"Written All Over With Money" Earning, Spending, and Emotion in the Alcott Family

Abstract The article explores the nature and symbolism of money within familial relationships and the effect of close personal ties on money use in the example of the Alcott family. The historical moment is interesting precisely because many of the oppositions between money and sentiment, intimate and financial bonds were newly formulated in the 19th century. The Alcott family is an interesting case study because they articulated and documented both cultural understandings and actual practices concerning work, money, and emotions. Georg Simmel, Viviana Zelizer, and James Carrier's work inform the theoretical framework for this project.     

The Romance of Surrogacy1

This article seeks to demonstrate and analyze the cultural and emotional work surrogate mothers collectively engage in on the largest surrogacy support website, http://www.surromomsonline.com . Surrogate mothers’ online stories and discussions frame contract surrogacy as a “labor of love.” Women often describe their surrogacy as a “journey” of shared love; they hope for a lasting relationship with the couple they carry for. This article explores how the language of love, learned and internalized through online communication with other surrogates, creates both a cultural conceptualization of surrogacy and a ground for action. Love and altruistic giving are consistent with close interpersonal rather than market relationships; surrogates hope for a long‐term friendship with their couple. Surrogacy journeys, however, not infrequently end in disappointment; surrogates feel betrayed when couples cut ties. As a result of collective learning, surrogates’ discussions increasingly articulate the position that love, even when unreciprocated, can lead to repeated giving; love is noble and ennobling. Surrogates find appreciation and support in their online surrogacy community where they agree that giving life is a moral good. This stance has contributed to a renewed enthusiasm to bear children for others.     

The four-dimensional symptom questionnaire (4DSQ): measuring distress and other mental health problems in a working population

In non-clinical (working) populations it is important to differentiate between general distress, on the one hand, and psychiatric symptoms—depression, anxiety and somatization—on the other hand. The Four-Dimensional Symptom Questionnaire (4DSQ) is a new instrument that measures these four symptom dimensions (Terluin, ). This study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the 4DSQ in a working population. A postal stress and health survey was sent to all employees of a Dutch telecom company, 51% of whom responded (N=3852). The mailing included the 4DSQ, a set of questionnaires concerning job stress (e.g. psychological demands), coping style (e.g. problem-focused coping, avoidant coping), and indicators of strain (e.g. emotional exhaustion, fatigue). Cronbach's α for the four sub-scales of the 4DSQ ranged from .79 to .90. Factor analysis showed four factors corresponding to the four scales of the 4DSQ: distress, depression, anxiety, and somatization. The validity of the 4DSQ was assessed using (partial) correlations with job stress, coping, and strain. As expected, the distress scale showed the strongest correlations with the indicators of strain, as well as with job stress and coping. In conclusion, the 4DSQ is a reliable and valid instrument that can be used in a working population to distinguish between stress-related symptoms and psychiatric illness.     

Monotonicity in Condorcet’s Jury Theorem with dependent voters

Condorcet’s Jury Theorem (CJT) provides a theoretical basis of public choice theory and political science. This paper provides an extension of CJT for random subcommittees consisting of dependent heterogeneous experts. Necessary and sufficient conditions for beneficial augmentation (reduction) of the size of a random subcommittee are provided. These results are applied in several dependency models.     

Patients with Minor Mental Disorders Leading to Sickness Absence: A Feasibility Study for Social Workers' Participation in a Treatment Programme

Minor mental disorders are common among patients who visit theirgeneral practitioner. In the Netherlands, they are associatedwith high costs due to absenteeism, disability benefits andmedical consumption (consumption of drugs as well as expenditureof medical staff’s time). In the Netherlands, a protocolwas developed for the treatment of minor mental disorders, basedon the principles of brief cognitive behaviour therapy. Thecost-effectiveness of this protocol was tested in a group ofpatients whose minor mental disorders had lead to sickness absence.The protocol was completed by Dutch social workers, one of whosecore tasks normally is to provide psychosocial care. The mainaims of the protocol are for the patient to regain functionalityand to prevent long-term disability. The protocol emphasizespatients’ own responsibility and active role in the recoveryprocess, includes homework assignments and stresses the importanceof early work resumption. This article focuses on a discussionof the feasibility of this treatment for minor mental disorders.The evidence for or against the protocol’s cost-effectivenesswill be discussed in future papers. The results show that patients,social workers and general practitioners were motivated to participateand that the protocol was well received by all three groups.If the treatment also proves to be cost-effective, it wouldappear to be a promising intervention for a frequently encounteredproblem in primary care.     

When is Condorcet's Jury Theorem valid?

Existing proofs of Condorcet's Jury Theorem formulate only sufficient conditions for its validity. This paper provides necessary and sufficient conditions for Condorcet's Jury Theorem. The framework of the analysis is the case of heterogeneous decisional competence, but the independence assumption is maintained. Received: 23 January 1997/Accepted: 8 March 1997     

The evolutionary significance of wing dimorphism in carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

A review of data on the background of wing dimorphism in carabid beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and especially of the closely relatedCalathus cinctus andC. melanocephalus is given. In bothCalathus species wing dimorphism is inherited in a simple Mendelian fashion with the brachypterous condition dominant, but inC. melanocephalus the expression of the long winged genotype is under environmental control as well. The development of long winged phenotypes in the latter species is favoured by relatively favourable environmental conditions, such as high temperatures and a high food-supply. The higher fecundity of the larger and heavier long winged females of both species may compensate for losses of long winged phenotypes by flight activities. The evolutionary significance of both types of inheritance is discussed in relation to dispersal. The ‘fixed type’ as found inC. cinctus is considered an opportunistic short term ‘between sites strategy’, whereas the ‘dynamic type’ ofC. melanocephalus represents a flexible long term ‘within sites strategy’.     

Monotonicity in Condorcet Jury Theorem

Consider a committee of experts dealing with dichotomous choice problem, where the correctness probabilities are all greater than We prove that, if a random subcommittee of odd size m is selected randomly, and entrusted to make a decision by majority vote, its probability of deciding correctly increases with m. This includes a result of Ben-Yashar and Paroush (2000), who proved that a random subcommittee of size m3 is preferable to a random single expert.Research supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation (Grant\#186/01)