concerns that have been raised. Specifically, it examines the new regulatory definition of the "geographic area served by the hospital," the restrictions on income guarantees when the recruited physician joins a group practice, and the prohibition on additional practice restrictions. The author concludes that, while some of these concerns are legitimate, others will have little practical implication and should not hinder the ability of hospitals to engage in reasonable, beneficial recruitment activities.     

Prior Experiences as Temporal Frames of Reference in Social Justice: The Influence of Previous Fairness Experiences on Reactions to New and Old Supervisors

This paper focuses on the psychology of social change and social justice. Specifically, we focus on subordinates’ reactions to new and old supervisors, and we argue that in evaluating these different types of supervisors, subordinates may rely on prior fair or unfair experiences as temporal frames of reference. We further propose that a result of these frames of reference may be that previous fairness experiences have a bigger impact on subordinates’ reactions to subsequent neutral communications when an old rather than when a new supervisor is the source of that communication. Findings of two empirical studies indeed show that subordinates who had had fair experiences with a particular supervisor reacted more positively toward subsequent neutral messages when the communication was coming from the old supervisor rather than from the new supervisor. Subordinates who had had unfair experiences, however, reacted more negatively toward the communication when the source was the old rather than the new supervisor. Some evidence was also found for contrast effects such that people who react to a new supervisor may react more positively with the neutral demand from this authority figure when they have earlier experienced unfair as opposed to fair treatment by a different supervisory agent. These findings were obtained on subordinates’ satisfaction with the supervisors’ communication and their acceptance of the supervisor. Finally, we discuss the implications for the psychology of social change and social justice.     

Interrogating genomic diversity of E. coli O157:H7 using DNA tiling arrays

Here, we describe a novel microarray-based approach for investigating the genomic diversity of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in a semi-high throughput manner using a high density, oligonucleotide-based microarray. This microarray, designed to detect polymorphisms at each of 60,000 base-pair (bp) positions within an E. coli genome, is composed of overlapping 29-mer oligonucleotides specific for 60 equally spaced, 1000-bp loci of the E. coli O157:H7 strain EDL933 chromosome. By use of a novel 12-well microarray that permitted the simultaneous investigation of 12 strains, the genomes of 44 individual isolates of E. coli O157:H7 were interrogated. These analyses revealed more than 150 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and several deletions and amplifications in the test strains. Pyrosequencing was used to confirm the usefulness of the novel SNPs by determining their allelic frequency among a collection of diverse isolates of E. coli O157:H7. The tiling DNA microarray system would be useful for the tracking and identification of individual strains of E. coli O157:H7 needed for forensic investigations.