I got pregnant, I was so like ... crying inside...: experiences of women of Pakistani ancestry seeking contraception in the UK

South Asian women in Britain are less likely to use contraception than women in other ethnic groups. Previous studies have identified a lack of knowledge combined with low levels of English language and/or literacy as barriers to using contraception, but have not examined in detail women's experiences of accessing services. This qualitative study focused on the experiences of 19 Muslim women of Pakistani ancestry and the views of six health and community workers. The findings detail considerable institutional barriers to accessing contraceptive services, such as a lack of information and the paternalistic attitudes of some health professionals. The study suggests that, although all the women were motivated to access and use contraception, their ability to make informed choices was often limited. It was only when the women encountered advocates, who might be professionals or from their social networks, that they could begin to take control of their fertility. This study is consistent with earlier research and shows that lack of access to contraceptive services can have high personal and social costs for South Asian women.

Managing from the inside out:drawing on 'receptivity' to explain variation in strategy implementation

With the rise of 'New Public Management' (NPM), government policy has encouraged public-sector organizations to downsize and outsource their services. There is, however, local variation in the use of outsourcing - this is 'managing from the inside out'. This paper draws on the notion of receptivity for organizational change to explain variation in strategy implementation. Four receptivity factors are identified which seem to explain the success of two contrasting English local government outsourcing strategies: ideological vision, leading change, institutional politics and implementation capacity. The organization level of change is interconnected with two other levels of change (the public service and environment levels) to illustrate the dynamic nature of change.

A longitudinal study of Chinese managerial behaviour:an inside view of decision-making under the economic reform

This research compared decision making processes in six Chinese state-owned enterprises during the period 1985 to 1988. The research objectives were: a) To examine changes in the managerial behaviour over a period of 1985 to 1988 with a focus on decision-making; b) Through this examination, to throw light on the means by which government policies on economic reform were implemented at the enterprise level; c) To illustrate problems encountered in the decentralization programme which was a major part of China's economic reform. The research was conducted by means of intensive interviews with more than eighty managers and a survey of documents relating to specific decisions. A total of sixty cases of decision-making were selected from five decision topics: purchasing of inputs, pricing of outputs, recruitment of labour, organizational change and innovation, which occurred in 1985 (or before) and in 1988/89. Data from the interviews were used to investigate environmental conditions, relations between the enterprise and its higher authority, interactions between management and the party system, the role of information, and effectiveness of regulations and government policies on enterprise management. The analysis of the data indicates that the decision processes in the different enterprises have some similarities in regard to actor involvement, the flow of decision activities, interactions with the authorities, information usage and the effect of regulations. Comparison of the same or similar decision contents over time indicates that the achievement of decentralization varied according to the topic of decision. Managerial authority was delegated to enterprises when the authorities relaxed their control over resource allocation. When acquisition of necessary resources is dependent upon the planning system or the decision matter is sensitive, because it involves change to the institutional framework (e.g. the Party), then a high degree of centralization was retained, resulting in a marginal change in managerial behaviour. The economic reform failed to increase decision efficiency and effectiveness of decision-making. The prevailing institutional frameworks were regarded as negative to the change. The research argues that the decision process is likely to be more contingent on the decision content than the organization. Three types of decision process have been conceptualized, each of them related to a certain type of decision content. This argument gives attention to the perspectives of institution and power in a way which facilitates an elaboration of organizational analysis. The problems encountered in the reform of China's industrial enterprises are identified and discussed. General recommendations for policies of further reform are offered, based on the analysis of decision process and managerial behaviour.

