Sociology and development in the 1990s: Critical challenges and empirical trends

Recent transformations of global economic structures have been accompanied by divergent national, regional, and local patterns of development, including severe socioeconomic crises for many Third World countries. At the same time, established conceptualizations of development processes have been called into question by divergent models of social change, such as those of world systems and postmodernist theorists. These phenomena present major analytical challenges for sociologists specializing in the study of development. New technologies and production processes, changing forms of international dependency, and the appearance of new social actors are among the most important topics for study. We argue that political economy, based on midrange propositions and comparative historical methods, constitutes the most fruitful approach to this task.     

THERE'S MORE TO COUNTING THAN MEETS THE EYE: COMMENT ON SHORTZ ET AL.

Surveys of the literature may facilitate future scholarship by identifying important conceptual developments or recent advances in empirical research. However, we suggest that Shortz, Worthington, McCollugh, DeVries, and Morrow's (1994) conclusions regarding prominent trends in marital therapy and research suffer serious limitations based on the authors' failure to consider objective indices of either journals' influence or authors' actual impact, in addition to their exclusion of nonjournal sources and use of an arbitrary method of weighting authorship. We identify alternativeapproaches to evaluating published scholarship for use in future surveys.     

AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF OIL PRICE SHOCKS IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD

This paper presents results that indicate that oil price shocks were economically important in explaining movements in industrial production, and, to a lesser degree, movements in wholesale prices in the period between World Wars I and II. The framework for analysis is a vector autoregressive model estimated using monthly data over 1924:2–38:6 that employs a financial intermediation variable, a measure of relative oil prices, and other variables typically found in small macroeconomic models. The impact of oil price shocks is evaluated through computation of variance decompositions and an historical decomposition over the 1929:9–38:6 period.     

Structural equivalence: Meaning and definition,computation and application

This paper presents a generalization of the concept of “structural equivalence”, the key concept in algebraic approaches to the study of social networks. Two points in a graph or set of relations will be called “structurally related” if they are connected in the same ways to structurally related points.It is suggested that this new definition suitably weakens Lorrain and White's categorical approach, and is more appropriate than CONCOR. Structural relatedness is compared to these approaches via several simple examples.     

Intervening in Family Systems with Observer Messages*

This article presents an approach to family therapy in which a group of observers becomes part of a therapeutic team by introducing strategic messages into the sessions. The observers, who operate from behind a two-way mirror, are thus able to effect change in both the family system and the therapeutic system consisting of family and therapist. Messages are described in terms of five components: function, target, timing, content, and delivery. Some guidelines for effective team functioning are given and three examples illustrate the approach. Finally, implications for training are discussed.     

天人合一：叔本华与中国哲学的相遇

叔本华(1788～1860)与传统中国哲学家--特别是朱熹(1130～1200)--的相遇,给我们提供了许多关于跨文化哲学解释学的有价值的借鉴和领悟.叔本华相信,他的作为生存(ex-istence)的形而上学基础(ground)的"意志"概念与传统中国哲学中作为本性(nature)原则的天的概念之间有着某种共鸣.本文试图阐明,对"意志和现象(phenomena)"的叔本华式的"一-多"形而上学与"和(harmony)"--中国传统儒家将其描述为存在于天人之间--进行一个鲜明的对照,以期这个中国与西方形而上学间的有价值的区分能够导向一种有关比较的哲学解释学的具有吸引力的新理解.这种理解在西方寻找唯一的统一的绝对真理之坚决主张中较少被触及,但在传统中国对"不同的传统间的融合"(如"三教合流")的探讨中则较多地谈到了它们.     

The challenges of evaluating dose response in flexible‐dose trials using marginal structural models

Assessing dose response from flexible‐dose clinical trials is problematic. The true dose effect may be obscured and even reversed in observed data because dose is related to both previous and subsequent outcomes. To remove selection bias, we propose marginal structural models, inverse probability of treatment‐weighting (IPTW) methodology. Potential clinical outcomes are compared across dose groups using a marginal structural model (MSM) based on a weighted pooled repeated measures analysis (generalized estimating equations with robust estimates of standard errors), with dose effect represented by current dose and recent dose history, and weights estimated from the data (via logistic regression) and determined as products of (i) inverse probability of receiving dose assignments that were actually received and (ii) inverse probability of remaining on treatment by this time. In simulations, this method led to almost unbiased estimates of true dose effect under various scenarios. Results were compared with those obtained by unweighted analyses and by weighted analyses under various model specifications. The simulation showed that the IPTW MSM methodology is highly sensitive to model misspecification even when weights are known. Practitioners applying MSM should be cautious about the challenges of implementing MSM with real clinical data. Clinical trial data are used to illustrate the methodology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Bayesian method for query approximation

This study presents statistical techniques to obtain local approximate query answers for aggregate multivariate materialized views thus eliminating the need for repetitive scanning of the source data. In widely distributed management information systems, detailed data do not necessarily reside in the same physical location as the decision-maker; thus, requiring scanning of the source data as needed by the query demand. Decision-making, business intelligence and data analysis could involve multiple data sources, data diversity, aggregates and large amounts of data. Management often confronts delays in information acquisition from remote sites. Management decisions usually involve analyses that require the most precise summary data available. These summaries are readily available from data warehouses and can be used to estimate or approximate data in exchange for a quicker response. An approach to supporting aggregate materialized view management is proposed that reconstructs data sets locally using posterior parameter estimates based on sufficient statistics in a log-linear model with a multinomial likelihood.     

Individual and Issue‐Specific Differences in Parental Knowledge and Adolescent Disclosure in Chile,the Philippines,and the United States

Perceived parental knowledge and adolescents' disclosure to parents were predicted from parental warmth and monitoring and adolescents' disclosure, agreement, and beliefs about obligation to obey and parental legitimacy (N=698 Chilean, Filipino, and U.S. 13–20‐year‐olds). The correlates of knowledge are similar in all three countries, but the relative strength of the correlations differs. Global agreement was associated with greater knowledge. Parents knew most about issues governed by rules and those where adolescents agreed, felt obliged to obey, and disclosed. Monitoring predicted knowledge only in Chile and the Philippines. Warmth was a stronger predictor of knowledge in the United States. Key predictors of disclosure include agreement in Chile, agreement and rules in the Philippines, and warmth and rules in the United States.