Wearables for independent living in older adults: Gait and falls.

Solutions are needed to satisfy care demands of older adults to live independently. Wearable technology (wearables) is one approach that offers a viable means for ubiquitous, sustainable and scalable monitoring of the health of older adults in habitual free-living environments. Gait has been presented as a relevant (bio)marker in ageing and pathological studies, with objective assessment achievable by inertial-based wearables.

Legal Origin and Social Solidarity: The Continued Relevance of Durkheim to Comparative Institutional Analysis.

By using the classic works of Durkheim as a theoretical platform, this research explores the relationship between legal systems and social solidarity. We found that certain types of civil law system, most notably those of Scandinavia, are associated with higher levels of social capital and better welfare state provision. However, we found the relationship between legal system and societal outcomes is considerably more complex than suggested by currently fashionable economistic legal origin approaches, and more in line with the later writings of Durkheim, and, indeed, the literature on comparative capitalisms.

Risk aversion and religious behaviour: Analysis using a sample of Danish twins.

Economics offers an analytical framework to consider human behaviour including religious behaviour. Within the realm of Expected Utility Theory, religious belief and activity could be interpreted as an insurance both for current life events and for afterlife rewards. Based on that framework, we would expect that risk averse individuals would demand a more generous protection plan which they may do by devoting more effort and resources into religious activities such as church attendance and prayer, which seems to be in accordance with previous empirical results.

Review of Regulatory Emphasis on Transportation Safety in the United States, 2002-2009: Public versus Private Modes.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is responsible for implementing new safety improvements and regulations with the goal of ensuring limited funds are distributed to where they can have the greatest impact on safety.

A triple test for behavioral economics models and public health policy.

We propose a triple test to evaluate the usefulness of behavioral economics models for public health policy. Test 1 is whether the model provides reasonably new insights. Test 2 is on whether these have been properly applied to policy settings.

Treatment of moderate-to-severe atopic eczema in adults within the U.K.: results of a national survey of dermatologists.

Background: Little is known about U.K. dermatologists' treatment approaches towards adult patients with recalcitrant moderate-to-severe atopic eczema.

Economic evaluation of integrated new technologies for health and social care: Suggestions for policy makers, users and evaluators.

With an ageing population there is a move towards the use of assisted living technologies (ALTs) to provide social care and health care services, and to improve service processes. These technologies are at the forefront of the integration of health and social care. However, economic evaluations of ALTs, and indeed economic evaluations of any interventions providing both health benefits and benefits beyond health are complex.

Monopolizing Sanctioning Power under Noise Eliminates Perverse Punishment But Does Not Increase Cooperation.

We run several experiments which allow us to compare under and in a and regime. Under perfect and extremely noisy information, aggregate behavior does not differ between institutions. Under intermediate noise, punishment escalates in the decentralized peer-to-peer punishment regime which badly affects efficiency while sustaining cooperation for longer.

Risk, Benefit, and Moderators of the Affect Heuristic in a Widespread Unlawful Activity: Evidence from a Survey of Unlawful File-Sharing Behavior.

Increasing the perception of legal risk via publicized litigation and lobbying for copyright law enforcement has had limited success in reducing unlawful content sharing by the public. We consider the extent to which engaging in file sharing online is motivated by the perceived benefits of this activity as opposed to perceived legal risks. Moreover, we explore moderators of the relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefits; namely, trust in industry and legal regulators, and perceived online anonymity.

Vulnerable patients going to court: a psychiatrist's guide to special measures.

There have been significant changes to how vulnerable people are treated in the court system, including the introduction of special measures to support people both as witness and as accused. This paper summarises the use of special measures and their application to people with mental health diagnoses or cognitive impairment.

The value of mortality risk reductions. Pure altruism - a confounder?

This paper examines public valuations of mortality risk reductions. We set up a theoretical framework that allows for altruistic preferences, and subsequently test theoretical predictions through the design of a discrete choice experiment. By varying the tax scenario (uniform versus individual tax), the experimental design allows us to verify whether pure altruistic preferences are present and the underlying causes.

New Ways of Working in UK mental health services: developing distributed responsibility in community mental health teams?

Background: This paper examines the introduction and operation of a number of support roles in mental health services. This is done in the context of concerns about the effectiveness of CMHTs.

Aims: Three questions are addressed: the degree to which concern for the work of consultant psychiatrists informed the introduction of the new roles; what the reforms implied for the work of the psychiatrist and those in new roles; and the impact of any changes on the operation of CMHTs.

Identity, storytelling and the philanthropic journey.

This article develops theoretical understanding of the involvement of wealthy entrepreneurs in socially transformative projects by offering a foundational theory of philanthropic identity narratives. We show that these narratives are structured according to the metaphorical framework of , through which actors envision and make sense of personal transformation. The journey provides a valuable metaphor for conceptualizing narrative identities in entrepreneurial careers as individuals navigate different social landscapes, illuminating identities as unfolding through a process of wayfinding in response to events, transitions and turning-points.

