Factors affecting hospice social work utilization among hospice patients: Focusing on place of care and economic status

Objective. Hospice social workers empower their patients and families as they journey through end of life. However, even when social work services are available, some hospice families choose not to use or fully utilize this service. Guided by the Anderson behavioral model, this study examined factors affecting utilization of hospice social work services with particular focus on two enabling factors - place of care and economic status. Method. Data came from the 2007 National Home and Hospice Care Survey. The sample was restricted to Medicare Hospice Benefit enrollees 65 years of age and older. Hospice social work utilization was categorized into six visit intervals (0= none, 5= more than two visits in a week). Bivariate and ordinal logistic regressions were used to examine associations between hospice social work utilization and 1) place of care (home vs. institution) and 2) economic status (low vs. not low). Results. The frequencies of hospice social work utilization were found to be significantly different between place of care (χ2(1)=92.86, p\u3c.001) and economic status (χ2(5)=11.28, p\u3c.05). Even after controlling for predisposing and need factors in ordinal logistic regressions, hospice patients receiving care at home (Coef.=-.58, p\u3c.001) and of low economic status (Coef.=-0.35, p\u3c.001) were found to use social work services less frequently than their counterparts. Discussion. This study adds to the limited body of literature on enabling factors associated with hospice social work utilization. Possible implications and suggestions aimed at addressing these disparities are discussed

A General Update Rule for Convex Capacities

A characterization of a general update rule for convex capacities, the G-updating rule, is investigated. We introduce a consistency property which bridges between unconditional and conditional preferences, and deduce an update rule for unconditional capacities. The axiomatic basis for the G-updating rule is established through consistent counterfactual acts, which take the form of trinary acts expressed in terms of G, an ordered tripartition of global states.ambiguous belief, Bayes' rule, update rule, convex capacity, Choquet ex- pected utility, conditional preference

A unified representation of conditioning rules for convex capacities

This paper proposes a unified representation, called the G-updating rule, which includes three conditioning rules as special cases, the naïve Bayes rule, the Dempster-Shafer rule (Shafer(1976)), and the generalized Bayes' updating rule introduced by Dempster(1967) or Fagin and Halpern(1991). It is shown that the G-updating rule constitutes a three-step conditioning, where one of the three rules is applied in each step.

Interactive Software to Accompany Yookoso: Has it all Been Worthwhile?

In this paper, we describe the development of interactive software to accompany Yookoso (Tohsaku 1999), the textbook in use in the first two years of the Japanese language course at Queensland University of Technology. We begin with a discussion of what is meant by interactivity; we then examine the advantages of using the software in association with the textbook package, as opposed to using the textbook package alone. We also discuss the importance of integrating multimedia materials into the curriculum and the role of the teacher in this model of ‘blended learning’. It is hoped the paper will prove useful to those who are considering implementing or have already implemented a CALL component in their Japanese language program

Implications of Two-component Dark Matter Induced by Forbidden Channels and Thermal Freeze-out

We consider a model of two-component dark matter based on a hidden $U(1)_D$ symmetry, in which relic densities of the dark matter are determined by forbidden channels and thermal freeze-out. The hidden $U(1)_D$ symmetry is spontaneously broken to a residual $\mathbb{Z}_4$ symmetry, and the lightest $\mathbb{Z}_4$ charged particle can be a dark matter candidate. Moreover, depending on the mass hierarchy in the dark sector, we have two-component dark matter. We show that the relic density of the lighter dark matter component can be determined by forbidden annihilation channels which require larger couplings compared to the normal freeze-out mechanism. As a result, a large self-interaction of the lighter dark matter component can be induced, which may solve small scale problems of $\Lambda$CDM model. On the other hand, the heavier dark matter component is produced by normal freeze-out mechanism. We find that interesting implications emerge between the two dark matter components in this framework. We explore detectabilities of these dark matter particles and show some parameter space can be tested by the SHiP experiment.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures, 1 table, version to appear in JCA