Galaxy cutsets in graphs

Given a network G=(V,E), we say that a subset of vertices S⊆V has radius r if it is spanned by a tree of depth at most r. We are interested in determining whether G has a cutset that can be written as the union of k sets of radius r. This generalizes the notion of k-vertex connectivity, since in the special case r=0, a set spanned by a tree of depth at most r is a single vertex.     

COMMON FACTORS ACROSS THEORIES OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY: A MODIFIED DELPHI STUDY

The Delphi methodology was used to explore common factors across theories of marriage and family therapy (MFT). Leading clinicians and researchers from the American Family Therapy Academy and select faculty members from MFT training programs accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education were asked to achieve consensus regarding common factors. Respondents were asked to report on commonalities across the various MFT theories, as well as what they personally considered to be the core ingredients of change. A final profile of items was created from the responses. Qualitative interviews were conducted with selected panelists to clarify discrepancies as well as to add meaning to the data. Implications for the training and practice of MFTs as well as direction for future research are discussed.     

Prompting Depression Treatment Seeking among Smokers: A Comparison of Participants from Six Countries in an Internet Stop Smoking RCT

Websites containing information and advice about health are increasingly common and popular. It is important to understand whether the material these sites contain can positively influence individual behavior, and whether populations differ in their response to that material. Participants in an international web-based stop smoking randomized controlled trial (RCT) were screened for major depression; participants whose history and/or depression symptoms were deemed of concern were offered one of two prompts (Strong and Mild) to seek treatment, depending on depression history. Participants from 3 predominantly English-speaking and 3 predominantly Spanish-speaking countries were analyzed. Individuals given a Strong prompt were more likely to seek treatment for depression than those given a weak prompt (16.6% vs. 10.2% of previously untreated individuals reported seeking treatment), controlling for symptom level and other variables. Country-specific differences were observed, with participants from South Africa and Spain departing from the common pattern of Strong prompt leading to higher likelihood of treatment seeking. Older age and female gender, but not symptom level predicted higher likelihood of seeking treatment following a prompt. The results suggest that information provided by the health websites can promote help seeking in affected individuals.     

A lonely society? Loneliness and liquid modernity in Australia

This paper reviews recent studies of loneliness in order to assess whether it is becoming endemic in Australian society. It develops the idea that loneliness is an embedded social structural feature of contemporary Australian life likely to affect people through the life course, creating psychological stress, ill health and social dysfunction. Zygmunt Bauman's writing on liquid modernity is used to trace a sequence of less binding social bonds from the community the workplace, intimate relationships, friendship and kinship that may account for a more generalised distribution of loneliness. Empirical evidence from recent national surveys in Australia demonstrates how Bauman's gloomy prognosis is particularly applicable in Australia. The paper argues that it has been invisible as a social issue until recently, but that its scope and scale have grown such that robust policy initiatives are now warranted. It argues that Australia's gendered pattern of loneliness indicates that Bauman's broad theory of liquid modernity must be mediated by several factors relating to national cultures, historic patterns of family formation, and the gender role distribution in the creation and maintenance of social bonds.     

Parametric versus semi-parametric models for the analysis of correlated survival data: A case study in veterinary epidemiology

Correlated survival data arise frequently in biomedical and epidemiologic research, because each patient may experience multiple events or because there exists clustering of patients or subjects, such that failure times within the cluster are correlated. In this paper, we investigate the appropriateness of the semi-parametric Cox regression and of the generalized estimating equations as models for clustered failure time data that arise from an epidemiologic study in veterinary medicine. The semi-parametric approach is compared with a proposed fully parametric frailty model. The frailty component is assumed to follow a gamma distribution. Estimates of the fixed covariates effects were obtained by maximizing the likelihood function, while an estimate of the variance component ( frailty parameter) was obtained from a profile likelihood construction.     

Donor Complaints About Fundraising: What Are They and Why Should We Care?

