			Home About us Contact

Personal Information (personal + information)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	35%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	17%
Information Science and Computing	11%

Selected Abstracts

Sex-dependent use of information on conspecific feeding activities in an amphibian urodelian

FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2009
Pedro Aragón
Summary 1Animals can make decisions by observing the behaviour of others. Their decisions vary depending on whether the benefits of using such information exceed the costs. Thus, it is worthwhile to explore the potential costs associated with different sources of information to understand the consequences of sociality. Previous studies focused mainly on the costs inherent to information gathering, whereas sex differences with regard to the costs arising from information use have received less attention. 2To explore this further I performed two complementary experiments. The first experiment aimed to examine individual responses to different combinations of information types that are likely to appear in nature, to test whether there is a sex-dependent response in the Bosca's newt, Lissotriton boscai. I tested the time needed for individuals to eat food items by trial-and-error tactics (personal information), and when a conspecific, which was eating or not, was added to the food cue. The second experiment aimed to evoke social interactions that are likely to arise after the choice of using information on conspecific feeding activities is made. I examined the potential costs associated with direct competition between same-sex pairs in food-limited conditions. 3Results of experiment 1 revealed that in both sexes the latency to eat food items was shorter in the presence of non-feeding conspecifics, but only females took advantage when information related to feeding activities where added to the food cue. Results of experiment 2 showed that when faced with a limited resource of food, females were more prone to engage in costly interactions. 4This study suggests that the balance between costs and benefits associated with the short-term use of information on conspecific feeding behaviour in combination with food cues may differ between sexes. Differential information uses by sexes might have profound consequences in intraspecific relationships and in the evolution of vertebrates' social systems. [source]

Internet job hunting: A field study of applicant experiences with on-line recruiting

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2002
Daniel C. Feldman
This field study examines the experiences of managers and professionals searching for jobs via the Internet. Results suggest that facility with Internet navigation is significantly associated with the amount of general job searching, particularly for those who want to explore job options initially in private without fear of retribution from supervisors. The data also suggest that managers and professionals are more likely to use the Internet for job hunting when the geographical scope of the job hunt is wide, when a major salary increase is desired, and when both small and large firms are being considered as potential employers. Use of the Internet is perceived as a somewhat less effective job search strategy than personal networking, but far superior to searching for jobs through newspaper ads and "cold calling." Major issues found to impede the effectiveness of on-line recruiting are the degree and speed of follow-up on-line applications, lack of specific and relevant job descriptions on a company's Web site, concerns about the security of personal information, and difficulty in customizing, formatting, and downloading resumes to companies' specifications. The article concludes with recommendations for improving the effectiveness of on-line recruiting. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

OECD Efforts to Address the Measurement and Policy Challenges Posed by the Information Society

INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2003
Andrew W. Wyckoff
Summary The OECD has acted as a forum for the discussion of policies regarding the information society for over 20-years, producing guidelines and recommendations in areas such as privacy of personal information, computer security, cryptography, regulatory reform of communications, and most recently on-line consumer protection and the taxation of e-commerce. By and large, this work was undertaken without the benefit of statistical measures. But the economic performance of a number of OECD Member countries during the 1990s underscores that the policy challenges being posed by the information society are increasingly economic in nature,how ICT is affecting productivity, growth rates, inflation, labour markets etc.,necessitating the need for statistically rigorous data. This paper outlines how recent efforts by national statistical offices to improve this situation have allowed researchers to gain new insight into the economic impact associated with ICTs and applications like e-commerce, leading to a number of policy recommendations as to how best to exploit the economic potential of these technologies. The paper ends by outlining important policy issues that require new statistical efforts. Résumé L'OCDE offre aux gouvernements depuis plus de 20 ans un cadre de discussion sur les questions liées à la société de l'Information et propose des lignes directrices ainsi que des recommandations sur des sujets tels que la vie privée et l'informatique, la sécurité informatique, la cryptographie, la réforme réglementaire en matière de communications et, plus récemment, la protection des consommateurs en-ligne et la fiscalité en matière de commerce électronique. Jusqu'ici, ce travail a été plus ou moins accompli sans le bénéfice d'études statistiques approfondies. Cependant, à en juger des performances économiques d'un certain nombre de pays membres de l'OCDE au cours des années 90, il est évident que les problèmes auxquels est confrontée la société de l'Information ont un caractère de plus en plus économique,l'impact des technologies de l'information et des communications sur la productivité, les taux de croissance, l'inflation, le marché de l'emploi, etc.,et nécessitent des statistiques fiables. Le présent document explique comment les offices nationaux des statistiques ont contribué par leurs efforts à améliorer la situation en donnant aux chercheurs les moyens de mieux comprendre l'impact des technologies de l'information et des communications (TIC), notamment du commerce électronique, sur l'économie. Enfin, ce travail a abouti à un certain nombre de recommandations sur la meilleure façon pour les pouvoirs publics d'exploiter le potentiel économique de ces technologies. La dernière partie du document met en exergue des problèmes importants liés à la politique économique qui nécessitent de nouveaux efforts en matière de statistiques. [source]

Facebook and Online Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 1 2009
Bernhard Debatin
This article investigates Facebook users' awareness of privacy issues and perceived benefits and risks of utilizing Facebook. Research found that Facebook is deeply integrated in users' daily lives through specific routines and rituals. Users claimed to understand privacy issues, yet reported uploading large amounts of personal information. Risks to privacy invasion were ascribed more to others than to the self. However, users reporting privacy invasion were more likely to change privacy settings than those merely hearing about others' privacy invasions. Results suggest that this lax attitude may be based on a combination of high gratification, usage patterns, and a psychological mechanism similar to third-person effect. Safer use of social network services would thus require changes in user attitude. [source]

The Taste for Privacy: An Analysis of College Student Privacy Settings in an Online Social Network

