bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Community and health system factors associated with antiretroviral therapy initiation among men and women in Malawi: a mixed methods study exploring gender-specific barriers to care
Authors: Phiri Khumbo , McBride Kaitlyn , Moucheraud Corrina , Mphande Misheck , Balakasi Kelvin , Lungu Eric , Kalande Pericles , Hoffman Risa M , Dovel Kathryn
Published: August 2020

Background

Although community and health system factors are known to be critical to timely antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation, little is known about how they affect men and women.

Methods

We examined community- and health system-level factors associated with ART initiation in Malawi and whether associations differ by gender; 312 ART initiates and 108 non-initiates completed a survey; a subset of 30 individuals completed an indepth interview. Quantitative data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate logistic regressions, with separate models by gender. Qualitative data were analyzed through constant comparison methods.

Results

Among women, no community-level characteristics were associated with ART initiation in multivariable models; among men, receiving social support for HIV services (adjusted OR [AOR]=4.61; p<0.05) was associated with ART initiation. Two health system factors were associated with ART initiation among men and one for women: trust that accessing ART services would not lead to unwanted disclosure (women: AOR=4.51, p<0.01; men: AOR=1.71, p<0.01) and trust that clients were not turned away from ART services (men: 12.36, p=0.001).

Conclusions

Qualitative data indicate that men were concerned about unwanted disclosure due to engaging in ART services and long waiting times for services. Interventions to remove health system barriers to ART services should be explored to promote social support among men.
The Effects of Temperature on the Kinematics of Rattlesnake Predatory Strikes in Both Captive and Field Environments
Authors: Whitford M D , Freymiller G A , Higham T E , Clark R W
Published: August 2020

The outcomes of predator–prey interactions between endotherms and ectotherms can be heavily influenced by environmental temperature, owing to the difference in how body temperature affects locomotor performance. However, as elastic energy storage mechanisms can allow ectotherms to maintain high levels of performance at cooler body temperatures, detailed analyses of kinematics are necessary to fully understand how changes in temperature might alter endotherm–ectotherm predator–prey interactions. Viperid snakes are widely distributed ectothermic mesopredators that interact with endotherms both as predator and prey. Although there are numerous studies on the kinematics of viper strikes, surprisingly few have analyzed how this rapid movement is affected by temperature. Here we studied the effects of temperature on the predatory strike performance of rattlesnakes (Crotalus spp.), abundant new world vipers, using both field and captive experimental contexts. We found that the effects of temperature on predatory strike performance are limited, with warmer snakes achieving slightly higher maximum strike acceleration, but similar maximum velocity. Our results suggest that, unlike defensive strikes to predators, rattlesnakes may not attempt to maximize strike speed when attacking prey, and thus the outcomes of predatory strikes may not be heavily influenced by changes in temperature.
Telemedicine and healthcare disparities: a cohort study in a large healthcare system in New York City during COVID-19
Authors: Chunara Rumi , Zhao Yuan , Chen Ji , Lawrence Katharine , Testa Paul A , Nov Oded , Mann Devin M
Published: August 2020

Objective

Through the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, telemedicine became a necessary entry point into the process of diagnosis, triage, and treatment. Racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare have been well documented in COVID-19 with respect to risk of infection and in-hospital outcomes once admitted, and here we assess disparities in those who access healthcare via telemedicine for COVID-19.

Materials and Methods

Electronic health record data of patients at New York University Langone Health between March 19th and April 30, 2020 were used to conduct descriptive and multilevel regression analyses with respect to visit type (telemedicine or in-person), suspected COVID diagnosis, and COVID test results.

Results

Controlling for individual and community-level attributes, Black patients had 0.6 times the adjusted odds (95% CI: 0.58–0.63) of accessing care through telemedicine compared to white patients, though they are increasingly accessing telemedicine for urgent care, driven by a younger and female population. COVID diagnoses were significantly more likely for Black versus white telemedicine patients.

Discussion

There are disparities for Black patients accessing telemedicine, however increased uptake by young, female Black patients. Mean income and decreased mean household size of a zip code were also significantly related to telemedicine use.

Conclusion

Telemedicine access disparities reflect those in in-person healthcare access. Roots of disparate use are complex and reflect individual, community, and structural factors, including their intersection—many of which are due to systemic racism. Evidence regarding disparities that manifest through telemedicine can be used to inform tool design and systemic efforts to promote digital health equity.
Assessing Hair Decontamination Protocols for Diazepam, Heroin, Cocaine and Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol by Statistical Design of Experiments
Authors: Aijala Jennett Chenevert , Wu Wensong , DeCaprio Anthony P
Published: August 2020

