PATHOLOGICAL INTERNET COMMUNITIES: A NEW DIRECTION FOR SEXUAL DEVIANCE RESEARCH IN A POST MODERN ERA

This article explores the impact of the Internet and related technologies on the nature of deviant behavior, deviant communities, and the future of deviance research. The idea that pathological communities, once largely suppressed by time, space, and societal restraints, can now create and use virtual communities is focal. Those new communities may expand their numbers and/or pathology, while reinforcing their rationales for rule violations. Investigation of these new virtual communities is especially complex for both conceptual and methodological reasons: identity is hard to ascertain in cyber-settings; nationality, ethnicity and other background traits and standard (e.g., random) sampling methods are not feasible. Nonetheless, the impact of communications technology on the creation and expansion of pathologically deviant communities requires exploration to determine whether, for example, immersion and social support lead to satiation-catharsis, more aggressive real-time behavior, and/or increases in the depth and number of pathological sexual preferences.     

Resource Review

Abstract

Cynthia Parsons. Serving to Learn, Learning to Serve—Civics and Service from A to Z. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press. 1996. 112 pages. $18 paper, $40 hard cover.     

Variables Affecting Readiness to Benefit From Career Interventions

This article identifies and briefly describes the broad range of variables that may influence clients’ readiness to benefit from career interventions. The article also discusses consequences of low readiness for effective use of career interventions and addresses implications for practice as well as for future research. Variables contributing to low readiness for effective use of career interventions include personal characteristics and circumstances; knowledge of self, options, and decision making; and prior experience with career interventions. Consequences of low readiness for using career interventions include premature disengagement, negative perception of skills and interests, selective acquisition of incomplete information, premature choice foreclosure, protracted exploration, dependent decision‐making style, and poor evaluation of options.     

Bayesian Interval Estimation for the Difference in TPRs and FPRs of Two Diagnostic Tests with Unverified Negatives

We derive Bayesian interval estimators for the differences in the true positive rates and false positive rates of two dichotomous diagnostic tests applied to the members of two distinct populations. The populations have varying disease prevalences with unverified negatives. We compare the performance of the Bayesian credible interval to the Wald interval using Monte Carlo simulation for a spectrum of different TPRs, FPRs, and sample sizes. For the case of a low TPR and low FPR, we found that a Bayesian credible interval with relatively noninformative priors performed well. We obtain similar interval comparison results for the cases of a high TPR and high FPR, a high TPR and low FPR, and of a high TPR and mixed FPR after incorporating mildly informative priors.     

The relationship between unit diversity and perceptions of organizational performance in the military

Structural equation modeling techniques are used to examine the relationship between demographic diversity and perceptions of organizational performance in military units. Analyzing data from the Military Equal Opportunity Climate Survey reveals higher female and minority representation reduces females’ and minorities’ perceptions of organizational effectiveness, respectively. Identical factors appear to influence the perceptions of organizational performance across these two subgroups of employees. The results demonstrate the importance of conducting separate analyses for subgroups in examining the effects of demographic diversity on organizational performance.     

A note on Dean's overdispersion test

This note discusses an extension to the score test statistics for overdispersion in Poisson and binomial regression models [Dean, C.B., 1992. Testing for overdispersion in Poisson and binomial regression models. J. Amer. Statist. Assoc. 87, 451–457]. Examples illustrate the application of the extended results.     

Book review

State-Space Models with Regime Switching by Chang-Jin Kim and Charles R. Nelson. Pp. 250. Cambridge, Massachnsetts: MIT Press, 1999. ($40.00 cloth) WEB INFOR~UATION: http://mitpress.mit.edu/book-home.tcl?isbn=0262l123.     

Effects of omitting a covariate in poisson models when the data are balanced

The authors show that for balanced data, the estimates of effects of interest and of their standard errors are unaffected when a covariate is removed from a multiplicative Poisson model. As they point out, this is not verified in the analogous linear model, nor in the logistic model. In the first case, only the estimated coefficients remain the same, while in the second case, both the estimated effects and their standard errors can change.     

Reports of Conferences,Institutes, and Seminars

A busy time for librarians was late May through early July 2008 with the Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians meeting May 14–16, the North American Serials Interest Group meeting June 5–8, and an American Library Association preconference Electronic Serials 101: What I Wished I’d Known Before I Got in Over My Head, June 27.