Response‐adaptive designs for binary responses: How to offer patient benefit while being robust to time trends?

Response‐adaptive randomisation (RAR) can considerably improve the chances of a successful treatment outcome for patients in a clinical trial by skewing the allocation probability towards better performing treatments as data accumulates. There is considerable interest in using RAR designs in drug development for rare diseases, where traditional designs are not either feasible or ethically questionable. In this paper, we discuss and address a major criticism levelled at RAR: namely, type I error inflation due to an unknown time trend over the course of the trial. The most common cause of this phenomenon is changes in the characteristics of recruited patients—referred to as patient drift. This is a realistic concern for clinical trials in rare diseases due to their lengthly accrual rate. We compute the type I error inflation as a function of the time trend magnitude to determine in which contexts the problem is most exacerbated. We then assess the ability of different correction methods to preserve type I error in these contexts and their performance in terms of other operating characteristics, including patient benefit and power. We make recommendations as to which correction methods are most suitable in the rare disease context for several RAR rules, differentiating between the 2‐armed and the multi‐armed case. We further propose a RAR design for multi‐armed clinical trials, which is computationally efficient and robust to several time trends considered.     

Can social workers and police be partners when dealing with bikie-gang related domestic violence and sexual assault?

Welfare and criminal justice systems manifest different goals, cultures, values and working methods. In Australia, the welfare sector has a culture of empowerment and concern for victims’ rights, within which social workers focus on social justice and social change. In contrast, the criminal justice sector (police) is patriarchal and para-military in structure, focusing on enforcing and maintaining community order and safety. These differences can create tension when social workers and police need to work as partners in response to violence against women, in particular violence against women from bikie gangs. This article addresses the issue of partnerships between social workers and police when working with abused bikie-gang women. It presents the findings of recent research into social work practice with such women in South Australia, in conjunction with a brief exploration of the international literature on social work and police cultures, and partnerships. It concludes that whilst there is a great need for genuine collaboration and partnership between social workers and police in the complex context of domestic violence with links to organised crime, the cultures and mandates of these different professions make this difficult.     

Adolescent Socialization in Rural Appalachia: The Perspectives of Teens,Parents, and Significant Adults

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the social networks of Appalachian adolescents to understand socialization strategies and goals. A total of 46 interviews were conducted with five families (mothers, fathers, and adolescents) and 11 socialization agents the families identified as exerting significant influence in the lives of the adolescents. Interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using principles of grounded theory. Five themes developed from the interviews: the importance of community to the socialization process, adult involvement and support, adolescent monitoring, teaching respect and responsibility, and adolescent autonomy. Results suggest the need for in-depth investigation of adolescent development within a variety of cultural and social contexts to more fully understand these processes.     

MULTINATIONALS’ PRODUCTIVITY ADVANTAGE: SCALE OR TECHNOLOGY?

This study decomposes the productivity advantage of foreign multinationals into a technology and a scale effect and analyses the causal relationship between foreign ownership and these two components. This is done by analyzing the effects of an acquisition of a domestic establishment by a foreign multinational, using a combined propensity score matching and difference-in-differences estimation. The main results show that any positive impact of acquisition is predominantly due to changes in technical efficiency and not in scale and that the preacquisition productivity of the target plays a role in mediating the rate of technology transfer from the multinational. ( JEL F23, L22)     

