Interparental Conflict and Preschoolers' Peer Relations: The Moderating Roles of Temperament and Gender

The relations between destructive interparental conflict (IPC) and three‐ to six‐year‐olds’ (N = 62) peer relations were examined as a function of child temperament and gender. Regression analyses indicated that effortful control moderated the relations of IPC with children's amount of peer interaction as well as with their problematic relations with peers. Specifically, high IPC was associated with low amount of interaction and high problematic relations for preschoolers low in effortful control, but it was related to high amount of interaction and low problems for those high in effortful control. Additionally, gender differences in the relations between IPC and the amount of peer interaction indicated that IPC was negatively related to the amount of interaction for girls but positively related to the amount for boys. The findings highlight the need for examining individual differences in the relations between IPC and the development of early peer relations.     

Project Jump: Young People's Perspectives on a Sexual Health Drama Project for Hard to Reach Young People

This article explores the qualitative process findings from an evaluation of Project Jump — a sexual health drama project for hard to reach young people. Project Jump aimed to enable young people to consider their sexual behaviour and its impact and consequence on other people and themselves. The research aimed to capture the experiences and perceptions of young people's involvement in the project, particularly in relation to the use of drama as a medium for learning. Findings from young people demonstrate that drama can offer an important alternative to traditional health promotion in that young people articulated positive aspects of their involvement. These included enthusiastic participation, empowerment and sexual health skills acquisition. In addition, critical areas for consideration for policy‐makers and practitioners in employing a drama‐based approach particularly in relation to effective identification, engagement and ongoing follow‐up activity with vulnerable groups are highlighted. © 2006 University of the West of England. Journal compilation © 2006 National Children's Bureau.     

Mixing patterns between age groups in social networks

We present a method for estimating transmission matrices that describe the mixing and the probability of infection between age groups. Transmission matrices can be used to estimate age-dependent forces of infection in age-structured, compartmental models for the study of infectious diseases. We analyze the social network generated by the synthetic population of Portland and extract mixing patterns. Our results show that the mixing within the population consists of two groups, children and adults. Children interact most frequently with other children close to their own age, while adults interact with a wider range of age groups and the durations of typical adult contacts are shorter than typical contacts between children. Furthermore, the transmission matrix shows that children are more likely to acquire infection than adults.     

Who captures the marks for the Petersen estimator?

Summary.  We examine the claim that the well-known Petersen estimator which is used in population size estimation was not in fact used by the scientist after whom it is named. We show how, in the early years of the last century, the modern use of the Petersen estimator grew from that of the fishing coefficient. Contending with the somewhat conflicting claims that were made at the time, and what by modern standards is poor referencing of sources, we investigate where the credit lies for these concepts, and the principles and protocols which support them. We assess also how far attributions of credit were affected by practical considerations, and the history of the estimator by the nature of the problems being pursued. We identify scientists whose early work on marking and estimating fish populations deserves more credit than it has received.     

Relationships among shiftworker eating habits, eating satisfaction, and self-reported health in a population of US miners

As part of a larger study on the health and safety of shiftworkers in the mining population by the US Bureau of Mines, the association between meal frequency, meal regularity, eating satisfaction and a self-reported health index was examined. Although the link between shiftwork and some health complaints, such as gastrointestinal disorders, has been established, the research needed to understand why this occurs has not been fully undertaken. Specifically, academic nutritional research has substantially ignored the question of how working irregular hours affects the eating behavior of industrial workers such as miners. In this study the eating habits of 101 surface mine workers were studied. It was found that working the day, afternoon/evening, and night-shifts was related to the number of meals eaten on those shifts and to the consistency of timing of those meals. The lowest eating satisfaction levels were reported by those who ate at different times on all shifts and who changed the number of meals eaten per day on each shift. Lowest self-reported health ratings were reported by those who changed the number of meals taken on each shift, rather than by those who ate one, two or three meals per day. These results are discussed in relation to the possible mechanisms contributing to gastrointestinal disorders and to coping mechanisms that could be adopted by shiftworkers.     

GOVERNMENT DEBT AND THE DEMAND FOR MONEY: AN EXTREME BOUND ANALYSIS

The article provides evidence that there is a relationship between government debt and interest rates via the demand for money. This relationship is examined through the wealth effect of government debt on money demand, and the robustness of the results is tested by the use of extreme bound analysis in addition to standard econometric techniques. We find that OLS regression shows government debt fnfecting the demand for money positively, implying that Federal government debt is net wealth. In addition, the extreme bound analysis shows that the estimates of the government debt coefficient are robust under alternative specifications of the Goldfeld model.     

The muse as mother

This paper suggests that the concept of the muse in relation to the creative process is more than a myth or cultural artifact. It is argued that the muse is a psychic recollection of our memories of the female who presided over our first experiences of consciousness as we traversed the borders of inner and outer reality—that is, the mother. The shift of consciousness required in creative activity triggers recall of this figure. Object relations theory, recent findings from infant research, and the intuitive observations of several authors are used to support this thesis. Clinical examples illustrate the application of this concept in treatment.     

Change and continuity in British voluntary organisations, 1976 to 1988

A cohort of twenty British national voluntary agencies serving handicapped people was studied in 1976 and again in 1989 after a decade of major shifts in public policy. Changes and continuities were identified in income, structure, governance, management, programme, interorganisation relations and advocacy. A consistent pattern of growth, bureaucratisation and professionalisation was found, with relatively little change in the dominant mode of financing, statutory or philanthropic. A three-stage model is proposed to describe the development of British voluntary agencies since the 1970s, and some of the organisational implications of current policies for the 1990s are noted.This research is part of a Fulbright, Western European Regional Research Grant for 1989 and also received support from the University of California, Institute for International Studies and the Committee for Research at Berkeley. I wish to thank Marilyn Taylor and Stuart Etherington in London, and my colleagues Neil Gilbert, Bart Grossman and Paul Terrell for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. The assistance of David Billis, Director, and the staff of the Centre for Voluntary Organisation, London School of Economics, is also gratefully acknowledged.     

The assessment of parent-led prevention programs: a preliminary assessment of impact

This article reports on a preliminary study of the impact of parent-led prevention groups on youthful drug and alcohol use. In addition, the study assessed the extent to which families involved with parent-led prevention programs reported improved family relations and increased parental control of children's social activities--two major mechanisms by which parent-group advocates claim their activities alter youth substance use patterns. Consistent with the claims of parent-group advocates, the study results suggest that the parent groups did have some impact on family relations and on parental control of children's social activities. The evidence for an impact on drug and alcohol use was, however, weak. A somewhat unexpected finding was that parents who become involved in parent-led prevention activities may not be those parents whose children are at highest risk.