Prior to toxicological analysis, hair as a matrix requires pre-treatment measures including decontamination, homogenization and extraction. Decontamination is performed to differentiate between drug present from superficial deposition and drug incorporated from systemic distribution following ingestion. There are many methods for decontamination of hair samples, mostly developed by empirically using a traditional “one factor at a time” approach, in which one independent variable at a time is changed to observe the effect on the dependent variable. The goal of the present work was to compare the efficacy of decontamination protocols using statistical “design of experiments” (DoE), which allows for analysis of multiple variables and interactions within a single experiment. Decontamination parameters included identity of aqueous and organic wash solutions, number of sequential aqueous and organic washes, order of aqueous and organic washes, and duration of each wash. DoE studies were completed to identify optimal decontamination conditions for four abused drugs with varying physiochemical properties. For this purpose, drug-free human hair was externally contaminated with diazepam, heroin, cocaine or Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol. Each analyte was found to have a unique set of decontamination conditions that were most effective. These included three 30-min washes with methanol followed by three with 1% sodium dodecyl sulfide for diazepam, three 30-s washes with dichloromethane followed by one with water for heroin, one 30-s wash with 1% sodium dodecyl sulfate followed by three with dichloromethane for cocaine and three 30-min washes with water followed by one with methanol for Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol. The results provide proof-of-principle for a DoE approach to identify effective parameters for hair decontamination for a physicochemically diverse group of drugs. The major advantage of DoE is to elucidate combinations of parameters that result in effective removal of surface contamination, a goal that would be challenging to accomplish using a one factor at a time approach.
Recent advances in small-angle electron diffraction and Lorentz microscopy
Authors: Mori Shigeo , Nakajima Hiroshi , Kotani Atsuhiro , Harada Ken
Published: August 2020

We describe small-angle electron diffraction (SmAED) and Lorentz microscopy using a conventional transmission electron microscope. In SmAED, electron diffraction patterns with a wide-angular range on the order of 1 × 10−2 rad to 1 × 10−7 rad can be obtained. It is demonstrated that magnetic information of nanoscale magnetic microstructures can be obtained by Fresnel imaging, Foucault imaging and SmAED. In particular, we report magnetic microstructures associated with magnetic stripes and magnetic skyrmions revealed by Lorentz microscopy with SmAED. SmAED can be applied to the analysis of microstructures in functional materials such as dielectric, ferromagnetic and multiferroic materials.
A Linguistic Issue In By NafīS AL-Dīn Abū L-Faraj Ibn Al-Kaṯār (Thirteenth Century)
Authors: Ali Watad
Published: August 2020

The treatise by Nafīs al-Dīn Abū l-Faraj Ibn al-Kaṯār, also known as Shams al-Ḥukamā, active circa the end of the thirteenth century CE, is written in Middle Arabic in the Arabic script. Verses of the Torah and quotes from Samaritan religious poems are written in Samaritan Hebrew letters. The treatise is extant in a number of Samaritan manuscripts kept in various libraries in Israel and abroad. While the title of this work is , its contents encompass numerous topics in a variety of fields: linguistics, exegesis, religious law and more. Among the linguistic issues it addresses, for example are topics in phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. The present article discusses two interrelated linguistic issues in phonology and morphology, the first dealing with the conjugation of irregular verbs: the phonological discussion focuses on the concept of ‘iwaḍ (compensation) and in morphology we discuss I/y verbs and, by the way, also I/n verbs. In addition, I examine this work's affinities with the grammatical theories expounded by the Samaritan grammarian Ibn Mārūṭ and the rabbinic grammarian Yehuda Ḥayyūj.
‘Epidemics in a Mist’: Medical Climatology and Cholera in Victorian Visual Culture
Authors: Sciampacone Amanda
Published: August 2020

The article explores how Victorian visual culture was a vital force in the construction and dissemination of medical theories on the connection between climate and health. During the nineteenth century, the seemingly inexplicable and deadly nature of many epidemic diseases compelled British medics to investigate all possible reasons for their spread. Focusing on cholera, the article will examine how, in an effort to understand what was seen at the time as a mysterious disease, Victorian medics increasingly concentrated on the climate of India and unusual weather in Britain as propagators of the malady. Supplementing the dominant miasma theory, medics explained how the seemingly airborne sources of cholera resulted from a state of England’s air that resembled the tropical environment of the subcontinent. In an effort to highlight the correlation between cholera and the atmosphere, they produced medical climatology reports containing diagrams that juxtaposed the data on the disease’s mortality rates with measurements of meteorological phenomena. These images, rather than serving simply as illustrations, became a crucial part of medical arguments. As the article will demonstrate, in attempting to visualize the medical climatology of cholera, the diagrams mapped the disease to certain atmospheric conditions, suggesting that cholera could be quantified and controlled. Yet, in doing so, the images also implied that cholera had a real material presence in the air of Britain, powerfully evoking visual tropes of the disease as a substance that had the potential to contaminate the very landscape of the nation.
Collision of merger and accretion shocks: formation of Mpc-scale contact discontinuity in the Perseus cluster
Authors: Zhang Congyao , Churazov Eugene , Dolag Klaus , Forman William R , Zhuravleva Irina
Published: August 2020

