The relationship between perceived interparental conflict and Malaysian young adults' attitudes toward divorce

In the context of an upward trend in divorce rates in Malaysia, this article explores the relationship between Malaysian young adults' perceptions of interparental conflict and their own attitudes toward divorce. Two questionnaires were administered to 160 young adults between 18 and 30 years old: the Attitude Towards Divorce Scale and the Perceptions of Interparental Conflict−Intensity/Frequency Scale. A positive relationship was found between perceived intensity and frequency of interparent conflict and attitudes toward divorce in males and females, respectively; however, the associations were weak. Future investigations of divorce need to take into consideration both the cultural factors that are influential within a society and how they shape gender norms within that population to gain a greater understanding of this relationship. Such investigations will increase the understanding of non-Western culture's unique interaction between attitudes and divorce, thus potentially aiding future efforts to strengthen marriages and families.

Sources, perceived usefulness and understanding of information disseminated to families who entered home quarantine during the H1N1 pandemic in Victoria, Australia: a cross-sectional study

Background Voluntary home quarantine of cases and close contacts was the main non-pharmaceutical intervention used to limit transmission of pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza (pH1N1) in the initial response to the outbreak of the disease in Australia. The effectiveness of voluntary quarantine logically depends on affected families having a clear understanding of what they are being asked to do. Information may come from many sources, including the media, health officials, family and friends, schools, and health professionals. We report the extent to which families who entered home quarantine received and used information on what they were supposed to do. Specifically, we outline their sources of information; the perceived usefulness of each source; and associations between understanding of recommendations and compliance. Methods Cross-sectional survey administered via the internet and computer assisted telephone interview to families whose school children were recommended to go into home quarantine because they were diagnosed with H1N1 or were a close contact of a case. The sample included 314 of 1157 potentially eligible households (27% response rate) from 33 schools in metropolitan Melbourne. Adjusting for clustering within schools, we describe self-reported 'understanding of what they were meant to do during the quarantine period'; source of information (e.g. health department) and usefulness of information. Using logistic regression we examine whether compliance with quarantine recommendations was associated with understanding and the type of information source used. Results Ninety per cent understood what they were meant to do during the quarantine period with levels of understanding higher in households with cases (98%, 95% CI 93%-99% vs 88%, 95% CI 84%-91%, P = 0.006). Over 87% of parents received information about quarantine from the school, 63% from the health department and 44% from the media. 53% of households were fully compliant and there was increased compliance in households that reported that they understood what they were meant to do (Odds Ratio 2.27, 95% CI 1.35-3.80). Conclusions It is critical that public health officials work closely with other government departments and media to provide clear, consistent and simple information about what to do during quarantine as high levels of understanding will maximise compliance in the quarantined population.

Area-level unemployment and perceived job insecurity: evidence from a longitudinal survey conducted in the Australian working-age population

Research significance: Job insecurity, the subjective individual anticipation of involuntary job loss, negatively affects employees’ health and their engagement. Although the relationship between job insecurity and health has been extensively studied, job insecurity as an ‘exposure’ has received far less attention, with little known about the upstream determinants of job insecurity in particular. This research sought to identify the relationship between self-rated job insecurity and area-level unemployment using a longitudinal, nationally representative study of Australian households. Methods: Mixed-effect multi-level regression models were used to assess the relationship between area-based unemployment rates and self-reported job insecurity using data from a longitudinal, nationally representative survey running since 2001. Interaction terms were included to test the hypotheses that the relationship between area-level unemployment and job insecurity differed between occupational skill-level groups and by employment arrangement. Marginal effects were computed to visually depict differences in job insecurity across areas with different levels of unemployment. Results: Results indicated that areas with the lowest unemployment rates had significantly lower job insecurity (predicted value 2.74; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.71–2.78, P < 0.001) than areas with higher unemployment (predicted value 2.81; 95% CI 2.79–2.84, P < 0.001). There was a stronger relationship between area-level unemployment and job insecurity among precariously and fixed-term employed workers than permanent workers. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate the independent influences of prevailing economic conditions, individual- and job-level factors on job insecurity. Persons working on a casual basis or on a fixed-term contract in areas with higher levels of unemployment are more susceptible to feelings of job insecurity than those working permanently.

Ageing in an ultra-dense metropolis: perceived neighbourhood characteristics and utilitarian walking in Hong Kong elders

Objective
The neighbourhood built environment may affect walking behaviour of elders. However, such effects remain underexplored, especially in an Asian context. We examined associations of perceived environmental attributes with overall and neighbourhood-specific walking for transport in a sample of Chinese elders residing in Hong Kong, an ultra-dense Chinese metropolis.

Design
Cross-sectional observational study using a two-stage stratified sampling strategy.

Setting
Hong Kong, China.

