Guidelines For Membership Research Articles

Incorporating Social Media into your Support Tool Box: Points to Consider from Genetics-Based Communities.

Patients with newly-described or rare genetic findings are turning to social media to find and connect with others. Blogs, Facebook groups, and Twitter have all been reported as tools for patients to connect with one another. However, the preferences for social media use and privacy among patients, their families, and these communities have not been well characterized. To explore preferences about privacy and membership guidelines, an online survey was administered to two web-based patient registries, Simons Variation in Individuals Project ( www.simonsvipconnect.org ) and GenomeConnect ( www.genomeconnect.org ). Over a three-month period, invitations were sent to 2524 individuals and 103 responses (4%) were received and analyzed. Responses indicate that Facebook is the most popular resource accessed within this sample population (99%). Participants used social media to look for information about their diagnosis or test results (83%), read posts from rare disease groups or organizations (73%), participate in conversations about their diagnosis (67%), and connect with others to find support (58%). Focusing on privacy issues in social media, respondents indicate that membership and access impact the level of comfort in sharing personal or medical information. Nearly 60% of respondents felt uncomfortable sharing photos or medical information within a public Facebook group, whereas only 12% of respondents felt uncomfortable sharing in private group targeted to families alone. Using this preliminary data concerning social media use and privacy, we developed points for genetic counselors to incorporate when discussing available support resources for patients with a new, or rare, genetic diagnosis or genetic test result. Genetic counselors are trained to provide anticipatory guidance to families adapting to new genetic information, and are well-equipped to help patients consider their preferences about using social media as a source of information and support.

Civil society participation in the health system: the case of Brazil's Health Councils.

BackgroundBrazil created Health Councils to bring together civil society groups, heath professionals, and government officials in the discussion of health policies and health system resource allocation. However, several studies have concluded that Health Councils are not very influential on healthcare policy. This study probes this issue further by providing a descriptive account of some of the challenges civil society face within Brazil’s Health Councils.MethodsForty semi-structured interviews with Health Council Members at the municipal, state and national levels were conducted in June and July of 2013 and May of 2014. The geographical location of the interviewees covered all five regions of Brazil (North, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, South) for a total of 5 different municipal Health Councils, 8 different state Health Councils, and the national Health Council in Brasilia. Interview data was analyzed using a thematic approach.ResultsHealth Councils are limited by a lack of legal authority, which limits their ability to hold the government accountable for its health service performance, and thus hinders their ability to fulfill their mandate. Equally important, their membership guidelines create a limited level of inclusivity that seems to benefit only well-organized civil society groups. There is a reported lack of support and recognition from the relevant government that negatively affects the degree to which Health Council deliberations are implemented. Other deficiencies include an insufficient amount of resources for Health Council operations, and a lack of training for Health Council members. Lastly, strong individual interests among Health Council members tend to influence how members participate in Health Council discussions.ConclusionsBrazil’s Health Councils fall short in providing an effective forum through which civil society can actively participate in health policy and resource allocation decision-making processes. Restrictive membership guidelines, a lack of autonomy from the government, vulnerability to government manipulation, a lack of support and recognition from the government and insufficient training and operational budgets have made Health Council largely a forum for consultation. Our conclusions highlight, that among other issues, Health Councils need to have the legal authority to act independently to promote government accountability, membership guidelines need to be revised in order include members of marginalized groups, and better training of civil society representatives is required to help them make more informed decisions.

Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement (review)

