Growing community enterprise: an evaluation of the Community Enterprise Development Initiative

This is the final evaluation report from the Community Enterprise Development Initiative (CEDI), funded by the Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development and delivered by the Brotherhood of St Laurence. After a pilot in 12 locations in 2005, the program expanded to 15 more sites in 2006–07. In addition to assisting the development of various community enterprises, CEDI has built a knowledge base about critical success factors and best practice, and fostered collaboration and networking. The report includes several case studies of community enterprises

Children of War: Quebec’s Social Policy Response to Children and Their Families

Canada has signed the Optional Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict that obligates signatories to ensure assistance and support to war-affected children’s physical and psychological recovery as well as their social reintegration. In light of this obligation, the paper reviews the most recent policies related to immigrants and refugees of four Quebec (Canada) ministries, with particular attention to the frameworks underpinning these policies and practices in order to explore how the needs of refugee children are conceptualised and how these same conceptualisations orient the action plans. Miller and Rasmussen’s (2010) psychosocial/trauma integrative model is used as a benchmark to assess whether and how policies integrate considerations from both psychosocial and trauma focused conceptual models. The analysis suggests that all four ministries adopt a psychosocial focus but that none directly mention the impact of war, potential trauma or pre-migratory experiences on children’s reintegration or resettlement. There seems to be a divide and a lack of coherence in the goals and underlying philosophies of the action plans of the different ministries, most likely in part related to their differences in mandate. Indeed, the Ministry of Health and Social Services emphasizes individual and family wellbeing, while the Ministry of Education prioritizes citizenship and the development of Quebec. Potential implications of these policy orientations for children having been exposed to war living in the Quebec context are discussed

The probability distribution of cluster formation times and implied Einstein Radii

We provide a quantitative assessment of the probability distribution function of the concentration parameter of galaxy clusters. We do so by using the probability distribution function of halo formation times, calculated by means of the excursion set formalism, and a formation redshift-concentration scaling derived from results of N-body simulations. Our results suggest that the observed high concentrations of several clusters are quite unlikely in the standard Lambda CDM cosmological model, but that due to various inherent uncertainties, the statistical range of the predicted distribution may be significantly wider than commonly acknowledged. In addition, the probability distribution function of the Einstein radius of A1689 is evaluated, confirming that the observed value of ~45" +/- 5" is very improbable in the currently favoured cosmological model. If, however, a variance of ~20% in the theoretically predicted value of the virial radius is assumed, than the discrepancy is much weaker. The measurement of similarly large Einstein radii in several other clusters would pose a difficulty to the standard model. If so, earlier formation of the large scale structure would be required, in accord with predictions of some quintessence models. We have indeed verified that in a viable early dark energy model large Einstein radii are predicted in as many as a few tens of high-mass clusters.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, submitted to MNRA

Hormonal and Barrier Methods of Contraception, Oncogenic Human Papillomaviruses, and Cervical Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion Development

We assessed the influence of hormonal (oral, injectable, or levonorgestrel [Norplant, Wyeth-Ayerst, Philadelphia, PA]) and barrier methods of contraception on the risk of cervical squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL), while adjusting for high-risk (HR) HPV infection. Subjects were women receiving family planning services through the state health department clinics from 1995 to 1998. We selected 60 cases with high-grade cervical/SIL (HSIL) and 316 with low-grade cervical/SIL (LSIL) and controls (427 women with normal cervical cytology) and analyzed cervical DNA for HR-HPV, using Hybrid Capture I (Digene; Gaithersburg, MD).When assessing ever use, duration, recency, latency, and age at first use, neither oral contraceptives (OC), Norplant, nor injectable use was associated with an increased risk of SIL development after adjusting for age, age at first sexual intercourse, and HR-HPV positivity. Among HR-HPV-positive women, longer duration barrier method use was associated with a reduced risk of SIL. This finding has important clinical implications for SIL prevention among HR-HPV-infected women

Psychosocial Stress and Cervical Neoplasia Risk

OBJECTIVE: We assessed the association between psychosocial stress and preinvasive cervical neoplasia development controlling for HR-HPV infection. METHODS: This case-control study enrolled low-income women receiving family planning services at health department clinics. There were 59 cases with biopsy confirmed HSIL and 163 with low-grade SIL and 160 controls with normal cervical cytology. A modified SLE scale was used to measure stressful events and the perceived impact of the event in the prior 5 years. Unconditional logistic regression was used to assess SIL risk and stressful events scores and by subscales. RESULTS: After adjusting for age, HR-HPV infection, and lifetime number of sex partners, the SLE count score was associated with an increased risk of SIL among white women (aOR = 1.20; 95% CI = 1.04, 1.38) yet not among African American women (aOR = 1.02; 95% CI = 0.87, 1.19). The relationship stress subscale (divorce, infidelity, an increase in the number of arguments, and psychological and physical partner violence) was the only one of four subscales (loss, violence, and financial stress) associated with SIL, again, only among white women (aOR = 1.54; 95% CI = 1.21, 1.96). CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that psychosocial stress may play a role in SIL development. Future studies are needed to confirm these findings, to explore racial difference in reporting stress, and to explore the mechanism through which psychosocial stress may affect cervical neoplasia risk

Two Lensed Lyman-alpha Emitting Galaxies at z~5

We present observations of two strongly lensed $z\sim5$ Lyman-$\alpha$ Emitting (LAE) galaxies that were discovered in the Sloan Giant Arcs Survey (SGAS). We identify the two sources as SGAS J091541+382655, at $z=5.200$, and SGAS J134331+415455 at $z=4.994$. We measure their AB magnitudes at $(i,z)=(23.34\pm0.09,23.29\pm0.13$) mags and $(i,z)=(23.78\pm0.18,24.24^{+0.18}_{-0.16}$) mags, and the rest-frame equivalent widths of the Lyman-$\alpha$ emission at $25.3\pm4.1$\AA~and $135.6\pm20.3$\AA~for SGAS J091541+382655 and SGAS J134331+415455, respectively. Each source is strongly lensed by a massive galaxy cluster in the foreground, and the magnifications due to gravitational lensing are recovered from strong lens modeling of the foreground lensing potentials. We use the magnification to calculate the intrinsic, unlensed Lyman-$\alpha$ and UV continuum luminosities for both sources, as well as the implied star formation rates (SFR). We find SGAS J091541+382655 and SGAS J134341+415455 to be galaxies with (L$_{Ly-\alpha}$, L$_{UV})\leq(0.6$L$_{Ly-\alpha}^{*}, 2$L$_{UV}^{*}$) and (L$_{Ly-\alpha}$, L$_{UV})=(0.5$L$_{Ly-\alpha}^{*}, 0.9$L$_{UV}^{*}$), respectively. Comparison of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of both sources against stellar population models produces estimates of the mass in young stars in each galaxy: we report an upper limit of M$_{stars} \leq 7.9^{+3.7}_{-2.5} \times 10^{7}$ M_{\sun} h_{0.7}^{-1} for SGAS J091531+382655, and a range of viable masses for SGAS J134331+415455 of $2\times10^{8}$ M_{\sun} h_{0.7}^{-1} < M$_{stars} < 6\times10^{9}$ M_{\sun} h_{0.7}^{-1}.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, emulate apj format, Accepted to Ap

Visualising harms in publications of randomised controlled trials: consensus and recommendations

OBJECTIVE: To improve communication of harm in publications of randomised controlled trials via the development of recommendations for visually presenting harm outcomes. DESIGN: Consensus study. SETTING: 15 clinical trials units registered with the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, an academic population health department, Roche Products, and The BMJ. PARTICIPANTS: Experts in clinical trials: 20 academic statisticians, one industry statistician, one academic health economist, one data graphics designer, and two clinicians. MAIN OUTCOME: measures A methodological review of statistical methods identified visualisations along with those recommended by consensus group members. Consensus on visual recommendations was achieved (at least 60% of the available votes) over a series of three meetings with participants. The participants reviewed and critically appraised candidate visualisations against an agreed framework and voted on whether to endorse each visualisation. Scores marginally below this threshold (50-60%) were revisited for further discussions and votes retaken until consensus was reached. RESULTS: 28 visualisations were considered, of which 10 are recommended for researchers to consider in publications of main research findings. The choice of visualisations to present will depend on outcome type (eg, binary, count, time-to-event, or continuous), and the scenario (eg, summarising multiple emerging events or one event of interest). A decision tree is presented to assist trialists in deciding which visualisations to use. Examples are provided of each endorsed visualisation, along with an example interpretation, potential limitations, and signposting to code for implementation across a range of standard statistical software. Clinician feedback was incorporated into the explanatory information provided in the recommendations to aid understanding and interpretation. CONCLUSIONS: Visualisations provide a powerful tool to communicate harms in clinical trials, offering an alternative perspective to the traditional frequency tables. Increasing the use of visualisations for harm outcomes in clinical trial manuscripts and reports will provide clearer presentation of information and enable more informative interpretations. The limitations of each visualisation are discussed and examples of where their use would be inappropriate are given. Although the decision tree aids the choice of visualisation, the statistician and clinical trial team must ultimately decide the most appropriate visualisations for their data and objectives. Trialists should continue to examine crude numbers alongside visualisations to fully understand harm profiles

Relating Spectral Indices to Tensor and Scalar Amplitudes in Inflation

Within an expansion in slow-roll inflation parameters, we derive the complete second-order expressions relating the ratio of tensor to scalar density perturbations and the spectral index of the scalar spectrum. We find that ``corrections'' to previously derived formulae can dominate if the tensor to scalar ratio is small. For instance, if $V V''/(V')^2\neq 1$ or if m_{Pl}^2/(4\pi) ~|V'''/V'|\ga 1, where $V(\phi)$ is the inflaton potential and $m_{Pl}$ is the Planck mass, then the previously used simple relations between the indices and the tensor to scalar ratio fails. This failure occurs in particular for natural inflation, Coleman--Weinberg inflation, and ``chaotic'' inflation.Comment: 18 pages, LaTeX, no figures, FNAL--PUB--94/046-A; CfPA 94-th-14 (small revisions only, esp. examples for hybrid inflation