Subjects
Chinese-speaking elders (n 484), with no cognitive impairment and able to walk without assistance, residing in thirty-two selected communities stratified by socio-economic status and walkability, were interviewer-administered validated measures of perceived neighbourhood environment and walking for transport.

Results
Much higher levels of transport-related walking (mean 569 (sd 452) min/week) than found in Western samples were reported. The degree of perceived access to shops, crowdedness, presence of sitting facilities and easy access of residential entrance were independently positively related to both frequency of overall and within-neighbourhood walking for transportation. Infrastructure for walking and access to public transport were predictive of higher frequency of transport-related walking irrespective of location, while the perceived degree of land-use mix was predictive of higher levels of within-neighbourhood walking.

Conclusions
The provision of easy access to shops, residential entrances and sitting facilities in the neighbourhood may promote overall transport-related walking, while a good public transport network and pedestrian infrastructure linking destination-poor with destination-rich locations may compensate for the detrimental effects of living in less walkable neighbourhoods. Governmental investment in these micro- and macro-environmental features would help the promotion of an active lifestyle in elders.

Guest editors' introduction : Special issue on trust, security, and privacy in parallel and distributed systems

In modern computing paradigms, most computing systems, e.g., cluster computing, grid computing, cloud computing, the Internet, telecommunication networks, Cyber- Physical Systems (CPS), and Machine-to-Machine communication networks (M2M), are parallel and distributed systems. While providing improved expandability, manageability, efficiency, and reliability, parallel and distributed systems increase their security weaknesses to an unprecedented scale. As the system devices are widely connected, their vulnerabilities are shared by the entire system. Because tasks are allocated to, and information is exchanged among the system devices that may belong to different users, trust, security, and privacy issues have yet to be resolved. This special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS) highlights recent advances in trust, security, and privacy for emerging parallel and distributed systems. This special issue was initiated by Dr. Xu Li, Dr. Patrick McDaniel, Dr. Radha Poovendran, and Dr. Guojun Wang. Due to a large number of submissions, Dr. Zhenfu Cao, Dr. Keqiu Li, and Dr. Yang Xiang were later invited to the editorial team. Dr. Xu Li was responsible for coordinating the paper review process. In response to the call for papers, we received 150 effective submissions, out of which 24 are included in this special issue after rigorous review and careful revision, presenting an acceptance ratio of 16 percent. The accepted papers are divided into three groups, covering issues related to trust, security, and privacy, respectively.

Exploring the effects of perceived service provider sincerity on consumers' emotional state and satisfaction during service consumption

A holistic approach to satisfaction and its effects seems to be particularly important in high-affect, high-involvement, and extended duration services such as those offered by many travel and tourism providers. This means understanding the complexities of service provision and its processes. Consumers value service interaction that appears sincere. For this reason, organizations expect service providers to manage their service "performance" to reflect a genuine display of positive emotions towards the customer, which has a direct impact on customer satisfaction and possibly overall life satisfaction. This study explores consumers' perception of sincerity and tests its effects on positive emotions and satisfaction in an extended duration service. The findings indicate that perceived service sincerity positively influences consumers' emotions during a service and has important direct and indirect effects on life satisfaction, service satisfaction, and intention to repurchase. Implications for managers and opportunities for further research are discussed.

Perceived factors affecting the integration-responsiveness framework: an analysis from Chinese multinationals operating in Australia

This study extends quantitative and conceptual studies that have clarified and assessed the underlying factorsinfluencing multinational corporations (MNCs) international business strategy choices relating to globalintegration and local responsiveness with the use of cross–level and in-depth interviews. Top managementperceptions from nine Chinese MNCs (CMNCs) with operations in Australia are detailed and it is argued acontingency approach tends to prevail within firms with organisational, industrial, and environmentalcontingencies predominating.

Trust enhanced security in SaaS cloud computing

Trust problem in Software as a Service Cloud Computing is a broad range of a Data Owner’s concerns about the data in the Cloud. The Data Owner’s concerns about the data arise from the way the data is handled in locations and machines that are unknown to the Data Owner.

Review of trust and machine ethics research: towards a bio-inspired computational model of ethical trust (CMET)

Recent advances in the fields of robotics, cyborg development, moral psychology, trust, multi agent-based systems and socionics have raised the need for a better understanding of ethics, moral reasoning, judgment and decision-making within the system of man and machines. Here we seek to understand key research questions concerning the interplay of ethical trust at the individual level and the social moral norms at the collective end. We review salient works in the fields of trust and machine ethics research, underscore the importance and the need for a deeper understanding of ethical trust at the individual level and the development of collective social moral norms. Drawing upon the recent findings from neural sciences on mirror-neuron system (MNS) and social cognition, we present a bio-inspired Computational Model of Ethical Trust (CMET) to allow investigations of the interplay of ethical trust and social moral norms.