Beyond the Bottle: Introducing Anthropological Debate to Research into Aboriginal Alcohol Use

This paper selectively identifies two recurring misconceptions of theory present in the existing research literature on Aboriginal alcohol use which may impede future research and prevention activities: the denial of contemporary Aboriginal cultures, particularly in urban areas, and the consequent failure to conceive of Aboriginal drinking as socially, culturally and politically meaningful behaviour; and an emphasis on rural/remote communities in research initiatives which reflects outdated conceptual paradigms which have been brought to bear on the prevention of alcohol-related problems and has hindered innovation in program design for urban areas. Evidence from recent anthropological studies of both Aboriginal society and culture and Aboriginal alcohol use is presented which conflicts with the identified misconceptions and a case is made for the value of such analyses. Following an examination of these conflicting viewpoints, suggestions are made with respect to future research.     

Aging in poverty: making the case for comprehensive care management

A model for holistic care management that would enhance outcomes for economically vulnerable older adults who receive an array of disjointed services administered through the older Americans Act (OAA) and local Area Agencies on Aging (AAA) is proposed. Fragmented service delivery is typically wasteful and ineffectual, but comprehensive care management that includes an autonomous care manager, a single interagency plan of care and ongoing monitoring that is client-centered may protect those aging in poverty from negative health outcomes.     

Modified cramer-von mises and anderson-darling tests for weibull distributions with unknown location and scale parameters

The standard Cramer-von Mises and Anderson-Darling goodness-of-fit tests require continuous underlying distributions with known parameters. In this paper, tables of critical values are generated for both tests for Weibull distributions with unknown location and scale parameters and known shape parameters. The powers of the Cramer-von Mises, Anderson-Darling, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, and Chi-Square tests for this situation are investigated. The Cramer-von Mises test has most power when the shape is 1.0 and the Anderson-Darling test has most power when the shape is 3.5. Finally, a relation between critical value and inverse shape parameter is presented.     

Using student projects in an introductory course for liberal arts students

This talk, given at the IMS Regional Conference honoring Bob Hogg (Iowa City, May 16, 1995), discusses the assigning of student projects in an introductory statistics course for liberal arts students. We discuss several examples by way of motivation, discuss the educational reasons one might use student projects, and finally give some practical guidelines to help the project assignment run smoothly.     

Maintaining the Professional Integrity of Federal Statistics

Transactional analysis can be used to analyze personal interactions between consulting statisticians and their clients. The Parent-Adult-Child model has recently been refined to consist of six states by subdividing the Parent and Child ego states. The authors briefly define the six ego states (Nurturing Parent, Critical Parent, Adult, Adapted Child, Free Child, and Rebellious Child) and describe their occurrence during statistical consultations. Recommendations are given for identifying the ego states, setting realistic goals for relationships, and modifying unsatisfactory transactions.     

Effect of Prior Specification on Bayesian Design for Two-Sample Comparison of a Binary Outcome

Closed forms of the optimal Bayesian design for the estimation of the log odds-ratio from a two-sample experiment are obtained. The effect of various specifications of prior distributions are considered and plausible circumstances where unequal allocation is optimal are presented.     

Individual differences and dyadic processes in conversations with peers in middle childhood

The goal of the current study was to investigate the contribution of both trait-like individual differences and dyadic processes to the content of children's conversations. Fifty-two groups typically consisting of four same-sex unfamiliar nine-year-old children (N = 202) interacted in all possible dyads, resulting in six dyads per group. Each dyad completed a 5-min frustration task and a 5-min planning task. Observers coded children's verbalizations into 10 categories and further summed these categories into prosocial (suggest, agree, solicit input, ask, encourage, state personal) and antisocial (command, disagree, discourage, aggress) verbalizations, resulting in 24 variables (12 per task). Across both tasks, Social Relations Model analyses provided evidence of the role of both individual differences [significant effects for actor variance (15 of 24 variables), actor-actor correlations, and intrapersonal correlations] and dyadic processes [significant effects for partner variance (4 of 24 variables), relationship variance (18 of 24 variables), dyadic reciprocity correlations (10 of 24 variables), and interpersonal correlations] in children's conversations with peers.