Reviews of Books and Teaching Materials

ActivStats 2.0.: Paul Velleman. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1998, CD-ROM, $44.25, ISBN: 0-201-31068-6.

The Active Practice of Statistics.: David S. Moore. New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1997, xv + 352 pp., $49.95, ISBN: ISBN 0-7167-3140-1. Reviewed by Jon Maatta

Introduction to Statistical Reasoning.: Gary Smith. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998, xviii + 654 pp., $46.00, ISBN: 0-07-059276-4. Reviewed by Robert W. Hayden

Modern Applied Statistics with S-Plus (2nd ed.).: William N. Venables and Brian D. Ripley. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1997, xvii + 548 pp., $59.95, ISBN: 0-387-98214-0. Reviewed by Karen Kafadar James R. Koehler

A Course in Mathematical Statistics (2nd ed.): George C. Roussas. San Diego: Academic Press, 1997, xx + 572 pp., $59.95, ISBN: 0125993153. Reviewed by David W. Macky     

The face of repressive coping: Social context and the display of hostile expressions and social smiles

The present study examined the nonverbal correlates of repressive coping, extending previous research in two ways: (1) participants' nonverbal behaviors were observed in either of two conditions that differed with respect to the salience of public identity; (2) an anatomically-based facial coding system was used to assess participants' emotion expressions and symbolic communication behaviors. Sixty female undergraduates, classified as repressive, low-anxious, or high-anxious, were videotaped during the preparation and delivery of a self-disclosing speech. During both the preparation and delivery, the salience of participants' public identities was either minimized (low-salience condition) or maximized (high-salience condition). Repressors and nonrepressors exhibited similar frequencies of hostile facial expressions. Repressors differed from nonrepressors by their frequent expressions of social smiles and conversational illustrators when their public selves were most salient. These findings suggest that certain symbolic communication behaviors may be nonverbal analogues of cognitive coping processes, and they support the utility of including expressive behaviors in conceptualizations of emotion-focused coping.     

Assignment errors in histograms with equal class intervals of arbitrary width

It is shown that significant distortions can occur in histograms constructed with a class interval of arbitrary width, due to the inclusion (or omission) of readings in a class interval which do not (do) properly belong to that interval. Unless the class interval width is at least ten times greater than the reading interval the proportion of unrepresentative readings may exceed 10%. In any event caution is required in the interpretation of a histogram in which this effect is present.     

Violent Marriages

This paper addresses the questions of why many people are violent toward those they claim to love and why many people stay with those who hurt them. Patterns of relationship within violent marriages, the characteristics of individuals involved and societal values are explored for answers. Some thoughts on therapy are presented.     

The heterogeneity of children and their experiences in kinship care

Increasingly, children in need of out-of-home care are being placed in kinship care, yet few studies have followed their placement histories longitudinally to determine if these children constitute a homogeneous group or heterogeneous subgroups. This study of 484 children in kinship care in San Diego County, California, indicates that children in kinship care have markedly different sociodemographic and maltreatment histories, as well as heterogeneous placement experiences.     

Credit and civilization

This paper analyses financial credit in order to re-examine the work of Norbert Elias, particularly his association of interdependency complexity with social discipline, and his approach to contradiction. Following a discussion of these issues, the paper examines Elias's writing on money and explores the emergence of financial credit networks in early modern England. Attention is paid to credit networks and social discipline, to credit and the state, and to the contradictory images associated with the transition to modern cash economies. From one perspective, early modern credit networks might be read as a confirmation of Elias, particularly his argument that interdependency complexity, changing power balances and self-restraint are interwoven. Yet the development of modern cash money raises questions, not just in relation to Elias's treatment of money, but also with regard to his assumptions about social discipline and his approach to ambivalence and contradiction. Drawing on the foregoing discussion, the paper argues that the relation between interdependency complexity and social discipline is contingent and variable, and that interdependency complexity may simultaneously encourage contradictory processes, such as those of civilizing and barbarity.     

Telephone triage and midwifery: A scoping review

Background

Midwives use telephone triage to provide advice and support to childbearing women, and to manage access to maternity services. Telephone triage practises are important in the provision of accurate, timely and appropriate health care. Despite this, there has been very little research investigating this area of midwifery practice.

Toward an Epidemiology of Safety and Security Risks: An Organizational Vulnerability Assessment in International Airports

International airports are complex sociotechnical systems that have an intrinsic potential to develop safety and security disruptions. In the absence of appropriate defenses, and when the potential for disruption is neglected, organizational crises can occur and jeopardize aviation services. This investigation examines the ways in which modern international airports can be “authors of their own misfortune” by adopting practices, attitudes, and behaviors that could increase their overall level of vulnerability. A sociotechnical perspective, the macroergonomic approach, is applied in this research to detect the potential organizational determinants of vulnerability in airport operations. Qualitative data nurture the case study on international airports produced by the present research. Findings from this study highlight that systemic weaknesses frequently reside in areas at the intersection of physical, organizational, and social spaces. Specific pathways of vulnerability can be drawn across these areas, involving the following systemic layers: individual, task, tools and technology, environment, and organization. This investigation expands the existing literature on the dynamics that characterize crisis incubation in multiorganization, multistakeholder systems such as international airports and provides practical recommendations for airport managers to improve their capabilities to early detect symptoms of organizational vulnerability.     

Receptivity to Change in a General Medical Practice

In this paper, Pettigrew, Ferlie and McKee's concepts of receptive and non receptive contexts for change are examined using data from an evaluation study of a general medical practice implementing a Personal Medical Services Pilot between 1998 and 2001. Four questions concerning the applicability, associatedness, temporality and dynamism of the eight factors Pettigrew et al. identified as constitutive of receptivity are used in the analysis, which extends the original model through an operationalization yielding 21 ‘focal questions’. Although the process of change at the fieldwork site was stalled, the receptivity model is shown to have been a useful tool in identifying the factors blocking change. The analysis shows that when the eight factors are conceptualized in terms of the strength, direction and continuity of their influence, the receptivity metaphor provides a distinctive tool for the analysis of change. The paper concludes that further refinement of the model could provide a basis for the derivation of change management typologies.