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In an effort to contribute to our knowledge of "what works" in correctional practices, this project evaluates the empirical research on adult educational programs and recidivism from the mid-1990s to the present. The studies are summarized, integrated, and rated according to the University of Maryland Scale for Scientific Rigor. We conclude that the participants in education programs such as Adult Basic Education, General Equivalency Degrees, and secondary education are less likely to recidivate, and, therefore, these programs meet the standards of what works. Similarly, recent studies of vocational education and postsecondary demonstrate sufficient decreases in recidivism to declare they are what works programming. However, there is insufficient evidence of the effectiveness of life skills programs. Thus, the ability of these programs to decrease recidivism remains in the category of "what is unknown." (Contains 7 notes.)

The purpose was to measure faculty members': (1) knowledge of quality improvement and patient safety (QIPS), (2) attitudes and beliefs about their own QI skills, and (3) self-efficacy toward participating in, leading, and teaching QIPS. Faculty completed an online survey. Questions assessed demographic and academic characteristics, knowledge, attitudes/beliefs, and self-efficacy. Knowledge was measured using the Quality Improvement Knowledge Assessment Tool-Revised (QIKAT-R). Participants provided free-text responses to questions about clinical scenarios. Almost half of participants (n = 236) self-reported that they were moderately or extremely comfortable with QIPS skills. Few were very (20%) or most (15%) comfortable teaching QIPS. Ninety-one participants attempted the QIKAT-R, and 78 participants completed it. The mean score was 16.6 (SD = 5.6). Despite positive attitudes and beliefs about their own QIPS skills, study results demonstrate a general lack of knowledge among surveyed faculty members. Faculty development efforts are needed to improve proficiency in participating, leading, and teaching QIPS projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

US Healthcare, despite its exceptional technology and innovative treatments, is still unsafe and unreliable. It is estimated that medical errors account for an estimated 254,000 inpatient deaths a year and hold the distinction as the third leading cause of death in the US. Despite an aggressive national campaign set by organizations like the National Academy of Medicine, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the National Patient Safety Foundation, and the National Quality Forum, efforts to improve the quality and safety of US Healthcare have been unsuccessful, or at best, unsustainable at eliminating preventable patient harm. Historically, US Healthcare has turned to commercial aviation, nuclear energy, oil and gas, and other high reliability industries for lessons on how to avoid harm. In this paper, we join two pre-existing conceptual models: high reliability organizing and error management theory to propose a strategy for embedding and sustaining a preoccupation with failure and commitment to resilience within healthcare to advance a practical and disciplined focus to advance organizational high reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients recovering from outpatient surgery are responsible for managing their pain, managing ambulation, and even implementing thromboembolism prophylaxis after discharge. Because of the importance of postoperative care to prevent complications, a model of care that helps a patient transition to independent self-care could provide optimal results.Objectives: The authors investigated the safety and morbidity rate for patients who underwent body contouring procedures and overnight care at an attached, nurse-staffed guest suite facility.Methods: A retrospective review was conducted of 246 patients who underwent major body contouring and who stayed at least 1 night in the guest suite facility. Major complications included a return to the operating room within 48 hours, major wound infection, and unplanned hospitalization within 48 hours. Minor complications included any postsurgical effect necessitating unplanned physician intervention within the first 30 days. Univariate analyses correlating patient characteristics and complication rates were conducted, as well as comparison of complication rates among same procedures reported in the literature.Results: The complication rate (major and minor complications) was 25.20%. Surgical site infection occurred in 8.13% of patients. The most common wound complication was erythema around the incision site (12.20%). Death, deep vein thrombosis, or pulmonary embolism did not occur. Comparison with relevant results reported in the literature indicated a significant reduction in the occurrence of postoperative venous thromboembolism.Conclusions: Patient education after surgery is essential to healing and adequate care. The guest suite model provides improved care and education for the patient and family postsurgery by addressing some of the known risk factors of plastic surgery.Level Of Evidence: 4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Caprini Risk Assessment Model is used to categorize patient risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) events; its predictive associations have been repeatedly corroborated. Calculating scores involves consideration of systemic factors that may predict other postoperative complications.Objective: This study investigates whether Caprini scores can be applied to non-VTE complications.Methods: The authors undertook a retrospective chart review of 1598 encounters for a series of complex reconstructive and body contouring operations at an academic medical institution. Input variables included Caprini score components, patient comorbidities, and prophylactic use of antithrombotic drugs. Output variables were postoperative complications. Tests for proportions were performed on percentile data. Nonpercentile data were treated with comparison of means (t test). Odds ratios for complications were calculated for stratified risk groups and compared.Results: The overall complication rate was 28.03%. