• Better Data, Better Health

There has been extended discussion about the ways in which better data can improve public health problems such as obesity, rising health care costs, and other areas of concern. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is intimately concerned with the possible applications of “big data”, and this site offers some fine commentary and reporting on this situation. A good place to start is the Q&A with RWJF Chief Technology and Information Officer Steve Downs. “Better Data = Better Health: Stories from the Field” looks at the applications of mobile health applications, GPS sensors in the service of tracking asthma symptoms, and much more. The footer of the site includes sections analyzing how data is transforming the overall health of communities. There are data sets, reports, rankings and access to publicly available reports that include information on the quality of care delivery, patient outcomes, and patient feedback on physicians, hospitals, and cost.

• Frontline: Digital Nation

How is technology changing our lives? It’s a very difficult question to answer, but this engaging program from Frontline takes first steps into this brave new digital world. This website covers various topics such as Family/Children, Foreign Affairs/Defense, Government/Elections/Politics, Race/Multicultural and so on. On a note that appears on the site’s homepage, Rachel Dretzin (the producer) remarks that “Digital Nation is an effort to define this new space and to put some walls around it.” On the homepage, visitors can watch the entire 90-minute program and also view special segments such as Living Faster, Relationships, Waging War, and Virtual Worlds. The Virtual Worlds area is particularly compelling, as it looks at how virtual reality is being used to treat the post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by soldiers.

[Source: Scout Report]

Climate Literacy & Energy Awareness Network

The Climate Literacy & Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) offers a fine range of educational materials for educators hoping to build their students’ “understanding of the core ideas in climate and energy science.” Visitors can look over the What’s New area to learn about updated lesson plans, classroom activities, and featured resources like “Soil Microbes and Global Warming.” Users shouldn’t miss the Browse the Reviewed Educational Resources area. Here they can learn about scientifically and pedagogically reviewed digital resources for teaching about climate science, organized by resource type and grade level. Some of these activities include “What is the fate of CO2 produced by fossil fuel combustion?” and “Paleoclimates and Pollen.” Additionally, visitors can sign up to join the CLEAN community and access more webinars and workshops, become a CLEAN reviewer, or learn about new resources as they are released.

[Source: Scout Report, Volume 19, Number 21, May 24, 2013]

The Journal of Risk and Uncertainty contains original manuscripts, both theoretical and empirical, dealing with the analysis of risk-bearing behavior and decision making under uncertainty. The topics covered in the journal include, but are not limited to, decision theory and the economics of uncertainty, psychological models of choice under uncertainty, risk and public policy, experimental investigations of behavior under uncertainty, and empirical studies of real world risk-taking behavior.

2011 Impact Factor: 1.529

You can download and save these articles to your computer, iPad or mobile device with 30-day complimentary access:

• Assessing multiple prior models of behaviour under ambiguity - Anna Conte, John D. Hey
• Ambiguity attitudes and social interactions An experimental investigation - Gary Charness, Edi Karni, Dan Levin
• Aggregating imprecise or conflicting beliefs: An experimental investigation using modern ambiguity theories - Aurélien Baillon, Laure Cabantous, Peter P. Wakker
• The disgust-promotes-disposal effect - Seunghee Han, Jennifer S. Lerner, Richard Zeckhauser
• Risk attitudes in a social context - Ingrid M. T. Rohde, Kirsten I. M. Rohde

HKUL can also access this journal via http://library.hku.hk/record=b2069757

Psychology of Well-Being is devoted to understanding the biopsychosocial and behavioural factors leading to enhanced well-being, optimal emotional processing and the prevention of psychological dysfunction.

All articles are peer-reviewed and fully open access. You can download and save these articles to your computer, iPad or mobile device:

• The happiness of people with a mental disorder in modern society - A. Bergsma and R. Veenhoven
• Quality of life, emotion regulation, and heart rate variability in individuals with intellectual disabilities and concomitant impaired vision - A. Meule, K.Fath, R.G.L. Real, S. Sütterlin, C. Vögele and A. Kübler
• The virtuousness of adult playfulness: the relation of playfulness with strengths of character - R.T. Proyer and W. Ruch

• The Social Model of Disability as a Threshold Concept: Troublesome Knowledge and Liminal Spaces in Social Work Education - by Hannah Morgan, published in Social Work Education: The International Journal

• Social Work Education Free Access Article Collection

Featuring three key titles: Journal of Social Work Education, Social Work Education, and Journal of Teaching in Social Work. PLUS access to special issues and 40 articles from a variety of journals.

