Domestic violence research is an important part of both scholarly and practitioner investigations into the circumstances and legal outcomes of domestic violence incidents. To improve upon our current understanding of domestic violence court cases, this study utilizes data from the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida to examine the relationship between socio-demographic factors and domestic violence case dispositions. Using Generalized Estimating Equation modeling, Black's theory of the quantity of law, which proposes that the quantity of law observed between parties varies based on individual characteristics, is used to investigate the relationship between individual case characteristics and domestic violence case disposition outcomes. Findings from this study suggest that different stages of the disposition outcome are related to petitioner and respondent characteristics, and legal and injury factors. The findings from this study are useful to those that are interested in developing a better understanding of the relationship between domestic violence case characteristics and the resulting court dispositions.

Job-related stress occurs as one of the most serious issues in modern era in developed nations. It has direct and negative effects on employees' productivity and it may have negative impacts on employees' health. One of the potential results of prolonged stressors at work place is burnout and this response may lead to physical, emotional, and psychological exhaustion that can occur at both individual and organizational levels. Burnout is a job related threat that provokes social stress and can directly affect an individual's health. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is commonly used to measure an individual's overall/global health and quality of life. Another serious issue, mobbing, usually leads to some individual and organizational complications. It affects the organizational commitment, motivation and efficiency of staff, job satisfaction of employee, and may lead to potential burnout of the employees. The primary objective of this study is to determine whether stress and mobbing are directly related to burnout; and, whether burnout leads to an adverse effect on the HRQoL of Turkish territorial state representatives (TSRs). This study examines four specific research questions: 1) Whether and to what extent do the levels of perceived job related stress and mobbing affect the level of perceived burnout syndrome of TSRs? 2) Whether and to what extent is the level of perceived burnout syndrome associated with HRQoL of TSRs? 3) To what extent does the level of perceived burnout mediate the effects of job-related stress on HRQoL of TSRs? 4) What are the mediating factors between job burnout and HRQoL? This study is expected to offer valuable and insightful information about the role of job burnout factors influencing the variability in TSRs' HRQoL. The study utilized two statistical analyses, which were descriptive analysis and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) which allows for the assessment of the relationships specified in the hypotheses and the SEM was used to validate the theoretically driven model. The findings of the study supported the hypotheses of the study, which asserted that there were correlations between job-related stress and burnout, mobbing and burnout, and burnout and HRQoL. The CFA results established that job-related stress was positively and significantly associated with the burnout of TSRs, while perceived mobbing was positively and significantly related to the burnout of TSRs. Moreover, perceived HRQoL of TSRs was negatively associated with the burnout of TSRs. Further, the findings indicated that the relationship between job-related stress and burnout and the relationship between burnout and HRQoL of TSRs were statistically significant. Thus the variable had a positive effect on burnout and a negative effect on the HRQoL of TSRs. In summary, the findings of the study showed that results and propositions of the theoretical frameworks of the study and literature were consistent with one another.

This study examines the factors that facilitate and hinder the use of performance information by public administrators in local governments in Florida. Acknowledging the incompleteness of many theoretical and conceptual models in previous performance management studies and the absence of theory on the use of performance information; this study utilizes a grounded theory approach to develop and test a model analyzing the use of performance information. The research focuses on cities and counties, members of the Florida Benchmarking Consortium (FBC), and surveys public administrators whose tasks are related with the collection and/or reporting of performance information. The study examines three research questions: First, to what extent and in what capacity do local government administrators use performance information? Second, what are the predictors of the use of performance information among local government administrators? Finally, to what extent does the design adequacy of a performance measurement system (PMS), institutionalization of performance measurement (IPM), organizational support (OS), individual factors (IF) and external influences (EI) impact the use of performance information among local government administrators? To collect data on the above questions, an online survey was administrated to public administrators involved in the 2015-2016 FBC data collection cycle. The data were analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM). The results of the study demonstrate that institutionalization of performance measurement has the strongest statistically significant positive association with the use of performance information followed by the influence of the design adequacy of the performance measurement system. Organizational support, through institutionalization of performance measurement, has an indirect influence on the use of performance information. Interestingly, in this study individual factors were not found to be significantly associated with the use of performance information.

