Always doing your best? Effort and performance in dynamic settings

Theory and Decision - Achieving an ambitious goal frequently requires succeeding in a sequence of intermediate tasks, some being critical for the final outcome, and others not. However, individuals...     

Review of Carceral State Studies and Application

This review considers a range of literature that contributes to a critical conversation encompassing radical opposition to the Carceral State and its logics, practices, and technologies. The carceral concept has been adopted and applied to multiple areas of the social world. With few exceptions, the term “Carceral State” has been used by many scholars without a comprehensive or agreed definition of the concept. This review is an attempt to piece together various pieces of literature that offer theoretical explorations of mass incarceration, as well as, how punishment and the logics of prison have informed economic, political, and social landscapes, compromising what has been identified by many scholars as a Carceral State.     

Information measures and design issues in the study of mortality deceleration: findings for the gamma-Gompertz model

Lifetime Data Analysis - Mortality deceleration, or the slowing down of death rates at old ages, has been repeatedly investigated, but empirical studies of this phenomenon have produced mixed...     

A two-sample distribution-free scale test of the smirnov type

The two-sample, distribution-free statistics of Smirnov (1939) are used to define a new statistic. While the Smirnov statistics are used as a general goodness-of-fit test, a distribution-free scale test based on this new statistic is developed. It is shown that this new test has higher power than the two-sided Smirnov statistic in detecting differences in scale for some symmetric distributions with equal means/medians. The critical values of the proposed test statistic and its limiting distribution are given     

Location and Scale Estimation with Correlation Coefficients

This article shows how to use any correlation coefficient to produce an estimate of location and scale. It is part of a broader system, called a correlation estimation system (CES), that uses correlation coefficients as the starting point for estimations. The method is illustrated using the well-known normal distribution. This article shows that any correlation coefficient can be used to fit a simple linear regression line to bivariate data and then the slope and intercept are estimates of standard deviation and location. Because a robust correlation will produce robust estimates, this CES can be recommended as a tool for everyday data analysis. Simulations indicate that the median with this method using a robust correlation coefficient appears to be nearly as efficient as the mean with good data and much better if there are a few errant data points. Hypothesis testing and confidence intervals are discussed for the scale parameter; both normal and Cauchy distributions are covered.     

Improved likelihood-based inference for the MA(1) model

An improved likelihood-based method is proposed to test for the significance of the first-order moving average model. Compared with commonly used tests which depend on the asymptotic properties of the maximum likelihood estimate and the likelihood ratio statistic, the proposed method has remarkable accuracy. Application of the method to a data set on book sales is presented to demonstrate the implementation of the method. Simulation studies are subsequently performed to illustrate the accuracy of the method compared to the traditional methods. Additionally, a simple and effective correction is used to deal with the boundary problem.     

The impact of sense of coherence and high-demand/low-control job environment on self-reported health,burnout and psychophysiological stress indicators

Sense of Coherence (SOC) is a new concept belonging to a salutogenic paradigm, proposing to explain health as contrasted to disease, a pathogenic paradigm. The Job Demand-Control (JDC) model of job stress suggests that the combination of high job demands and low job control, defined as job strain, is strongly associated with adverse health consequences. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between SOC and the JDC model in assessment of negative job effects within three pathogenically defined contexts: self-reported health, burnout and psychophysiological stress indicators, assessing the explanatory value of SOC for such variables. The study was conducted with 103 employees of social-welfare and social-insurance agencies in Sweden. A questionnaire related to job conditions, health and burnout was administered, and blood samples were collected and analysed for serum concentrations of cortisol, prolactin and immunoglobulin G. Multiple-regression models were calculated including variables from all three contexts. In the analyses, a distinction was made between emotional job strain and quantitative job strain. The SOC interacted with emotional job strain, but the interaction also increased the independent effect of emotional job strain. The independent effect of SOC disappeared in most models when interaction was included. It is concluded that studies of job strain-effects according to the JDC model should include the SOC as an interaction factor.     

Group Couples' Intervention to Improve Sexual Health Among Married Women in a Low‐Income Community in Mumbai,India

This article describes the design and implementation of a group couples' intervention focused on improving women's sexual health as a component of a multilevel community, clinical, and counseling intervention project conducted in association with a gynecological service in a municipal urban health center in a low‐income community in Mumbai, India. The group couples' intervention involved four single‐gender and two mixed‐gender sessions designed to address the dynamics of the marital relationship and establish a more equitable spousal relationship as a means to improve women's sexual and marital health. Involvement of men presented a major challenge to couple's participation. For those couples that did participate, qualitative findings revealed significant changes in couple and family relations, sexual health knowledge, and emotional well‐being.