Two Mpc-size contact discontinuities have recently been identified in the XMM–Newton and Suzaku X-ray observations in the outskirts of the Perseus cluster (Walker et al.). These structures have been tentatively interpreted as ‘sloshing cold fronts’, which are customarily associated with differential motions of the cluster gas, perturbed by a merger. In this study, we consider an alternative scenario, namely, that the most prominent discontinuity, near the cluster virial radius, is the result of the collision between the accretion shock and a ‘runaway’ merger shock. We also discuss the possible origin of the second discontinuity at ${\sim}1.2{\rm \, Mpc}$.
Clinical and Serological Findings of Madariaga and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Viral Infections: A Follow-up Study 5 Years After an Outbreak in Panama
Authors: Carrera Jean-Paul , Pittí Yaneth , Molares-Martínez Juan C , Casal Eric , Pereyra-Elias Reneé , Saenz Lisseth , Guerrero Isela , Galué Josefrancisco , Rodriguez-Alvarez Fatima , Jackman Carmela , Pascale Juan Miguel , Armien Blas , Weaver Scott C , Donnelly Christl A , Vittor Amy Y
Published: August 2020

Background

Human cases of Madariaga virus (MADV) infection were first detected during an outbreak in 2010 in eastern Panama, where Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) also circulates. Little is known about the long-term consequences of either alphavirus infection.

Methods

A follow-up study of the 2010 outbreak was undertaken in 2015. An additional survey was carried out 2 weeks after a separate 2017 alphavirus outbreak in a neighboring population in eastern Panama. Serological studies and statistical analyses were undertaken in both populations.

Results

Among the originally alphavirus-seronegative participants (n = 35 of 65), seroconversion was observed at a rate of 14.3% (95% CI, 4.8%–30.3%) for MADV and 8.6% (95% CI, 1.8%–23.1%) for VEEV over 5 years. Among the originally MADV-seropositive participants (n = 14 of 65), VEEV seroconversion occurred in 35.7% (95% CI, 12.8%–64.9%). In the VEEV-seropositive participants (n = 16 of 65), MADV seroconversion occurred in 6.3% (95% CI, 0.2%–30.2%). MADV seroreversion was observed in 14.3% (95% CI, 1.8%–42.8%) of those who were originally seropositive in 2010. VEEV seroconversion in the baseline MADV-seropositive participants was significantly higher than in alphavirus-negative participants. In the population sampled in 2017, MADV and VEEV seroprevalence was 13.2% and 16.8%, respectively. Memory loss, insomnia, irritability, and seizures were reported significantly more frequently in alphavirus-seropositive participants than in seronegative participants.

Conclusions

High rates of seroconversion to MADV and VEEV over 5 years suggest frequent circulation of both viruses in Panama. Enhanced susceptibility to VEEV infection may be conferred by MADV infection. We provide evidence of persistent neurologic symptoms up to 5 years following MADV and VEEV exposure.
Cardiovascular Disease Risk Management in Persons With HIV: Does Clinician Specialty Matter?
Authors: Okeke Nwora Lance , Schafer Katherine R , Meissner Eric G , Ostermann Jan , Shah Ansal D , Ostasiewski Brian , Phelps Evan , Kieler Curtis A , Oladele Eniola , Garg Keva , Naggie Susanna , Bloomfield Gerald S , Bosworth Hayden B
Published: August 2020

Background

The impact of clinician specialty on cardiovascular disease risk factor outcomes among persons with HIV (PWH) is unclear.

Methods

PWH receiving care at 3 Southeastern US academic HIV clinics between January 2014 and December 2016 were retrospectively stratified into 5 groups based on the specialty of the clinician managing their hypertension or hyperlipidemia. Patients were followed until first atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease event, death, or end of study. Outcomes of interest were meeting 8th Joint National Commission (JNC-8) blood pressure (BP) goals and National Lipid Association (NLA) non–high-density lipoprotein (HDL) goals for hypertension and hyperlipidemia, respectively. Point estimates for associated risk factors were generated using modified Poisson regression with robust error variance.

Results

Of 1667 PWH in the analysis, 965 had hypertension, 205 had hyperlipidemia, and 497 had both diagnoses. At study start, the median patient age was 52 years, 66% were Black, and 65% identified as male. Among persons with hypertension, 24% were managed by an infectious diseases (ID) clinician alone, and 5% were co-managed by an ID clinician and a primary care clinician (PCC). Persons managed by an ID clinician were less likely to meet JNC-8 hypertension targets at the end of observation than the rest of the cohort (relative risk [RR], 0.84; 95% CI, 0.75–0.95), but when mean study blood pressure was considered, there was no difference between persons managed by ID and the rest of the cohort (RR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.88–1.05). There was no significant association between the ID clinician managing hyperlipidemia and meeting NLA non-HDL goals (RR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.68–1.15).

Conclusions

Clinician specialty may play a role in suboptimal hypertension outcomes in persons with HIV.
Improving Appropriate Diagnosis of Clostridioides difficile Infection Through an Enteric Pathogen Order Set With Computerized Clinical Decision Support: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis
Authors: Liu Catherine , Lan Kristine , Krantz Elizabeth M , Kim H Nina , Zier Jacqlynn , Bryson-Cahn Chloe , Chan Jeannie D , Jain Rupali , Lynch John B , Pergam Steven A , Pottinger Paul S , Sweet Ania , Whimbey Estella , Bryan Andrew
Published: August 2020

Background

Inappropriate testing for Clostridioides difficile leads to overdiagnosis of C difficile infection (CDI). We determined the effect of a computerized clinical decision support (CCDS) order set on C difficile polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test utilization and clinical outcomes.

Methods

This study is an interrupted time series analysis comparing C difficile PCR test utilization, hospital-onset CDI (HO-CDI) rates, and clinical outcomes before and after implementation of a CCDS order set at 2 academic medical centers: University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) and Harborview Medical Center (HMC).

Results

Compared with the 20-month preintervention period, during the 12-month postimplementation of the CCDS order set, there was an immediate and sustained reduction in C difficile PCR test utilization rates at both hospitals (HMC, −28.2% [95% confidence interval {CI}, −43.0% to −9.4%], P = .005; UWMC, −27.4%, [95% CI, −37.5% to −15.6%], P < .001). There was a significant reduction in rates of C difficile tests ordered in the setting of laxatives (HMC, −60.8% [95% CI, −74.3% to −40.1%], P < .001; UWMC, −37.3%, [95% CI, −58.2% to −5.9%], P = .02). The intervention was associated with an increase in the C difficile test positivity rate at HMC (P = .01). There were no significant differences in HO-CDI rates or in the proportion of patients with HO-CDI who developed severe CDI or CDI-associated complications including intensive care unit transfer, extended length of stay, 30-day mortality, and toxic megacolon.

Conclusions

Computerized clinical decision support tools can improve C difficile diagnostic test stewardship without causing harm. Additional studies are needed to identify key elements of CCDS tools to further optimize C difficile testing and assess their effect on adverse clinical outcomes.
Threats
Authors: Barash David P.
Published: August 2020

This book studies situations in which individuals threaten each other or feel threatened by society, and often respond in ways that threaten social stability in turn. Animals also engage in all sorts of threats, an understanding of which opens one's eyes to the world of animal behavior otherwise hidden, while also revealing the strange and important question of honest versus dishonest communication. The dynamic of threat-and-response gives insight into such human dilemmas as the fear of death and how this has been manipulated by many organized religions; how fear of strangers and supposed enemies has given rise to an American gun culture that in turn threatens those seeking to avoid such threats; how nativist fears of “the other” has promoted right-wing nationalist populism, which has been making things worse not only for democracy itself, but also for those who feel threatened in the first place; and how capital punishment—intended to contain the threat of murderous criminals—has made this problem worse. Most important and worrisome is how countries convey the ultimate threat against each other: deterrence. Brandishing the threat of mutual annihilation in the expectation that this will keep a country safe is, paradoxically, the ultimate example of a posture that endangers threatener and threatened alike.
A Nonthreatening Start
Authors: Barash David P.
Published: August 2020

This chapter provides an overview of threats. Threats are ubiquitous; they are so encompassing that they often go unnoticed. Although people are especially aware of explicit threats, other threats are often hidden, leaving most of the interpersonal ones implicit and therefore psychologically fraught. Warnings, in contrast, can be impersonal and not necessarily conveyed by an individual. But sometimes, threats and warnings are indistinguishable. This book begins by going through the biology of threats as conveyed and received by animals, followed by a variety of socially mediated threats intended to prevent crime, along with such consequential threats as hellfire and brimstone, personal death, and gun violence and the rise of right-wing national populism, and culminates in a critical look at nuclear deterrence—the premier manifestation of threat at the international level. Of particular note is how responses to threats often become counterproductive: hardly at all in the case of animals, occasionally in the personal and social realm, and then overwhelmingly when it comes to nuclear deterrence.
Individuals and Society
Authors: Barash David P.
Published: August 2020

This chapter examines threats and responses to threats as they play themselves out in human interactions. One of the significant topics here is crime and punishment—notably, how criminal statutes seek to prevent crime by threatening criminals with punishment sufficient to provide an effective deterrent. There is a long and fascinating history of such efforts, with very little success. This leads to a look at the death penalty in particular and whether it has been effective in preventing capital crimes. The chapter also assesses how people turn to religion when under threat, as well as how religions have often threatened their adherents with after-death retribution for sin, which has long influenced much human anxiety and, in some cases, compliance. Moreover, the chapter reflects on the menace of death plus threats involved in the American gun culture, and race-based and economic anxieties driving the rise of right-wing national populism.
Baptizing Business
Authors: Smith Bradley C.
Published: August 2020

Historically confined to the disadvantaged ranks of the stratification system, evangelical Christians have increasingly joined the corporate elite, eliciting concern from some and sanguinity from others. Quantitative studies of the effects of religion on executive behavior have thus far shown mixed and inconclusive effects, and those few qualitative analyses that have focused on evangelical business leaders have generally emphasized conflict between religion and business but failed adequately to explore areas of consonance. While evangelical executives do, in fact, experience conflict associated with their professional contexts, this tension arises not because business and religion are inherently opposed, as some have argued, but because evangelical business leaders are made to feel like second-class citizens by members of their own faith communities. Indeed, in cases of apparent conflict between faith and business, evangelical executives insist that it is faith, not business, that must be reconceived. Equipped with an array of strategies for demonstrating that business is a sacred institution and a worthy occupation, evangelical business leaders hope to restore faith in business as they apply their faith in business. In these evangelical executives and their accounts, the “spirit of capitalism,” defined by Max Weber as a positive attitude toward both work and wealth, finds ongoing embrace and new expression, with implications for understanding the so-called faith at work movement, evangelicalism, and the role of religion among elites.
Introduction
Authors: Smith Bradley C.
Published: August 2020

While some are wary of trends that encourage the interpenetration of faith and business, others welcome such integration, seeing in Christianity and other religious traditions dispositions that could challenge unhealthy characteristics and consequences of modern capitalism. Some have in fact come to believe that religious faith represents a wellspring of resources and concern that might help reshape corporate America by re-humanizing business and fortifying its ethical moorings. Given the world-changing energy evangelicals possess, evangelical business leaders in particular are candidates to initiate such reform as they attempt to do business in ways that are compatible with their religious convictions. For better or worse, evangelical executives could also advance a religious agenda if they join together in common cause, as some have suggested characterizes the faith at work movement. While evangelical business leaders certainly state that their faith influences their work, the nature and effect of such influence is often unexpected.
A Place for Saints
Authors: Smith Bradley C.
Published: August 2020

In order to establish that business is a sacred domain and a worthy profession, evangelical executives emphasize that business is a moral order in which virtue is rewarded and vice punished. Like other advocates of the connection between virtue and success, informants point to relationships such as that between a favorable reputation and customer acquisition and retention, and between principled leadership and employee morale—the likes of which are presumed to translate to healthier financial outcomes. To these utilitarian arguments evangelical business leaders add theological arguments, namely that God both established the framework in which virtuous behavior is beneficial and actively intervenes to ensure that biblical behavior is rewarded. While the connection between virtue and profit is often grounded in natural relationships, layering on evangelical perspectives on God’s providential control over all things transforms the connection into a non-falsifiable spiritual principle that holds even in the absence of corroborating evidence.
Islands of Influence
Authors: Smith Bradley C.
Published: August 2020

While some are wary of concerted attempts by well-connected evangelicals to advance a religious agenda in corporate contexts, evangelical executives demonstrate little desire to turn companies into explicitly “Christian” organizations or to transform the core values and objectives toward which businesses are oriented, or indeed much evidence that there is any shared agenda around which they might coalesce. While the Social Gospel movement of the early twentieth century—a precursor to contemporary emphases on faith at work—was concerned with structural and institutional change, this preoccupation does not characterize evangelical executives today. Even those who share core religious convictions and overriding dispositions toward business express their convictions in diverse ways. But this diversity is not simply idiosyncratic. Rather, it is conditioned by executives’ professional histories and the norms and priorities that characterize their particular occupational contexts. There is, therefore, no one evangelical approach to faith and work.
Exploration in Predictive Analysis and Machine Learning
Authors: Stepura Kelly G. , Schwab Jim , Baumann Donald J. , Sowinski Natalie , Thorne Stephanie
Published: August 2020

This chapter explores the potential for using machine learning methods to support foster care workers by improving the accuracy of the complex but critical decisions they make on behalf of children, youth, and families. By using historical data to predict the likelihood of future events for foster children and youth as early in their time in care as possible, models can alert workers to bring services to bear that can help to avoid negative outcomes. This chapter uses the author team’s journey to compare traditional and machine learning methods. They describe the process that began with attempts to apply traditional statistical methods to the task of prediction and resulted in two machine learning models that are used as examples. Using these models, clinicians can consider applying machine learning techniques to complex historical datasets to predict foster care outcomes and support decision-making.
Instrumentation to Understand the Child Protective Services Decision-Making Processes
Authors: Dettlaff Alan J. , Hollinshead Dana , Baumann Donald J. , Fluke John D.
Published: August 2020

