Evidence-based practice: from medicine to social work

The last 10 years have witnessed an increasing interest in evidence-based practice in the field of medicine. The product of a time characterised by the explosion of information technology, a heightened sense of risk, and the enshrining of the principles of economy, effectiveness, transparency and consumerism, evidence-based practice has rapidly expanded from medicine to other fields, including social work. The new paradigm has generated not only great enthusiasm in many areas of the social work profession but also an intense debate about the transferability of the principles of evidence-based practice from medicine to a discipline that operates amidst particularly complex and multifaceted societal factors. Similarly, the concept of evidence upon which social work practice should be based has been the object of considerable discussion, though initial emphasis on results from randomised controlled trials seems to be gradually shifting towards broader approaches to defining evidence. Although organisational constraints and job pressures are likely to favour the use, among practitioners, of ‘preappraised’ resources, this should not prevent social workers from acquiring the skills and knowledge necessary to make independent and critical appraisal of evidence.     

Expert Judgment-Based Risk Assessment Using Statistical Scenario Analysis: A Case Study—Running the Bulls in Pamplona (Spain)

In this article, we present a methodology to assess the risk incurred by a participant in an activity involving danger of injury. The lack of high-quality historical data for the case considered prevented us from constructing a sufficiently detailed statistical model. It was therefore decided to generate a risk assessment model based on expert judgment. The methodology is illustrated in a real case context: the assessment of risk to participants in a San Fermin bull-run in Pamplona (Spain). The members of the panel of "experts on the bull-run" represented very different perspectives on the phenomenon: runners, surgeons and other health care personnel, journalists, civil defense workers, security staff, organizers, herdsmen, authors of books on the bull-run, etc. We consulted 55 experts. Our methodology includes the design of a survey instrument to elicit the experts' views and the statistical and mathematical procedures used to aggregate their subjective opinions.     

Nenparametric Two-Group Classification: Concepts and a SAS-Based Software Package

This article introduces BestClass, a set of SAS macros, available in the mainframe and workstation environment, designed for solving two-group classification problems using a class of recently developed nonparametric classification methods. The criteria used to estimate the classification function are based on either minimizing a function of the absolute deviations from the surface which separates the groups, or directly minimizing a function of the number of misclassified entities in the training sample. The solution techniques used by BestClass to estimate the classification rule use the mathematical programming routines of the SAS/OR software. Recently, a number of research studies have reported that under certain data conditions this class of classification methods can provide more accurate classification results than existing methods, such as Fisher's linear discriminant function and logistic regression. However, these robust classification methods have not yet been implemented in the major statistical packages, and hence are beyond the reach of those statistical analysts who are unfamiliar with mathematical programming techniques. We use a limited simulation experiment and an example to compare and contrast properties of the methods included in Best-Class with existing parametric and nonparametric methods. We believe that BestClass contributes significantly to the field of nonparametric classification analysis, in that it provides the statistical community with convenient access to this recently developed class of methods. BestClass is available from the authors.     

Moral pride only under the positive gaze of others? Effects of praise and criticism on moral pride and guilt / ¿Orgullo moral solo bajo la mirada positiva de los otros? Los efectos del elogio y la crítica sobre el orgullo moral y la culpa

Abstract

This study analysed the influence of praise and criticism on moral pride (the pride we feel when we believe we have done something morally good) and guilt. Ninety-two adolescents (age: M = 15.17, SD = 0.43; 44.6% girls, 55.4% boys) completed a questionnaire which outlined 10 scenarios based on combinations of three variables: the moral nature of the action (positive/negative); praise, criticism or the absence of either; and the source (parents/peers). Participants were asked to indicate the intensity with which they would feel pride and guilt (seven-point scale). Praise of positive actions increased pride. Interestingly, criticism of positive actions reduced pride and increased guilt, while praise of negative actions reduced guilt and increased pride. No differences were found between the pride felt after a criticized positive action and that felt after a praised negative action. A parallel effect was not, however, observed for guilt. These results reveal the strong, sometimes pernicious, influence of praise and criticism on guilt and pride and, even more, the need for praise by others in the experience of moral pride.     

The Death Penalty and Historical Change in Spain

This article studies the long duration of the death penalty in Spain until its abolition in the Constitution of 1978. After analysing the plurality of theoretical approaches and possibilities offered by archival sources and specialised historiography (particularly those produced by specialists in the history of law and social history), I synthesise the Spanish answers to the major questions posed in the international historiographical debate on this issue. I then review the formality and the religious and juridical content of these “ceremonies of torment” in order to understand the scope of the practice of the death penalty in processes of social change: what did political power transmit from the scaffolds and what type of social impact was generated by public executions? How did the institutions that exercised the death penalty evolve? Why, during the transition from the Old Regime to the liberal state, was the death penalty used more regularly than before? How many prisoners were in fact executed, for what crimes, and using what procedures and techniques? Finally, after confirming that in the decades straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the death penalty was on the decline, being counteracted by abolitionist discourse in the field of penal sentencing, I examine the functions played by political executions in the repressive dynamics of the Civil War and Francoism.     

The Multiscale Importance of Road Segments in a Network Disruption Scenario: A Risk‐Based Approach

This article addresses the problem of the multiscale importance of road networks, with the aim of helping to establish a more resilient network in the event of a road disruption scenario. A new model for identifying the most important roads is described and applied on a local and regional scale. The work presented here represents a step forward, since it focuses on the interaction between identifying the most important roads in a network that connect people and health services, the specificity of the natural hazards that threaten the normal functioning of the network, and an assessment of the consequences of three real‐world interruptions from a multiscale perspective. The case studies concern three different past events: road interruptions due to a flood, a forest fire, and a mass movement. On the basis of the results obtained, it is possible to establish the roads for which risk management should be a priority. The multiscale perspective shows that in a road interruption the regional system may have the capacity to reorganize itself, although the interruption may have consequences for local dynamics. Coordination between local and regional scales is therefore important. The model proposed here allows for the scaling of emergency response facilities and human and physical resources. It represents an innovative approach to defining priorities, not only in the prevention phase but also in terms of the response to natural disasters, such as awareness of the consequences of road disruption for the rescue services sent out to local communities.     

Swapping the Nested Fixed Point Algorithm: A Class of Estimators for Discrete Markov Decision Models

This paper proposes a new nested algorithm (NPL) for the estimation of a class of discrete Markov decision models and studies its statistical and computational properties. Our method is based on a representation of the solution of the dynamic programming problem in the space of conditional choice probabilities. When the NPL algorithm is initialized with consistent nonparametric estimates of conditional choice probabilities, successive iterations return a sequence of estimators of the structural parameters which we call K–stage policy iteration estimators. We show that the sequence includes as extreme cases a Hotz–Miller estimator (for K=1) and Rust's nested fixed point estimator (in the limit when K→∞). Furthermore, the asymptotic distribution of all the estimators in the sequence is the same and equal to that of the maximum likelihood estimator. We illustrate the performance of our method with several examples based on Rust's bus replacement model. Monte Carlo experiments reveal a trade–off between finite sample precision and computational cost in the sequence of policy iteration estimators.