Licensure

Firearms were associated with 30, 136 deaths in the United States in 2003. Most guns are initially sold to the public through a network of retail dealers. Licensed firearm dealers are an important source of guns for criminals and gun traffickers. Just one percent of licensed dealers were responsible for more than half of all guns traced to crime. Federal law makes it difficult for ATF to inspect and revoke the licenses of problem gun dealers. State licensing systems, however, are a greatly under-explored opportunity for firearm dealer oversight. We identify and categorize these state systems to identify opportunities for interventions to prevent problem dealers from supplying guns to criminals, juveniles, or gun traffickers. Just seventeen states license gun dealers. Twenty-three states permit routine inspections of dealers but only two mandate that those inspections occur on a regular basis. Twenty-six states impose record-keeping requirements for gun sales. Only thirteen states require some form of store security measures to minimize firearm theft. We conclude with recommendations for a comprehensive system of state licensing and oversight of gun dealers. Our findings can be useful for the coalition of more than fifty U.S. mayors that recently announced it would work together to combat illegal gun trafficking.

The licensing of provincial surgeons and physicians in the post-Restoration period has proved an awkward subject for medical historians. It has divided writers between those who regard the possession of a local licence as a mark of professionalism or proficiency, those who see the existence of diocesan licences as a mark of an essentially unregulated and decentralized trade, and those who discount the distinction of licensing in assessing medical expertise availability in a given region. Such a diversity of interpretations has meant that the very descriptors by which practitioners were known to their contemporaries (and are referred to by historians) have become fragmented and difficult to use without a specific context. As David Harley has pointed out in his study of licensed physicians in the north-west of England, “historians often define eighteenth-century physicians as men with medical degrees, thus ignoring … the many licensed physicians throughout the country”. One could simi...

The US has had a very successful model for facilitating the translation of a basic discovery to a commercial application. The success of the model has hinged on providing clarity on ownership of a discovery, facilitating the licensing process, providing adequate incentive to the inventors, and developing a self-sustaining model for reinvestment. In recent years, technological, political, and regulatory changes have put strains on this model and in some cases have hindered progress rather than facilitated it. This is particularly true for the nascent field of regenerative medicine. To illustrate this, I will describe the contributing practices of several different entities, including universities, repositories, patent trolls, and service providers. It is my hope that the scientific community will be motivated to coordinate efforts against these obstacles to translation.

I discuss the predicament that engineering-ethics education in Japan now faces and propose a solution to this. The predicament is professional motivation, i.e., the problem of how to motivate engineering students to maintain their professional integrity. The special professional responsibilities of engineers are often explained either as an implicit social contract between the profession and society (the “social-contract” view), or as requirements for membership in the profession (the “membership-requirement” view). However, there are empirical data that suggest that such views will not do in Japan, and this is the predicament that confronts us. In this country, the profession of engineering did not exist 10 years ago and is still quite underdeveloped. Engineers in this country do not have privileges, high income, or high social status. Under such conditions, neither the social-contract view nor the membership-requirement view is convincing. As an alternative approach that might work in Japan, I propose a pride-based view. The notion of pride has been analyzed in the virtue-ethics literature, but the full potential of this notion has not been explored. Unlike other kinds of pride, professional pride can directly benefit the general public by motivating engineers to do excellent work even without social rewards, since being proud of themselves is already a reward. My proposal is to foster a particular kind of professional pride associated with the importance of professional services in society, as the motivational basis for professional integrity. There is evidence to suggest that this model works.

Clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) serve as gatekeepers in the quest to fill organ donor registries. Most people who join organ donor registries do so through their local driver's license bureau. To improve knowledge, attitudes, and behavior toward organ donation among DMV clerks, and to improve strategies for communicating with the public about organ donation, resulting in more people joining DMV-based organ donor registries. DMV offices in 8 counties in a southern state. A general survey of 1504 participants in 8 counties was conducted to assess knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward organ donation. All 76 DMV clerks in those counties participated in surveys before and after a training intervention. DMV clerks received a 1-hour training intervention focused on the nature of the new organ donor registry, information about organ donation, and communication strategies for interacting with the public. Knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and behavio...

