One-mode projection analysis and design of covert affiliation networks

Within the field of national security and counterterrorism a great need exists to understand covert organizations. To better understand these cellular structures we model and analyze these cells as a collection of subsets of all participants in the covert organization, i.e., as hypergraphs or affiliation networks. Such a covert affiliation network structure is analyzed by evaluating the one-mode projection of the corresponding hypergraph. First we provide a characterization of the total distance in the one-mode projection using its corresponding cell-shrunken version. Secondly we evaluate the one-mode projection with respect to the secrecy versus information tradeoff dilemma every covert organization has to solve. We present and analyze affiliation networks representing common covert organizational forms: star, path and semi-complete hypergraphs. In addition we evaluate an example of a covert organization wishing to conduct an attack and compare its performance to that of the common covert organizational forms. Finally we investigate affiliation networks that are optimal in the sense of balancing secrecy and information. We show how any affiliation tree can be improved by altering its structure. Finally we prove that among covert organizational forms in the class of hypertrees with the same number of cells uniform star affiliation networks are optimal.     

Providing mental health care to veterans in rural areas: using telehealth in mobile clinics

The purpose of this article is to provide information to improve the quality of care of veterans living in geographically isolated areas who require treatment for mental health issues. Because interactive care solutions are currently hot topics in the health care community, they should be viewed as possible strategies to meet the needs of this specialty group of veterans. An intervention using a mobile clinic and clinical video telehealth reduces distance barriers by making it possible for mental health specialists to come to rural veterans instead of the veteran attempting to find a way to get to the practitioner, who may be located in a clinic or hospital many miles away. This article focuses on an alternate strategy-telehealth in mobile clinics-as a possible solution to the mental health crisis of veterans in rural areas.     

Using Football Metaphor to Engage Men in Therapeutic Support

This paper is an account of a small scale exploratory study about the use and value of football metaphor as a device for facilitating therapeutic work. It is based on an evaluation which used a range of qualitative and quantitative approaches. In this paper, we selectively draw on the qualitative data to provide examples to inform our discussion. We illustrate various ways in which football metaphor can support therapeutic change: by aiding initial engagement, facilitating mutual support, enabling self-understanding and motivating change. We relate our analysis to the literature about the therapeutic value of metaphor and highlight the salience of using football metaphor in a group-based setting for men who are often seen as ‘hard to engage’ in therapeutic support. With some caveats, we argue that football metaphor offers a potentially rich and flexible therapeutic resource.     

Income characteristics and the use of microfinance services: evidence from economically active persons with disabilities

The purpose of this empirical research from Uganda is to provide initial insight into the ‘black box’ of understanding the economic behaviour of persons with disabilities and about their use of microfinance services. First, we analyse the income levels of persons with disabilities in relation to their sources of income. Second, we study the income sources and income levels for different types of disabilities. Finally, we analyse how income level and income source relate to the use of microfinance services for persons with disabilities. We present evidence that farmers with disabilities and persons with visual impairments have lower income levels than other persons with disabilities. We then document that those with the lowest income levels have the least access to microfinance services, in particular services from formal institutions. Moreover, respondents involved in farming and manufacturing have less access to formal microfinance services than those involved in retail/wholesale or service activities.     

Teacher–child relationships in the context of poverty: the role of frequent school mobility

Children's relationships with their teachers are critical for classroom-based learning, but children growing up in poverty may be at risk for lower-quality relationships with teachers. Little is known about how changing schools, one poverty-related risk, affects teacher–child relationships. Using growth curve models that control for a host of other poverty-related risks, this study explores the association between children changing schools frequently (defined as three or more school moves) between preschool and third grade and the quality of their relationships with their teachers over these five years in a low-income, ethnic-minority sample. Children who frequently moved schools were reported to be less close to their teachers in third grade and experienced steeper declines in closeness than children who did not change schools frequently. Moreover, the effects of frequent school mobility at third grade were robust to other poverty-related risks, including residential mobility, parental education risk, family income, and single-parent households. Changing schools was unrelated to children's conflict with teachers. We discuss these findings in the context of policies that support students’ transitions when changing schools.     

