Diagnosing explainable heterogeneity of variance in random‐effects models

Data‐analytic tools for models other than the normal linear regression model are relatively rare. Here we develop plots and diagnostic statistics for nonconstant variance for the random‐effects model (REM). REMs for longitudinal data include both within‐ and between‐subject variances. A basic assumption is that the two variance terms are constant across subjects. However, we often find that these variances are functions of covariates, and the data set has what we call explainable heterogeneity, which needs to be allowed for in the model. We characterize several types of heterogeneity of variance in REMs and develop three diagnostic tests using the score statistic: one for each of the two variance terms, and the third for a form of multivariate nonconstant variance. For each test we present an adjusted residual plot which can identify cases that are unusually influential on the outcome of the test.     

AHP DESIGN ISSUES FOR LARGE-SCALE SYSTEMS

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is a decision analysis technique that uses judgments from a group of relevant decision makers and hierarchical decomposition to derive a set of ratio-scaled utility measures for decision alternatives. This paper addresses a number of design issues involved in the implementation of AHP for large-scale systems. Specifically, it describes the use of incomplete experimental designs for simplifying data-collection tasks. The effects of reducing the size of the hierarchy through attribute deletion and the effects of including identical attributes on any given level also are evaluated.     

祭祀对世界“中间状”的物化

Deriving from a quote in MarcellMauss ＇ essay on techniques of the Body , as well as based on the exploration of cases from ancient Mesopotamia , the eastern Mediterranean , and Africa .The author voices his concerns on the relationship between sacrifice and ＂materiali-zing＂.He states that sacrifice can animate , i.e.give life to sacrificial objects and by doing so turn them into subjects or agents who are dependent on the sacrificial process for their flourish-ing.Sacrifice as a life giving act creates a person through eating and feeding the recognition by the subject of its dependence on the source of that creativity .This can be the basis for contrasting it to funerary rites where it is death and the corpse that is envisaged as the sacrifice which is offered in some form as ＂feeding＂ the Gods.     

“When you’re here,you’re not a militant feminist”: volunteer professionalization in a rape crisis center

Theory and Society - Many organizations must manage institutional complexity – the presence of competing “logics,” or patterned sets of beliefs, rules, and actions. Some of this...     

Applying critical social work in direct practice with families

This paper seeks to further discourse concerning the implications of critical social work for direct practice with families and children. It presents and discusses a hypothetical example of how a social worker in a social care agency in Israel can incorporate critical social work notions into an official social work report. The paper begins by presenting key concepts in critical social work, their manifestations in practice and their implications for official social work reports. It then presents a mock report informed by critical social work ideas and discusses its structure and contents. The mock report provides an example of how abstract notions central to critical social work can be actualized. The paper thus offers practitioners the opportunity for a richer discourse on the contribution of critical social work to direct practice with families and children.     

Two‐stage phase II survival trial design

Recently, molecularly targeted agents and immunotherapy have been advanced for the treatment of relapse or refractory cancer patients, where disease progression‐free survival or event‐free survival is often a primary endpoint for the trial design. However, methods to evaluate two‐stage single‐arm phase II trials with a time‐to‐event endpoint are currently processed under an exponential distribution, which limits application of real trial designs. In this paper, we developed an optimal two‐stage design, which is applied to the four commonly used parametric survival distributions. The proposed method has advantages compared with existing methods in that the choice of underlying survival model is more flexible and the power of the study is more adequately addressed. Therefore, the proposed two‐stage design can be routinely used for single‐arm phase II trial designs with a time‐to‐event endpoint as a complement to the commonly used Simon's two‐stage design for the binary outcome.     

Maternal Tactile Stimulation and the Neurodevelopment of Low Birth Weight Infants

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of early maternal touch to the neurodevelopmental status of low birth weight (LBW) infants. One hundred and eight LBW infants and their mothers were videotaped during a typical feeding when the infant was 3 months old. This tape was used to analyze both the mother's touch and other facets of caregiving behavior using standardized coding systems. Data on perinatal medical risk were also acquired through chart review, and neurodevelopmental tests were administered to the infants at age 1 year. Results indicate that infants whose mothers used more stimulating touch during caregiving had better visual‐motor skills at 1 year of age. In addition, infants of mothers who touched them frequently had more advanced gross motor development. Findings suggest that stimulating and frequent touch may help to compensate for early neurosensory deficits and promote neurodevelopment for LBW infants. Infant birth weight made the strongest contribution to all measures of infant neurodevelopmental status at age 1 year.