Periodic review of foster care: a brief national assessment.

A survey of statewide public agencies shows that a majority of states have some form of judicial or administrative periodic review, although few have both. The organizational level of authority and degree of foster care specialization of agencies are positively correlated with administrative review and negatively correlated with judicial review.     

Tales of transition: self-narrative and direct scribing in exploring care-leaving

Direct scribing is a technique that transforms oral discourse into written text, basically by typing oral material verbatim . It was developed in practice with youth in child welfare care and adapted for research data collection. The technique flattens the power imbalance in the interview situation and between oral speech and written text, supports self-reflection, democratizes the ownership of written material, is potentially empowering, and is an efficient means to produce high-quality text. The origins in practice are reviewed and a research application is discussed in detail. Thirty youths aged 18/19 from child welfare constructed self-narratives about how they conceptualized and managed the adolescent transition, and collaborated with the researcher in analysing the narrative as a story. Each interview was direct scribed and printed copy given to the participant. Participants were introduced to direct scribing by completing a questionnaire presented on a note-book computer, and some took part in a gender-specific group discussion as a final data-collection event, which was audio-taped and transcribed. The value of direct scribing and self-narrative in this research project and possibilities for other applications are discussed.     

A Trivariate Distribution for the Height,Weight, and Fat of Adult Men*

Using exploratory data analysis, probability plots, scatterplots, and computer animations to rotate and visualize the data, we fit a trivariate Normal distribution to data for the height, the natural logarithm of body weight, and the body fat for 646 men between the ages of 50 and 80 years as reported by the medical staff of the U.S. Veterans Administration's “Normative Aging Study” in Boston, MA. Although these data do not include any children, women, or young men, the measurements represent the best data that we could find through a 4-year search. We believe that these data are well measured and reliable for men in the specified age range and that these data reveal an interesting statistical pattern for use in probabilistic PBPK models.     

Life satisfaction in midlife childless and empty-nest men and women

The primary purpose of this study was to contrast the life satisfaction of midlife empty-nest and childless individuals. Seventy-two men and women reported on their satisfaction with 11 areas of life as well as with regard to children. Empty-nest individuals were more satisfied than childless persons with regard to their decisions regarding children; however, the childless individuals were not unhappy with their decisions. Empty-nest individuals were also more positive than childless individuals about contact with children. There were no differences between the two groups with regard to areas of life satisfaction not related to children; nor were there significant gender differences in life satisfaction. The results were discussed in relation to both theory and data concerning midlife satisfaction and adjustment.SMS AssociatesThe research was completed by James E. Bell in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the masters of counseling degree at Arizona State University.     

转移支付与公共品均等化分析

 基于1995-2004年间省级面板数据的估计结果显示，税收返回对各地的城乡公共品差距扩大起了强化作用，财力性转移支付和专项转移支付对各地城乡公共品差距的缩小作用不大；转移支付规模的公共品因素考虑不合理；最后，提出了相关的政策建议。     

Thinking possibilistically in a probabilistic world

We cannot live on the knife edge of disaster all the time. We cannot even think about disastrous extremes with any clarity, says Lee Clarke . For 300 years we have equated thinking probabilistically with thinking rationally, but is that enough for thinking about terrorism, air crashes—or even God?     

What does the pursuit of a high quality of life entail?: Grounding a theoretical model in lived experience

In response to calls for a better understanding of quality of life, we draw upon working professionals’ perspectives and experiences to introduce a theoretical model that emerged from an inductive analysis of respondents’ language. A key element of this model includes a collective picture of factors representing quality of life. Further, this model suggests interrelatedness among these factors with pursuit of a high quality of life emerging as a dynamic process with a tensional nature. Our proposed model extends existing research by more fully capturing the complex ways in which people from the United States describe quality of life and its pursuit.     

土族民间祭祀圈与信仰圈

文章以民和三川土族村落中的部分神祗为切入点，试图用文化人类学中的祭祀圈、信仰圈理论来解释和探讨土族民间信仰与土族村落发展问题。     

Short-term demographic fluctuations in the croatian military border of austria, 1830–1847

Crude birth, death and marriage rates are examined for the Croatian military defence zone andcordon sanitaire against Turkey for the period 1830–1847. From 20 to 80 per cent of the variance in medium- and short-term swings in rates can be attributed to epidemics and fluctuations in grain harvest and livestock holdings. Standardization of the data to adjust for extreme ecological variation between micro-regions is essential. The ‘Malthusian’ status of this late feudal population is established, at the outset of long-term fertility decline.