Continuity and Change in Marital Quality Between 1980 and 2000

We use data from two national surveys of married individuals—one from 1980 and the other from 2000—to understand how three dimensions of marital quality changed during this period. Marital happiness and divorce proneness changed little between 1980 and 2000, but marital interaction declined significantly. A decomposition analysis suggested that offsetting trends affected marital quality. Increases in marital heterogamy, premarital cohabitation, wives' extended hours of employment, and wives' job demands were associated with declines in multiple dimensions of marital quality. In contrast, increases in economic resources, decision‐making equality, nontraditional attitudes toward gender, and support for the norm of lifelong marriage were associated with improvements in multiple dimensions of marital quality. Increases in husbands' share of housework appeared to depress marital quality among husbands but to improve marital quality among wives.     

The contribution of research to community development

In this article I consider the relationship between differenttypes and methods of conducting research in the context of communitydevelopment. In particular I will consider the degree to whichdifferent approaches contribute to core objectives of communitydevelopment to empower communities and promote social justiceby engaging the most excluded. The contents will draw on a dialoguewithin my own agency, the Scottish Community Development Centre(SCDC).     

Children's participation: control and self‐realisation in British late modernity

Children's participation in public life in contemporary Britain is examined in relation to the tension between control and self‐realisation found in late modernity. It is argued that, despite the recognition of children as persons in their own right, public policy and practice is marked by an intensification of control, regulation and surveillance around children. This tension is considered in relation to the constitution of children in the public sphere as human capital and therefore as a means of controlling the future. This is contrasted to the private sphere where children's potential for self‐realisation is increasingly sequestered in the family. It is suggested that these trends raise issues of social inequality, intergenerational justice and institutional disengagement in relation to children. This requires more serious attention to enabling children's participation in the society. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved generalized Fourier amplitude sensitivity test (FAST) for model assessment

The Fourier amplitude sensitivity test (FAST) can be used to calculate the relative variance contribution of model input parameters to the variance of predictions made with functional models. It is widely used in the analyses of complicated process modeling systems. This study provides an improved transformation procedure of the Fourier amplitude sensitivity test (FAST) for non-uniform distributions that can be used to represent the input parameters. Here it is proposed that the cumulative probability be used instead of probability density when transforming non-uniform distributions for FAST. This improvement will increase the accuracy of transformation by reducing errors, and makes the transformation more convenient to be used in practice. In an evaluation of the procedure, the improved procedure was demonstrated to have very high accuracy in comparison to the procedure that is currently widely in use.     

Disabling Pasts,Enabling Futures? How Does the Changing Nature of Capitalism Impact on the Disabled Worker and Jobseeker?

Disability scholars have invested much in a stage theory of capitalism, which affords little scope for disabled workers and job seekers this side of Socialism. Parallel discussions of choices and empowerment rarely penetrates the world of paid employment. Mainstream policy writers meanwhile have been concerned with an atheoretical appraisal of enhancing access to and retention of employment. Neither approach has entered into an examination of the changing nature of employment and the impact of wider relationship between state and capitalism. In this way, the important shift to new social movements in progressing identity and social rights may have overlooked the monumental, but not irreversible loss of power in the enabling state and of old social movements. The article offers a starting point in our understanding of the changing nature of employment, its likely impact on disabled people, whilst asking for a reappraisal of the possible links between old and new social movements.     

Tree consistency and bounds on the performance of the max-product algorithm and its generalizations

Finding the maximum a posteriori (MAP) assignment of a discrete-state distribution specified by a graphical model requires solving an integer program. The max-product algorithm, also known as the max-plus or min-sum algorithm, is an iterative method for (approximately) solving such a problem on graphs with cycles. We provide a novel perspective on the algorithm, which is based on the idea of reparameterizing the distribution in terms of so-called pseudo-max-marginals on nodes and edges of the graph. This viewpoint provides conceptual insight into the max-product algorithm in application to graphs with cycles. First, we prove the existence of max-product fixed points for positive distributions on arbitrary graphs. Next, we show that the approximate max-marginals computed by max-product are guaranteed to be consistent, in a suitable sense to be defined, over every tree of the graph. We then turn to characterizing the nature of the approximation to the MAP assignment computed by max-product. We generalize previous work by showing that for any graph, the max-product assignment satisfies a particular optimality condition with respect to any subgraph containing at most one cycle per connected component. We use this optimality condition to derive upper bounds on the difference between the log probability of the true MAP assignment, and the log probability of a max-product assignment. Finally, we consider extensions of the max-product algorithm that operate over higher-order cliques, and show how our reparameterization analysis extends in a natural manner.     

DUST:

Following the perspective of "sociological miniaturism," proposed by Stolte, Fine, and Cook (2001), we examine the significance of dust in social life in order to examine the reverberations of the micro-features of everyday life on social structure. Through the examination of the routine, the unexamined, and the commonplace, we hope to gain some insight on how the taken-for-granted aspects of lived experience fit into the larger social order. Dust, by virtue of its "smallness," provides a window through which we can explore social structural issues using microsociological analysis. Specifically we examine how dust and techniques for its control are linked to issues of gender, work, political economy and nation.