Condorcet's jury theorem,dependency among jurors

With the aid of a simple discrete probability model, the Condorect Jury Theorem is extended to situations where there is dependency between judgement. It is shown that negative intra-voter correlation improves on jury competence in the sense that the probability of a correct decision increases. Positive correlation, on the other hand, tends to decrease jury competence. The results given here are obtained with the aid of simple recursion relations.     

The effect of social homogeneity on coincidence probabilities for pairwise proportional lottery and simple majority rules

The Condorcet efficiency of Pairwise Proportional Lottery Rules (PPLR) is considered under various assumptions concerning the likelihood that given voters' preference profiles are observed on three alternatives. Representations are developed for the expected Condorcet efficiency under impartial culture, impartial anonymous culture, and a generalization to Pólya-Eggenberger distributions. PPLR is shown to be equivalent to a random selection process in the limit of voters under impartial culture. However, relatively small increases in social homogeneity, as measured by Kendall's Coefficient of Concordance, cause significant increases in the Condorcet efficiency of PPLR.Professor Berg's work was partly supported by the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences.     

Theory in Weberian Marxism: Patterns of Critical Social Theory in Lukács and Habermas

For Weberian Marxists, the social theories of Max Weber and Karl Marx are complementary contributions to the analysis of modern capitalist society. Combining Weber's theory of rationalization with Marx's critique of commodity fetishism to develop his own critique of reification, Georg Lukács contended that the combination of Marx's and Weber's social theories is essential to envisioning socially transformative modes of praxis in advanced capitalist society. By comparing Lukács's theory of reification with Habermas's theory of communicative action as two theories in the tradition of Weberian Marxism, I show how the prevailing mode of "doing theory" has shifted from Marx's critique of economic determinism to Weber's idea of the inner logic of social value spheres. Today, Weberian Marxism can make an important contribution to theoretical sociology by reconstituting itself as a framework for critically examining prevailing societal definitions of the rationalization imperatives specific to purposive-rational social value spheres (the economy, the administrative state, etc.). In a second step, Weberian Marxists would explore how these value spheres relate to each other and to value spheres that are open to the type of communicative rationalization characteristic of the lifeworld level of social organization.     

Intercourse debut age: poor resources, problem behavior, or romantic appeal? a population-based longitudinal study

The most important predictors of early intercourse debut are reported to be poor social resources and early developing problem behaviors. In this study we have a new, additional emphasis on variables related to self-concept and social acceptance. In a population-based longitudinal study, 1399 Norwegians were followed over a 7-year span. We analyzed data using multivariate Cox-regression techniques. Early intercourse debut was part of a broader spectrum of problem behaviors, including early alcohol intoxication and early-developing conduct problems. A new finding was that a positive self-concept in the domain of romantic appeal was also a strong predictor, but only for boys. We suggest that the findings may have important implications for prevention and more research should be conducted along this line.     

Exposure Stratified Case-Cohort Designs

A variant of the case-cohort design is proposed for the situation in which a correlate of the exposure (or prognostic factor) of interest is available for all cohort members, and exposure information is to be collected for a case-cohort sample. The cohort is stratified according to the correlate, and the subcohort is selected by stratified random sampling. A number of possible methods for the analysis of such exposure stratified case-cohort samples are presented, some of their statistical properties developed, and approximate relative efficiency and optimal allocation to the strata discussed. The methods are compared to each other, and to randomly sampled case-cohort studies, in a limited computer simulation study. We found that all of the proposed analysis methods performed well and were more efficient than a randomly sampled case-cohort study.