The Significance of Shift Work: Current Status and Future Directions

This paper provides a review and synthesis of research literature on the effects of shift work on workers’ physical health, mental health/well-being, and family life. The focus is on current knowledge, unanswered questions, and new directions for future research. The selection of research literature is guided by a general conceptual framework that identifies predictor variables, moderating variables, and outcome variables. The paper concludes with a discussion of the variables that should be incorporated into an agenda for future research.     

Is racial prejudice declining in Britain?1

This article employs two previously neglected indicators of racial prejudice from the British Social Attitudes surveys to examine the social distribution of prejudices against black and Asian Britons. Three hypotheses are proposed and tested: that racial prejudice is declining in Britain; that this decline is principally generational in nature; and that greater prejudice is shown towards more culturally distinct Asian minorities than black minorities. Strong evidence is found for the first two hypotheses, with evidence of an overall decline in prejudice and of a sharp decline in prejudices among generations who have grown up since mass black and Asian immigration began in the 1950s. Little evidence is found for the third hypothesis: British reactions towards black and Asian minorities are broadly similar suggesting racial differences may still be the main factor prompting white hostility to British minorities.     

Development of intercultural competence among US American teachers: professional development factors that enhance competence

The increasing diversity of the student age population in the USA calls for increased cultural competence on behalf of educators to effectively teach students. This article reports on a study of a suburban school district’s initiatives that utilized the Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) as a baseline measurement tool, and subsequent professional development for teachers, to promote the development of intercultural competence. ANOVA and regression analysis models were used to determine the variables that affect teachers’ perceived intercultural competence after their participation in professional development.     

The nature of living systems

Living systems theory (LST) is concerned with eight levels of living systems, each of which is composed of 20 critical subsystems that carry out essential life processes. As a result of a continuous biosocial evolution involving progressive fray-out of components, the more recently developed levels in this hierarchy have become very complex. A brief summary of LST is presented in this article. Following this is a detailed analysis of current knowledge about the timer, which we have recently included in our list of subsystems.     

Arrovian theorems for economic domains: Assignments,matchings and pairings

In this paper, we show that Arrow's and Wilson's theorems hold for permutation, symmetric permutation and symmetric domains. Permutation domains concern assignments: n indivisible private goods are distributed betweenn selfish individuals. Symmetric permutation domains concern matchings: two sets ofn selfish individuals being given, pairs with an individual from each set are to be made. Symmetric domains concern pairings: a set of 2n selfish individuals being given,n pairs of individuals are to be made.We thank two anonymous referees for helpful suggestions.     

Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models and Frailty Models with Bayesian Nonparametric Mixing

This paper proposes Bayesian nonparametric mixing for some well-known and popular models. The distribution of the observations is assumed to contain an unknown mixed effects term which includes a fixed effects term, a function of the observed covariates, and an additive or multiplicative random effects term. Typically these random effects are assumed to be independent of the observed covariates and independent and identically distributed from a distribution from some known parametric family. This assumption may be suspect if either there is interaction between observed covariates and unobserved covariates or the fixed effects predictor of observed covariates is misspecified. Another cause for concern might be simply that the covariates affect more than just the location of the mixed effects distribution. As a consequence the distribution of the random effects could be highly irregular in modality and skewness leaving parametric families unable to model the distribution adequately. This paper therefore proposes a Bayesian nonparametric prior for the random effects to capture possible deviances in modality and skewness and to explore the observed covariates' effect on the distribution of the mixed effects.     

Evaluating correlated outcomes and sources of new information

This paper considers the difficulties associated with evaluating the expected value of additional information when the outcomes of various decision alternatives may be correlated. Such correlation is explained in terms of dependence of outcomes on common exogenous factors and it is argued that decisions regarding what, if any, additional information to collect should take such dependencies into account. A model-based ‘fixed-parameter’ approach to evaluating EVPI in such a context is developed and compared to the traditional ‘fixed-correlation’ approach. The results suggest that different assumptions about the issue of correlation can produce different, sometimes contradictory, conclusions about the expected value of additional information and bence, should be explicitly stated as part of any pre-posterior analysis. A hybrid model encompassing both approaches and rooted in the theory of psychology of inference is then proposed and illustrated.     

A computer model for unconscious spread of anxiety-linked inhibition in cognitive networks

Unconscious inhibitory processes, triggered by a potential anxiety reaction, are reviewed in the context of an emerging rapprochement between psychodynamic and cognitive approaches in experimental psychology. Conditions underlying spread of inhibitory action to other cognitive networks are first explored in three tachistoscopic experiments utilizing words posthypnotically tied to a potential anxiety, pleasure, or neutral reaction. Response times of subjects, instructed to ignore those words while naming pictures or solving anagrams as quickly as possible, reveal a highly differentiated pattern of circumstances governing likelihood of inhibitory spread from anxiety-linked words to target stimuli. Next a computer model is constructed to simulate cognitive processes from onset of display to eventual response, and the model is then tested for its fit to the empirical data. Finally, an illustrative study shows that a subset of computer-generated predictions for spread of inhibitory action is verifiable experimentally.