Compensation System Experience at 12 Months After Road or Workplace Injury in Victoria,Australia

Seeking or receiving compensation after injury is frequently associated with poor recovery. Previous research has shown that the stressful nature of compensation procedures and perceived injustice may cause secondary harm. This study examined compensation system experiences in compensation claimants in Victoria, Australia, and explored the relationship between these experiences and injury outcomes. One hundred and sixty compensable patients (120 male, 75.0 %) aged 18–67 years (M?=?43.01, SD?=?14.31), hospitalized for an injury in a motor vehicle crash (n?=?137) or at work (n?=?23), participated. Participants completed questionnaires about compensation system experience, pain, and psychological symptoms 12 months after injury. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the compensation system experience items revealed three components explaining 66.64 % of the variance in compensation experience: (1) “negative procedural experience” (47.29 %), (2) “compensation supported recovery” (10.43 %), and (3) “positive procedural experience” (8.92 %). Worse experience on all components was associated with worse pain (severity, interference, catastrophizing, disability) and psychological symptoms (anxiety, depression, PTSD, perceived injustice). Compensation system experience reflected both negative and positive procedural factors, and feeling supported through recovery. Most participants reported having positive experiences; however, those who were frustrated or stressed from compensation procedures had worse pain and psychological health outcomes. While this association is likely to be bidirectional with “non-recovery” also impacting on compensation experience appraisals, compensation schemes should nonetheless address modifiable sources of procedural injustice (e.g., arduous paperwork and approvals processes) and reinforce procedures that generate perceptions of support (e.g., timely and appropriate access to health services).     

German parties and internet campaigning in the 2002 federal election

This article examines German national parties' use of the Internet in the 2002 federal election. Its main goals are to determine what the parties were doing in their online campaigns and how far their use of the Internet can be understood in terms of two party-specific variables – organisational size and primary goal. These questions are of significance given the relatively limited study of parties' use of the net in Germany in the comparative literature on this topic. Also, research on parties' use of the Web across countries has suggested that while context does produce differences in approach, partyspecific factors also play a major role in determining online strategy. The article attempts to investigate these questions systematically by examining nine German parties' use of the Internet (specifically websites, e-mail, and intra-nets) using questionnaire data from national party personnel and content analysis of web pages. Our findings show that while the divide between major and minor parties can be seen quite clearly in the German context in terms of website quality and visibility, evidence to support the impact of party outlook in shaping parties' online strategy can also be found. In addition, the study reveals that major parties are now beginning to take the Internet very seriously as a communication tool, particularly in terms of election campaigning.     

Is it Better to be a Boy? A Disaggregated Outlay Equivalent Analysis of Gender Bias in Papua New Guinea

The demographic evidence of gender bias in many countries has provided an impetus for finding ways to study the status of women in developing countries. Because of the lack of accurate intra-household data, Deaton [1989 Deaton, A. 1989. Looking for Boy–Girl Discrimination in Household Expenditure Data. World Bank Economic Review, Vol.3, No.1: pp.1–15 [Google Scholar]] introduced a method for using household expenditure data to infer discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls. Few studies of discrimination using the method, however, have detected bias even though alternative indicators suggest it is a serious problem. In this paper, we study the case of Papua New Guinea, a country in which there are many indicators of severe gender bias. Discrimination in the allocation of goods between boys and girls within households in Papua New Guinea is examined using Deaton's outlay-equivalent ratio method. Adding a boy to the household reduces expenditure on adult goods by as much as would a nine-tenths reduction in total outlay per member, but girls have no effect on adult goods expenditure. The hypothesis of Haddad and Reardon [1993 Haddad, L and Reardon, T. 1993. Gender Bias in the Allocation of Resource within Households in Burkina Faso: a Disaggregated Outlay Equivalent Analysis. Journal of Development Studies, Vol.29, No.2: pp.260–76 [Google Scholar]] that gender bias is inversely related to the importance of female labour in agricultural production is not supported. Sensitivity analysis shows that bias in rural areas occurs equally regardless of the age of the household head, while bias against girls may be less in regions of the country that have ethnic groups which practice matrilineal descent.     

Do Online Election Campaigns Win Votes? The 2007 Australian “YouTube” Election

Studies of Web use during elections have focused mainly on the content of Web sites and on the major factors driving parties' and candidates' adoption of the technology. Evaluations of the electoral impact of Web campaigns have been more limited. This article examines the nature and extent of Web use by voters and parties in the 2007 Australian federal election, focusing particularly on the consequences of Web 2.0 campaigning for candidate vote share. The findings show differing levels of commitment to older and newer e-campaigning technology across parties and their supporters and significant electoral advantages are associated with minor parties candidates using Web 2.0 campaign tools. The results confirm existing studies' findings about the impact of Web campaigns on contemporary elections, but that these effects are moderated by the type of Web tools used and party using them.     

On the consequences of ignoring genetic influences in criminological research

Purpose

Many criminological scholars explore the social causes of crime while giving little consideration to the possibility that genetic factors underlie the observed associations. Indeed, the standard social science method (SSSM) assumes genetic influences do not confound the association between X and Y. Yet, a nascent stream of evidence has questioned the validity of this approach by revealing many criminological variables are at least partially affected by genetic influences. As a result, a substantial proportion of the literature may be misspecified due to uncontrolled genetic factors. No effort has been made to directly estimate the extent to which genetic confounding has biased the associations presented in criminological studies.

Methods

The present study seeks to address this issue by drawing on simulated datasets.

Results/Conclusions

Results suggest genetic confounding may account for a negligible portion of the relationship between X and Y when their correlation (r_yx) is larger than the correlation between genetic factors and Y (i.e., r_yx > r_yg). Genetic confounding appears to be much more problematic when the correlation between X and Y is in the moderate-to-small range (e.g., r_yx = .20) and the genetic effect is in the moderate-to-large range (e.g., r_yg ≥ .30).     

The Pitfalls of South Africa's "Liberation"

In recent years, the figurative face of politics in America often quite literally has become the face of a celebrity. This trend finds citizens in democratic society willing to yield up their political consciousness to media-created celebrities. Drawing on the theories of Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard, this article argues that the investiture of authority in celebrities represents a continuation of the trend by which social bodies operate as the site where relations of power are played out, and by which the media serve as a means in which real democracy has been replaced by a simulated one. Alongside grassroots participation, and in some cases leading it, society is incorporating a new language that deploys celebrities as chief vehicles for the simulation of political consent, thereby overcoming public apathy, and buttressing the existing political order.