Pivot to Telehealth: Narrative Reflections on Circle of Security Parenting Groups during COVID‐19

In response to COVID‐19 hygiene and physical distancing restrictions, our service rapidly shifted to delivering Circle of Security‐Parenting? (COS‐P) groups via telehealth. In this article we report the perspectives and experiences of the group facilitator and the parents who received the intervention during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We use semi‐structured, qualitative interviews to explore the advantages, challenges, and positive impacts of the online parenting group from the perspectives of the group leader and the five group participants. Participants’ narrative reflections show that they were satisfied with the convenient and engaging online delivery of the program and would recommend it to other parents. Parents reported significant improvements in their parenting and greater awareness of their strengths and struggles. The online delivery of COS‐P resulted in more efficient service delivery, greater attendance rates, and adherence to the model. The stressors on the experienced facilitator, due to the abrupt transition and multiple technical and communication challenges, may have been mitigated by supervisor and collegial support, as well as careful preparation for herself and the participants. Future research should investigate the effectiveness of online versus face‐to‐face delivery of the intervention, including what works for whom.     

A new estimator of Kullback–Leibler information and its application in goodness of fit tests*

We propose here a general statistic for the goodness of fit test of statistical distributions. The proposed statistic is constructed based on an estimate of Kullback–Leibler information. The proposed test is consistent and the limiting distribution of the test statistic is derived. Then, the established results are used to introduce goodness of fit tests for the normal, exponential, Laplace and Weibull distributions. A simulation study is carried out for examining the power of the proposed test and to compare it with those of some existing procedures. Finally, some illustrative examples are presented and analysed, and concluding comments are made.     

A misspecification test for the higher order co-moments of the factor model

The traditional estimation of higher order co-moments of non-normal random variables by the sample analog of the expectation faces a curse of dimensionality, as the number of parameters increases steeply when the dimension increases. Imposing a factor structure on the process solves this problem; however, it leads to the challenging task of selecting an appropriate factor model. This paper contributes by proposing a test that exploits the following feature: when the factor model is correctly specified, the higher order co-moments of the unexplained return variation are sparse. It recommends a general to specific approach for selecting the factor model by choosing the most parsimonious specification for which the sparsity assumption is satisfied. This approach uses a Wald or Gumbel test statistic for testing the joint statistical significance of the co-moments that are zero when the factor model is correctly specified. The asymptotic distribution of the test is derived. An extensive simulation study confirms the good finite sample properties of the approach. This paper illustrates the practical usefulness of factor selection on daily returns of random subsets of S&P 100 constituents.     

Work-related factors associated with psychological distress among social workers

The current study assesses the association between several work-related factors and psychological distress among social workers (SWs) in Israel. The data were collected through structured questionnaires, administered to a sample of 494 SWs. The findings suggest that most of the examined work-related factors (namely, years of professional experience, personal work-related subjection to violence, burnout, compassion fatigue, and sense of coherence), with the exception of compassion satisfaction, significantly predicted psychological distress among SWs. The conclusion is that it is important to embed within the social work practice strategies for reducing sources of psychological distress (job demands) and increasing material, professional, and personal resources. Reducing the levels of psychological distress experienced by SWs will benefit not only themselves, but also their families and colleagues, as well as their clients. Moreover, this has potential benefits for the social work profession and for the general community.     

民族互嵌式社区居民公共服务幸福感指标体系的构建

构建相互嵌入式社会结构和社区环境，是铸牢中华民族共同体意识，推动多民族社区治理的重要途径。由于多元文化的碰撞交融，社区内部张力扩大，民族互嵌式社区的治理在一定程度上存在着多民族融合表面化、社区共同体意识淡薄等一系列问题。论文结合社会系统论、社区治理论的相关原理，厘清民族互嵌式社区的内涵，提出民族互嵌式社区居民公共服务幸福感指标体系的构想。通过差异化选址、探索性因素分析，形成影响居民公共服务幸福感的社区融合、社区治理、社区文化建设、社会医疗、社区教育五个维度及指标体系，为有效评价民族互嵌式社区公共服务提供借鉴。     

Analysis of nonlinear state space model with dependent measurement noises

This paper presents a nonlinear state space model with considering a first-order autoregressive model for measurement noises. A recursive method using Taylor series based approximations for filtering, prediction and smoothing problem of hidden states from the noisy observations is designed. Also, an expectation-maximization algorithm for calculating the maximum likelihood estimators of parameters is presented. The closed form solutions are obtained for estimating of the hidden states and the unknown parameters. Finally, the performance of the designed methods are verified in a simulation study.     

