Assessing Poisson variation of intestinal tumour multiplicity in mice carrying a Robertsonian translocation

Summary.  Tumour multiplicity is a frequently measured phenotype in animal studies of cancer biology. Poisson variation of this measurement represents a biological and statistical reference point that is usually violated, even in highly controlled experiments, owing to sources of variation in the stochastic process of tumour formation. A recent experiment on murine intestinal tumours presented conditions which seem to generate Poisson-distributed tumour counts. If valid, this would support a claim about mechanisms by which the adenomatous polyposis coli gene is inactivated during tumour initiation. In considering hypothesis testing strategies, model choice and Bayesian approaches, we quantify the positive evidence favouring Poisson variation in this experiment. Statistical techniques used include likelihood ratio testing, the Bayes and Akaike information criteria, negative binomial modelling, reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo methods and posterior predictive checking. The posterior approximation that is based on the Bayes information criterion is found to be quite accurate in this small n case-study.     

Contingent factors: Modeling generic public relations practice in South Korea

This study identified which contingent variables public relations practitioners perceive as influential to their practice in South Korea. They responded that a number of contingent variables influence public relations activities and emphasized the influence of individual and organizational level variables on their practice. Practitioners at the management level perceived organizational level variables as influential while the staff level indicated PR department variables as dominant to their practice. Public relations practitioners whose main function is government relations tended to acknowledge a greater influence of organizational level variables. Most notably, public relations practitioners cited the constraints of negative information release and conflict situations.     

Report on the Construct Validity of the Temporal Satisfaction With Life Scale

This study evaluated the factorial and convergent validity of theTemporal Satisfaction With Life Scale (TSWLS; Pavot, Diener andSuh, 1998), which was designed to measure past, present, andfuture life satisfaction. A sample of psychology undergraduates(N = 223) was administered a questionnaire containing the TSWLSand a global measure of past, present, and future subjectivewell-being (SWB), the Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (SASS;Kilpatrick and Cantril, 1960). Results of covariance structureanalyses supported a 3-factor model (past, present, and futurelife satisfaction as distinct, yet correlated, factors) for theTSWLS, demonstrated that item responding was only slightlycontaminated by an acquiescence bias, and showed that each of thepast, present, and future dimensions of the TSWLS was moststrongly related to its corresponding global SWB rating on theSASS. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Review Articles: Introduction

Florian Coulmas (ed.). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (Blackwell Handbooks in Linguistics, 4). Oxford: Blackwell. 1997. x + 532 pp.Cloth (0–631–19339–1) £#187;70.00.     

Book Review: Suzanne Horne and Avril Maddrell,Charity Shops: Retailing,Consumption and Society,Routledge, London, 2002, 152 pp., bibliography,index, $50.00 (hbk)

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND STRIKES: PROBLEMS IN TESTING THE HAAS AND STACK MODEL

Haas and Stack (1983) make a bold attempt to establish an empirical relationship between strike volume (working-days lost due to industrial disputes) and economic development using parametric statistical techniques in the from of ordinary least squares regression. They conclude that "the effect of economic development on strikes follows a parabolic curve"(p. 56). While the authors express the customary caution about the reliability of their data, they ignore various problems with their data, i.e., method and technique which may invalidate the conclusions of the study. These problems are dealt with in this article.     

Homeless identities: enacted and ascribed

Homelessness has been a perennial concern for sociologists. It is a confronting phenomenon that can challenge western notions of home, a discrete family unit and the ascetics and order of public space. To be without a home and to reside in public places illustrates both an intriguing way of living and some fundamental inadequacies in the functioning of society. Much homelessness research has had the consequence of isolating the 'homeless person' as distinct category or indeed type of individual. They are ascribed with homeless identities. The homeless identity is not simply presented as one dimensional and defining, but this imposed and ill-fitting identity is rarely informed by a close and long-term engagement with the individuals it is supposed to say something about. Drawing on a recent Australian ethnographic study with people literally without shelter, this article aims to contribute to understandings of people who are homeless by outlining some nuanced and diverse aspects of their identities. It argues that people can and do express agency in the way they enact elements of the self, and the experience of homelessness is simultaneously important and unimportant to understand this. Further, the article suggests that what is presumably known about the homeless identity is influenced by day-to-day lives that are on public display.     

Form effect in the measurement of feeling states

This study investigates the relation between the responses given to survey items and the manner in which those items are given. Results are based on responses of a random sample of 1522 American adults to 202 items expressing social life feelings (SLFs). SLF items were selected from a domain of over 1000 such items appearing in over 100 scales used in American sociology during the last 50 years. Three different methods of administration were used: self-administration, interview, and card-sort. Each method was applied to each item about 500 times, and to each respondent approximately 67 times. The analysis consisted of comparing mean scores and missing response rates for items across methods, investigating the characteristics of items subject to form effects, investigating the possibility that form effects were spurious and might disappear after controlling on background of respondent, and investigating the presence of form effects in summary scale scores based on several or more items. Results indicate that for most items, patterns of responding and techniques of testing were statistically independent.