Probabilistic Inversion in Priority Setting of Emerging Zoonoses

This article presents methodology of applying probabilistic inversion in combination with expert judgment in priority setting problem. Experts rank scenarios according to severity. A linear multi‐criteria analysis model underlying the expert preferences is posited. Using probabilistic inversion, a distribution over attribute weights is found that optimally reproduces the expert rankings. This model is validated in three ways. First, consistency of expert rankings is checked, second, a complete model fitted using all expert data is found to adequately reproduce observed expert rankings, and third, the model is fitted to subsets of the expert data and used to predict rankings in out‐of‐sample expert data.     

Re-Imagining Family Therapy: Choosing the Metaphors We Live By

This paper examines the influence of dominant metaphors in everyday and professional language, and relates this theme to emerging concerns with the historically dominant metaphor in family therapy: the family viewed as a system. Increasing interest is being shown in the development of alternative metaphors, especially those based on aspects of language and literary practice e.g. conversation, discourse, rhetoric, narrative and text. However, the fundamental question remains: how do we choose the metaphors we wish to live by? To address this question, a journey into postmodernist cultural studies is made and the concept of the ethical-poetical imagination is borrowed as a criterion for comparison and choice. From this vantage point, preferences for the metaphorical future of ‘postmodernist’ family therapy are expressed and explained.     

Eye-Tracking Data: New Insights on Response Order Effects and Other Cognitive Shortcuts in Survey Responding

Survey researchers since Cannell have worried that respondents may take various shortcuts to reduce the effort needed to complete a survey. The evidence for such shortcuts is often indirect. For instance, preferences for earlier versus later response options have been interpreted as evidence that respondents do not read beyond the first few options. This is really only a hypothesis, however, that is not supported by direct evidence regarding the allocation of respondent attention. In the current study, we used a new method to more directly observe what respondents do and do not look at by recording their eye movements while they answered questions in a Web survey. The eye-tracking data indicate that respondents do in fact spend more time looking at the first few options in a list of response options than those at the end of the list; this helps explain their tendency to select the options presented first regardless of their content. In addition, the eye-tracking data reveal that respondents are reluctant to invest effort in reading definitions of survey concepts that are only a mouse click away or paying attention to initially hidden response options. It is clear from the eye-tracking data that some respondents are more prone to these and other cognitive shortcuts than others, providing relatively direct evidence for what had been suspected based on more conventional measures.     

Civic Epistemologies: Constituting Knowledge and Order in Political Communities

How do we know things? The question of epistemology – which drives both the sociology and philosophy of science – is also a crucial question for political sociology. Knowledge is essential to even the most basic and foundational of political processes and institutions. In 2000, for example, the transition of power in the US presidential election hung for 36 days on uncertainty over a seemingly simple question of fact: who won the most votes in Florida? A few years later, disputed factual claims about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction unraveled, calling into question key justifications of the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and significantly weakening perceived US legitimacy. Yet, surprisingly, sociologists and political scientists know relatively little about how knowledge gets made in political communities, nor how the making of knowledge is tied to other key aspects of political life, such as identity, authority, legitimacy, and accountability.     

Innovations in child protective services inservice training: commitment to excellence

The overwhelming obstacles to effective CPS intervention created by increasing reports of abuse and neglect, funding shortfalls, and the lack of qualified workers have prompted national efforts to reform the public child welfare system in the United States. Organizations such as the American Public Welfare Association, the Children's Defense Fund, the Child Welfare League of America, and the National Association of Social Workers are currently working closely with other national organizations to develop legislative proposals that will enable child welfare agencies to be more responsive to the needs of children and families. A critical component of this reform is the need to recruit, train, and retain qualified and competent CPS workers. The four training programs described in this article are examples of innovative programs seeking to enhance service delivery by enhancing the knowledge and skills of their staff members. Although the four programs were developed in very different political and social climates and within diverse organizational structures, they all provide useful lessons in how to develop efficient and effective training for workers delivering protective services for children. Any national, state, or local efforts to design and develop new CPS training programs should take into account the significant strides made by these agencies.