The Mediated Amplification of a Crisis: Communicating the A/H1N1 Pandemic in Press Releases and Press Coverage in Europe

In the aftermath of the A/H1N1 pandemic, health authorities were criticized for failures in crisis communication efforts, and the media were accused of amplifying the pandemic. Considering these criticisms, A/H1N1 provides a suitable case for examining risk amplification processes that may occur in the transfer of information from press releases to print news media during a health crisis. We integrated the social amplification of risk framework with theories of news decisions (news values, framing) in an attempt to contribute to existing research both theoretically and empirically. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of press releases disseminated by health and governmental authorities, as well as the quality and tabloid press in 10 European countries between March 2009 and March 2011. Altogether 243 press releases, 1,243 quality press articles, and 834 tabloid press articles were coded. Consistent with research on news values and framing the results suggest that quality and tabloid papers alike amplified A/H1N1 risks by emphasizing conflict and damage, presenting information in a more dramatized way, and using risk‐amplifying frames to a greater extent and risk‐attenuating frames to a lesser extent than press releases. To some extent, the quality and tabloid press differed in how risk information was presented. While tabloid press articles seemed to follow the leading quality press with regards to content and framing of health crisis coverage, they exhibited a stronger emphasis on drama and emotion in the way they presented information.     

信息碎片化时代新媒体在高校主流价值维护中的运用——以民族高校官方微信为例

信息碎片化的时代，新媒体成为形塑学生世界观的重要工具。民族高校经以学校官方微信为龙头的新媒体宣传矩阵，从新媒体工作意识、运行机制、品牌竞争角度形成了成熟的工作机制，通过面向主体诉求的选题、高效的传播形式设计、交互传播方式选择，获得了新的话语优势。民族高校将新媒体建设导向思政工作，使新媒体的传播力变成一种教育力。新媒体通过提供一个合适的议题，让学生在参与议题的过程中去认识问题，由议程设置引导主流价值观形成。民族高校的新媒体依靠塑造共同体意识，对群体成员的价值观和行为形成约束力，使得主流价值得以巩固，学生的媒介素养得以提升，学生在面向复杂环境时，具备了更强的鉴别能力，在维护主流价值观时更加坚定。     

滇藏缅印交角区泰-傣诸族群的迁徙流动及族际关系研究述论

关于泰-傣诸族群的问题，国内外学者已有了百余年的研究，主要侧重于环东南沿海直至与云南、东南亚相连接区域，且国别区隔明显。对于滇藏缅印交角地区泰-傣诸族群的研究，尚未得见系统、整体性的成果面世。本文拟围绕涉及该交角区泰-傣诸族群的族源、迁徙流动及族际关系等三个方面的零散研究进行梳理并加以评述，以期从整体联动性的视野对泰-傣诸族群在滇藏缅印交角区的研究空间做进一步深入拓展，同时，针对后续研究提出建议：族源问题有待进一步廓清；以地缘政治及文明交汇区域为整体历史背景的长时段探究有待开启；相关文献资料的搜集、翻译和整理有待深化；小尺度地域空间的微观研究有待推进；开展多学科交叉的综合研究。     

Toward Probabilistic Prediction of Flash Flood Human Impacts

This article focuses on conceptual and methodological developments allowing the integration of physical and social dynamics leading to model forecasts of circumstance‐specific human losses during a flash flood. To reach this objective, a random forest classifier is applied to assess the likelihood of fatality occurrence for a given circumstance as a function of representative indicators. Here, vehicle‐related circumstance is chosen as the literature indicates that most fatalities from flash flooding fall in this category. A database of flash flood events, with and without human losses from 2001 to 2011 in the United States, is supplemented with other variables describing the storm event, the spatial distribution of the sensitive characteristics of the exposed population, and built environment at the county level. The catastrophic flash floods of May 2015 in the states of Texas and Oklahoma are used as a case study to map the dynamics of the estimated probabilistic human risk on a daily scale. The results indicate the importance of time‐ and space‐dependent human vulnerability and risk assessment for short‐fuse flood events. The need for more systematic human impact data collection is also highlighted to advance impact‐based predictive models for flash flood casualties using machine‐learning approaches in the future.