Navigating the Shifting Sands of Social Work Terrain: Social Work Practice in Postmodern Conditions

In an effort to inform social work education, this article reports on part of a study examining the factors that hinder or facilitate involvement in social justice efforts. Based on a case example of Canadian international development nongovernmental organizations, the article presents the findings of an analysis of organizational documents. I argue that international development organizations' conceptions of involvement reproduce inequitable North-South power relations through a perpetuation of colonial discourses of the South. This perpetuation of inequitable power relations is evident in three main themes: the tragic South; the hero/victim binary; and the ideal of one world. The implications of these findings for social work education are outlined.     

The Influence of Parental Separation and Divorce on Father–Child Relationships

ABSTRACT

Using a risk and resilience theoretical framework, this study examined the influence of parental divorce during childhood on father–child relationship quality in young adulthood. Relationship quality was measured using nurturant fathering and modified father involvement scales, and self-reports of current amount of face-to-face and verbal father–child contacts. Comparisons on these measures were made between 107 young adults from intact and 96 from divorced family backgrounds. The divorce group was also examined in isolation to explore how divorce-related factors—including structural, early contact, and interparental relationship factors—predict young adults' perceptions of their father–child relationship. Results demonstrate young adults from intact family backgrounds report a comparatively stronger father–child relationship. Among divorce group participants, structural factors (higher father socioeconomic status and joint custody) and early contact (greater percentage of time spent with father postdivorce) were predictors of higher scores on combined nurturant fathering and involvement measures. Greater early contact and stronger interparental relationship factors (low conflict and high contact and cooperativeness) similarly predicted current contact.     

Definable and Contractible Contracts

This paper analyzes Bayesian normal form games in which players write contracts that condition their actions on the contracts of other players. These contracts are required to be representable in a formal language. This is accomplished by constructing contracts which are definable functions of the Godel code of every other player's contract. We provide a complete characterization of the set of allocations supportable as pure‐strategy Bayesian equilibria of this contracting game. When information is complete, this characterization provides a folk theorem. In general, the set of supportable allocations is smaller than the set supportable by a centralized mechanism designer.     

Risk behavior for gain,loss, and mixed prospects

This study extends experimental tests of (cumulative) prospect theory (PT) over prospects with more than three outcomes and tests second-order stochastic dominance principles (Levy and Levy, Management Science 48:1334–1349, 2002; Baucells and Heukamp, Management Science 52:1409–1423, 2006). It considers choice behavior of people facing prospects of three different types: gain prospects (losing is not possible), loss prospects (gaining is not possible), and mixed prospects (both gaining and losing are possible). The data supports the distinction of risk behavior into these three categories of prospects, Further, probability weighting and diminishing sensitivity of utility as predicted by PT are observed. Loss aversion is, however, less pronounced, except for choices where one prospect is degenerate. The data suggests that the probability of losing may be relevant for loss aversion.     

Personelle Unternehmensverflechtung und Vorstandsgehälter

Personal linkages between the biggest German corporations is subject to a special survey by the Monopolies Commission every two years. We use linkage data ranging from 2000–2006 to examine the impact of personal linkage on the compensation of management board members. The empirical analysis reveals a positive relation between compensation of management board members and the amount of corporation-linkages by additional supervisory board mandates of members of the management board. At the same time, the performance of the sending firms has no influence on the likelihood to receive further supervisory board seats.     

On sequential Monte Carlo, partial rejection control and approximate Bayesian computation

We present a variant of the sequential Monte Carlo sampler by incorporating the partial rejection control mechanism of Liu (2001). We show that the resulting algorithm can be considered as a sequential Monte Carlo sampler with a modified mutation kernel. We prove that the new sampler can reduce the variance of the incremental importance weights when compared with standard sequential Monte Carlo samplers, and provide a central limit theorem. Finally, the sampler is adapted for application under the challenging approximate Bayesian computation modelling framework.     

The Quality of Male Fertility Data in Major U.S. Surveys

Researchers continue to question fathers’ willingness to report their biological children in surveys and the ability of surveys to adequately represent fathers. To address these concerns, this study evaluates the quality of men’s fertility data in the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97) and in the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Comparing fertility rates in each survey with population rates based on data from Vital Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, we document how the incomplete reporting of births in different surveys varies according to men’s characteristics, including their age, race, marital status, and birth cohort. In addition, we use Monte Carlo simulations based on the NSFG data to demonstrate how birth underreporting biases associations between early parenthood and its antecedents. We find that in the NSFG, roughly four out of five early births were reported; but in the NLSY79 and NLSY97, almost nine-tenths of early births were reported. In all three surveys, incomplete reporting was especially pronounced for nonmarital births. Our results suggest that the quality of male fertility data is strongly linked to survey design and that it has implications for models of early male fertility.     

Potential impacts of emerald ash borer invasion on biogeochemical and water cycling in residential landscapes across a metropolitan region

Trees provide important ecological services in cities, yet the vulnerability of the urban forest to massive tree losses from pest outbreaks could threaten those services, with unknown environmental consequences. The outbreak of emerald ash borer is an imminent threat to the ash population in North America. In the Minneapolis?CSaint Paul, Minnesota, metropolitan area, ash trees are present in 50?% of residential landscapes in Ramsey and Anoka Counties. We used a large survey of household activities, a tree inventory, a Household Flux Calculator accounting tool, and a set of annual evapotranspiration measurements, to quantify the current carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus storage in ash trees, the cycling of these elements, and the total evapotranspiration from ash trees in residential areas in the metropolitan region. Ash represented 6?% of the trees in residential areas and the removal of the entire ash population would correspondingly reduce net primary production and carbon sequestration by only a few percent and would have negligible effects on losses of nitrogen and phosphorus from residential landscapes. Similarly, the effects of ash loss on the hydrologic cycle would be minimal and would depend largely on management choices for the ground currently underneath ash tree canopies. Overall, the percentage change in biogeochemical and hydrological fluxes corresponded closely with the percent of the total urban tree population that was represented by ash, suggesting that areas with higher densities of ash would experience correspondingly larger effects. A hypothetical tree replacement scenario with similar broadleaf species was determined to be likely to re-establish the original biogeochemical and hydrological conditions once the replacement trees reach maturity.