From Policy to Practice: Exploring Practitioners’ Perspectives on Social Enterprise Policy Claims

While there has been significant academic focus on social enterprise policy for a number of years now, the links between policy and the practice of social enterprise have received comparatively less attention. Scotland is recognised as having a particularly supportive environment for social enterprise; the Scottish Government has publicly endorsed social enterprise and made considerable investment into the sector. Based upon an in-depth qualitative analysis of the perceptions of social enterprise practitioners and stakeholders across Scotland, we explore whether the rhetoric of support matches practitioners experience of ‘doing’ social enterprise. Reviewing emerging issues and reflecting upon the complex nature of the Scottish context, including in relation to welfare reform, we find that in contrast to the claims of politicians, the attitude of local authorities in Scotland, coupled with a lack of understanding of the needs and requirements of social enterprise at the local authority level, has led to a rather more ‘patchwork’ picture than the rhetoric would seem to suggest. While some local authorities recognise the potential of social enterprise for their local economies and privilege and encourage cooperation, others are less inclined to openly support social enterprise, particularly those that are small in scale. Underpinning these contentions, we argue, are unrealistic expectations about the prospects of social enterprises being able to become ‘sustainable’, and how this could be achieved.     

Supervised classifiers for high-dimensional higher-order data with locally doubly exchangeable covariance structure

We explore the performance accuracy of the linear and quadratic classifiers for high-dimensional higher-order data, assuming that the class conditional distributions are multivariate normal with locally doubly exchangeable covariance structure. We derive a two-stage procedure for estimating the covariance matrix: at the first stage, the Lasso-based structure learning is applied to sparsifying the block components within the covariance matrix. At the second stage, the maximum-likelihood estimators of all block-wise parameters are derived assuming the doubly exchangeable within block covariance structure and a Kronecker product structured mean vector. We also study the effect of the block size on the classification performance in the high-dimensional setting and derive a class of asymptotically equivalent block structure approximations, in a sense that the choice of the block size is asymptotically negligible.     

Inference based on progressive Type I interval censored data from log-normal distribution

This article considers inference for the log-normal distribution based on progressive Type I interval censored data by both frequentist and Bayesian methods. First, the maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of the unknown model parameters are computed by expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. The asymptotic standard errors (ASEs) of the MLEs are obtained by applying the missing information principle. Next, the Bayes’ estimates of the model parameters are obtained by Gibbs sampling method under both symmetric and asymmetric loss functions. The Gibbs sampling scheme is facilitated by adopting a similar data augmentation scheme as in EM algorithm. The performance of the MLEs and various Bayesian point estimates is judged via a simulation study. A real dataset is analyzed for the purpose of illustration.     

Work and non-work factors as perceived causes of symptoms of psychological strain

Two studies are reported in which the respondents were asked to attribute causes to their experienced symptoms of stress as measured by the General Health Questionnaire. The results show that most respondents can do this, that there are differences in attributions by symptoms, and that the pattern of attributions is similar for two different occupational groups, even though the level of symptomology is higher for nurses than for laboratory workers. It is argued that this simple addition to symptom questionnaires might have useful diagnostic value, but that further research with different populations and other symptoms is desirable.     

DESPAIR, DISTRUST AND DISSATISFACTION AMONG BLACKS AND WOMEN, 1973–1987

Discontent among American blacks and women is examined with indicators of the anomia of despair and distrust, and of job and financial dissatisfaction. Nine years of General Social Survey data covering 1973 through 1987 show that blacks' discontent exceeds whites' in most instances examined; and black women more frequently show significantly higher discontent than other race/gender groups. Also, blacks' discontent more often exceeds whites' among persons high in SES than among those low in SES. But gender main effects are almost nonexistent; and white women almost never show more discontent than other race/gender groups. This unexpected finding may be related to white women's greater identification with race than gender and their perception of general but not personal discrimination. Failure of the gender/discontent relationships to differ with the American president in office may have a similar explanation. But, as expected, racial differences in discontent tended to be higher during the Nixon/Ford and Reagan administrations than Carter's.