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION, Issue 1 2008
Kevin Lewis
The rapid growth of contemporary social network sites (SNSs) has coincided with an increasing concern over personal privacy. College students and adolescents routinely provide personal information on profiles that can be viewed by large numbers of unknown people and potentially used in harmful ways. SNSs like Facebook and MySpace allow users to control the privacy level of their profile, thus limiting access to this information. In this paper, we take the preference for privacy itself as our unit of analysis, and analyze the factors that are predictive of a student having a private versus public profile. Drawing upon a new social network dataset based on Facebook, we argue that privacy behavior is an upshot of both social influences and personal incentives. Students are more likely to have a private profile if their friends and roommates have them; women are more likely to have private profiles than are men; and having a private profile is associated with a higher level of online activity. Finally, students who have private versus public profiles are characterized by a unique set of cultural preferences,of which the "taste for privacy" may be only a small but integral part. Résumé Le goût pour la vie privée : Une analyse des paramètres de vie privée des étudiants universitaires dans un réseau social en ligne L,expansion rapide des sites de réseaux sociaux (SRS) contemporains a coïncidé avec une croissance de la préoccupation pour la vie privée. Les étudiants universitaires et les adolescents affichent régulièrement des informations personnelles sur des profils qui peuvent être consultés par un très grand nombre d'inconnus, informations qui pourraient potentiellement être utilisées de façon dommageable. Les SRS comme Facebook et MySpace permettent aux usagers de contrôler le niveau de vie privée de leur profil, limitant ainsi l,accès à ces informations. Dans cet article, nous considérons la préférence pour la vie privée comme étant notre unité d'analyse. Nous analysons les facteurs qui peuvent prédire si un étudiant ou une étudiante a un profil privé ou public. À partir d,un nouvel ensemble de données sur les réseaux sociaux basé sur Facebook, nous soutenons que les comportements de protection de la vie privée sont une conséquence d'influences sociales et de motivations personnelles : les étudiants sont plus susceptibles d,avoir un profil privé si leurs amis et leurs colocataires en ont un; les femmes sont plus susceptibles que les hommes d'avoir des profils privés et avoir un profil privé est associéà un niveau plus élevé d,activité en ligne. Finalement, les étudiants qui ont des profils privés plutôt que publics sont caractérisés par un ensemble unique de préférences culturelles,desquelles le « goût pour la vie privée » peut n'être qu'une partie, petite mais intégrante. Abstract Studierende und Privatsphäre: Eine Analyse der Privatsphäre-Einstellungen in einem sozialen Online-Netzwerk Das derzeitig rasante Wachstum sozialer Netzwerke geht einher mit einer steigenden Besorgnis über die Privatsphäre. Studierende und Jugendliche geben routinemäßig persönliche Informationen auf ihren Profilen preis, die von vielen auch unbekannten Personen eingesehen und potentiell missbraucht werden kann. Soziale Netzwerke wie Facebook und MySpace geben ihren Nutzern die Möglichkeit, die Privatsphäre ihrer Profile per Einstellung zu beschränken und damit den Zugang zu diesen Informationen zu kontrollieren. In diesem Artikel nutzen wir die individuelle Präferenz für Privatsphäre als Analyseeinheit und untersuchen die Faktoren, mit denen man vorhersagen kann, ob ein Studierender ein eher privates oder öffentliches Profil hat. Auf Basis eines Facebook-Datensatzes argumentieren wir, dass das Verhalten bezüglich der Privatsphäre-Parameter das Ergebnis sozialer Einflüsse und persönlicher Anreize ist. Studierende haben dann häufiger ein privates Profil, wenn ihre Freunde und Mitbewohner eines haben; Frauen haben häufiger private Profile als Männer; und ein privates Profil geht einher mit stärker ausgeprägter Online-Aktivität. Letztendlich lassen sich Studierende mit einem privaten vs. öffentlichen Profil durch ein einmaliges Set an kulturellen Präferenzen charakterisieren , die Vorlieben bezüglich der Privatheit mögen dabei nur ein kleiner aber wichtiger Teil sein. Resumen El Sabor de la Privacidad: Un Análisis de las Opciones de Privacidad en una Red Social Online de Estudiantes Universitarios de Grado El crecimiento rápido de los sitios de redes sociales (SNSs) ha coincidido con un incremento en la preocupación de la privacidad personal. Estudiantes universitarios de grado y adolescentes proveen en forma rutinaria de información personal en sus perfiles que puede ser vista por un gran número de personas desconocidas y puede ser usada en formas potencialmente dañinas. Los SNSs como Facebook y MySpace permiten a los usuarios ejercer control sobre el nivel de privacidad de sus perfiles, limitando así el acceso a esta información. En este articulo, usamos a la preferencia por la privacidad como nuestra unidad de análisis en sí misma, y analizamos los factores que predicen si un estudiante usa perfiles privados versus públicos. Usando unos datos de una nueva red social en Facebook, argumentamos que el comportamiento de la privacidad es el resultado de influencias sociales e incentivos personales. Los estudiantes tuvieron una tendencia mayor a tener perfiles privados si sus amigos y compañeros de cuarto los tenían; las mujeres más que los hombres tuvieron mayores tendencias hacia los perfiles privados; y el tener un perfil privado fue asociado con un mayor nivel de actividad online. Finalmente, los estudiantes que tenían perfiles privados versus públicos fueron caracterizados por una colección de preferencias culturales,de las cuales el "sabor por la privacidad" puede ser una parte pequeña pero integral. ZhaiYao Yo yak [source]

Determinants of Online Privacy Concern and Its Influence on Privacy Protection Behaviors Among Young Adolescents

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER AFFAIRS, Issue 3 2009
SEOUNMI YOUN
With Rogers' protection motivation theory as the theoretical framework, this study identified determinants of young adolescents' level of privacy concerns, which, in turn, affects their resultant coping behaviors to protect privacy. Survey data from 144 middle school students revealed that perceived risks of information disclosure increased privacy concerns, whereas perceived benefits offered by information exchange decreased privacy concerns. Subsequently, privacy concerns had an impact on risk-coping behaviors such as seeking out interpersonal advice or additional information (e.g., privacy statement) or refraining from using Web sites that ask for personal information. Counter to our expectation, privacy self-efficacy did not appear to be related to privacy concerns. Implications of privacy education to protect online privacy among young adolescents were discussed. [source]

Privacy and Commercial Use of Personal Data: Policy Developments in the United States

JOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2003
Priscilla Regan
In the online and offline worlds, the value of personal information , especially information about commercial purchases and preferences , has long been recognised. Exchanges and uses of personal information have also long sparked concerns about privacy. Public opinion surveys consistently indicate that overwhelming majorities of the American public are concerned that they have lost all control over information about themselves and do not trust organisations to protect the privacy of their information. Somewhat smaller majorities favour federal legislation to protect privacy. Despite public support for stronger privacy protection, the prevailing policy stance for over thirty years has been one of reluctance to legislate and a preference for self-regulation by business to protect privacy. Although some privacy legislation has been adopted, policy debates about the commercial uses of personal information have been dominated largely by business concerns about intrusive government regulation, free speech and the flow of commercial information, costs, and effectiveness. Public concerns about privacy, reflected in public opinion surveys and voiced by a number of public interest groups, are often discredited because individuals seem to behave as though privacy is not important. Although people express concern about privacy, they routinely disclose personal information because of convenience, discounts and other incentives, or a lack of understanding of the consequences. This disconnect between public opinion and public behaviour has been interpreted to support a self-regulatory approach to privacy protections with emphasis on giving individuals notice and choice about information practices. In theory the self-regulatory approach also entails some enforcement mechanism to ensure that organisations are doing what they claim, and a redress mechanism by which individuals can seek compensation if they are wronged. This article analyses the course of policy formulation over the last twenty years with particular attention on how policymakers and stakeholders have used public opinion about the commercial use of personal information in formulating policy to protect privacy. The article considers policy activities in both Congress and the Federal Trade Commission that have resulted in an emphasis on "notice and consent." The article concludes that both individual behaviour and organisational behaviour are skewed in a privacy invasive direction. People are less likely to make choices to protect their privacy unless these choices are relatively easy, obvious, and low cost. If a privacy protection choice entails additional steps, most rational people will not take those steps. This appears logically to be true and to be supported by behaviour in the physical world. Organisations are unlikely to act unilaterally to make their practices less privacy invasive because such actions will impose costs on them that are not imposed on their competitors. Overall then, the privacy level available is less than what the norms of society and the stated preferences of people require. A consent scheme that is most protective of privacy imposes the largest burden on the individual, as well as costs to the individual, while a consent scheme that is least protective of privacy imposes the least burden on the individual, as well as fewer costs to the individual. Recent experience with privacy notices that resulted from the financial privacy provisions in Gramm-Leach-Bliley supports this conclusion. Finally, the article will consider whether the terrorist attacks of 11 September have changed public opinion about privacy and what the policy implications of any changes in public opinion are likely to be. [source]

Cracking the Code: A Decode Strategy for the International Business Machines Punch Cards of Korean War Soldiers

JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES, Issue 3 2006
Erin M. Mitsunaga B.A.
ABSTRACT: During the Korean War, International Business Machines (IBM) punch cards were created for every individual involved in military combat. Each card contained all pertinent personal information about the individual and was utilized to keep track of all soldiers involved. However, at present, all of the information known about these punch cards reveals only their format and their significance; there is little to no information on how these cards were created or how to interpret the information contained without the aid of the computer system used during the war. Today, it is believed there is no one available to explain this computerized system, nor do the original computers exist. This decode strategy is the result of an attempt to decipher the information on these cards through the use of all available medical and dental records for each individual examined. By cross-referencing the relevant personal information with the known format of the cards, a basic guess-and-check method was utilized. After examining hundreds of IBM punch cards, however, it has become clear that the punch card method of recording information was not infallible. In some cases, there are gaps of information on cards where there are data recorded on personal records; in others, information is punched incorrectly onto the cards, perhaps as the result of a transcription error. Taken all together, it is clear that the information contained on each individual's card should be taken solely as another form of personal documentation. [source]