This study explored the relationship between Intimate Partner Violence and HIV Risk-Propensity in African-American women. Current literature on HIV reveals that one of the groups most seriously impacted by the continued scourge of HIV is African-American heterosexual women. An anonymous questionnaire was completed by a community based sample of 200 African American women with a varied history of intimate partner violence to (1) explore whether a relationship exists between Intimate Partner Violence and sexual coercion in African-American women (2) determine whether a relationship exists between sexual coercion and HIV Risk in African-American women (3) determine if the frequency of intimate partner violence impacts the HIV-risk of African-American Women (4) determine if the ability of African-American women to negotiate condom use is affected by being in a violent relationship, and (5) determine if there is a relationship between Intimate Partner Violence and increased HIV-risk propensity among African-American women. Various statistical techniques, including structural equation modeling (SEM), bivariate correlation analyses and ANOVA were used to examine the data. A strong positive correlation was found to exist between sexual coercion and Intimate Partner Violence. Specifically, the frequency of physical abuse, and feeling frightened by what a partner says or does were found to be highly correlated with sexual coercion. Moderate levels of correlation were also found between sexual coercion and frequency of being emotionally abused. Statistically significant regression weights indicate that when Intimate Partner Violence increases, sexual coercion also increases. Moderate and high correlations were also found between sexual coercion and ability to negotiate condom use. Statistically significant standardized regression weights indicate that as sexual coercion increases HIV Risk also increases. Moderate correlations also exist between being in a violent relationship and being able to negotiate condom use. Standardized regression weights reveal that as IPV increases HIV Risk also increases. The frequency of Intimate Partner Violence was also shown to impact the levels of sexual coercion, likelihood of having a partner with a STD, and the likelihood of have a partner who uses intravenous drugs. In the effort to fortify prevention strategies, and reduce the rates of HIV infection in African-American women, additional factors that impact disease transmission were discussed and suggestions for future research were made.

The cost of healthcare in the United States is on an upward trajectory towards an unsustainable level. In order to address this, Congress and the Obama Administration passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 to begin the process of controlling these costs. Within the ARRA is the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) section which creates financial incentives to invest in Health Information Technology (HIT) and to develop a means to measure the Meaningful Use of specific functions of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). This research examines the widely used Joint Commission datasets to determine their suitability as a basis of meeting the government mandated measuring of Meaningful Use. The datasets used for this study consists of hospital level performance measures with a sample size of 370 hospital samples of HIT Use Intensity and Cardiovascular Performance attained from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). An Organizational Network Theoretical approach was applied to the data in a non-experimental, sample-resample design to data collected in 2007. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) was built to test for the strength of the correlation between HIT Use Intensity and Cardiovascular Performance and a Latent Growth Curve Model (LGM) was built to examine the effect of the trajectory of HIT Use Intensity on the trajectory of Cardiovascular Performance. The SEM found a weak (.18) correlation between HIT Use Intensity and Cardiovascular Performance and the model only captured 12 percent of the variance. The LGM found no convergence between the trajectories of HIT Use Intensity and Cardiovascular Performance. This may have been the result of the data being non-normally distributed and heavily skewed to the high end of the scale. The policy implications of this study indicate that while Joint vi Commission data capture only a small amount of the variance attributed to HIT Use it does show a weak but positive correlation between increases in HIT Use Intensity and Increases in Cardiovascular Performance at the hospital level. Future research into adjustments to Joint Commission data measures (or others) may prove to be valuable in measuring the Meaningful Use of HIT systems in order to help hospitals make educated decisions on which HIT systems to purchase and the potential benefits associated with them.

