Justice for children in healthcare: an asymmetric theory of responsibility/Justicia para los niños en el sistema sanitario: una teoría asimétrica de la responsabilidad

Healthcare providers face enormous pressure to save healthcare resources where possible. In this paper I explore the response that we should allocate resources fairly. What is a fair allocation of healthcare resources for children? First, I consider the luck egalitarianism approach of limiting resources to adult patients who are responsible for their conditions. A luck egalitarian distribution of healthcare resources to adults faces significant problems in application. I maintain that when we consider these problems with a focus on the just distribution of health-care resources to children, we gain valuable insights into the fairness of healthcare allocation for adults

Bullying embraces the virtual world : elucidating the psychosocial determinants and correlates of traditional vs. cyberbullying types

Rapid technological development has drastically changed the social landscape, redefining the ways youth stay connected and communicate with one another. New technologies provide a virtual platform where cyberbullying behaviours are able to thrive. Although international research has made considerable progress in advancing our understanding of traditional forms of bullying, much remains to be done to uncover the complexities of cyberbullying phenomena. This thesis aims to address the research gaps and methodological limitations associated with cyberbullying research by conducting a mixed methods investigation from an ecological framework, to provide a richer and a more complete understanding of bullying phenomena. A total quantitative sample of 625 students was recruited from two NSW secondary schools across grades 7 through 10. A qualitative subsample of 81 participants drawn from the same two schools included the students (n = 57), their parents (n = 10), educational staff and school counsellors (n = 14). Three interrelated studies were conducted to advance cyberbullying research: Study 1 developed a new, psychometrically sound instrument titled the Adolescent Cyber Bullying Instrument (ACBI), which is grounded in a strong theoretical framework and which measures cyberbullying behaviours across all potential perspectives. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and tests of invariance revealed that the new continuous measure was valid and reliable. Study 2 used structural equation modelling (SEM) to uncover the effects of gender, grade, and school context on cyberbullying and traditional bullying behaviour, as well as to investigate the psychosocial correlates of involvement. The results revealed that students involved in any cyberbullying role (victim, bully, or bystander) were significantly more likely to report symptoms of depression, although to varying degrees. Generally speaking, cyber victims reported experiencing significantly lower perceptions of physical appearance and parental relations self-concept, whilst cyberbullies reported significantly poorer parental relations and verbal and mathematical (English and maths) self-concept. Interestingly, bystanders witnessing happy slapping behaviours (e.g., embarrassing situations that were set up, recorded and subsequently posted online) also reported significant experiences of depression. These results provide preliminary evidence suggesting that students involved in happy slapping incidents may also be at a greater risk of adverse mental health consequences. Lastly, Study 3 captured the perspectives of all school stakeholders involved (students, their parents, educators and school counsellors) by uncovering shared bullying experiences. Stakeholder interviews clarified definitions of different cyberbullying forms, why students engage in bullying perpetration, the impact bullying has on peers and families, reasons for the reluctance to disclose, the relation between traditional and cyber forms of bullying, and generated valuable practical suggestions to seed sustainable intervention/prevention programs addressing bullying. One of the most important findings showed that traditional forms of bullying and cyberbullying are positively correlated, suggesting that anti-bullying prevention programs need to target both forms of bullying, to effectively reduce all incidents, both offline and online. Preliminary results indicate that bullying begins in school hours and transfers across to online environments. This reveals that portable technology has provided bullying access to previously established safe havens such as the family home. Further implications of these findings for theory, research, and schools are discussed

Feedback control of unstable cellular solidification fronts

We present a numerical and experimental study of feedback control of unstable cellular patterns in directional solidification (DS). The sample, a dilute binary alloy, solidifies in a 2D geometry under a control scheme which applies local heating close to the cell tips which protrude ahead of the other. For the experiments, we use a real-time image processing algorithm to track cell tips, coupled with a movable laser spot array device, to heat locally. We show, numerically and experimentally, that spacings well below the threshold for a period-doubling instability can be stabilized. As predicted by the numerical calculations, cellular arrays become stable, and the spacing becomes uniform through feedback control which is maintained with minimal heating.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Justice for children in healthcare: an asymmetric theory of responsibility/Justicia para los niños en el sistema sanitario: una teoría asimétrica de la responsabilidad

Healthcare providers face enormous pressure to save healthcare resources where possible. In this paper I explore the response that we should allocate resources fairly. What is a fair allocation of healthcare resources for children? First, I consider the luck egalitarianism approach of limiting resources to adult patients who are responsible for their conditions. A luck egalitarian distribution of healthcare resources to adults faces significant problems in application. I maintain that when we consider these problems with a focus on the just distribution of health-care resources to children, we gain valuable insights into the fairness of healthcare allocation for adults

The strong and the hungry: Bias in capture methods for mountain hares (Lepus timidus).

Estimating density, age and sex structure of wild populations is a key objective in wildlife management. Live trapping is frequently used to collect data on populations of small and medium-sized mammals. Ideally, sampling mammal populations by live capturing of individuals provides a random and representative sample of the target population. Trapping data may, however, be biased. We used live-capture data from mountain hares Lepus timidus in Scotland to assess sampling bias between two different capture methods.Wecaptured hares using baited cage traps and long nets on five study areas in the Scottish Highlands. After controlling for the effects of body size, individuals caught in traps were lighter than individuals caught using long nets, suggesting that the body condition of hares differed between the capture methods. This tendency may reflect an increased risk-taking of individuals in poorer body condition and less aversion to entering traps in order to benefit from eating bait. Overall, we caught more adult hares than juveniles and more female hares than males. Our results show that estimates of density and population structure of mountain hares using livecapture data could be affected by the capture method used. We suggest that live-capture studies employ more than one capture method and test for heterogeneity in capture probability to minimise potential bias and achieve reliable estimates of population parameters

Probabilistic Volcanic Ash Hazard Analysis (PVAHA) II: assessment of the Asia-Pacific region using VAPAH

Monthly mean wind direction and wind speed aggregated for a 64-year period from NCEP reanalysis data for 60 NCEP grid points used for the Asia-Pacific case study. (CSV 1 kb

Combining Two Consistent Estimators

This chapter shows how a weighted average of a forward and reverse Jackknife IV estimator (JIVE) yields estimators that are robust against heteroscedasticity and many instruments. These estimators, called HFUL (Heteroscedasticity robust Fuller) and HLIM (Heteroskedasticity robust limited information maximum likelihood (LIML)) were introduced by Hausman, Newey, Woutersen, Chao, and Swanson (2012), but without derivation. Combining consistent estimators is a theme that is associated with Jerry Hausman and, therefore, we present this derivation in this volume. Additionally, and in order to further understand and interpret HFUL and HLIM in the context of jackknife type variance ratio estimators, we show that a new variant of HLIM, under specific grouped data settings with dummy instruments, simplifies to the Bekker and van der Ploeg (2005) MM (method of moments) estimator