When children come to the attention of the child welfare system, they become involved in a decision-making process in which decisions are made that have a significant effect on their future and well-being. The decision to remove children from their families is particularly complex, yet surprisingly little is understood about this decision-making process. As a result, instrumentation has been developed and adapted over the past 20 years to further understand variations in child welfare outcomes that are decision-based and, in particular concerning the removal decision, in order to provide a more thorough understanding of the intersecting factors that influence caseworker decisions. This chapter presents research and the development and use of this instrument, drawing from the decision-making ecology as the underlying rationale for obtaining the measures. The instrument was based on the development of decision-making scales used in multiple studies and administered to child protection caseworkers in several states. This effort is part of a larger program of research that seeks to better understand decision-making processes in child welfare systems in order to promote fairness, accuracy, and improved outcomes among children and families.
Lessons Learned from International Studies on Child Protection Decision-Making Employing the Model of Judgments and Decisions Processes in Context (JUDPiC)
Authors: López Mónica López , Benbenishty Rami
Published: August 2020

The study of intercountry variability of child protection decision-making has become an emerging research theme in the past decade. This chapter draws on a variety of studies conducted using the model of Judgments and Decisions Processes in Context (JUDPiC) to compare judgments and decisions in cases of alleged maltreatment made by decision-makers in five countries: Israel, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. The chapter begins with a brief overview of research on intercountry comparisons in the field of child protection decision-making, then describes the JUDPiC model and presents in some detail the first international comparison study conducted with this underlying model. The authors offer next the subsequent developments of this research project in the different countries involved. In the final section, they discuss some implications for child protection policy and practice and future research.
The Psychosocial Process Underlying Residential Care Placement Decisions
Authors: Rodrigues Leonor Bettencourt , Calheiros Manuela , Pereira Cícero
Published: August 2020

Ecological models on decision-making in child protection determine how many different factors influence that process, starting with case-specific characteristics, organizational factors, and external factors, as well as decision-maker factors. However, how that psychosocial process occurs, how the decision-maker integrates those multiple factors from the decision-making ecology, is still empirically unclear. This chapter, first, reviews the state of the art in the study of caseworkers’ psychosocial process underlying the out-of-home placement decision. It summarizes cues from empirical studies sustaining the role played by caseworkers’ attitudes, social values, social norms, experience, emotions in out-of-home placement decisions. The authors, then, describe social psychology decision-making models and present the principal results of an empirically tested model of residential-care placement decision-making that, based on a dual version of the theory of planned behavior model, integrates those multiple psychosocial factors into the decision process. A structural equation modeling analysis revealed that the caseworker’s motivation (intention) to propose a residential care placement decision of a neglected child is highly explained by a positive evaluation of that behavior (Attitude), but also by significant others’ approval of that behavior (Subjective Norm) and by how much relevance the worker attributes to child’s interests and protection (Value of Child). Both theoretical and social policy implications are discussed.
The Voice of the Child in Child Protection Decision-Making
Authors: Witte Susanne , López Mónica López , Baldwin Helen
Published: August 2020

Children’s participation in all matters that concern them, particularly child protection decision-making, have many positive effects on children. It is also their right granted by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, in child protection practice there are many obstacles to including children in decision-making processes. First, the article reviews the policy and public discourse in England, Germany, and the Netherlands regarding children’s participation in investigations into suspected child maltreatment. Second, an analysis of 1,207 case files of investigations into suspected child maltreatment unfolds the extent of children’s participation and factors associated with participation within the three countries. Although all three countries grant the right to participate in decision-making to children, documented participation in child protection decision-making is very low even when older children are considered. Children’s participation in decision-making is closely linked to caretakers’ participation in decision-making. Thus, children are almost never included in decision-making when their caretaker is not. Children’s participation is associated with a higher likelihood for individual support for children in the Netherlands and Germany. The results point to the need for research on barriers of children’s participation as well as the need to provide more resources for case workers to be able to facilitate children’s participation.
Advancing the Field of Decision-Making and Judgment in Child Welfare and Protection
Authors: Fluke John D. , López Mónica López , Benbenishty Rami , Knorth Erik J. , Baumann Donald J.
Published: August 2020

Our knowledge of decision-making in child welfare has evolved concurrent with the recognition of variability in the rates at which children and families experience no involvement to deeper involvement in the system. This chapter recaps the challenges to identifying systematic causes for variability in decisions and what can be learned about them. While research indicates that emphasis on both formal and informal assessment is warranted, errors and mistakes can happen at all stages of the assessment and decision processes due to a range of system and human factors. The Decision-Making Ecology (DME), General Assessment and Decision-Making (GADM), and Judgments and Decision Processes in Context (JUDPiC) models presented in this book promote organizational, regional, and national levels of context. Context includes the ways that teams approach decision-making and how interactions among team members have mixed potential to improve on individual decision-making. This chapter also touches on gaps in the research on child welfare decision-making. Key among these are team decisions, relating decisions to outcomes, and the use of new technologies like predictive risk modeling. To move decision-making research forward the authors recommend melding methods such as vignette and behavioral studies, the translation of decision-making research through the use of experimental quantitative studies, qualitative approaches such as think-aloud techniques related to systems, and increased research attention focused on the role of child participation in decision-making.
Introduction
Authors: Xu Xiaoqun
Published: August 2020

