Combining the liberal and useful arts: Sociological skills in the global economy

The discipline of sociology remains vulnerable in an environment of economic uncertainty and global change. Constraints on higher education are likely to increase and recurrent pressures on traditional liberal arts programs will continue unabated. An older, more diverse, cost-conscious and career-minded student population will increasingly insist on clearer pathways to difficult and bewildering labor markets. But sociology’s weakness as a liberal art may be overcome by combining it with a more applied and practical orientation. The very forces that threaten the discipline’s institutional existence make it profoundly relevant and valuable in an age of social transformation. Based on a familiar Millsian conception of the sociological imagination, this article attempts to combine sociology’s liberal tradition with its role as a “useful art,” honed into the specific features of workplace change and the employment setting. It does so by suggesting five categories of emerging skills in the global economy and ways that sociology has a far reaching claim to their practice and development. The categories are: 1) the skills of knowledge workers; 2) skills in the learning organization; 3) skills in the technological context; 4) skills in the diverse and divided workplace; 5) change-making skills. The article concludes by urging those in the discipline to make sociology more of a useful art that has practical application in a changing world. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Sociological Practice Association 15th Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado, June 11, 1993.     

Estimation of p(y<x) in the gamma case

We consider estimation of P(Y<X) when X?Γr(M,λ) and Y?Γ(N,μ) are independent with M and N known. A concise representation of the UMVUE and several representations for the MLE are derived. Closed-form exact expressions of both MSE's and the bias of the MLE are obtained. Large-sample results are given and numerical comparison of the two point estimators is made. Confidence intervals are given.     

A theorem on the density of the density ordinate and an alternative interpretation of the bqx-muller method

This paper obtains a theorem about the density of the density ordinate when the latter is regarded as a random variable in its own right. The theorem is used to provide an alternative interpretation of the BOX-MULLER simulation method which extends also to an alternative method for simulating from the LAPLACE density     

Intermediate clinical events,surrogate markers and survival

This paper investigates one- and two-sample problems comparing survival times when an individual may experience an intermediate event prior to death or reaching some well defined endpoint. The intermediate event may be polychotomous. Patients experiencing the intermediate event may have an altered survival distribution after the intermediate event. Score tests are derived for testing if the occurrence of the intermediate event actually alters survival. These models have implications for evaluating therapies without randomization as well as strengthening the log rank test for comparing two survival distributions. The exact distribution of the score tests can be found by conditioning on both the waiting time and occurrence of the intermedate event.Deceased     

Part-time pay

The wage data presented herein were assembled by Deirdre McCullough, research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute.     

An integrative perspective on the psychological response of women and men to unemployment

The psychological response to involuntary unemployment in men and women is discussed within a developmental systems model adapted from Ketz de Vries. The response to work loss is seen as a complex and multifaceted response to a specific critical event which is affected by concurrent and previous strings of critical events and role transitions and the overall constellation of psychosocial and sociocultural influences on the adaptation of men and women. Gaps in the research evidence are pointed out and directions for future research are suggested.     

Asymptotically valid single-stage multiple-comparison procedures

We establish general conditions for the asymptotic validity of single-stage multiple-comparison procedures (MCPs) under the following general framework. There is a finite number of independent alternatives to compare, where each alternative can represent, e.g., a population, treatment, system or stochastic process. Associated with each alternative is an unknown parameter to be estimated, and the goal is to compare the alternatives in terms of the parameters. We establish the MCPs’ asymptotic validity, which occurs as the sample size of each alternative grows large, under two assumptions. First, for each alternative, the estimator of its parameter satisfies a central limit theorem (CLT). Second, we have a consistent estimator of the variance parameter appearing in the CLT. Our framework encompasses comparing means (or other moments) of independent (not necessarily normal) populations, functions of means, quantiles, steady-state means of stochastic processes, and optimal solutions of stochastic approximation by the Kiefer–Wolfowitz algorithm. The MCPs we consider are multiple comparisons with the best, all pairwise comparisons, all contrasts, and all linear combinations, and they allow for unknown and unequal variance parameters and unequal sample sizes across alternatives.     

Changes in incidence of sexual intercourse of unmarried teenagers following a community‐based sex education program

The nature and frequency of men's and women's sexual fantasies were investigated by surveying 307 students (182 females, 125 males) at a California state university or junior college via a paper‐and‐pencil questionnaire. The questionnnaire was inspired by modern evolutionary theory and was designed to investigate sex differences in sexual fantasies. Substantial sex differences were found in the salience of visual images, touching, context, personalization, emotion, partner variety, partner response, fantasizer response, and inward versus outward focus. These data, the scientific literature on sexual fantasy, the historically‐stable contrasts between male‐oriented pornography and female‐oriented romance novels, the ethnographic record of human sexuality, and the ineluctable implications of an evolutionary perspective on our species, taken together, imply the existence of profound sex differences in sexual psychologies.     

A Derivation of a Useful Consequence of the Gauss-Markov Theorem

The Gauss-Markov (GM) theorem and its many consequences are well known. It has been our experience that graduate students in linear model courses benefit substantially by deriving these consequences, all of which form natural corollaries to the GM theorem. In deriving any one lemma, the student is compelled to reuse many other GM-based lemmas. In this article we present another example of such a lemma that arises in the forward-elimination variable selection procedure. The derivation given is considered to be pedagogically useful.