The development and piloting of the ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool—Parent version (ICAST-P)

ObjectiveChild maltreatment is a problem that has longer recognition in the northern hemisphere and in high-income countries. Recent work has highlighted the nearly universal nature of the problem in other countries but demonstrated the lack of comparability of studies because of the variations in definitions and measures used. The International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect has developed instrumentation that may be used with cross-cultural and cross-national benchmarking by local investigators.Design and samplingThe instrument design began with a team of expert in Brisbane in 2004. A large bank of questions were subjected to two rounds of Delphi review to develop the fielded version of the instrument. Convenience samples included approximately 120 parent respondents with children under the age of 18 in each of six countries (697 total).ResultsThis paper presents an instrument that measures parental behaviors directed at children and reports data from pilot work in 6 countries and 7 languages. Patterns of response revealed few missing values and distributions of responses that generally were similar in the six countries. Subscales performed well in terms of internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha in very good range (0.77–0.88) with the exception of the neglect and sex abuse subscales. Results varied by child age and gender in expected directions but with large variations among the samples. About 15% of children were shaken, 24% hit on the buttocks with an object, and 37% were spanked. Reports of choking and smothering were made by 2% of parents.ConclusionThese pilot data demonstrate that the instrument is well tolerated and captures variations in, and potentially harmful forms of child discipline.Practice implicationsThe ISPCAN Child Abuse Screening Tool – Parent Version (ICAST-P) has been developed as a survey instrument to be administered to parents for the assessment of child maltreatment in a multi-national and multi-cultural context. It was developed with broad input from international experts and subjected to Dephi review, translation, and pilot testing in six countries. The results of the Delphi study and pilot testing are presented. This study demonstrates that a single instrument can be used in a broad range of cultures and languages with low rates of missing data and moderate to high internal consistency.     

Correlation of bone mineral density with biochemical markers in post menopausal women

To evaluate the magnitude of bone loss in postmenopausal women and to study the effect of a selective estrogen Receptor Modulator, raloxifene, on bone loss by quantitative ultrasound of calcaneus and serum bone specific alkaline phosphatase (BAP). Postmenopausal women with ostesopenia/osteoporosis were assigned randomly to receive placebo (n=30) or raloxifene (60mg/d, n=30) with calcium (500mg/day) and vitamin D (250 IU/day). The bone mineral density (BMD) and BAP levels were measured at the beginning of therapy and six months later. They were subjected to statistical analysis (t test, p value) using SPSS statistical package. 70% of postmenopausal women suffered from osteopenia/osteoporosis. After raloxifene therapy, there was improvement in the BMD but this was not statistically significant (p>0.05). There was a fall in the value of serum BAP by 26.6% (p<0.05). Raloxifene has a favourable effect on bone turnover as evident from changes in BMD and a significant fall in serum BAP.     

Detection of Helicobacter pylori using nested polymerase chain reaction in gastric biopsy samples

Helicobacter pylori remains a controversial organism with regards to humans, its epidemiology still unclear nearly two decades after discovery. The present study was undertaken to estimate the prevalence of the organism in the gastrointestinal tract in symptomatic and asymptomatic subjects to understand its precise natural history in India. A total of 154 specimens were a part of the study. These included gastric biopsies from peptic ulcer disease and Non ulcer dyspepsia subjects, as visualized on endoscopy, saliva and stool samples from apparently normal healthy adults. Nested polymerase chain reaction was performed using the primers Hp1, Hp2, Hp3 targeting 16S rRNA gene. A prevalence of 65.1%, 100%, 66.7%, and 73.3% respectively was observed by polymerase chain reaction. No association was observed between the H.pylori status and the disease condition of the patient.     

Distributed ledger technology as a catalyst for open innovation adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises

Open innovation and distributed ledger technology (DLT) are both based on the underlying principles of distribution and sharing. While open innovation is about sharing knowledge to improve innovation processes and performance, DLT is a distributed data ledger that is utilized to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and ensure immutability, traceability, security, and transparency. In this paper, we investigate the barriers to open innovation currently faced by small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) that DLT can solve. To achieve this goal, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 experts in open innovation and DLTs from Spain, Germany, Australia, and India. The results of our exploratory study show that DLTs can help to solve several problems, including external barriers, such as problems with contracts, financing, lack of trust, raw materials, lack of information, domestic and international market limitations, IP rights, and governmental regulations as well as bureaucracy. Internal challenges include insufficient funding, organizational systems that are out of date, and lack of trust. When it comes to difficulties associated with the management of open innovation, external barriers are frequently caused by customers' demands, while internal barriers are frequently caused by organizational culture or human nature, which cannot be improved by DLTs. Finally, SMEs might face new obstacles when integrating DLTs, such as integration problems, complex transition phases, and high setup costs as well as problems with attracting and retaining qualified employees.