Text-based video content classification for online video-sharing sites

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 5 2010
Chunneng Huang
With the emergence of Web 2.0, sharing personal content, communicating ideas, and interacting with other online users in Web 2.0 communities have become daily routines for online users. User-generated data from Web 2.0 sites provide rich personal information (e.g., personal preferences and interests) and can be utilized to obtain insight about cyber communities and their social networks. Many studies have focused on leveraging user-generated information to analyze blogs and forums, but few studies have applied this approach to video-sharing Web sites. In this study, we propose a text-based framework for video content classification of online-video sharing Web sites. Different types of user-generated data (e.g., titles, descriptions, and comments) were used as proxies for online videos, and three types of text features (lexical, syntactic, and content-specific features) were extracted. Three feature-based classification techniques (C4.5, Naïve Bayes, and Support Vector Machine) were used to classify videos. To evaluate the proposed framework, user-generated data from candidate videos, which were identified by searching user-given keywords on YouTube, were first collected. Then, a subset of the collected data was randomly selected and manually tagged by users as our experiment data. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach was able to classify online videos based on users' interests with accuracy rates up to 87.2%, and all three types of text features contributed to discriminating videos. Support Vector Machine outperformed C4.5 and Naïve Bayes techniques in our experiments. In addition, our case study further demonstrated that accurate video-classification results are very useful for identifying implicit cyber communities on video-sharing Web sites. [source]

Privacy, professionalism and Facebook: a dilemma for young doctors

MEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 8 2010
Joanna MacDonald
Medical Education 2010: 44: 805,813 Objectives, This study aimed to examine the nature and extent of use of the social networking service Facebook by young medical graduates, and their utilisation of privacy options. Methods, We carried out a cross-sectional survey of the use of Facebook by recent medical graduates, accessing material potentially available to a wider public. Data were then categorised and analysed. Survey subjects were 338 doctors who had graduated from the University of Otago in 2006 and 2007 and were registered with the Medical Council of New Zealand. Main outcome measures were Facebook membership, utilisation of privacy options, and the nature and extent of the material revealed. Results, A total of 220 (65%) graduates had Facebook accounts; 138 (63%) of these had activated their privacy options, restricting their information to ,Friends'. Of the remaining 82 accounts that were more publicly available, 30 (37%) revealed users' sexual orientation, 13 (16%) revealed their religious views, 35 (43%) indicated their relationship status, 38 (46%) showed photographs of the users drinking alcohol, eight (10%) showed images of the users intoxicated and 37 (45%) showed photographs of the users engaged in healthy behaviours. A total of 54 (66%) members had used their accounts within the last week, indicating active use. Conclusions, Young doctors are active members of Facebook. A quarter of the doctors in our survey sample did not use the privacy options, rendering the information they revealed readily available to a wider public. This information, although it included some healthy behaviours, also revealed personal information that might cause distress to patients or alter the professional boundary between patient and practitioner, as well as information that could bring the profession into disrepute (e.g. belonging to groups like ,Perverts united'). Educators and regulators need to consider how best to advise students and doctors on societal changes in the concepts of what is public and what is private. [source]

Evaluation of a multidisciplinary outpatient pain management programme based at a community hospital