The introduction posits the thesis of the book, that the notion of “Heaven has eyes” meaning “justice should and will be done” is part of an enduring Chinese belief that manifests in how law and justice have functioned in Chinese history. It explains that in the Chinese mind justice (meaning what is just and the judicial system and practices) is conceived to be an alignment of Heavenly reason (ultimate morality), state law, and human relations and feelings; “Heavenly reason” or ultimate morality was redefined in different time periods. The introduction outlines four broad time periods of Chinese legal history: the imperial era, the Republican era, the Mao era, and the post-Mao era.
The Emperor, the Family, and the Land
Authors: Xu Xiaoqun
Published: August 2020

Chapter 3 samples certain articles in the imperial penal codes and relevant court cases to explain how law and justice upheld the imperial system, the patriarchal family system, and the system of private landownership. These cases cover both criminal and civil matters. The former includes penalties for officials’ misconduct, prohibition of revenge killing and private castration, punishment of illicit sex, tolerance of homosexuality, suppression of rebellions and other violent crimes such as homocide, robbery, rape, and so on. The civil cases show the importance of familial relationship, real property, and succession and inheritance in imperial China, and the interactions among law, custom, and social norms (or commonsense right and wrong and fairness on the part of adjudicating officials) in civil adjudications.
Bandits, Collaborators, and Wives and Concubines
Authors: Xu Xiaoqun
Published: August 2020

Chapter 6 provides concrete cases in criminal and civil justice to flesh out the effects and defects of the reforms during the Republic (1912–1949). For criminal justice, it looks into how robbers and bandits were punished under a special law reminiscent of the imperial-era precedents and how Chinese collaborators working for the Japanese occupiers during the war (1937–1945) were prosecuted and punished after the war (1946–1949). For civil justice, the chapter focuses on marriage and divorce and the issue of concubines, showing the movement toward gender and marital equality and the agency of women in pushing for such changes and in using the law and courts to pursue their own interests.
The Legal System and the Rule of Law
Authors: Xu Xiaoqun
Published: August 2020

Chapter 9 covers criminal justice in the first two decades after Mao’s death (1977–1996), when Deng Xiaoping was the top leader. With a brief summary of political developments, it outlines the post-Mao legal-judicial reforms as part of the reform and opening policies launched by Deng, including the enactment of the first Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedural Law of the PRC. While the Criminal Code retained Maoist language and influence, such as placing certain offenses in a category of “counterrevolutionary crimes,” the Criminal Procedural Law offered the beginning steps leading to procedural justice. The reforms included construction of a court system, professionalization of judges, and restoration of the legal profession. The chapter also looks at legal responses to reemerging crimes such as prostitution, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, and pornography.
Heaven Has Eyes
Authors: Xu Xiaoqun
Published: August 2020

The conclusion points out the multidimensional interactions of many factors in the functions of Chinese law and justice in the past and present and delineates four overlapping historical contexts for an understanding of such functions. These are the indigenous traditions in the long history of China; Western influences from the nineteenth century and especially on the transformations in the twentieth century; interactions between lawmakers and state agents, and between state actions and societal responses; and the reality of justice being done in relative and imperfect ways under the best circumstances, due to human fallibility.
The Future of Christian Marriage
Authors: Regnerus Mark
Published: August 2020

Marriage has come a long way since biblical times: Women are no longer thought of as property, and practices like polygamy have long been rejected. The world is wealthier and healthier, and people are more able to find and form relationships than ever. So why are Christian congregations doing more burying than marrying today? Explanations for the wide recession in marriage range from the mathematical—more women in church than men—to the economic, and from cheap sex to progressive politics. But perhaps marriage hasn’t really changed at all; instead, there is simply less interest in marriage in an era marked by technology, gender equality, and secularization. This is a book about how today’s Christians find a mate within a faith that esteems marriage but a world that increasingly yawns at it, and it draws on in-depth interviews with nearly two hundred young adult Christians from the United States, Mexico, Spain, Poland, Russia, Lebanon, and Nigeria, in order to understand the state of matrimony in global Christian circles today. Marriage for nearly everyone has become less of a foundation for a couple to build upon and more of a capstone. Christians are exhibiting flexibility over sex roles but are hardly gender revolutionaries. Meeting increasingly high expectations of marriage is difficult, though, in a free market whose logic reaches deep into the home today, and the results are endemic uncertainty, slowing relationship maturation, and stalling marriage. But plenty of Christians innovate, resist, and wed, suggesting the future of marriage will be a religious one.
Uncertainty
Authors: Regnerus Mark
Published: August 2020

Uncertainty characterizes the marriage market today, fostered by job insecurities that have accompanied global free-market economic expansion and the surge in options it produced. The new chronic uncertainty has slowed marriage, even though the opposite scenario could have occurred. It happened this way because uncertainty is, in part, a conviction that you don’t yet have what it takes to merit getting married—a reflection of the capstone mentality. Parental divorce adds to uncertainty, fostering anxiety among young adults that they, too, may not have what it takes to stay together. Emerging technologies—social-media and online dating—boost options and unwittingly diminish relationship confidence. As a result of heightened uncertainty, some Christians are choosing to cohabit. But they are not seeking to rewrite the rules about Christian marriage. Living together before marriage, however, almost always contributes to a diminished life of faith, even if only temporarily.
Connections beyond Hispania
Authors: Maloy Rebecca
Published: August 2020

This chapter explores how the sacrificium relates to offertory chants in other liturgical traditions, yielding insight into its prehistory and the influences that shaped its development. The textual, exegetical, and musical connections explored in this chapter establish that the sacrificium was part of a larger, pan-European tradition, whose practice extended into southern Gaul, northern Italy, North Africa, and Rome. The Old Hispanic repertory was nonetheless exceptional in its concentration of these particular kinds of chants, perhaps because they were so well suited to the educational and devotional milieu of Visigothic Iberia. After exploring these other repertories, the chapter turns to musical questions, illustrating certain commonalities in style between the Old Hispanic and Gregorian offertories and posing questions for further research.
Methodology
Authors: Lewis Theodore J.
Published: August 2020

Articulating a thoughtful methodology is desideratum, for today’s analyses of Israelite religion (indeed, of the academic study of religion in general) are dramatically different than those of past generations. This chapter articulates the academic disciplines required for the task at hand: textual studies (including epigraphy, linguistics and comparative Semitics), archaeology, art history, the philosophy of religion, and various social-scientific approaches (e.g. socio-linguistics, gender, ethnicity, ritual performance, spatial theory). The categories of “religion” and “Israelite” are probed. Particular attention is then devoted to the nature of our source material including (a) textual sources (e.g. epigraphy, onomastica, the Hebrew Bible) and source-criticism of the Hebrew Bible; (b) the nature of the archaeological record, and (c) the use of comparative ancient Near Eastern materials.
El Worship
Authors: Lewis Theodore J.
Published: August 2020

Chapter Four considers the worship of El, the deity who appears in the name of the eponymous ancestor Israel. Sociologically, the concepts here are those of ancestral traditions, the so-called “God of the Fathers,” and family religion—standing apart from the religion of a centralized state and a hierarchical priestly cult. Each of the various “El” traditions are discussed in detail: El Berith, El Elyon, El Roi, El Olam, El Bethel, and the most famous, El Shadday. Key functions of El traditions are highlighted: El as father, divine kinsman, and benevolent protector as well as El’s role as the head of a mythological divine council. The chapter explores whether El was the original god of Israel, including associations with exodus traditions.
The Origin of Yahweh
Authors: Lewis Theodore J.
Published: August 2020

Chapter Six examines the historical origin of Yahweh, the dominant deity of Israelite religion. Readers can evaluate the Hebrew Bible’s foundation stories about Yahweh (and vis-à-vis El worship) juxtaposed next to the epigraphic record with datable texts ranging from 14th-13th centuries BCE Egyptian geographical lists to a ninth century BCE Moabite inscription to multiple ninth-eighth centuries BCE Yahwistic inscriptions from a remote site on the Darb el-Ghazza caravan route just south of Qadesh-Barnea, a site with a long biblical pedigree. Additional topics include the meaning of the name Yahweh and its attestations in extra-biblical sources as well as the geographic origin of the deity. The latter includes a review of the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis studied alongside archaic Hebrew poetry (biblical and epigraphic) describing militaristic wilderness theophanies. Methodologically, the chapter also describes the Canaanite cultural continuum from the Middle Bronze Age through the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
The Characterization of the Deity Yahweh
Authors: Lewis Theodore J.
Published: August 2020

Chapter Nine intentionally juxtaposes God as king and God as judge. Royal cult includes monarchs as sponsors and even performers of religion. As Yahweh was the King par excellence, so certain “incomparable” kings were linked to the divine via cult. As Yahweh was the Chief Magistrate, so monarchs were ordained of God to ensure justice and equity. Chapter Nine articulates judicial ideals that sound quite contemporary as they provide legal safeguards for the disadvantaged of society. Chapter Nine also looks at non-royal judiciaries—the roles of the paterfamilias, fathers and mothers, kinsmen, tribal “heads,” tribal “officials,” town elders, and priests.
Chapter Nine documents prophetic voices speaking out against injustice in order to advocate change for the disenfranchised. It also explores nuanced theodicies that include affirmations that Yahweh is indeed just (Leibniz’s théodicée), but that lessens not the absurd and maddening ways in which divine retribution plays out (Qoheleth, Job).