Mixture Multi-state Markov Regression Model

Although heterogeneity across individuals may be reduced when a two-state process is extended into a multi-state process, the discrepancy between the observed and the predicted for some states may still exist owing to two possibilities, unobserved mixture distribution in the initial state and the effect of measured covariates on subsequent multi-state disease progression. In the present study, we developed a mixture Markov exponential regression model to take account of the above-mentioned heterogeneity across individuals (subject-to-subject variability) with a systematic model selection based on the likelihood ratio test. The model was successfully demonstrated by an empirical example on surveillance of patients with small hepatocellular carcinoma treated by non-surgical methods. The estimated results suggested that the model with the incorporation of unobserved mixture distribution behaves better than the one without. Complete and partial effects regarding risk factors on different subsequent multi-state transitions were identified using a homogeneous Markov model. The combination of both initial mixture distribution and homogeneous Markov exponential regression model makes a significant contribution to reducing heterogeneity across individuals and over time for disease progression.     

Home(land) Décor: China Adoptive Parents’ Consumption of Chinese Cultural Objects for Display in their Homes

American parents of children adopted from China frequently consume Chinese cultural objects for display in their homes. While parents defend this consumption for display as an effort to validate their children’s ethno-cultural origins, they also reveal how it signifies and solidifies their own identifications with Chinese culture. As part of a larger research project examining China adoptive parents’ evolving “Chinese” identities, this paper asks: Which parents “become ‘Chinese’” through the consumption and display of Chinese cultural objects, and why? To answer this question, I conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 91 Americans in the China adoption process and ethnographic fieldwork at two different field-sites: Families with Children from China (FCC) Chinese cultural celebrations and Chinese culture camps organized by/for China adoptive families. Focusing on the emergent and personal meanings that parents give to Chinese cultural objects, I demonstrate how these meanings both structure parents’ consumption and yield a display differential. In doing so, I reveal that white European-American parents and mothers are most likely to engage in this consumption and display, thereby amending the three types of ethno-cultural identity consumption represented in the literature. Specifically, I expose the central role of race in ethno-cultural identity consumption; demonstrate that the collective category of reference for ethno-cultural identity consumption is not always an ethnic category (in this case, such consumption refers to a gendered category); and illustrate the ways in which global ethno-cultural identity consumption both appeals to and satisfies distinctly local constructs.     

Examining fostering readiness in treatment parents

Preservice trainings have the potential to improve treatment parent and youth outcomes, yet researchers have noted the lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of these trainings. Preservice outcomes are typically collected immediately after training completion, with little to no follow‐up assessments at other time points. This study aimed to examine the longitudinal changes treatment parents experience throughout preservice training and after a youth is placed in their home. Secondary data analyses were performed on an archival data set (N = 57) that included demographic information and training participant scores from two standardized measurements that examined their fostering readiness before and after preservice trainings as well as after a youth was placed in the home: Personal Dedication to Fostering Scale and Willingness to Foster Scale. Analyses revealed significant changes for treatment parents' personal dedication to fostering, but no significant changes for their willingness to foster. Treatment parents' fostering readiness scores were compared to a normed sample of foster parents and were found to be significantly higher for their personal dedication scores but not for their willingness to foster. The findings suggest certain treatment parent outcomes may change as a result of preservice training and experience with youth, but additional measurements and outcomes should be examined.     

Working on the Revolution in Bahrain: From the Mass Strike to Everyday Forms of Medical Provision

The 2011 Arab Spring uprising with the highest levels of popular support took place in Bahrain. This level of mobilization was due in part to the organizational capacity of trade unions and professional associations, and yet their role in the ‘near-revolution’ has received very little scholarly attention. In contrast to Egypt and Tunisia, where the official trade union federations played an ambiguous or even hostile role as workers began to organize strikes during the protests against Ben Ali and Mubarak, the official General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions not only supported the protests against the Al Khalifa regime, but called for two general strikes. As significant as the strikes were, the work of unpaid volunteers constituted another less recognized, but equally important form of labor activism. Understanding the mass mobilization in Bahrain, and elsewhere, requires an encompassing approach to labor: one that can conceptualize equally the ability of collectivities to stop working, but also the ability to collectively continue to work, even on an unpaid basis. I will illustrate the contradictory role of the labor movement with examples from the Bahrain Teachers’ Association and the Bahrain Nursing Society. The majority of members of both associations were women. Finally, the Bahraini regime punished both forms of labor activism – both the teachers who went on strike, and the nurses who declared they would not strike but continue to work and care for the injured protesters.     

Social Movement Audiences1

Audiences are important to social movements, but the relationships between social movements and their audiences are not well understood. This article uses scholarship from performance studies, especially ideas of audiences as constructed, meaningful, and influenced/influential, to explore two issues. First, how do social movements define their audiences? Second, how are social movement actions toward their audiences shaped by these definitions? Analysis of longitudinal data on two social movement groups in Pittsburgh from 2003 to 2007 shows that social movements variously interpret the nature and role of their audiences and that these interpretations affect their strategies and goals, sometimes quite radically. The conclusion explores how attention to audiences can augment scholarship on the relational, iterative, interpretive, and reflexive aspects of social movements.     

Childcare: welfare or investment?

Conley A. Childcare: welfare or investment? Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 173–181 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Childcare (also called day care or preschool) has generally served three purposes: to care for children while parents are employed; to provide early childhood education; and to cater to the needs of poor and disadvantaged children. This article proposes that the welfare approach to childcare be augmented by a social investment approach to enhance human and social capital investments among low income families and communities and to contribute to wider social development goals. The Head Start program in the United States and the Integrated Child Development Scheme in India are used to illustrate this argument.     

Repression and other Forms of Cognitive Evasiveness: Implications for Stress Symptoms in College Students

Abstract

Lazarus has proposed that palliative defenses against threat that interfere with direct efforts to alleviate the threat may prove maladaptive. Three evasive cognitive attributes that circumvent awareness of threat were studied to determine whether they related to the prevalence of stress symptoms in college students. Repression (selective forgetting of threatening material), awareness of the repressive defense, and internal scanning (breadth of association to cues) were considered. College students of both sexes who engaged in evasive cognitive activity reported more stress symptoms than those who did not, with a progressive increase in stress as increasingly homogeneous groups were considered. Students who defended themselves by repression experienced more stress than those who did not. Repressors who were the least aware of their use of this defense reported even more stress. Unconscious repressors who were the least reflective (narrow scanners) showed the highest frequency of stress symptoms.