Analytical approximations for iterated bootstrap confidence intervals

Standard algorithms for the construction of iterated bootstrap confidence intervals are computationally very demanding, requiring nested levels of bootstrap resampling. We propose an alternative approach to constructing double bootstrap confidence intervals that involves replacing the inner level of resampling by an analytical approximation. This approximation is based on saddlepoint methods and a tail probability approximation of DiCiccio and Martin (1991). Our technique significantly reduces the computational expense of iterated bootstrap calculations. A formal algorithm for the construction of our approximate iterated bootstrap confidence intervals is presented, and some crucial practical issues arising in its implementation are discussed. Our procedure is illustrated in the case of constructing confidence intervals for ratios of means using both real and simulated data. We repeat an experiment of Schenker (1985) involving the construction of bootstrap confidence intervals for a variance and demonstrate that our technique makes feasible the construction of accurate bootstrap confidence intervals in that context. Finally, we investigate the use of our technique in a more complex setting, that of constructing confidence intervals for a correlation coefficient.     

How the British Working Class Became White: The Symbolic (Re)formation of Racialized Capitalism

This article offers an explanation of how and why the British working class, from being marginal to white identity in the nineteenth century, came to adopt and adapt this identity in the twentieth century. The changing position of whiteness within the symbolic constitution of capitalism is discussed. More specifically, the transition from whiteness as bourgeois identity within Victorian, relatively laissez-faire, capitalism to whiteness as a popular, or mass, identity, within the more state interventionist capitalism of the twentieth century is used to exemplify the mutable nature, and political complexities, of the relationship between working class and white identities. The paper concludes with some observations on the implications of this argument for the theory and practice of anti-racism.     

Assembly Line Balancing Using Genetic Algorithms with Heuristic-Generated Initial Populations and Multiple Evaluation Criteria*

We use genetic algorithms (GA) to solve the assembly line balancing (ALB) problem. Inparticular, we show how this technique can be used to generate feasible line balances, improve upon solutions obtained by other heuristics reported in the literature, and utilizeany one or more evaluation criteria that can be expressed in functional form. The procedure is demonstrated with two examples: (1) intimating the improvement of heuristic-generated ALB solutions by including them in the GA initial population, and (2) the possibility of balancing assembly lines with multiple criteria and side constraints. These examples suggest that GA can be a powerful tool in ALB. To investigate the utility of GA on single-criterion problems, an experiment is conducted that compares both the GA approach and conventional heuristics. Results indicate that the GA solutions are significantly improved over the heuristic solutions under the conditions studied. It is also found that the presence of heuristic-generated conventional solutions in the GA initial population leads to statistically preferred results.     

Specific Organizational Citizenship Behaviours and Organizational Effectiveness: The Development of a Conceptual Heuristic Device

Organizational citizenship behaviour has generally been associated with organizational effectiveness. However, recent research has shown that this may not always be the case and that certain types of organizational citizenship behaviour such as compulsory citizenship behaviour, may be inimical to the fulfillment of formal goals and organizational effectiveness. Using military historical and business organizational secondary data, the paper maintains that extreme variance in either organizational (task) or personal (social psychological) support organizational citizenship behaviour generates entropic citizenship behaviour which derails completely the effective accomplishment of formal organizational goals. A general model of organizational citizenship behaviour with entropic citizenship behavior as its novel conceptual boundary is developed in the paper, and four specific propositions with implications for future empirical research are delineated.     

Property,gender and the life course: Inheritance and family welfare provision in early nineteenth-century England

Drawing upon detailed research of inheritance practices in early nineteenth-century Stockport, this article examines how married men attempted to provide for their families after their death. It is argued that inheritance acted as an informal family welfare mechanism through which specific gender relations associated with middle-class households were reproduced. The evidence presented suggests that married male testators often used inheritance to try and 'fix' their wives into widowhood. Widows were frequently required to act as custodians of family property and maintain the domestic order. Access to property was carefully controlled and various legal devices were used to give authority to the process and ensure that the estate was used by widows to care and provide for children in certain, carefully stipulated ways. In making these claims, the article argues that recent revisionist studies that have attempted to highlight the proprietorial autonomy of middle-class women in industrializing communities ignore the forces at work which constrained the free use of property by women at certain stages in the life course. The findings of the study are also used to highlight the ways in which middle-class men's uses of property were materially and ideologically 'constrained'.     

Sovereignty at What Scale? An Inquiry into Multiple Dimensions of Food Sovereignty

Abstract

Food sovereignty has struggled to make inroads into changing the structures and processes underlying the corporate food regime. One reason is that scale is still underspecified in the politics, strategies, and theories of food sovereignty. We suggest that much can be learned from examining the multiple dimensions of scale inherent in ongoing food sovereignty struggles. A gap exists between these in vivo experiments and the maturing academic theory of scale. The concept of ‘sovereignty’ can be opened up to reveal that movements, peoples, and communities, for example, are creating multiple sovereignties and are exercising sovereignty in more relational ways. Relational scale can aid movements and scholars to map and evaluate how spatial and temporal processes at and among various levels work to reinforce dominant agri-food systems but could also be reconfigured to support progressive alternatives. Finally, we apply relational scale to suggest practical strategies for realizing food sovereignty, using examples from the Potato Park in the Peruvian Andes.     

Suicide prevention and intervention with young people in foster care in Canada

Given the history of turmoil in their lives, foster children and young people coming into care are particularly at risk of suicide. Whether a crisis is successfully prevented, or treated and transcended, depends upon the ability of foster parents and agency staff members to understand the nature of the situation and to work together in dealing with it.     

'Real Jobs', 'Learning Difficulties' and Supported Employment

Supported employment is now regarded as a major vehicle for enabling people with 'learning difficulties' to enter employment. The purpose of this paper is to use the evidence provided by three case studies of people with 'learning difficulties' who have participated in supported employment to critically examine its fundamental premises. The paper argues that the influences of normalisation theory and the US model of supported employment have combined in the UK to form a variant of supported employment which, in pursuing the concept of 'real job', fails to adequately address the consequences of impairment.     

Unsettling the 'social' in social work: responses to asylum seeking children in Ireland

The ‘social’ context in which social work is located is becoming increasingly unsettled by emerging patterns of mobility. Mobility is constrained for many social work service users who are trapped within disadvantaged areas, while for others it has become a forced necessity to cross national boundaries and inhabit uncertain status in their nations of destination. This article explores the responses of the social work profession to children seeking asylum in the Republic of Ireland. These children's complex needs, produced by the conditions of mobility they have encountered and by the conditions of arrival/settlement in Ireland, force social work practice to be orientated beyond the boundaries of the national welfare state. In order to explore the varied responses of the social work profession in the Republic of Ireland to asylum seeking children, three different groups of children are considered: children seeking asylum who have been separated from their parents; children who are seeking asylum with their parent(s)/family; and young Irish citizens whose asylum seeking parents are in danger of being deported. It argues that the provision of appropriate services for these children requires the development of post‐national forms of social work practice.