MUSCULOSKELETAL CARE, Issue 2 2009
Mei Wong DClinPsy
Objective:,To evaluate a multidisciplinary cognitive behavioural therapy pain management programme (PMP) based at a small community hospital. Methods:,Patients attending the PMP were assessed at three intervals (pre-training, and 18 and 44 weeks post-training) using a set of seven questionnaires. Information about their general practitioner (GP) and consultant visits was recorded at pre-training and final follow-up visits. Questionnaires were completed and additional personal information recorded before patients attended their appointments. Results:,Between 1997 and 2006, 163 patients completed at least six sessions out of the eight-week programme. Of these, 70 who had completed at least one questionnaire outcome measure at the three assessment intervals, and 83 who had provided information on their GP and consultant visits at pre-training and final follow-up, were included in the analyses. The results showed that patients reported being more confident in coping with their pain (pain self-efficacy questionnaire) at 18 weeks post-training and their improvement was sustained at the final follow-up. They were significantly less depressed (hospital and anxiety depression scale [HADS]) and reported a large improvement in their quality of life (modified patient generated index) at the final follow-up. They also reported a significant reduction in pain-related GP and consultant visits at their final follow-up. Although there were improvements in the Tampa scale of kinesiophobia, anxiety (HADS-Anx) and sickness impact profile scores, these were not statistically significant. Conclusion:,The result of the evaluation indicated that this PMP, delivered in a community hospital setting, made some significant differences to patients with intractable chronic pain conditions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Differential diagnosis of denture-induced stomatitis, Candida, and their variations in patients using complete denture: a clinical and mycological study

MYCOSES, Issue 3 2009
Saadettin Da, istan
Summary Denture-induced stomatitis usually occurs in persons who wear a complete or a partial denture. Among the many aetiological and predisposing factors, Candida spp. are believed to play an important role in the initiation and progression of the infection. Seventy cases who attended the clinics of the Dental Faculty, University of Atatürk, Turkey were investigated from the viewpoint of denture-induced stomatitis. After questioning the patients for their personal information, they were examined clinically and smears were obtained from lesions of the palatal mucosa and the contiguous denture surface by calcium aliginate swabs, and inoculated onto Sabouraud dextrose agar supplemented with 1% chloramphenicol, and CHROMagar Candida. Individual yeast species were identified by a germ tube test, development of blastospores, chlamydospores and pseudohyphae and assimilation tests employing the commercial kit API 20C AUX system. According to the results obtained, 70% of the cases had denture-induced stomatitis, and in 68% of them mycological culture results were positive. Candida albicans was the most frequently isolated fungus (68.75%). On the other hand, fungal growth was much more pronounced in the cultures made from the inner surface of the dentures. In conclusion, this study showed that candidal infections are not the predisposing factor in the occurrence of denture-induced stomatitis, but they play a major role, as also some other factors, especially those related with dentures. [source]

Drug use investigation (DUI) and prescription-event monitoring in Japan (J-PEM),

PHARMACOEPIDEMIOLOGY AND DRUG SAFETY, Issue 7 2001
Katsutoshi Tanaka BSc
Abstract Objective To present ethical issues and relevant problems in observational studies of drug safety in Japan. Methods The Pharmaceutical Affairs Law, associated ordinances, and notifications relevant to Drug Use Investigations (DUIs), and published documents for two pilot studies of prescription-event monitoring in Japan (J-PEM) were examined, particularly with regard to the protection of privacy. Information relevant to the proposed legislation intended to protect personal information and proposed guidelines on ethical issues in epidemiological studies were also collected. Results and Conclusion The formal studies inaugurated as the ,side-effect investigations' in the late 1960s and replaced by those of the DUI in 1980 have been conducted by drug manufacturers, in accordance with the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law. The first pilot study of J-PEM was started in 1997 and the second one is currently operated under a Health Sciences Research grant, supported by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Those observational studies have been conducted while maintaining the confidentiality of personal data, but without requiring either approval by institutional ethics boards or informed consent from patients. However, according to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law, those involved in postmarketing surveillance studies must protect the privacy of study subjects and those who break this rule may be subject to penalties. Ethical issues associated with pharmacoepidemiological studies will be clearly determined in Japan before the end of 2001 when the law designed to protect personal information will be introduced and official guidelines on ethical issues in epidemiological studies will have come into effect. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Transforming Breach of Confidence?