Pay or conditions? The role of workplace characteristics in nurses' labor supply.

Empirically rigorous studies of nursing labor supply have to date relied on extant secondary data and focused almost exclusively on the role of pay. Yet the conditions under which nurses work and the timing and convenience of the hours they work are also important determinants of labor supply. Where there are national pay structures and pay structures are relatively inflexible, as in nursing in European countries, these factors become more important.

Molecular tools for bathing water assessment in Europe: Balancing social science research with a rapidly developing environmental science evidence-base.

The use of molecular tools, principally qPCR, versus traditional culture-based methods for quantifying microbial parameters (e.g., Fecal Indicator Organisms) in bathing waters generates considerable ongoing debate at the science-policy interface.

On Reminder Effects, Drop-Outs and Dominance: Evidence from an Online Experiment on Charitable Giving.

We present the results of an experiment that (a) shows the usefulness of screening out drop-outs and (b) tests whether different methods of payment and reminder intervals affect charitable giving. Following a lab session, participants could make online donations to charity for a total duration of three months. Our procedure justifying the exclusion of drop-outs consists in requiring participants to collect payments in person flexibly and as known in advance and as highlighted to them later.

Factors affecting patient valuations of caries prevention: Using and validating the willingness to pay method.

Objectives: Determining the value of, or strength of preference for health care interventions is useful for policy makers in planning health care services. Willingness to pay (WTP) is an established economic technique to determine the strength of preferences for interventions by eliciting monetary valuations from individuals in hypothetical situations. The objective of this study was to elicit WTP values for a dental preventive intervention and to analyze the factors affecting these as well as investigating the validity of the WTP method.

Determinants of unlawful file sharing: a scoping review.

We employ a scoping review methodology to consider and assess the existing evidence on the determinants of unlawful file sharing (UFS) transparently and systematically. Based on the evidence, we build a simple conceptual framework to model the psychological decision to engage in UFS, purchase legally or do nothing. We identify social, moral, experiential, technical, legal and financial utility sources of the decision to purchase or to file share.

Relative distributions: a novel method for examining trends between stroke onset and thrombolysis time.

Background And Purpose: Analyses of trends in the delivery of time critical treatments typically report the median, but measures of central tendency may ignore important changes for specific patient groups. We considered whether this was an important effect during comparison of onset to treatment (OTT) time between 2 cohorts of patients with stroke receiving intravenous thrombolysis.

Methods: After controlling for stroke severity, a relative distributions technique compared OTT for UK patients treated with recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator registered within the first and last quarters (each n=661) of the Safe Implementation of Thrombolysis in Stroke-Monitoring Study database between January 2003 and September 2010.

National electronic health records and the digital disruption of moral orders.

The digitalisation of patient health data to provide national electronic health record systems (NEHRS) is a major objective of many governments. Proponents claim that NEHRS will streamline care, reduce mistakes and cut costs. However, building these systems has proved highly problematic.

Did people "buy" what was "sold"? A qualitative evaluation of a contingent valuation survey information set for gains in life expectancy.

A number of stated preferences studies have estimated a monetary value for the gains in life expectancy resulting from pollution control, using a Value of a Life Year (VOLY) approach. However, life expectancy gains are a complex concept and no attempt has been made, to date, to investigate peoples' understanding of what it is they are being asked to value. Past practice has been to focus on the outcome of a policy i.

Identity and stammering: negotiating hesitation, side-stepping repetition, and sometimes avoiding deviation.

Individuals who experience speech dysfluency are often stigmatised because their speech acts differ from the communicative norm. This article is located in and seeks to further the identity debates in exploring how individuals who are subject to the intermittent emergence of a stigmatised characteristic manage this randomised personal discrediting in their identity work. Through a series of focus groups and semi-structured interviews participants grudgingly report their management approaches which include concealing, drafting in unwitting others, role-playing and segregating self from their stammer.

Leadership and transformational change in healthcare organisations: a qualitative analysis of the North East Transformation System.

The research project 'An Evaluation of Transformational Change in NHS North East' examines the progress and success of National Health Service (NHS) organisations in north east England in implementing and embedding the North East Transformation System (NETS), a region-wide programme to improve healthcare quality and safety, and to reduce waste, using a combination of Vision, Compact, and Lean-based Method. This paper concentrates on findings concerning the role of leadership in enabling tranformational change, based on semi-structured interviews with a mix of senior NHS managers and quality improvement staff in 14 study sites. Most interviewees felt that implementing the NETS requires committed, stable leadership, attention to team-building across disciplines and leadership development at many levels.