The Fund Raising Standards Board is the body responsible for the self-regulation of fundraising practice in the UK. As a requirement of membership of this body, charities are required to complete an annual return detailing the complaints received about their fundraising practice in the previous year. We conduct through this study an analysis of these data to highlight the percentage of solicitations in a wide variety of media that result in a complaint. We also examine the nature of those complaints and interpret our results in the context of the wider literature exploring the role of complaints in bolstering customer/donor satisfaction and determining subsequent behaviour.     

Enhancing Critical Reflection amongst Social Work Students: The Contribution of an Experiential Learning Group in Care Homes for Older People

As part of a Practice Learning Centre, representing a partnership between an English University social work department and a non-governmental organisation, 12 students were placed in care homes for older people for their first period of assessed practice. The aims of this initiative were to facilitate: development of critical reflection; deployment of social work skills in a care home setting; and opportunities for social work students to work with care home residents. The learning was captured via four Experiential Groups facilitated by the Practice Educator with responsibility for assessing the students' practice. On-site supervisors also participated. Key learning included understanding of: the importance of critical reflection as a key social work skill; the influence of organisational norms and care home culture on the quality of care practice; the complexity and emotion-rich nature of person-centred care; and the pivotal role of relationships in work with people with dementia. Links made in the Groups—between the experiential and theoretical, the emotional and cognitive, and the structural and personal—demonstrate their value as learning platforms. Placements in care homes have considerable potential to enrich practice education; this is especially important in the context of an ageing population.     

A Critical Look at Risk Assessments for Global Catastrophes

Recent articles by Busza et al. (BJSW) and Dar et al. (DDH) argue that astrophysical data can be used to establish small bounds on the risk of a "killer strangelet" catastrophe scenario in the RHIC and ALICE collider experiments. The case for the safety of the experiments set out by BJSW does not rely solely on these bounds, but on theoretical arguments, which BJSW find sufficiently compelling to firmly exclude any possibility of catastrophe. Nonetheless, DDH and other commentators (initially including BJSW) suggested that these empirical bounds alone do give sufficient reassurance. This seems unsupportable when the bounds are expressed in terms of expectation value-a good measure, according to standard risk analysis arguments. For example, DDH's main bound, p(catastrophe) < 2 x 10(-8), implies only that the expectation value of the number of deaths is bounded by 120; BJSW's most conservative bound implies the expectation value of the number of deaths is bounded by 60,000. This article reappraises the DDH and BJSW risk bounds by comparing risk policy in other areas. For example, it is noted that, even if highly risk-tolerant assumptions are made and no value is placed on the lives of future generations, a catastrophe risk no higher than approximately 10(-15) per year would be required for consistency with established policy for radiation hazard risk minimization. Allowing for risk aversion and for future lives, a respectable case can be made for requiring a bound many orders of magnitude smaller. In summary, the costs of small risks of catastrophe have been significantly underestimated by BJSW (initially), by DDH, and by other commentators. Future policy on catastrophe risks would be more rational, and more deserving of public trust, if acceptable risk bounds were generally agreed upon ahead of time and if serious research on whether those bounds could indeed be guaranteed was carried out well in advance of any hypothetically risky experiment, with the relevant debates involving experts with no stake in the experiments under consideration.     

Common factors and our sacred models

In this article we argue that much of what makes one treatment effective is common to other forms of effective treatment--both in psychotherapy generally and in marital and family therapy (MFT) specifically. Yet MFT has largely ignored the research on common factors. In this article we present a moderate view of common factors that, while repudiating the extreme position that there is no difference among treatment models, stresses that there are common factors and mechanisms of change that undergird most forms of successful treatment. These common mechanisms of change should be given more attention in our field, which has tended to emphasize the uniqueness of our sacred models. We delineate some of the major common factors, review the empirical evidence for them, and discuss implications of adapting a common factors informed approach to family therapy.