Chiropractic is now more than a century old, and it is licensed throughout the United States and Canada and recognized in more than 60 countries worldwide. Doctors of Chiropractic receive training that is focused on the treatment of NMS conditions through manual and physical procedures, such as manipulation, massage, exercise, and nutrition. Most patients present to chiropractors with low back pain, neck pain, whiplash, and headaches. Numerous studies and expert panel reviews have supported the use of chiropractic and manipulation for these complaints. Satisfaction with chiropractic care for low back pain typically is good. Chiropractic, in general, offers safe and cost-effective procedures for selected musculoskeletal problems.

Turnover of licensed nursing staff in long-term care (LTC) settings (e.g., nursing homes) is a mounting concern and is associated with poor quality of care and low staff morale. Retention and turnover research in LTC have focused primarily on direct care workers (i.e., nurse aides) leaving the issues largely unexplored for licensed nursing staff (i.e., registered nurses and licensed practical nurses). The main objective of this study was to understand factors that influence nurses' intentions to remain employed at their current job. Qualitative descriptive study. Seven nursing homes in Ontario, Canada. A convenience sample of forty-one licensed LTC nurses. Data were collected through focus groups conducted at each of the participating nursing homes. Focus group discussions were transcribed verbatim. Directed content analysis was used to identify and develop themes. Work conditions were a salient element affecting nurses' intention to stay and included impact of regulations o...

Among married couples, partners often have similar characteristics and behaviors. Among individuals who smoke cigarettes, it is not uncommon for them to have a partner who also smokes. In fact, having a partner who smokes can influence the spouse’s initiation of smoking, or return to smoking after a previous quit attempt. Additionally, it is possible that a nonsmoking partner can influence his/her spouse to stop smoking. Participants for this research are from a community sample of couples in the United States. They were recruited at the time they applied for their marriage license and followed through to their second wedding anniversary. Logistic regression models, controlling for demographics, were utilized to determine if a partner’s smoking status predicted smoking initiation or relapse over the early years of marriage. Overall, there was some support that a partner’s smoking status did influence the other’s smoking, although more support was found for spousal influence on relapse than cessation. There was more support for husband’s influence compared to wife’s influence, nonsmoking wives were more likely to resume smoking in the early years of their marriage if their partners were smokers. Wive’s smoking, however, did not predict husband initiation of smoking. These findings suggest that during the transition into marriage, spouses do influence their partners’ behaviors. In particular, women are more likely to resume smoking, or return to smoking if their partners smoke.

Licensure examination for teachers (LET) is the major requirement of teachers in the Philippines before practicing teaching profession. As such, it is imperative to monitor necessary parameters to increase passing percentage of teachers in LET. This study attempted to examine the relationship between performance in pre-LET and LET of 71 elementary education (BEEd) and 127 secondary education (BSEd) graduates in one university in the Philippines. Individual and aggregated data were secured from the college of teacher education dean’s office and Professional regulations commission (PRC). Using the descriptive-correlation method of research, this study presented the null hypothesis that pre-licensure is not a predictor of LET results. Findings showed that there is a notable relationship between the pre-LET and LET examination performances. Using linear regression analysis, ratings attained by the graduates in pre-LET can predict the performance in LET with higher level of confidence. T...

This article examines violence in legalized brothels in Nevada. Debates over prostitution policies in the United States have long focused on questions of safety and risk. These discourses inevitably invoke the coupling of violence and prostitution, though systematic examinations of the relationship between the two are sparse. This article explores the issue of violence in the Nevada brothel industry. By drawing on interviews with prostitutes, managers, and policy makers, this article examines both prostitutes’ perceptions of safety and risk and brothel managers’ practices designed to mitigate violence. Discourses relate to three types of violence: interpersonal violence against prostitutes, violence against community order, and sexually transmitted diseases as violence. The authors conclude by arguing that the legalization of prostitution brings a level of public scrutiny, official regulation, and bureaucratization to brothels that decreases the risk of these 3 types of systematic v...