Monogamy on trial

Part II concludes the historical discussion of monogamy and its alternatives. From the Colonial period on, cohabitation, common-law marriage, singlehood, and communal experimentation existed on the American frontier, but romantic monogamy replaced patriarchal monogamy as the predominant lifestyle. The Enlightenment emphasis uponindividual freedom (which also contributed to the creation of the democratic family), the rise of the Purity Crusade, and easy divorce contributed to the decline of traditional monogamy and the rise of a more flexible form currently described as sequential polygamy or serial monogamy. In future times, individuals may vary their lifestyles as they move through their life spans.     

Monogamy on trial

A discussion of the origins and subsequent developments of attitudes toward monogamy and its alternatives reveals marked variations and some similarities. A range of specific factors have impinged upon norms of intimacy in various historical periods, e.g., the Medieval Church stressed the ideal of celibacy and derogated monogamy. While external factors such as economics and religion tend to influence lifestyle preferences to produce noncumulative effects, there has been a more recent tendency toward democratization of options. Those patterns most closely associated with elite populations tend to be eventually adopted in an altered fashion by broader sectors of the populace. Author's Note: Special appreciation is due Ms. Molly Laird. Her constructive assistance has been a major factor in the preparation of this article. The chart which appears as Figure 1 is her reconstruction of salient elements contained within the body of the paper.     

Sublocade trial data published: Better than placebo

Sublocade, a buprenorphine injection that lasts a month, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of opioid use disorder more than a year ago (see ADAW, Dec. 11, 2017), but the data that led to the approval was not public. It was made public in an article by Sublocade manufacturer Indivior published Feb. 18 in The Lancet.     

Worksite e-mail health promotion trial: Early lessons

In preparation for an electronic mail (e-mail) and web-based health promotion intervention across multiple worksites, secure, regulatory-compliant, user-friendly e-mail and Internet applications were used to recruit potential participants across worksites, to enroll participants, and to collect baseline health assessment data. Specific hardware and software information technology environments were required of the 19 participating worksites. Sequential e-mails introduced the study and invited participation. Twenty-four percent of all employees (1106 of approximately 4600) provided consent. E-mail delivered a web link for the baseline study assessment, and reminder e-mails were sent to prompt completion. Of those who consented, 888 (80%) completed baseline health and behavior data surveys. An HTML-native web survey software was more stable across computing environments. Using e-mail and web assessment, this research recruited, enrolled, and collected data from more than 850 participants. Technical and operational challenges emerged at each step. Solutions and recommendations are discussed. Overall, this experience suggests that the use of e-mail and web software can facilitate recruitment, enrollment, and data acquisition through direct contact with study participants. This experience yields a series of lessons learned for using e-mail and the Internet to support multi-site trials.     

A randomized field trial in Oakland, California

This study evaluates the impact of a civil remedy program (Beat Health) on drug and disorder problems under experimental field trial conditions. Using calls for service data, the authors find statistically significant differences between the control and experimental groups, when drug problem calls prior to the start of the intervention were compared to drug calls during a 12-month follow-up period. The Beat Health sites, especially the residential sites, improved relative to the control sites. By contrast, the control treatment (patrol response) led to significant increases in drug problems, particularly at the commercial properties included in this study. The authors also examined the spatial influences of the Beat Health and patrol responses in catchment areas surrounding each of the 100 study sites. The results show some improvement in the experimental residential sites. The authors found, however, a possible displacement of drug problems in and around both the commercial experimental and control sites. They show that the displacement effect is most notable in the commercial control sites.     

The Child Well-Being Scales: a field trial.

The Child Well-Being Scales [Magura and Moses 1986] were developed to evaluate programs of child welfare services. Although appealing in format, the scales have lacked adequate validation. For the field trial reported here, 17 of the scales were extracted and used to form measures of physical and psychological care of children. A comparison between families identified as neglectful and low-income control families yielded differences in the predicted direction. The composite indices showed good internal consistency. The concurrent validity of this segment of the scales was supported. The scales yielded three factors that reliably classified families externally verified as neglectful and nonneglectful control families.     

