Determinants of the timing of social insurance legislation among 18 OECD countries

The purpose of this paper is to determine which theory best explains the development of social insurance programs. The survival analyses of 4 social insurance programs in 18 OECD countries present mixed results. The adoption of each social insurance program is developed and related to a combination of industrialism, modernization, left-wing participation, state autonomy, and international environment. Based on these findings, it is concluded that no single paradigm adequately explains the adoption of each of the social insurance programs. However, the combination of two society-centered approaches – namely, logic of industrialism and political conflict explanation – and a state-centered approach better explains the origin and development of modern social policy than does the international diffusion theory.     

Examining the Relationship between Domestic Violence and Depression among Koreans: The Role of Self‐esteem and Social Support as Mediators

Domestic violence is a prevalent social issue in Korea affecting a significant number of people every day. It is thus important to examine how the experience of domestic violence affects their mental health to better address their needs. Using stress‐coping theory as a theoretical framework, this study examines the domestic violence and depression relationship among Korean men and women. Two aspects of self‐esteem and informal and formal social support are examined as potential mediators of this relationship. The data was the first wave of Korean Welfare Panel Study data including 2477 individuals with experiences of abuse. Structural equation modeling procedures were used for analyses. Domestic violence was significantly associated with self‐worth, self‐deprecation, and depression. The experiences of violence eroded self‐worth while reinforcing self‐deprecation and those with more exposure to violence showed a higher level of depression. Self‐deprecation played a significant role in mediating the effect of domestic violence on depression. However, different findings were yielded for social support. While informal social support was significantly associated with domestic violence, formal social support was not associated with domestic violence. Findings suggest for mental health interventions targeting self‐esteem, particularly the diminution of self‐deprecation in working with the victims. Suggestions for future research and implications for social work are also discussed.     

Interaction Effects of the Amount of Practice, Preferred Cane Technique, and Type of Cane Technique Used on Drop-off Detection Performance

This study examined the interaction effects of the amount of practice and the cane technique used in drop-off detection with a sample of 32 adults who were blind. The advantage of the constant contact technique over the two-point touch technique was significantly greater for the less experienced cane users than for the more experienced ones.     

Stochastic comparisons of order statistics,with applications in relibility

This paper reviews recent developments in the stochastic comparison of order statistics. The results discussed are basically: (l) Stochastic comparisons of linear combinations of order statistics from distributions F and G where G^?1 F is convex or starshaped. (2) Stochastic comparisons of individual order statistics and of vectors of order statistics from underlying heterogeneous distributions by the use of majorization and Schur function theory. (3) Stochastic comparison of random processes. Applications to reliability problems are presented illustrating the use and value of the theoretical results described     

Bounding the resampling risk for sequential Monte Carlo implementation of hypothesis tests

Sequential designs can be used to save computation time in implementing Monte Carlo hypothesis tests. The motivation is to stop resampling if the early resamples provide enough information on the significance of the p-value of the original Monte Carlo test. In this paper, we consider a sequential design called the B-value design proposed by Lan and Wittes and construct the sequential design bounding the resampling risk, the probability that the accept/reject decision is different from the decision from complete enumeration. For the B-value design whose exact implementation can be done by using the algorithm proposed in Fay, Kim and Hachey, we first compare the expected resample size for different designs with comparable resampling risk. We show that the B-value design has considerable savings in expected resample size compared to a fixed resample or simple curtailed design, and comparable expected resample size to the iterative push out design of Fay and Follmann. The B-value design is more practical than the iterative push out design in that it is tractable even for small values of resampling risk, which was a challenge with the iterative push out design. We also propose an approximate B-value design that can be constructed without using a specially developed software and provides analytic insights on the choice of parameter values in constructing the exact B-value design.     

Noninformative priors for the normal variance ratio

In this paper, we consider noninformative priors for the ratio of variances in two normal populations. We develop first and second order matching priors. We find that the second order matching prior matches alternative coverage probabilities up to the second order and is also a HPD matching prior. It turns out that among the reference priors, only one-at-a-time reference prior satisfies a second order matching criterion. Our simulation study indicates that the one-at-a-time reference prior performs better than other reference priors in terms of matching the target coverage probabilities in a frequentist sense. This work is supported by Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2004-002-C00041).     

Directional mixture models and optimal estimation of the mixing density

The authors develop consistent nonparametric estimation techniques for the directional mixing density. Classical spherical harmonics are used to adapt Euclidean techniques to this directional environment. Minimax rates of convergence are obtained for rotation ally invariant densities verifying various smoothness conditions. It is found that the differences in smoothness between the Laplace, the Gaussian and the von Mises‐Fisher distributions lead to contrasting inferential conclusions.     

Would rethinking learning disabilities benefit Kuwait?

Learning disabilities education in Kuwait grew from Kuwaiti’s wholesale importation of the Western, medical model of disability – a model basically incompatible with Kuwaiti culture. Conflicting factors include its problematic normal/abnormal binary, its assumption that the ‘deficit’ is located in the student and the segregation of students by label. As proponents of disability studies we investigate whether, and if so how, Arab educators at Kuwait’s only learning disabilities school talk about this incompatibility. Through focus group and individual, in‐depth conversational interviews we found that they acknowledged this tension, but that they dealt with it in more complex ways than we had anticipated: by compartmentalizing, accepting the imported model as the only alternative to overcrowded public education and subjugating their experiential awareness to that of the Western scientific model.     

Constructing press releases, constructing quotations: A case study

This paper reports on empirical research into how press releases are being constructed. It starts from previous discourse-analytic work which has pointed to the 'preformulated' nature of press releases: in particular, it has been shown that through a number of metapragmatic features press releases can easily be copied by journalists in their own news reporting. In this paper we set out to subject one of these features, viz. pseudo-quotations (or so-called constructed direct speech), to a further empirical study, in which we scrutinize the process of constructing the press releases. We propose a detailed analysis of this process by combining ethnographic fieldwork with some of the methodology of cognitive psychology, including think-aloud protocols and on-line registration of the writing process. On the basis of this case study it is concluded that the design and functions of quotations in press releases are more complex than has been assumed so far. In addition, our preliminary results indicate that the combination of methods that we propose in this paper provides a sound starting point for both quantitative and qualitative analysis, allowing for a detailed analysis and interpretation of how press releases are being constructed.