Variables associated with disrupted placement in a select sample of abused and neglected children

The purpose of this study was to examine the placement history of 172 abused and/or neglected children who had been placed in a residential home for maltreated children. Data were collected on the child's placement history (i.e., number of placements, time in transition, and placement rate) and also on child and family characteristics. Pearson correlation coefficients were run between child and family variables and each of the three placement history variables. In addition, t-tests were also used as a method of analysis. Results indicated that children with the following characteristics or life circumstances experienced the more disruptive experience while in foster care: children having severe behavior problems; children who were very young when first removed from their natural home; and children having drug addicted and/or alcoholic parents. Implications of these findings indicate social workers and judges need to be alert to the potential for system abuse of children in foster placement, responsible long-term planning for any child in foster care is critical, and those involved in therapeutic treatment for abused/neglected children should be attentive to the child's placement history.     

Judgments Regarding Appropriate Child Supervision to Prevent Injury: The Role of Environmental Risk and Child Age

Parents, social service workers, and medical personnel failed to differ in the amount of time they estimated that children of 11 differing ages should be left without adult supervision within 5 different supervision domains. More hazardous circumstances dramatically reduced the amount of time respondents said children should be left unsupervised. Amount of unsupervised time increased with age, with clear developmental cutoffs that varied by level and type of risk. When the moderate center of the distribution was examined, 3 clear areas of consensus emerged. For most domains, constant supervision was recommended for preschool children. For early elementary school children, nearly constant (0–5 min without supervision) or close (0–15 min without supervision) supervision was recommended in safer locations, with constant supervision still recommended in high-risk situations. Only with older children was there an absence of consensus regarding supervision. The implications of these results for future injury prevention research are discussed.     

School teachers' control and involvement in their own evaluation

Summary For the technical, sociological-psychological, and political benefits of teacher participation in evaluation to occur, new structures and policies concerning evaluation must be put into place. Teachers must be given stagewise support in developing increased involvement and control. But finally, those policy makers, evaluation program designers and researchers who plan for teacher evaluation must act to more completely include teachers in their own evaluation. A great deal of good is at stake in the opportunity to increase teacher participation in teacher evaluation.     

SALUS: online co-operation between South Australian health libraries

The establishment of the South Australian Health Libraries Consortium led to the development of the SALUS project which enabled the online delivery of core health, clinical information and bibliographic databases with full-text resources across South Australian government health services. This was the first venture of Australian health librarians to create an online consortium. This article discusses the policy and management issues surrounding the implementation of the SALUS project and its influence on the evolution of the health Libraries Consortium over several years. Lessons learned during this process included: the necessity to plan well ahead yet to remain flexible in implementing those plans, to avoid procedure becoming more important than improvization during planning, to be willing to take well judged risks on occasions, and to be fully aware of changing circumstances in the project's funding and political environment. The importance of securing influential advocates outside of the participating libraries to support continued project funding is also considered.     

External and Internal Influences on Institutional Approaches to Student Assessment: Accountability or Improvement?

The purpose of this study is to compare the influences of state characteristics related to student assessment, accreditation emphasis on student assessment, and institutional dynamics supporting student assessment on the approaches to student assessment that institutions have initiated. We conducted this study by examining the relevant literature, creating a national survey instrument, surveying undergraduate institutions throughout the United States, and analyzing the responses of the 885 public institutions who participated in our survey. Separate regressions were run for three different groups of institutional types on three approaches to assessment: cognitive, affective, and post-college. Regressions for the three institutional types explained 21 to 27% of the variance for cognitive assessment, 7 to 21% for affective assessment and 6 to 19% for post-college assessment. With the exception of a minor influence of state characteristics for doctoral and research universities, institutional dynamics and accreditation region were found to be the primary influences on student assessment approaches for all institutional types. We found that the drive for state-level accountability has not exceeded the influence of institutional accreditation and that internal dynamics appear to be the driving force of all three approaches to student assessment.     

Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met Polymorphism and Susceptibility to Alcohol Dependence

Catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) enzyme catalyzes the metabolism of dopamine and other catechols in the brain. Several articles investigated catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism as risk factor for alcohol dependence (AD) but the results were inconclusive. The aim of present meta-analysis was to evaluate the association of Val158Met (COMT) polymorphism with AD. Authors performed keyword search of the 4 electronic databases—Pubmed, Google Scholar, Springer Link and Science Direct databases up to December 31, 2019. Total eighteen studies that investigated the association of Val158Met polymorphism with AD were retrieved. The pooled results from the meta-analysis (2278 AD cases and 3717 healthy controls) did not show association with AD using all 5 genetic models (allele contrast model: OR = 1.02, 95% CI = 0.90–1.14, p = 0.03; homozygote model: OR = 1.06, 95% CI = 0.81–1.38, p = 0.69; dominant model: OR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.85–1.14, p = 0.87; co-dominant model: OR = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.86–1.11, p = 0.71; recessive model: OR = 1.05;95% CI = 0.85–1.29, p = 0.61). Results of subgroup analysis showed that Val158Met is not risk for AD in Asian and Caucasian population. In conclusion, COMT Val158Met is not a risk factor for alcohol dependence.