试论乡镇企业的发展趋势

提起乡镇企业,它满载着辉煌。然而,在发展的历程中,它也遇上了无数的障碍,经历了诸如“一次创业”、“二次创业”的历史闯关。乡镇企业的传统优势本来是机制灵活,“船小好调头”,然而,随着卖方市场向买方市场的转变,高新技术产业化进程的加快,经济全球化和竞争国际化趋势的增强,乡镇企业不仅受到我国传统农业和现代工业的双重压力,而且也受到自身活力衰减和技术落后的双重困扰。近年来出现了发展速度减慢、出口增幅下降、吸纳劳动力速度放慢等亟需解决的问题。此时,社会上出现了诸如“改名论”、“过时论”、“脱农论”、“替代论”和“假冒…     

Sociologists on trial: Theoretical competition and juror reasoning

This paper examines the work of sociologists as expert witnesses and how sociological theory is used in criminal trials. The study describes how alternative sociological theories were propounded by sociologist expert witnesses and used by competing lawyers to establish the correct understanding of the case. The paper indicates that the sociological testimony was relevant to the deliberations and verdicts and details how the judge’s and jurors’ practical treatment of the law and evidence reconciled the adversaries’ mutually exclusive, partisan positions and the theoretical bases for those positions.     

Randomized trial of the healthy families Arizona home visiting program

The purpose of this paper was to examine the effectiveness of home visiting as a means of improving parental, child, and maternal outcomes and preventing child abuse and neglect. A randomized controlled trial was conducted in a large southwestern metropolitan area. One hundred and ninety-five women were randomly assigned to the Healthy Families Arizona experimental or control conditions. Significant results favoring the experimental group in contrast to the control group were found on some measures in each of five domains including violent parenting behavior, parenting attitudes and practices, parenting support, mental health and coping, and maternal outcomes.     

Randomized controlled trial of the Marriage Checkup: Stress outcomes

Several couple interventions targeting relationship distress also show beneficial effects on individual mental health. Yet, strikingly few studies report effects on perceived stress. This study examined the effects of a brief couple intervention, the Marriage Checkup (MC), on perceived stress. We randomly assigned 231 couples to receive two MCs (Weeks 7 and 51) or to a waitlist control. Survey data were collected at seven time points over 2 years and analyzed using multilevel models. We found no significant between-group treatment effects on average stress at any time point. However, women, but not men, in the intervention group experienced decreased stress after the second MC (d = −0.23) and more women in the intervention group (26.5%) compared with the control group (14.9%) experienced reliable improvements in stress after the second MC. Overall, the MC did not result in main effects on stress but caused temporary reliable change in terms of stress relief for women.     

Development and pilot trial of a web-based job placement information network

The purpose of this project was to develop and pilot a web-based job placement information network aiming at enhancing the work trial and job placement opportunities of people with disabilities (PWD). Efficient uses of information technology in vocational rehabilitation were suggested to help improve PWD employment opportunities and thus enable them to contribute as responsible citizens to the society. In this preliminary study, a web-based employer network was so developed to explore Hong Kong employers' needs and intentions in employing PWD. The results indicated that Hong Kong employers generally agreed to arrange work trials for PWD whose work abilities match job requirements. They also expressed that they would offer permanent job placements to those PWD who showed satisfactory performance in work trials. The present study evidenced that using an information network could expedite communications between employers and job placement services, and thus job placement service outcomes. It is hoped that a job placement databank could thus be developed through accumulating responses from potential employers.     

Juror perceptions of child eyewitness testimony in a sexual abuse trial

A mock child sexual abuse trial was used to study juror perceptions of child eyewitnesses. The child's age (5, 11, or 16) and level of involvement (victim or bystander) were varied across conditions in order to test their impact on juror perceptions and verdict. Results indicated a significant effect of level of involvement on the verdict; defendants in trials involving a bystander witness received higher guilt ratings than defendants in trials with a victim-witness. In addition, jurors perceived the child's eyewitness testimony to be more believable when the child was younger. Implications for the impact of these findings on real-life child sexual abuse cases are discussed.