Aims• To determine whether a basic set of Pilates exercises improves the efficiency of load transfer through the pelvis • To compare the effects on chronic, mild low back pain (LBP) symptoms of three slightly different Pilates based regimes MethodsA between subjects equivalent group experimental design was used -Independent variable: type of exercise training (three groups) -Dependent variables: efficient load transfer through the pelvis as measured by the stork test in weight bearing; low back pain symptoms At entry, to establish baseline values, subjects completed an Oswestry DisabilityQuestionnaire and recorded the frequency, intensity and duration of their back pain in an average week. Also, a Stork test was recorded.Thirty-nine volunteers with mild chronic low back pain (CLBP) were taught four Pilates based exercises before being randomly allocated to one of three groups for the addition of other interventions.• Groups A received four basic exercises• Groups B and C received an additional relaxation posture using a specific spinal support • Group C received an additional postural training exercise Exercises were performed three times per week for six weeks and recording was done once per week for eight weeks. For each of the eight weeks, subjects recorded frequency, intensity and duration of back pain ii At the final assessment, subjects completed another Oswestry Disability Questionnaire, returned their recording sheets, had a stork test recorded and their exercises checked. Results Oswestry Disability QuestionnairePre and post comparison of answers showed only one statistically significant improvement among subject groups. This was for question one, 'Do you have back pain at present?' where Group B reported significantly less pain post program compared with pre program (Wilcoxon, z=-2.496, p=0.013). Number of days of painGroup B experienced a statistically significant reduction in the number of days of pain between Week 1 and Weeks 6 to 8 (F 7,84 =6.4, p=0.0001). Post hoc analysis using Scheffé showed significant differences between Week 1 and Weeks 6, 7 and 8 and between Week 2 and Week 8 (p<0.05). There were statistically significant differences by week within Group C (F 7,77 =3.29, p=0.0041), but they only show up with Fisher (p<0.05) and they were between Week 1 and Weeks 6, 7 and 8, Week 2 and Weeks 6, 7 and 8, Week 3 and Weeks 6 and 7 and between Week 4 and Week 7.Some of the improvements were lost once exercising ceased at the end of week 6 Duration of back pain episodesAll groups experienced a reduction in the mean length of the shortest, longest and average pain episodes. At week eight all groups had subjects who were pain free (Group A: 7.7%, Group B: 30.8%, Group C: 25%) and in Group B, no subjects reported pain episodes longer than six hours. However, differences were not statistically significant for the duration of this study.Some of the improvements were lost once exercising ceased at the end of week 6iii Intensity of pain across all lengths of pain episodes While, all groups exper...

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The findings suggest that a major contribution to the low levels of inter- and intrapractitioner agreements stems from inadequate operational definitions of both the tongue characteristics studied and of the inspection regions of the tongue.

IntroductionIn recent years Australian business organizations have increasingly followed the trend in the USA and the UK to adopt codes of ethics. The actual proportion of companies in each country tends to be a matter of some disagreement. For example, in the USA, Davis[1] has stated that "more than 200 of the Fortune 500 now have a code of ethics", while Murphy[2] has written "Ninety percent of Fortune 500 firms, and almost half of all other firms, have ethical codes". Sweeney and Siers [3] have reported the frequency of codes as 56 per cent for all companies of net worth in excess of $5 million in their sample. Schlegelmilch and Houston[4] report a 42 per cent presence of codes in their survey of the top 200 companies listed in The Times Top 1,000 in the UK. This was based on a completed survey return of 37 per cent.In 1992, the Ethics Research Group in the School of Accounting at the University of Technology, Sydney commenced a programme of broad based research investigations into ethical codes and culture among Australian enterprises. Three areas of study have been undertaken, with this article reporting findings from the first two.The first study established the extent to which codes of ethics have been adopted by these enterprises. Likelihood of code adoption was investigated in relation to such variables as organization type (public, private, government owned, foreign corporation), size, income and major activity sector.The second study was concerned with the actual nature of the content of the codes to determine the level of their ethical content and whether codes were being designed to provide high level guidance on corporate values in ethical issues rather than law based and predetermined resolution of what should be handled as moral dilemmas.The third study involved a postal survey of all the enterprises identified in the first study as having a code of ethics either in situ or in preparation. The purpose was to determine the extent to which enterprises have established a comprehensive approach towards the development of a corporate ethical culture and the degree to which codes of ethics have been integrated into the mainstream processes of the enterprise. Factors investigated included code authorship, policies of revision, extent of involvement of employees, promulgation of the code and evidence of training in ethics and other ethical initiatives.

The use of the radial pulse as a diagnostic tool is an integral part of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) patient evaluation. In spite of its long history of use, there is little systematic information available to support the many claims about the relationship between pulse qualities and physiological condition contained in the ancient Chinese texts and echoed in modern pulse terminology. This study reports the development of a reliable means of measuring and recording pulse characteristics. This was achieved by reporting on the physical sensations that are detected under the fingertips when the radial pulse is palpated, rather than attempting to translate these into the complex and typically ambiguously defined TCM pulse qualities. The study involved development of a standardised pulse taking procedure and development of concrete operational definitions for each of the characteristics of the pulse being measured. The inter-rater reliability of the pulse taking procedure and operational definitions was assessed by determining agreement levels between two independent pulse assessors for each characteristic. Inter-rater agreement averaged 80% between the two assessors in both the initial data collection (66 subjects) and in a replication collection (30 subjects) completed two months later. Demonstrating reliability of the procedure represents an essential first step for examining the validity of TCM pulse diagnosis assumptions.

The paper identifies in the literature two categories of codes of ethics, inspirational and prescriptive, and introduces new classification categories of allodial and decretal. The first classification is based on the identity of the ethics decision‐maker – the authors or the addressees of codes. The second classification is based on whether operational definitions are applied by the codes. Such concrete definitions may be in the rules themselves, in related documents or be known from shared knowledge. The second classification has importance if national associations of accountants use codes as a means for assurance of specific outcomes of defined ethical behaviours. For the study, a survey of 57 codes of ethics issued by national associations of professional accountants was undertaken to determine the basic features of codes and to analyse their content. The areas of ethical concern in national associations were identified and compared to the IFAC model code for professional accountants. The paper reports that national organisations of accountants have promulgated decretal codes in 96% of cases examined. As these codes contain operational definitions, their outcomes can be scientifically measured and sanctions for breaches fairly and reasonably imposed.

The paper investigates the effectiveness of codes of ethics to influence the behaviour of employees. Vignettes are not part of the methodology as the core data come from the direct observations of behaviours reported by 25 top managers and 545 employees from eight large Australian enterprises. One aim of the research is to measure the consistency of the observed behavioural patterns among employees and to investigate the possible association of high consistency with particular ethics strategies. The research models are based on medians and tallies of percentage frequencies of behavioural patterns. Two matters of importance are concluded from the investigation. First, there is no discernible association between the consistency ratings of the enterprises and their particular strategies in ethics. Second, the analysis suggests that the strongest ethical culture affecting behaviour in the respondents comes from an external, shared source.

The quantification of TCM patterns in this study permitted statistical evaluation of TCM pattern change. Previously, TCM pattern identification had only been used as a basis for developing the treatment protocol in clinical trials. This is the first time it has been employed as a novel outcome measure.