An Environmental Sociology for the Anthropocene

Attention to the relationship between nature and society has been a defining feature of environmental sociology since its inception. Early research, incorporating insights from ecology, argued for the need to (1) theorize the causal connections between nature and society and (2) contextualize those connections in terms of biophysical limits resulting from resource scarcity. Over the past two decades, partly in response to new forms of existential threat such as climate change, the treatment of nature and society as distinct entities has given way to a focus on socio‐natural assemblages. Using the Anthropocene as a lens to explore this emerging view, it is argued (1) that current theorizing on the socio‐natural assemblage needs to pay more attention to the issues of temporality and complexity, (2) that taking these factors into account reconceptualizes the nature‐society relationship as a complex, evolving socio‐natural assemblage, (3) that this evolutionary process needs to be understood in the context of cosmic evolution and the tension between entropy and the emergence of local complexity, and (4) that constraints on human development arise from the tension between these two tendencies, not from resource scarcity. An environmental sociology for the Anthropocene, one based on assumptions about the nature of causal dynamics and context consistent with our understanding of current earth system science, is proposed. L'attention portée à la relation entre la nature et la société a été un trait caractéristique de la sociologie de l'environnement depuis sa création. La recherche initiale, intégrant les connaissances de l'écologie, a soutenu la nécessité de (1) théoriser les liens causaux entre la nature et la société et (2) contextualiser ces connexions en termes de limites biophysiques résultant de la pénurie de ressources. Au cours des deux derniéres décennies, en partie en réponse à de nouvelles formes de menace existentielle telles que le changement climatique, le traitement de la nature et de la société en tant qu'entités distinctes a fait place à un accent sur les assemblages socio‐naturels. En utilisant l'anthropocéne comme une lentille pour explorer ce point de vue émergeant, on fait valoir (1) que la théorisation actuelle sur l'assemblage socio‐naturel doit accorder plus d'attention aux questions de temporalité et de complexité, (2) que prendre ces facteurs en compte reconceptualise la relation entre la nature et la société en tant qu'assemblage socio‐naturel complexe et en évolution, (3) que ce processus évolutif doit être compris dans le contexte de l'évolution cosmique et de la tension entre entropie et émergence de la complexité locale, et (4) sur le développement humain découlent de la tension entre ces deux tendances, et non de la pénurie de ressources. Une sociologie de l'environnement pour l'anthropocéne, fondée sur des hypothéses sur la nature de la dynamique causale et du contexte compatible avec notre compréhension de la science actuelle du systéme terrestre, est proposée.     

Operational research and the pluralist frame of reference

This paper is concerned with the practice of OR in situations of conflict. Two papers which consider the practice of OR in the public sector are criticised. Both papers do not fully recognise the implications of conflict and the guidance given for action suffers as a consequence. Conflict situations have been extensively studied by analysts of industrial relations and war. Relevant concepts from these studies are introduced which give an awareness of the problems of conflict and some sound guides for action.     

Auctions of companies

Auctions of companies are conducted in ways that contradict received auction theory. The major puzzles are: (1) sellers restrict the number of bidders; (2) sellers restrict the number of bidders; (3) bidders are screened by an initial round of non-binding bids; and (4) bidders offer - and sellers sometimes accept - preemptive bids. Puzzles (1), (2), and (4) are explained by assuming that some information concerning the company can, if released, reduce the value of the company. Puzzle (3) is explained as a way for sellers to select the highest-valued bidders; equilibrium is maintained by using the initial bids to set a reserve price for the final bidding round.     

Working with Women Associated with Bikie Gangs: Practice Dilemmas

Abstract

Much has been written about bikie gangs, but there is little about the women and children who are part of gang life. The present paper describes domestic violence agency social workers’ ethical practice dilemmas when assisting women who have left bikie gangs to search for a new, safer lifestyle away from the gang culture of drug use and violence, in particular sexual violence. The paper concludes with a discussion of the ethical processes and issues in resolving such practice dilemmas.     

Contested Concepts in Violence Against Women: ‘Intimate’, ‘Domestic’ or ‘Torture’?

Abstract

Ritualistic, overwhelmingly violent bikie gang or cult-inflicted abuse of women, entrenched by co-opting third party cult or gang members, has been referred to as ‘domestic violence’, ‘intimate violence’ or ‘intimate partner violence’. The present article questions the aptitude of these terms to convey the realities of this violence, in light of the experiences of women attending a South Australian domestic violence service, all of whom were escaping violent partners who were members or associates of bikie gangs and cults. The paper asks, ‘is torture an appropriate term for such violence?’ and discusses the impact of social, legal, organisational and human rights parallel states that collaborate to make it almost impossible for these women to escape this violence and make it difficult for social workers to work effectively with them. The paper concludes that the State needs to adopt a human rights rather than legal focus when addressing the issue of violence against women.