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) incidence was 1.50%. Differences in age, body mass index (BMI), operation time, hypertension, diabetes, renal disease, and cancer were statistically significant between patients who experienced complications and those who did not. For DVT versus DVT-free patients, differences in sex, BMI, operation time, smoking status, diabetes, hypertension, and prior DVT were significant. Caprini scores identified 628 encounters as low risk (0-4) and 970 as high risk (>5). Dehiscence, infection, necrosis, seroma, hematoma, and overall complication rate significantly increased the incidence for the high-risk group.Conclusions: Caprini scores can be used as valuable predictors for some non-VTE postoperative complications (dehiscence, infection, seroma, hematoma, and necrosis). In addition to VTE events, clinicians should pay special attention to clinical signs indicative of the complications listed above when dealing with high-risk, high-Caprini score patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors investigate enjoyment of the shopping experience, its influence on consumers' intention to repatronise a regional shopping centre and the effect of gender differences on shopping enjoyment. Four dimensions of shopping enjoyment are proposed and a 16-item measure is developed to assess 536 consumer perceptions of the shopping experience across five counties in the United Kingdom. Findings indicate that shopping experience enjoyment has a significant positive influence upon customers' repatronage intentions. Furthermore, men are found to have a stronger relationship of enjoyment with repatronage than women. The implications of these results are discussed, together with managerial implications, study limitations, and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From stills to marijuana crops, our public lands have historically been the home of illicit activity. Methamphetamine production can now be added to the list. However, methamphetamine production presents unique threats and challenges that remain understudied. Methamphetamine production is highly toxic, and the disposal of this waste on forestlands represents a serious and growing environmental crime in the United States. This article examines three forms of collateral damage that the meth threat poses: the environmental consequences of meth production on public lands, the threats to people recreating on public lands, and the potential for impact to gateway and resource-dependent communities. These three interrelated points of impact are documented as ways to understand the scope of this problem on public lands. In light of these findings, we also seek to understand the reasons behind the disparate institutional responses to the threat. We end with recommendations for research and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Control of the Colorado potato beetle (CPB), Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), with the entomopathogenic nematode Heterorhabditis marelata Liu and Berry (Nematoda: Heterorhabditidae) was examined in the laboratory and in potato fields in north central Oregon. This research tested the hypothesis that varying nitrogen fertilizer levels would affect foliar alkaloid levels, which would stress the host, and allow increased nematode reproduction and long-term control of the CPB. Laboratory results indicated that nematodes tended to reproduce more readily in CPB fed on potato plants with high levels of fertilizer. Field trials tested CPB population responses to four treatments: application of nematodes vs. no nematodes, with application of low vs. high rates of nitrogen fertilizer. The higher nitrogen application rate increased field foliar levels of the alkaloids solanine by 35%, and chaconine by 41% over the season. Nematodes were applied twice during the season, causing a 50% reduction in adult CPB populations, and producing six times as many dead prepupae in nematode-treated soil samples as in the untreated samples. However, no reproducing nematodes were found in the 303 dead prepupae and pupae collected from nematode-treated plots. Nitrogen fertilizer levels, and their related alkaloid levels, did not affect nematode infection rates or reproduction in the field. Foliar alkaloid levels of plants from the growth chamber were 3–6-fold as high as those in the field, which may explain the variation in nematode response to nitrogen applications to host plants of the CPB. Heterorhabditis marelata is effective for controlling CPB in the field, and does not have negative non-target effects on one of the most common endemic CPB control agents, Myiopharus doryphorae (Riley) (Diptera: Tachinidae), but the low rate of nematode reproduction cannot be manipulated through alkaloid stress to the beetle. Until H. marelata can be mass-produced in an inexpensive manner, it will not be a commercially viable control for CPB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field studies were conducted in 1992 and 1993 in Hermiston, Oregon, to evaluate nontarget impacts of transgenic Bt potato (Newleaf) expressing Cry3Aa protein derived from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Berliner subsp, tenebrionis and conventional insecticides for control of the Colorado potato beetle (CPB), Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say). Pitfall traps were used to estimate the abundance of nontarget ground-dwelling arthropods in different treatment plots. There were no significant differences in the trap captures of major ground-dwelling coleopteran predators such as carabids (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and staphylinids (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) among Bt and non-Bt potato fields treated with weekly sprays of a microbial Bt-based formulation containing Cry3Aa, biweekly applications of permethrin, early and mid season in-furrow applications of systemic insecticides (phorate and disulfoton), or no insecticides. While weekly sprays of permethrin significantly reduced the trap capture of ground-dwelling spiders (Araneae), there were no significant differences in the capture of spiders between Bt and non-Bt-potato fields treated with Bt sprays, systemic insecticides, or no insecticides. Significantly more springtails (Collembola: Entomobryidae and Hypogastruridae) were captured in potato fields treated with permethrin than with any other CPB control regime (transgenic Bt potato alone, microbial Bt formulation containing Cry3Aa, applications of systemic insecticides, or no action controls), among which there were no significant differences. The relevance of these findings to field evaluation of nontarget impacts of transgenic Bt crops is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the