Transfers in Kind: Why They Can Be Efficient and Nonpaternalistic – Comment

Bruce and Waldman make an important contribution regarding the Samaritan dilemma: the expectations of inheritance motivates the younger generation at the margin in the direction of welfare reducing behavior. However, these authors misinterpret the standard analysis on this matter as prediction instead of explanation; confuse governmental subsidies with private charitable giving, and uncritically examine Headstart and statist job training programs. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The psychosocial meaning of menopause: women's experiences

This paper reports on a qualitative study of womens' experiences with menopause from a psychosocial perspective. Women give voice to the impact of menopause upon their sense of self and significant relationships in their lives. This study raises questions about the meaning of the reluctance of women and others to discuss menopause in a helpful, meaningful way.     

Rationalizability of choice functions on general domains without full transitivity

The rationalizability of a choice function by means of a transitive relation has been analyzed thoroughly in the literature. However, not much seems to be known when transitivity is weakened to quasi-transitivity or acyclicity. Such weakenings are particularly relevant in the context of social choice. We describe the logical relationships between the different notions of rationalizability involving, for example, the transitivity, quasi-transitivity, or acyclicity of the rationalizing relation. Furthermore, we discuss sufficient conditions and necessary conditions for rational choice on arbitrary domains. Transitive, quasi-transitive, and acyclical rationalizability are fully characterized for domains that contain all singletons and all two-element subsets of the universal set.     

On the construction of orthogonal F-squares of order n from an orthogonal array (n, k, s, 2) and an OL(s, t) set

Complete sets of orthogonal F-squares of order n = s^p, where g is a prime or prime power and p is a positive integer have been constructed by Hedayat, Raghavarao, and Seiden (1975). Federer (1977) has constructed complete sets of orthogonal F-squares of order n = 4t, where t is a positive integer. We give a general procedure for constructing orthogonal F-squares of order n from an orthogonal array (n, k, s, 2) and an OL(s, t) set, where n is not necessarily a prime or prime power. In particular, we show how to construct sets of orthogonal F-squares of order n = 2s^p, where s is a prime or prime power and p is a positive integer. These sets are shown to be near complete and approach complete sets as s and/or p become large. We have also shown how to construct orthogonal arrays by these methods. In addition, the best upper bound on the number t of orthogonal F(n, λ₁), F(n, λ₂), …, F(n, λ₁) squares is given.     

Clustering of correlation matrices: A step-wise procedure

An alternative to the criteria proposed by King [9] for clustering correlation matrices is explored. Several simple examples examined by total enumeration employing our criterion indicate that the criterion yields clusters with high within group correlation. A step-wise routine is suggested for problems of realistic size and is applied to the examples presented in King's article. Additional evidence in the form of several Monte Carlo experiments indicates that the routine performs satisfactorily in determining the optimal separation of variables into two groups.     

Community Structure and the Mobilization of Support

Grâce à l'étude d'un mouvement social en faveur de l'incorporation de deux banlieues dans une agglomération, les auteurs examinent le succès du leadership à s'assurer l'appui populaire en rapport avec les structures sociales de la communauté. Leur analyse indique que l'obtention de cet appui est affecté par deux ensembles de conditions. Premièrement, les dispositions structurales qui contribuent à la communauté. Leur analyse collectivité nuisent aux leaders dans leur tâche alors que celles qui l'intègrent morphologiquement la facilitent. En second lieu, la position sociale de ceux qui assument la direction du mouvement et leurs liens avec divers organismes communautaires affectent aussi leurs possibilités de mobiliser l'appui populaire qu'ils souhaitent.