HKUL users can continue to access these journals via

-Journal of Social Work Education: http://library.hku.hk/record=b1984835

-Social Work Education: http://library.hku.hk/record=b2528336

-Journal of Teaching in Social Work: http://library.hku.hk/record=b2529444

• Health & Social Care Arena

You can access our health and social care resources through the Health & Social Care Arena. The latest Special Issues, free content, promotions, call for papers, books, journals and events are all in one place saving you time and making it easy for you to stay ahead of the field. Forthcoming themes include; Occupational Therapy; Addiction and Sleep.

Feature
Counting the Uncountable: Overseas Americans
The immigration debate in the United States often focuses on how many foreign born enter and reside in the country. Much less attention is paid to Americans who live abroad — a population estimated at anywhere from 2 million to 7 million. This article examines the challenges of enumerating this population and also explores top destinations for American expats, their livelihoods, and motivations for leaving the United States.

[Source: Migration Information Source]

SpringerPlus is a peer-reviewed, open access journal covering all areas of science. Launched in 2012, the journal has already published over 200 articles and was recently accepted for indexing in Scopus and PubMed Central.

The following are highlighted articles published in the Social Sciences:

• Neuro-fuzzy controller to navigate an unmanned vehicle - Boumediene Selma and Samira Chouraqui
• Chronic traumatic encephalopathy: the dangers of getting “dinged” - Shaheen E Lakhan and Annette Kirchgessner
• Production and partial characterization of extracellular amylase enzyme from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens P-001 - Promita Deb et al.

SpringerPlus is covered by Springer’s and BioMed Central’s Open Access Membership Program. As HKU is a supporter member, HKU authors will get a 15% discount on the article-processing charges of all research articles accepted for publication in journals published by SpringerOpen. Find out more at http://www.springeropen.com/inst/39413

Bureau of Labor Statistics: The Editor’s Desk

The Editor’s Desk (familiarly shortened TED) at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, brings out daily “fresh information from all over the Bureau,” coupled with intriguing data and links of note. On the site’s homepage, visitors will find sections like Topics, Archive by Year, Archive by Program, and About TED. The Topics area includes a panoply of subjects, such as Benefits, Projections, and Technology. The Recent Articles area contains links to pieces on job openings, payroll employment, and large technology firms. Additionally, the site contains an On Interest area which features statistical overviews of major trends in employment, health care, and collective bargaining.

[Source: Scout Report, Volume 19, Number 20, May 17, 2013]

Policy Sciences offers articles that examine the normative aspects of policy sciences; conceptual articles addressing concrete policy issues; articles on particularly controversial pieces of analysis; opposing perspectives, including critiques and rejoinders on articles already published, which open the journal to an exchange of views rather than restricting it to pure presentation; and special issues that analyze specific topics in depth.

2011 Impact Factor: 2.278

You can download and save these articles to your computer, iPad or mobile device with 30 days complimentary access:

• Overcoming the tragedy of super wicked problems: constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change - Kelly Levin, Benjamin Cashore, Steven Bernstein, Graeme Auld
• Diversity and constructive conflict in stakeholder dialogue: considerations for design and methods - Eefje Cuppen
• Who teaches and who learns? Policy learning through the C40 cities climate network - Taedong Lee, Susan van de Meene
• Understanding and influencing the policy process - Christopher M. Weible, Tanya Heikkila, Peter deLeon, Paul A. Sabatier
• Research institutes as hybrid organizations: central challenges to their legitimacy - Magnus Gulbrandsen
• The evaluation of climate policy: theory and emerging practice in Europe - Dave Huitema, Andrew Jordan, Eric Massey; et al.
• The contextualist turn and schematics of institutional fit: Theory and a case study from Southern India - Raul P. Lejano, Savita Shankar
• Technology assessment in Australia: the case for a formal agency to improve advice to policy makers - A. Wendy Russell, Frank M. Vanclay, Janet G. Salisbury; et al.

Feature
Integrating Europe’s Muslim Minorities: Public Anxieties, Policy Responses
Muslim integration is one of the most contentious issues in the immigration debate in Europe, and one that gets to the heart of public anxieties about immigration. This article explores public perception toward Muslims in Western Europe and the array of integration policies that countries in the region have adopted during the past several years.

[Source: Migration Information Source]