Occupation and Suicide

Objective . Research on occupation and suicide has neglected multivariate models. It is not clear, for example, if persons in alleged "high-risk" occupations have high suicide risk because of occupational stress associated with the occupation or because of the demographic composition of the people in the occupation. The present study explores the relationship between occupation and suicide for 32 occupational groups. Methods . Data are from the national mortality file tapes, which cover 21 states. They refer to 9,499 suicides and 134,386 deaths from all other causes in 1990. Results . Bivariate logistic regression models find a total of 15 occupations with either significantly higher (e.g., dentists, artists, machinists, auto mechanics, and carpenters) or lower (e.g., clerks, elementary school teachers, cooks) risk than the rest of the working-age population. Multivariate models that remove the demographic covariates of occupation find only eight occupations with greater or lower than expected risk of death by suicide. Conclusion . The results underscore the need for demographic controls in the assessment of occupational risk of suicide. They are consistent with a previous study based on data from England. The findings provide the first systematic evidence on the problem for the United States.     

Prior elicitation in the classification problem

Results are developed concerning the asymptotic behaviour of the Bayes classification rule as the number of unclassified observations grows without bound. It is shown that unclassified observations serve only to estimate the individual population parameters in an unlabeled sense and do not provide information about the labels that are attached to the populations. Prior construction is approached through investigation of prior odds over regions of the joint parameter space (across all populations) deemed likely to contain the true joint parameter vector. It is shown that consideration of these prior odds can lead to more robust a posteriori classification of individual observations.     

Proposed best practice for statisticians in the reporting and publication of pharmaceutical industry‐sponsored clinical trials

In this paper we set out what we consider to be a set of best practices for statisticians in the reporting of pharmaceutical industry‐sponsored clinical trials. We make eight recommendations covering: author responsibilities and recognition; publication timing; conflicts of interest; freedom to act; full author access to data; trial registration and independent review. These recommendations are made in the context of the prominent role played by statisticians in the design, conduct, analysis and reporting of pharmaceutical sponsored trials and the perception of the reporting of these trials in the wider community. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The human development spectrum: Sub-spectra and social indicators for use in development project planning,design, and implementation

A spectrum of human development has been observed which has application in international development project planning, design, and implementation. Based on experience with privately funded development projects in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, seven components or sub-spectra of the human development spectrum which are vital to effective development projects are identified: need, resources, technology, social conscience, integrity, attitude, and problem solving. Their implications for the development process are explained, and indicators for each sub-spectrum are described.     

Reinforcement,stereotypy, and rule discovery

The effects of reinforced pretraining on subsequent rule discovery were examined with college students as subjects. Levels of behavioral stereotypy observed during reinforced and non-contingent pretraining were compared. During pretraining subjects received reinforcement if they pressed two keys in a particular sequence. During the problem session pressing each key four times was a necessary condition for reinforcement, but each problem had additional different requirements for reinforcement. Subjects were asked to solve the problems by discovering the rule that determined whether or not they received reinforcement. Levels of stereotyped responding during pretraining were equivalent for contingently and non-contingently trained subjects. During the problem session contingently pretrained, non-contingently pretrained, and naive subjects required equal numbers of trials to solve problems and solved the same number of problems. The results suggest that behavioral stereotypy observed in this experimental preparation may be due to repeated exposure to the task. Differences between the results observed in this study and that of Schwartz (1982) and implications for the use of reinforcement procedures in applied settings are discussed.

     

Disability equality training—constructing a collaborative model

This paper describes and discusses the process of a research project designed to provide a model of disability equality training for health and social care staff. The interprofessional and participative consultative process when designing a disability equality staff training programme based on a social model of disability is evaluated. The methodology and conceptual thinking of the research process is analysed using the qualitative data generated from service users and staff. The paper concludes with a discussion of the challenges and opportunities for health and social service agencies committed to implementing staff disability equality training consistent with the UK Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Human Rights Act 1998.     

Adaptive sampling without replacement of clusters

In a common form of adaptive cluster sampling, an initial sample of units is selected by random sampling without replacement and, whenever the observed value of the unit is sufficiently high, its neighboring units are added to the sample, with the process of adding neighbors repeated if any of the added units are also high valued. In this way, an initial selection of a high-valued unit results in the addition of the entire network of surrounding high-valued units and some low-valued “edge” units where sampling stops. Repeat selections can occur when more than one initially selected unit is in the same network or when an edge unit is shared by more than one added network. Adaptive sampling without replacement of networks avoids some of this repeat selection by sequentially selecting initial sample units only from the part of the population not already in any selected network. The design proposed in this paper carries this step further by selecting initial units only from the population, exclusive of any previously selected networks or edge units.     

Voting in professional associations: The case of the American sociological association revisited

Who votes in ASA elections? This article examines data on voter turnout from two recent presidential contests of the American Sociological Association in an analysis of the determinants of election participation. Extending the 1981 Ridgeway and Moore study of voting dynamics in the ASA, we hypothesize that intraorganizational networks and particular demongraphic characteristics link ASA members to the discipline in a manner analogous to the way such factors operate in the national electorate. On the basis of data compiled from 1985 and 1986 ASA election returns, we find that network factors are the most salient determinants of voting behavior. We conclude that those organizational ties that effectively link members, however directly or indirectly, to the larger Association are the most predictive of propensity to vote.