Each year the number of uninsured individuals in the United States continues to grow. This unfortunate occurrence creates negative consequences for those who are uninsured, but also for those who are covered by health insurance plans. Through cost-shifting practices, hospitals and other healthcare organizations are increasing the cost of other healthcare services to help subsidize the care they must provide for those who cannot pay for that care. There have been attempts to solve this problem, but a successful solution has not been implemented. Rather than attempt to study the entire uninsured population, this study seeks to determine precisely why young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 are the largest segment of our population that does not purchase health insurance. Socioeconomic status, perceived health, cost, gender, race, and perceived need are all examined in order to determine what type of relationship each one has with a young adult's decision to purchase private health insurance. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze data obtained from the 2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. This study is unique because is includes latent variables and examines a variable that is not often included in health insurance studies that exist in the literature, perceived need. The results of the study indicate that being uninsured is largely a matter of having a higher socioeconomic status and being a non-minority. Perceived health, cost, gender, and perceived need were not shown to have a significant relationship with the dependent variable, private health insurance coverage.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has resulted in numerous civilian deaths, damage of transportation and power infrastructure, and forced millions of Ukrainians to seek safety, protection, and assistance abroad. The humanitarian crisis caused by war is beyond the normal capacity of any single agency, institution, or organization and requires collaboration and coordination of various public, private, and nonprofit organizations. Networks connect various organizations and agencies to share and accumulate resources, including financial, human, technological, knowledge, and information, necessary to respond to the changing and uncertain environment and to achieve goals that cannot be accomplished by a single organization. The collaboration of actors within a network is a crucial aspect for service delivery and assistance during the humanitarian crisis caused by war. Even though collaboration among network participants is desirable, the establishment of collaborative ties within the network remains a challenging task for various reasons. This study uses a mixed method approach to answer eight research questions: 1) What is the role of collaborative capacity within interorganizational networks? 2) How do organizations manage the process of collaboration in serving the impacted people in a constantly changing military environment? 3) What is the structure of the humanitarian response network in the response to the crisis caused by war in Ukraine? 4) What humanitarian response partners were involved and what were their roles and responsibilities? 5) What humanitarian response partners were involved and what were their roles and responsibilities? 6) What are the characteristics of the network aiming to respond to the humanitarian crisis? 7) How does network structure impact the collaborative capacity of an interorganizational network during a humanitarian crisis? 8) How do key environmental and organizational factors impact the collaborative capacity of a network during humanitarian crisis? Content analysis (n=229), social network analysis (SNA), and semi-structured interviews (n=14) were used to analyze network collaborative capacity in humanitarian response network in Ukraine. The findings suggest that the network collaborative capacity is influenced by common goals and shared visions, pre-existing ties and relationships between humanitarian response partners, organizational learning, and knowledge sharing. Power asymmetry can both facilitate and hinder network collaborative capacity. The strength of ties, communication, resource dependence, and environmental complexity were also found to play influential roles in building, developing and sustaining the network collaborative capacity. Powerful network members should consider developing better information system that reflects ongoing projects and allow participants to share data and report, and exchange ideas and feedback. Moreover, the efforts should be focused on involving Ukrainian nonprofit organizations in the response because currently they are excluded from the response due to the lack of experience and language barriers.

Previous research has demonstrated that judicial instructions on the law are not well understood by jurors tasked with applying the law to the facts of a case. The past research has also shown that jurors are often confused by the instructions used in the sentencing phase of a capital trial. Social scientists have used two different methods to improve juror understanding of legal instructions, psycholinguistic rewrites and bias-reduction techniques. Psycholinguistic rewrites of legal instructions have been shown consistently to improve juror comprehension of general legal instructions and instructions used in the sentencing phase of a capital trial, however, there has been a call in the literature to not only improve the clarity of judicial instructions but to address comprehension biases that interfere with jurors? ability to understand the instructions. Because a bias-reduction approach has received limited empirical testing and has never been tested on capital-sentencing instructions, this research sought to test the effectiveness of a bias-reduction approach with those instructions. Participants were randomly assigned to hear either Florida's pattern instructions used in the penalty phase of a capital trial or the same instructions with additional statements that mentioned and refuted biases thought to be associated with established areas of miscomprehension. After participants heard the judicial instructions, their understanding of the law on capital punishment decision-making was assessed. Additionally, the participants were asked to render a verdict in a hypothetical case. The results revealed that comprehension was higher for participants exposed to the bias-refutation statements than for participants who were exposed to only the pattern instructions. Among all participants, greater understanding of capital sentencing instructions was associated with an increased likelihood that mock jurors recommended a life sentence, but this observed association was not statistically significant when examining capital-juror eligible participants. The results of this study suggest that efforts should be undertaken to improve specific areas of Florida's capital sentencing instructions.

