Meanings of eating disorders discerned from family treatment and its implications for family education: the case of Shenzhen

Contrary to the simplistic myth that eating disorders are the result of a tendency to adopt the Western beauty standard of being slim and thin, the symptoms have been found to symbolize the struggles of adolescents and their development in a rapidly changing society, and in particular, to illuminate the continual conflicts inherent in the afflicted adolescents, their families and the accepted societal values and norms. This paper reports the results of a qualitative study conducted in Shenzhen, the first Special Economic Zone in China that has experienced rapid economic growth and a significant population increase from 314 100 to 6 million in the past two decades. With an aim to identify the meanings of eating disorders at the individual and family levels, this study has employed a multiple‐case study research design. Data have been collected through peer reviews on the family treatment sessions for 10 families, each with an adolescent daughter suffering from eating disorders, and with the sessions being videotaped with written consent from the families. Two themes evolved from the family narratives, namely the adolescents' attempt to master the uncontrollable life in facing the rapid transition of society, and their struggle between remaining young and growing up. Implications for family education in Shenzhen are discussed at the end of the paper.     

The population biology of coevolution

New populational approaches to the study of coevolution among species are confronting two major problems: the geographic scale at which coevolution proceeds, and the long-standing issue of how species may coevolve with more than one other species. By incorporating the ecological structure of life histories and populations into analyses of the coevolutionary process, these studies are indicating that coevolutionary change is much more ecologically dynamic than indicated by earlier work. Rather than simply a slow, stately process shaping species over long periods of time, parts of the coevolutionary process may proceed rapidly (sometimes observable in less than a decade), continually molding and remolding populations and communities locally and over broad geographic scales.     

Resignation or Dismissal?: When a CEO and a President Clash

In the executive director's opinion, Bluehills Family Services' board of directors had serious problems with their organizational governance. These difficulties came to a head in an apparently unresolvable clash between the executive director and the board president. Given the preexisting board and organization perceptions, could an emergency board meeting produce a positive outcome, and would the executive director's participation be counterproductive?     

Living in poverty: a qualitative inquiry of emaciated adolescents and young women coming from low-income families in a Chinese context

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is no longer a disease of the rich in the West. Hitherto, no study has been carried out in the West or in the Chinese context that documents the experiences of poor people suffering from AN. This qualitative study aims to identify the subjective experiences of seven Chinese emaciated adolescents and young women coming from low‐income families, their family difficulties and needs, and resilience in coping. The results of the study have shown that family poverty has significantly triggered the onset of AN for two emaciated adolescents, while factors such as parents’ marital discord and relentless pursuit of thinness have also been reported. Family difficulties experienced included problems in parenting, inadequate financial resources, and insufficient information and access to health and social services. Strong family motivation and filial piety are found to be important cultural assets conducive to recovery. Implications of this study for social work practice are discussed.     

Linear regression with compositional explanatory variables

Compositional explanatory variables should not be directly used in a linear regression model because any inference statistic can become misleading. While various approaches for this problem were proposed, here an approach based on the isometric logratio (ilr) transformation is used. It turns out that the resulting model is easy to handle, and that parameter estimation can be done in like in usual linear regression. Moreover, it is possible to use the ilr variables for inference statistics in order to obtain an appropriate interpretation of the model.     

Adaptive Bayesian compound designs for dose finding studies

We consider the problem of how to efficiently and safely design dose finding studies. Both current and novel utility functions are explored using Bayesian adaptive design methodology for the estimation of a maximum tolerated dose (MTD). In particular, we explore widely adopted approaches such as the continual reassessment method and minimizing the variance of the estimate of an MTD. New utility functions are constructed in the Bayesian framework and are evaluated against current approaches. To reduce computing time, importance sampling is implemented to re-weight posterior samples thus avoiding the need to draw samples using Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques. Further, as such studies are generally first-in-man, the safety of patients is paramount. We therefore explore methods for the incorporation of safety considerations into utility functions to ensure that only safe and well-predicted doses are administered. The amalgamation of Bayesian methodology, adaptive design and compound utility functions is termed adaptive Bayesian compound design (ABCD). The performance of this amalgamation of methodology is investigated via the simulation of dose finding studies. The paper concludes with a discussion of results and extensions that could be included into our approach.     

The development of the resource-based view of the firm: A critical appraisal

Over the last 20 years, the resource-based view (RBV) has reached a pre-eminent position among theories in the field of strategy, but debate continues as to its precise nature. This paper contributes to the debate by critically reviewing the development of the RBV to date. The critical appraisal examines the development of the RBV in terms of theory, method, empirical evidence and practical insights. It is contended that the permeable and eclectic nature of the RBV stems from its being a theory about what firms are and how they function, and that its popularity is due to an absence of limiting behavioural assumptions. Finally, the authors provide their own subjective views on where they think RBV scholars should focus their efforts in the future.     

Multiple Views of the Family and Adolescent Social Competencies

This research examined the linkages between congruence in perceptions of family functioning and adolescent competencies with a sample of 223 first‐year college students, their mothers, and their fathers. The primary goal was to explore further the nature and importance of perceptual congruence as related to adolescent social competencies with a more informative analytic strategy than has been used in most past research (one that controls for individual perceptions of family members and takes into account direction of differences among family members), and with more comprehensive, multimethod assessments of adolescent competencies. Our congruence analyses portrayed a more complex picture of congruence and divergence than has emerged from previous studies, and highlight the importance of examining interaction patterns in future research. It is noteworthy, however, that individual perceptions of family members were more important than was congruence in relation to adolescent social competencies. The possibility that congruence effects may be more apparent when the focus is on more specific rather than global measures and on developmental as well as family interaction processes is suggested.