Testing and Assessment in an International Context: Cross- and Multi-cultural Issues

Globalisation, increase of migration flows, and the concurrent worldwide competitiveness impose rethinking of testing and assessment procedures and practices in an international and multicultural context. This chapter reviews the methodological and practical implications for psychological assessment in the field of career guidance. The methodological implications are numerous and several aspects have to be considered, such as cross-cultural equivalence or construct, method, and item bias. Moreover, the construct of culture by itself is difficult to define and difficult to measure. In order to provide non-discriminatory assessment, counsellors should develop their clinical cross-cultural competencies, develop more specific intervention strategies, and respect cultural differences. Several suggestions are given concerning translation and adaptation of psychological instruments, developing culture specific measures, and the use of these instruments. More research in this field should use mixed methods, multi-centric designs, and consider emic and etic psychological variables. A multidisciplinary approach might also allow identifying culture specific and ecological meaningful constructs. Non-discriminatory assessment implies considering the influence and interaction of personal characteristics and environmental factors

The association between general practitioner regularity of care and 'high use' hospitalisation

Background: In Australia, as in many high income countries, there has been a movement to improve out-of-hospital care. If primary care improvements can yield appropriately lower hospital use, this would improve productive efficiency. This is especially important among 'high cost users', a small group of patients accounting for disproportionately high hospitalisation costs. This study aimed to assess the association between regularity of general practitioner (GP) care and 'high use' hospitalisation. Methods: This retrospective, cohort study used linked administrative and survey data from the 45 and Up Study, conducted in New South Wales, Australia. The exposure was regularity of GP care between 1 July 2005 and 30 June 2009, categorised by quintile (lowest to highest). Outcomes were 'high use' of hospitalisation (defined as ≥3 and ≥ 5 admissions within 12 months), extended length of stay (LOS, ≥30 days), a combined metric (≥3 hospitalisations in a 12 month period where ≥1 hospitalisation was ≥30 days) and 30-day readmission between 1 July 2009 and 31 December 2017. Associations were assessed using multivariable logistic regression. Potential for outcome prevention in a hypothetical scenario where all individuals attain the highest GP regularity was estimated via the population attributable fraction (PAF). Results: Of 253,500 eligible participants, 15% had ≥3 and 7% had ≥5 hospitalisations in a 12-month period. Five percent of the cohort had a hospitalisation lasting ≥30 days and 25% had a readmission within 30 days. Compared with lowest regularity, highest regularity was associated with between 6% (p < 0.001) and 11% (p = 0.027) lower odds of 'high use'. There was a 7-8% reduction in odds for all regularity levels above 'low' regularity for LOS ≥30 days. Otherwise, there was no clear sequential reduction in 'high use' with increasing regularity. The PAF associated with a move to highest regularity ranged from 0.05 to 0.13. The number of individuals who could have had an outcome prevented was estimated to be between 269 and 2784, depending on outcome. Conclusions: High GP regularity is associated with a decreased likelihood of 'high use' hospitalisation, though for most outcomes there was not an apparent linear association with regularity

Lemma Discovery for Induction: A Survey

Automating proofs by induction can be challenging, not least because proofs might need auxiliary lemmas, which themselves need to be proved by induction. In this paper we survey various techniques for automating the discovery of such lemmas, including both top-down techniques attempting to generate a lemma from an ongoing proof attempt, as well as bottom-up theory exploration techniques trying to construct interesting lemmas about available functions and datatypes, thus constructing a richer background theory

Fish larval recruitment to reefs is a thyroid hormone-mediated metamorphosis sensitive to the pesticide chlorpyrifos

International audienceLarval recruitment, the transition of pelagic larvae into reef-associated juveniles, is a critical step for the resilience of marine fish populations but its molecular control is unknown. Here, we investigate whether thyroid-hormones (TH) and their receptors (TR) coordinate the larval recruitment of the coral-reef-fish Acanthurus triostegus. We demonstrate an increase of TH-levels and TR-expressions in pelagic-larvae, followed by a decrease in recruiting juveniles. We generalize these observations in four other coral reef-fish species. Treatments with TH or TR-antagonist, as well as relocation to the open-ocean, disturb A. triostegus larvae transformation and grazing activity. Likewise, chlorpyrifos, a pesticide often encountered in coral-reefs, impairs A. triostegus TH-levels, transformation, and grazing activity, hence diminishing this herbivore’s ability to control the spread of reef-algae. Larval recruitment therefore corresponds to a TH-controlled metamorphosis, sensitive to endocrine disruption. This provides a framework to understand how larval recruitment, critical to reef-ecosystems maintenance, is altered by anthropogenic stressors

Workplace Bullying, Disability and Chronic Ill Health

This chapter considers how and why people with disabilities, impairments and chronic ill health report being subjected to bullying at work. Against a global environment that is reporting increases in working age, elongated access to workplace pensions as well as a growth in insecure work, workplaces of the future are increasingly likely to encompass increasing numbers of workers who are more likely to have some form of impairment or chronic ill health. Aside from gender and race, workplace bullying researchers have generally been slow to embrace diverse workplace populations with very little data on the experiences of people classified as holding impairments or chronic ill health. These populaces require careful research designs sensitive to their situations and mindful of how bullying at work can manifest in their lives. This chapter sets out some of the challenges facing researchers operating in a political–social landscape that currently locates the disabled and chronically sick as a cost to be managed. In maintaining the tradition of trying to make workplaces fairer and more dignified in their treatment of workers, the chapter sets out some of the challenges of seeing disabled people as ordinary human diversities rather than pathologies