THE MODERN LAW REVIEW, Issue 5 2003
Towards a Common Law Right of Privacy under the Human Rights Act
This article examines the development of a remedy for unauthorised publication of personal information that has resulted from the fusion of breach of confidence with the limited ,horizontal' application of Article 8 of the ECHR via the Human Rights Act. Its analysis of Strasbourg and domestic post-HRA case law reveals the extent to which confidence has in some areas been radically transformed into a privacy right in all but name; however it also seeks to expose the analytical and normative tensions that arise in the judgments between the values of confidentiality and privacy as overlapping but not coterminous concepts, due in part to the failure to resolve decisively the horizontal effect conundrum. This judicial ambivalence towards the reception of privacy as a legal right into English law may, it will argue, also be seen in the prevailing judicial approach to the resolution of the conflict between privacy and expression interests which, it will suggest, is both normatively and structurally inadequate. [source]

Does the résumé open the door to age discrimination for older workers?

AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL ON AGEING, Issue 2 2003
Lynne Bennington
Objective: This exploratory study examined the amount of information provided in résumés that could form the basis for unlawful discrimination. Method: The covering letters and résumés of secretarial job applicants were examined and coded under strict ethical guidelines. Results: Substantial information upon which unlawful discrimination could be based was provided by applicants, particularly by older applicants. Conclusion: Applicants may reduce their chances of an interview and aid and abet unlawful discrimination by including personal information in their résumés. Suggestions to minimize this problem are offered. [source]

A pilot survey of the impact of menstrual cycles on adolescent health

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNAECOLOGY, Issue 5 2009
Cynthia M. FARQUHAR
Background: The experience of menstruation and reproductive health by adolescent girls has been poorly studied in New Zealand. Aims: To develop and pilot a Web-based survey of 16-year-olds' experience of menstruation and reproductive health with the eventual objective of conducting a larger population-based survey. A secondary aim was to report on the experience of menstrual and reproductive health in a group of 16-year-old girls in an urban setting. Methods: A Web-based survey was developed and tested in 2006 with assistance of a multidisciplinary advisory group. The final version of the questionnaire had 146 questions in 11 sections and the topics were menstrual history, general health including use of medications, access to medical care or health information, sexual health, family history and personal information including smoking, height, weight, ethnicity, paid employment of parents, drug and alcohol use and exercise patterns. Results: Seventy-five 16-year-old students completed the survey. Twenty-five per cent considered that their periods were quite a bit or a lot of trouble and 10% avoided certain activities during their menstrual periods, nearly 50% of girls always experienced some pain with every period, and 30% had seen a health professional about their period pains. Thirty-three stated that menstruation was moderately to severely painful and that daily activity was affected. Fifty per cent of girls were sexually active and of these 80% described it as painful. Conclusions: The Web-based survey was a successful approach to collecting information and could be used in a larger study. [source]

Subscriber data management in IMS networks

BELL LABS TECHNICAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2006
Daniel F. Lieuwen
Next-generation communication services will be driven by increasingly rich and distributed subscriber information. Current wireless networks have evolved such that subscriber information now resides in various elements (e.g., home location register [HLR], prepay, voice mail, short message, and location determination systems). Convergence with the Internet promises significantly more personal information, such as presence, calendars, address books, buddy lists, pictures, and video. The home subscriber server (HSS) in the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) architecture provides centralized storage for subscriber data. However, some application servers will also have their own subscriber data. As the quantity and variety of applications grow, it will become increasingly useful to provide unified views of subscriber data both within a network and across networks. The Lucent DatagridÔ software provides a telecom-targeted data integration capability, so that applications can use a logical "single-point-of-access" for user profile information inside a service provider's network. © 2006 Lucent Technologies Inc. [source]