Inside ‘Inside View’: reflections on stimulating debate and engagement through a multimedia live theatre production on the dilemmas and issues of pre-natal screening policy and practice

Background The role of applied theatre in engaging both lay and professional publics with debate on health policy and practice is an emergent field. This paper discusses the development, production performance and discussion of ‘Inside View’.1 Objectives The objectives were to produce applied theatre from research findings of a completed study on genetic prenatal screening, exploring the dilemmas for women and health professionals of prenatal genetic screening, and to engage audiences in debate and reflection on the dilemmas of prenatal genetic screening. Methods ‘Inside View’ was developed from a multidisciplinary research study through identification of emergent themes from qualitative interviews, and development of these by the writer, theatre producer and media technologist with input from the researchers. Findings Inside View was performed in London and the Midlands to varied audiences with a panel discussion and evaluation post performance. The audiences were engaged in debate that was relevant to them professionally and personally. Knowledge translation through applied theatre is an effective tool for engaging the public but the impact subsequently is unclear. There are ethical issues of unexpected disclosure during discussion post performance and the process of transforming research findings into applied theatre requires time and trust within the multidisciplinary team as well as adequate resourcing.

Regulation inside government:waste watchers, quality police and sleaze busters

Book review: Christopher Hood, Oliver James,, George Jones, Colin Stott ans Tony Travers. Oxford University Press, 2000. 281 pp. £42.50

Ownership concentration:'Private benefits of control' and debt financing

Building on the ‘law and economics’ literature, this paper analyses corporate governance implications of debt financing in an environment where a dominant owner is able to extract ex ante ‘private benefits of control’. Ownership concentration may result in lower efficiency, measured as a ratio of a firm’s debt to investment, and this effect depends on the identity of the largest shareholder. Moreover, entrenched dominant shareholder(s) may be colluding with fixed-claim holders in extracting ‘control premium’. One of possible outcomes is a ‘crowding out’ of entrepreneurial firms from the debt market, and this is supported by evidence from the transition economies.

Smartbook: Semantics Inside

This paper presents a vision for the future of the e-books which entails further development of technologies that will facilitate the creation and use of a new generation of "smart" books: e-books that are evolving, highly interactive, customisable, adaptable, intelligent, and furnished with a rich set of collaborative authoring and reading support services. The proposed set of tools will be integrated into an intelligent framework for collaborative book authoring and experiencing called SmartBook. The paper promotes the idea that the semantic technologies, intensively developed recently in connection with the Semantic Web initiative, can be incorporated in the book and become the key factor of making it "smarter".

Using Inside-Outside Algorithm for Estimation of the Offspring Distribution in Multitype Branching Processes

Multitype branching processes (MTBP) model branching structures, where the nodes of the resulting tree are particles of different types. Usually such a process is not observable in the sense of the whole tree, but only as the “generation” at a given moment in time, which consists of the number of particles of every type. This requires an EM-type algorithm to obtain a maximum likelihood (ML) estimate of the parameters of the branching process. Using a version of the inside-outside algorithm for stochastic context-free grammars (SCFG), such an estimate could be obtained for the offspring distribution of the process.

‘Everything’s from the inside out with PCOS’:exploring women’s experiences of living with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and co-morbidities through Skype™ interviews

Polycystic ovary syndrome is an endocrine disorder affecting 1 in 10 women. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome can experience co-morbidities, including depressive symptoms. This research explores the experience of living with polycystic ovary syndrome and co-morbidities. Totally, 10 participants with polycystic ovary syndrome took part in Skype™ interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Four themes emerged from the data: change (to life plans and changing nature of condition); support (healthcare professionals, education and relationships); co-morbidities (living with other conditions and depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation) and identity (feminine identity and us and them). The findings highlight the need for screening of women with polycystic ovary syndrome for depressive disorders.

Directional mobility of debt ratings

In this paper we describe a method to decompose a well-known measure of debt ratings mobility into it's directional components. We show, using sovereign debt ratings as an example, that this directional decomposition allows us to better understand the underlying characteristics of debt ratings migration and, for the case of the data set used, that the standard Markov chain model is not homogeneous in either the time or cross-sectional dimensions. We find that the directional decomposition also allows us to sign the change in quality of debt over time and across sub-groups of the population.