How well a local government is able to provide for the needs and preferences of its citizens generally depends on the financial resources available; and, how such resources are allocated, distributed, and managed. Demographics, size of local government, supply and age of infrastructure, financial position of the government, and the local economy represent a few of the factors affecting what public goods and services citizens prefer. Internal systems of accounting and control affect the allocation, distribution, and management of financial resources. As such, these internal systems significantly affect the provision of public goods and services. The research outlined in this study examined the relationship between a government's financial management capacity (independent variable) and its financial condition (dependent variable), while controlling for environmental factors related to governance and demographics. Financial condition was quantitatively measured using financial ratios calculated from a database of over 1,600 U.S. cities compiled by the Government Finance Officers Association. Financial management capacity and its relationship to financial condition were measured with a survey of the chief financial officers of almost 500 of the sample cities. This research was exploratory in nature as there is little empirical evidence with respect to financial management capacity or its relationship to overall financial condition. In this study certain statistically significant moderate correlations were found with respect to financial condition and financial management capacity. However, multiple regression analysis of financial condition and financial management capacity (controlling for governance and socio-economic factors), indicated no statistically significant relationship between them as conceptualized and operationalized for this study. When controlling for certain governance and socio-economic factors, annual limits on increases in assessed property valuations and population were found to be statistically significant with respect to financial condition. Additionally, these control variables increased and decreased financial condition, respectively. A major contribution made to the literature by this study lies in its attempt to establish an empirical relationship between financial management capacity and government performance as measured by financial condition. Based on existing literature as reviewed by this researcher, the testing of this relationship had not been done previously. This study defined and measured both financial management capacity and financial condition in dimensions and indicators that can be used in future research. Additionally, efforts were made to test the internal reliability of both measures. The results of this research indicated there are a number of other financial management capacity and environmental factors influencing financial condition beyond those identified in this study. This research also provided insight regarding the extent financial management capacity affects financial condition even though such relationships were not found to be statistically significant. Because no statistically significant relationships between financial condition and financial management capacity were found in this study, additional research is necessary to further explore this relationship as well as the correlation between the various indicators of these concepts.

The American system of governance includes a network of state and local units identified as either general purpose or special purpose governments. The latter are often aligned with, but operate independently of, general purpose governments. Even as these special purpose or special district governments have shown extraordinary growth relative to their general purpose counterparts, there has been little interest in them or the structural characteristics that distinguish their systems for maintaining order and assuring accountable behaviors. In the meanwhile, the literature regarding accountability has been expanded materially in the last several years leading to debates about its form, component parts, objectives, and the preferred means for achieving accountability as an end state. While these concepts may have application to special districts, inquiry has yet to extend to the particular devices required to monitor or control these governments. This research effort closes the knowledge gap by linking this little studied form of government with recent ideas about accountability and the role that citizen participation plays in developing or advancing accountable behaviors. The analysis applies an adaptation of the well known model developed by Romzek and Dubnick (1987) to create an accountability framework and documents the role that public participation plays in influencing accountable behaviors. The analysis culminates in a multivariate model that examines the role of pubic participation in the context of competing influences that might also force accountable behaviors. The research concludes that participation can be an important influence in shaping specific forms of accountable behavior but that other factors are also essential to sustaining accountability. Most notable among these other factors is the role of the workplace environment, defined here in terns of employee interaction, ethics training, purpose, overall sense of commitment and other attributes.