Rural small firms' website quality in transition and market economies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate website quality in rural firms in four countries, by using Gonzalez and Palacios's Web Assessment Index (WAI). There is an assertion in the literature that quality is lower amongst rural firms than urban firms, and lower amongst small firms than large firms. The disadvantages of lack of access to skills and economic peripherality in rural areas are attributed to this. Concurrently, there is reason to surmise that the websites of firms in transition economies may be higher quality than those in market economies. The paper aims to explore websites in distinct rural regions to investigate if variation occurs. Design/methodology/approach – To evaluate website quality the WAI was applied to a sample of 60 rural firms representing 15 each in Scotland, New Zealand, Southern Russia and Hunan Province in China. Analysis of the categorical data was performed using a variety of established methods. Findings – The WAI is of use in terms of website quality management. Additionally, comparisons between the quality of websites in the sample of small rural firms with those of large firms in previous studies support the contention that large firms generally have better quality websites. Results also illustrate that there are some differences in website quality between rural small businesses in the different locations. In particular, small rural firms in Hunan Province in China had websites of observable better quality than those elsewhere. The authors conclude that skills, knowledge and infrastructure have a bearing on the sophistication of small firms' websites. Research limitations/implications – Implications include that variation in the rural economy by region prevails as the rural economy is not, as often implied, a homogeneous concept. Practical implications – There are implications in terms of exploring the effects of regulation, culture and infrastructure on rural small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The internet may indeed contribute to rural economies, but only insofar as it is facilitated by infrastructure and access to skills, and by culture and perceived usefulness by business owners. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the understanding of rural entrepreneurship as a heterogeneous concept by comparing practice in four distinct rural regions. It also adds weight to the emerging identification of exogenous factors as being at least as much a factor in determining the use of ICT in rural SMEs as endogenous motivations, skills and resources. </jats:sec

The decline of Fowler\u27s Toad (Bufo fowleri) in southern Louisiana: molecular genetics, field experiments and landscape studies

Two of the most pervasive threats to species biodiversity are invasive species and habitat loss and degradation. Invasive species are often relatively insensitive to disturbance and many expand their range into disturbed and fragmented habitats. This dissertation uses an interdisciplinary approach to investigate how anthropogenic habitat disturbance is precipitating a range expansion in an invasive toad species, Bufo nebulifer, which is driving a decline in its native congener, B. fowleri. I employed a remote sensing and GIS study using historical data to compare changes in the two species distributions and habitat changes, a molecular genetic study to identify interspecific hybrids and their potential effects on the parental species, and an experimental ecology study to look at the effects of competition and predation on the two species. The results of the landscape level analyses of species\u27 distributional changes in different disturbance levels showed that both species\u27 distributions have changed significantly. The distributions of the two species are inversely affected by habitat disturbance; the distribution of B. fowleri in highly degraded habitat has contracted while the expansion of B. nebulifer increased substantially. The molecular genetic study successfully demonstrated the use of nuclear and mitochondrial markers to identify cryptic hybrids and their maternal lineage. Three hybrids were detected using nuclear introns and a morphologically cryptic hybrid was identified using mitochondrial DNA as the progeny of a cross that was previously thought to be inviable. Although relatively few hybrids were currently found, the identification of a cryptic hybrid implies that the rate of historical hybridization may have been drastically underestimated. Ecological studies showed that competition with B. nebulifer tadpoles had a negative effect on both body size measures and survival to metamorphosis for B. fowleri tadpoles. The addition of predators to experiment did not favor the survival of B. fowleri over B. nebulifer. Bufo fowleri\u27s inability to compete with its invasive congener could be a driving mechanism for the decline of B. fowleri and the expansion of B. nebulifer. The methods discussed in this dissertation offer promising and practical new approaches for evaluating and managing changes in the distribution of species of conservation concern

“I Put a Mask on” the human side of deportation effects on Latino youth

Recent research on immigration has looked at forced deportation issues and specifically on the mental health issues of immigrant parents separated from their children rather than from the child’s experience. Hispanic adolescents residing in the United States who live with the fear of being separated from their parents either through forced parental deportation or as a result of being detained themselves may face serious health and mental health problems during the crucial developmental stage of adolescence and pre-adolescence. This study looks at twenty children ages 11-18 (males and females). Qualitative methods were used including focus groups and individual in-depth interviews to examine issues among youth who were at risk of being deported and/or whose parents had been deported or were at risk of deportation. Evidence from the study demonstrated that the youth have complex understandings of the stress of living in undocumented families that can be categorized in individual, social, and structural levels.http://jswhr.com/journals/jswhr/Vol_2_No_2_December_2014/3.pdfPublished versio

Arming Teachers for School Safety: Providing Clarity for State Policies

While there is an increased national focus on student safety and gun violence in schools, the policies for arming teachers are often vague and unclear. Additionally, policies and laws enforcing safety protocol for students differ across states. Clarity in policies are important for stakeholders in school communities who can use such information to better understand the shifting landscape of policy about arming faculty and staff. In this paper, we explored the creation of specific policies designed to arm school personnel in Texas, including the Marshal Plan and the School Firearm and Safety Action Plan, known as the Guardian Plan. Findings may be applied to districts and governments in other states as they construct laws and policies related to school safety.Educatio

Battling the Stigma: HIV Screening in Resident Primary Care Clinic

INTRODUCTION: HIV affects ~1.2 million in the US, with 25% unaware of their statusand annual incidence of 50,000. Early detection and treatment reduces risk of AIDS-related deaths and transmission. Both the CDC and the US Preventative Service Task Force recommend routine HIV screening. The Providence Medical Group at St Vincent (PMG-STV) resident clinic has no routine screening protocol. • 24% (757/3139) of all clinic patients have ever been screened. • Of active clinic patients seen quarterly, 5% are offered screening with only 3% completing screening. We implemented and measured a clinic-wide HIV screening protocol leveraging existing clinic workflows. We aimed to increase screening of active clinic patients from 3% to 25% at one year. METHODS: Using a time-series design we measured quarterly rates of HIV screening tests ordered and resulted in active clinic patients, ages 18-65 and seen in office, during the study period. We utilized a pre-existing preventative healthcare workflow for routine cancer screening, influenza vaccines, etc. We introduced this workflow to residents and staff prior to our go-live date. RESULTS / DISCUSSION: Our primary outcome was to increase quarterly HIV screening rate of active patients, with a secondary outcome to increase overall clinic HIV screening rate. We increased the quarterly screening rate of active patients from 3.34% to 9.19% (Phttps://digitalcommons.psjhealth.org/psv_internal/1011/thumbnail.jp

A THREE-DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS OF INTRA-CYCLE KINEMATIC PARAMETERS OF THE CENTRE OF MASS OF FEMALE BUTTERFLY SWIMMERS

The analysis of intra-cycle velocity fluctuations in butterfly swimmers has been the subject of several swimming studies. Despite the fact that swimming is not a planar activity, most studies have examined these fluctuations with the use of two-dimensional (2D) analysis techniques, for example Maglischo et al. (1989), thereby introducing important limitations in both the data collection and analysis. In addition, the assumption of bilateral symmetry is untenable due to asymmetric patterns in the technique and asymmetries in the anthropometric characteristics (Arellano et al., 2003). Furthermore, Barbosa et al. (2003) showed that the hip does not represent properly the intracyclic variation in the kinematics of the centre of mass. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the intra-cycle fluctuation of the displacement, velocity and acceleration of the centre of mass in competitive female butterfly swimmers using three-dimensional (3D) analysis methods