Introduction: “There Is a Person Here”: An Interview with Judith Butler

In this interview, the coeditors, along with other contributors, ask Judith Butler a variety of questions regarding queer theory, gender identities, scientific and legal discourse, bodily abjection, race and class positioning, and political organizing. This range of subject matter suggests not only the breadth of Butler's work, but also its applicability to any number of people, whose relation to theory ranges from highly politicized to politically indifferent. The interview demonstrates the responsiveness of Butler's work to cultural translation and political action.     

Measuring Civil Society: Perspectives on Afro-Centrism

International comparative research on civil society has subordinated Africa’s diversity and specificities to other geographies and histories. Results are prejudiced global conceptualisations, questionable enumeration, problematic theory formulation and ill-conceived approaches to development initiatives intended to make African civil society ‘stronger’ and states more democratic. This article sets out a case for an endogenous approach to civil society enquiry as a political category sensitive to the continent’s particularisms. In order to locate discussion about meanings, measures and measuring, a conceptual framework for research is described which avoids conflation with other epistemologies. Such a contribution will assist in sharpening thinking and discussion about the boundary characteristics of what is to be investigated.     

Demographic change, macroeconomic conditions, and the murder rate: The case of the United States, 1934–2006

Fluctuations in aggregate crime rates contrary to recent shifts in the age distribution of the U.S. population have cast doubt on the predictive power of the age–crime hypothesis. By examining a longer time horizon, back to the early 1930s, we show that the percentage of the young population is a robust predictor of the observed large swings in the U.S. murder rate over time. However, changes in the misery index—the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates—significantly contribute to explaining changes in the murder rate. This applies, in particular, to those changes that are at odds with the long-run trend of the U.S. age distribution, such as the decline in the murder rate in the latter part of the 1970s or its increase starting around the middle of the 1980s.     

Gibbs sampling for marginal posterior expectations

In earlier work (Gelfand and Smith, 1990 and Gelfand et al, 1990) a sampling based approach using the Gibbs sampler was offered as a means for developing marginal posterior densities for a wide range of Bayesian problems several of which were previously inaccessible. Our purpose here is two-fold. First we flesh out the implementation of this approach for calculation of arbitrary expectations of interest. Secondly we offer comparison with perhaps the most prominent approach for calculating posterior expectations, analytic approximation involving application of the LaPlace method. Several illustrative examples are discussed as well. Clear advantages for the sampling based approach emerge.     

A fortran implementation of univariate fourier series density estimation

A set of Fortran-77 subroutines is described which compute a nonparametric density estimator expressed as a Fourier series. In addition, a subroutine is given for the estimation of a cumulative distribution. Performance measures are given based on samples from a Weibull distribution. Due to small size and modest space demands, these subroutines are easily implemented on most small computers.     

Penalized spline joint models for longitudinal and time-to-event data

The joint models for longitudinal data and time-to-event data have recently received numerous attention in clinical and epidemiologic studies. Our interest is in modeling the relationship between event time outcomes and internal time-dependent covariates. In practice, the longitudinal responses often show non linear and fluctuated curves. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to use penalized splines with a truncated polynomial basis to parameterize the non linear longitudinal process. Then, the linear mixed-effects model is applied to subject-specific curves and to control the smoothing. The association between the dropout process and longitudinal outcomes is modeled through a proportional hazard model. Two types of baseline risk functions are considered, namely a Gompertz distribution and a piecewise constant model. The resulting models are referred to as penalized spline joint models; an extension of the standard joint models. The expectation conditional maximization (ECM) algorithm is applied to estimate the parameters in the proposed models. To validate the proposed algorithm, extensive simulation studies were implemented followed by a case study. In summary, the penalized spline joint models provide a new approach for joint models that have improved the existing standard joint models.     

Book Reviews

Statistics for Engineering Problem Solving.: Stephen B. Vardeman. Boston, MA: PWS Publishing, 1994. 840 pp. $59.95. Reviewed by Soren Bisgaard

A Data-Based Approach to Statistics.: Ronald L. Iman. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1994. xiv + 898 pp. $51.95. Reviewed by Katherine Halvorsen

Concepts in Probability and Stochastic Modeling.: James J. Higgins and Sallie Keller-McNulty. Belmont, CA: Duxbury Press, 1995. xi + 420 pp. $67.43. Reviewed by David M. Nickerson

Statistics (6th ed.).: James T. McClave and Frank H. Dietrich II. New York: Dellen/Macmillan College Publishing, 1994. xix + 967 pp. $66.00. Reviewed by Katherine Halvorsen

Data Analysis for Monitoring Human Rights.: Herbert Spirer and Louise Spirer. Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1994. xiv + 126 pp. $15.00. Reviewed by Diane G. Saphire