Reviewed by: Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement Michael J. Lee Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement. Edited by Peter Schweizer and Wynton C. Hall. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007; pp i + 169. $30.00 cloth; $18.95 paper. Since the movement’s mid-century beginnings, intraconservative quarrels have featured a substantial introspective component. “New conservatism” in the 1950s, Goldwaterism in the 1960s, the “New Right” in the 1970s, the “conservative crack-up” under Reagan in the 1980s, and the Republican Revolution of the 1990s all prompted boisterous rows over the meaning of conservatism. Their latest once-a-decade quarrel is intensified by a “conservative” president doing controversial work, such as fighting a war, while flying the movement’s banner. Many conservatives hope that, at the very least, the membership guidelines can be updated. Andrew Sullivan’s The Conservative Soul, Bruce Bartlett’s Impostor, Pat Buchanan’s Where the Right Went Wrong, and Richard Viguerie’s Conservatives Betrayed are a few among many recent books advocating a back-to-basics program for conservatism. None of these writers defend George W. Bush. But none of these writers agree on who else should be shown the door, either. Peter Schweizer and Wynton C. Hall’s Landmark Speeches of the American Conservative Movement, a slim collection of 13 speeches from 1948 to 2004, arrives during this contest over conservatism. The book’s value in this climate is that it helps portray “the movement in its own words” and shows the “trajectory of conservative rhetoric through time” (2). The inclusion of such notable speeches as Barry Goldwater’s “Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice,” Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire,” and George W. Bush’s “Our Mission and Our Moment,” demonstrates, contra Buchanan and others, that “no one ‘brand’ of conservatism” has ever existed in the United States. Whittaker Chambers’s “I Broke Away from the Communist Party” evinces conservatism’s historic anti-communism. Clare Boothe Luce’s “Is the New Morality Destroying America?” exemplifies its traditionalist impulse. Reagan’s “The First Inaugural” summarizes its commitment to limited government. Charles Krauthammer’s “A Unipolar World” is a sample of the neoconservative inclination to universalize democracy that has divided conservatives recently. Each speech is preceded by a short summary of the speaker’s life, achievements, and where possible, its importance to conservatism. Two questions are most appropriate when considering a book that collects the “landmark” ideas, speeches, or photographs of a social movement. First, among the possible options, have the editors selected the right ones? Second, does the choice of an exclusive medium yield more nuanced insights than could have been generated with a broader focus? In other words, does the choice of speeches omit vehicles that held greater rhetorical force within the movement? [End Page 521] Considering the first question, Landmark Speeches is a curious collection. First, there are obvious omissions. After losing the nomination to Nixon (an act still reviled as the “Compact of Fifth Avenue”), for example, Goldwater famously demanded of his followers at the 1960 Republican National Convention, “Let’s grow up conservatives. If we want to take this party back . . . let’s get to work.” The “Let’s Grow Up” speech is remembered by many conservatives as a defining moment in early conservatism, and yet this speech is not featured. Second, some arguable inclusions compound questions about other exclusions. For instance, few conservatives reach back for the language of Everett Dirksen, whose “The Time Has Come” was instrumental to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. However, many conservatives reach for Goldwater and William F. Buckley, both of whom opposed the bill. Dirksen’s inclusion coupled with the omission of contrary voices on civil rights, such as George Wallace, raises antennas. When added to the exclusion of other historic and controversial speeches, such as Joseph McCarthy’s “Enemies from Within” in Wheeling, West Virginia, and Pat Buchanan’s “Culture War” address, the “rich rhetorical tradition” of American conservatism becomes less so (7). Schweizer and Hall risk producing a cleansed conservatism rather than conservatism as it was. Third, the editors miss opportunities to explain what makes these speeches landmark speeches. For instance, before...

Firm characteristics and audit committees complying with ’best practice‘ membership guidelines

This study investigates demand and supply characteristics associated with firms that voluntarily established audit committees meeting ‘best practice’ membership guidelines. We focus on a set of best practice criteria rather than on the separate elements of the best practice criteria as in past studies. We conduct our tests using a sample of New Zealand listed companies that, relative to firms in other capital markets, are smaller and have more concentrated ownership. This setting differs from prior research because we expect the costs of voluntarily achieving best practice to be reasonably high. The results show that demand factors are not significantly related to the presence of an audit committee that conforms with best practice membership guidelines. However, supply factors (i.e. those firms with larger and more independent boards) are more likely to form audit committees that meet best practice. These results suggest that compliance costs will be greater for firms with smaller and less independent boards of directors if they are required to comply with best practice requirements.

The BrainIT group: concept and core dataset definition.

An open collaborative international network has been established which aims to improve inter-centre standards for collection of high-resolution, neurointensive care data on patients with traumatic brain injury. The group is also working towards the creation of an open access, detailed and validated database that will be useful for post-hoc hypothesis testing. In Part A, the underlying concept, the group coordination structure, membership guidelines and database access and publication criteria are described. Secondly, in part B, we describe a set of meetings funded by the EEC that allowed us to define a "Core Dataset" and we present the results of a feasibility exercise for collection of this core dataset. Four group meetings funded by the EEC have enabled definition of a "Core Dataset" to be collected from all centres regardless of specific project aim. A paper based pilot collection of data was conducted to determine the feasibility for collection of the core dataset. Specially designed forms to collect the core dataset demographic and clinical information as well as sample the time-series data elements were distributed by both email and standard mail to 22 BrainIT centres. A deadline of two months was set to receive completed forms back from centres. A pilot data collection of minute by minute physiological monitoring data was also performed. A core-dataset was defined and can be downloaded from the BrainIT web-site (go to "Core dataset" link at: www.brainit.org). Eighteen centres (82%) returned completed forms by the set deadline. Overall the feasibility for collection of the core data elements was high with only 10 of the 64 questions (16%) showing missing data. Of those 10 fields with missing data, the average number of centres not responding was 12% and the median 6%. An SQL database to hold the data has been designed and is being tested. Software tools for collection of the core dataset have been developed. Ethics approval has been granted for collection of multi-centre data as part of a pilot data collection study. The BrainIT network provides a more standardised and higher resolution data collection mechanism for research groups, organisations and the device industry to conduct multi-centre trials of new health care technology in patients with traumatic brain injury.

GUIDELINES FOR MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION

GUIDELINES FOR MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION