The changing sociological construct of the family

Recent attempts to announce the death of the family as a useful analytical category for sociologists are rebutted as being premature. The tendency to view household relations as family relations or, indeed, couple or gender relations as family relations seems to have arisen in the early 1970s. Earlier attempts to construct an empirically grounded analysis of family relationships have been curiously neglected. An account of one family on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent provides some illustrative ethnography on both the positive uses of family members-particularly siblings - and on the way the social boundaries of this family are constructed by its members. It is argued that the family is best understood as a system of relationships that change over time. There is a curious lack of systematic ethnography of contemporary family relationships so that what is taught to students as the sociology of the family may be widely at variance with their own personal experience. This may be partly a result of relying too much on random surveys of households at the expense of detailed explorations of existing patterns of social relationships and social meanings. Developing theoretical arguments on the basis of inadequate or inappropriate ethnography is evidently a dangerous and misleading exercise.     

Neogamy and older persons

This paper represents an initial attempt to bring together the literature on neogamy among older persons and to provide a conceptual framework for its understanding. To do so, converging demographic and social factors regarding older persons as they relate to the need for and the expression of intimate relationships are explored. Next the existence and implications of new forms of intimacy among older persons are examined. Finally, some attention is given to the impact of these issues with regard to research, counseling, and public policy.     

Household expenditure patterns and resource pooling: evidence of changes in post-apartheid South Africa

The primary aim of this paper is to examine whether resources accruing to different members of the household and from different sources have differential impacts on household expenditure patterns. The issue is of considerable policy interest for, if the identity of the income recipient does matter in the household’s expenditure decisions, then it indicates the usefulness of targeting income assistance at particular members of the household. The South African evidence is generally supportive of the hypothesis of resource pooling by the income earners in their spending decisions on food, clothing and energy. The results of this paper have been placed in the wider context of social, political and economic developments following the end of apartheid that have caused significant changes in the nature of resource inflow and in the balance of power in decision making within the South African household. The results are indicative of improvements in the standard of living of the majority of South Africans following the end of apartheid.

Development and planning of infrastructure

This paper offers a survey of the wide field in infrastructure, a bird's eye view of some of the major problems arising, and some controversial remarks. The aim is to point to the very great importance of the planning and development of infrastructure which decide now how against the background of continued scientific and technological development the environment should be kept or brought under some sort of intelligent control so that the quality of living is steadily enhanced.     

Modelling process robustness: a case study of centrifugal casting

A robust process minimises the effect of the noise factors on the performance of a product or process. The variation of the performance of a robust process can be measured through modelling and analysis of process robustness. In this paper, a comprehensive methodology for modelling and analysis of process robustness is developed considering a number of relevant tools and techniques such as multivariate regression, control charting and simulation within the broad framework of Taguchi method. The methodology as developed considers, in specific terms, process modelling using historical data pertaining to responses, inputs variables and parameters as well as simulated noise variables data, identification of the model responses at each experimental setting of the controllable variables, estimation of multivariate process capability indices and control of their variability using control charting for determining optimal settings of the process variables using design of experiment-based Taguchi Method. The methodology is applied to a centrifugal casting process that produces worm-wheels for steam power plants in view of its critical importance of maintaining consistent performance in various under controllable situations (input conditions). The results show that the process settings as determined ensure minimum in-control variability with maximum performance of the centrifugal casting process, indicating improved level of robustness.     

Polarization: Concepts,Measurement, Estimation

We develop the measurement theory of polarization for the case in which income distributions can be described using density functions. The main theorem uniquely characterizes a class of polarization measures that fits into what we call the “identity‐alienation” framework, and simultanously satisfies a set of axioms. Second, we provide sample estimators of population polarization indices that can be used to compare polarization across time or entities. Distribution‐free statistical inference results are also used in order to ensure that the orderings of polarization across entities are not simply due to sampling noise. An illustration of the use of these tools using data from 21 countries shows that polarization and inequality orderings can often differ in practice.