response of Peter Yeager and Gary Reed to Carey Herbert, Gary S. Green and Victor Larragoite's critique of their work commenting on Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi's neoclassical theory of crime. Herbert, Green and Larragoite first fault us for making basic errors regarding the nature and extent of organizational offending. They charge that we wrongly theorize the levels of analysis appropriate to understanding the phenomenon, and that we badly overestimate the incidence and prevalence of such offending acts. They were correct the first time: Our position is self-consciously and consistently multilevel in theoretical orientation. Indeed, we emphasize the interdependence between macrolevel features of social organization and microlevel interactions between persons. When Herbert, Green and Larragoite turn explicitly theoretical matters, we again find their argument flawed and our argument too often caricatured. As they note, individuals do not always respond similarly to criminogenic conditions. Our sole purpose was to demonstrate the inadequacy of an argument that individual-level factors such as self-control could explain most of the variation in organizational offending, especially on the evidence of corporate lawbreaking. In our view, the key explanatory variable comprises the social construction of organizational cultures that make more or less likely managerial offenses on behalf of firms under varying conditions in the firms' social environments. Regarding our view of this social context, Herbert, Green and Larragoite make some key misstatements. First, there is nothing at all contradictory in our arguing that such managerial offenses are committed commonly by persons who are both well-socialized to standard corporate practices and expectations and conventionally socialized. Second, there is nothing at all inconsistent in our linking criminogenic context with the notion of a conspiracy of ignorance within them.

This article examines and critiques Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime, with particular respect to its applicability to organizational offending. We question their views that the theory is adequately general and that typologies of crime are therefore unnecessary for criminological theory. Gottfredson and Hirschi have employed the case of white-collar crime to support their arguments, but they have constrained the test of their theory by focusing on the white-collar offenses that most resemble conventional crime. When organizational offending is included in white-collar crime, empirical and theoretical limitations of their project emerge. These limitations include the matters of defining and counting the phenomena of interest, the nature of the interest that commonly underlies them, and the role of opportunity in them. A satisfactory theory of organizational offending requires an adequate account of all these matters and will look substantially different from Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on a study which evaluated red radish cultivars, in relation to their qualitative and quantitative anthocyanin (ACN) pigment content. What is the pigment content dependant on; Similarities of the ACN profiles in different cultivars; Methodology used to conduct the study; Results of the study.

Describes how two US hospitals, members of an integrated health system, took different routes to achieve radical constructive change, one of them - an urban community hospital - through what is described in detail as core process redesign; the other - a full-service, research and teaching hospital - devised and implemented a process described, again in step-by-step detail, as re-engineering of clinical services and business operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental release of genetically engineered (transgenic) plants may be accompanied by ecological effects including changes in the plant-associated microflora. A field release of transgnic potato plants that produce the insecticidal endotoxin of Bacillus thuringiensis var. tenebrionis (Btt) was monitored for changes in total bacterial and fungal populations, fungal species diversity and abundance, and plant pathogen levels. The microflora on three phenological stages of leaves (green, yellow and brown) were compared over the growing season (sample days 0, 21, 42, 63 and 98) for transgenic potato plants, commercial Russet Burbank potato plants treated with systemic insecticide (Di-Syston) and commercial Russet Burbank potato plants treated with microbial Btt (M-Trak). In addition, plant and soil assays were performed to assess disease incidence of Fusarium spp., Pythium spp., Verticillium dahliae, potato leaf roll virus (PLRV) and potato virus Y (PVY). Few significant differences in phylloplane microflora among the plant types were observed and none of the differences were persisent. Total bacterial populations on brown leaves on sample day 21 and on green leaves on sample day 42 were significantly higher on the transgenic potato plants. Total fungal populations on gree leaves on sample day 63 were significantly different among the three plant types; lowest levels were on the commerical potato plants treated with systemic insecticide and highest levels were on the commercial potato plants treated with microbial Btt. Differences in fungal species assemblages and diversity were correlated with sampling dates, but relatively consistent among treatments. Alternaria alternata, a common saprophyte on leaves and in soil and leaf litter, was the most commonly isolated fungus species for all the plant treatments. Rhizosphere populations of the soilborne pathogens Pythium spp., Fusarium spp. and V. dahliae did not differ between the transgenic potato plants and the commercial potato plants treated with systemic insecticide. The incidence of tuber infection at the end of the growing season by the plant pathogen V. dahliae was highest for the transgenic potato plants but this difference was related to longer viability of the transgenic potato plants. This difference in longevity between the transgenic potato plants and the commercial + systemic insecticide potato plants also made comparison of the incidence of PVY and PLRV problematic. Our results indicate that under field conditions the microflora of transgenic Btt-producing potato plants differed minimally from that of chemically and microbially treated commerical potato plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]