A consistent system of conditional probabilities which is not compatible with any random field

A consistent, Markovian family of conditional densities is constructed which is not compatible with any random field.     

The impact of state TANF policy decisions on kinship care providers

Based on a survey of public assistance and child welfare agency staff, this article examines how state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) policy decisions have affected kinship care providers. Findings indicate that most states have continued using TANF to provide income support to kinship caregivers, and some have used TANF to find related support services. These payments, however, are much lower than rates for licensed providers, and many kinship caregivers are subject to work, training requirements, and time limits.     

Quantifying uncertainty in the biospheric carbon flux for England and Wales

Summary.  A crucial issue in the current global warming debate is the effect of vegetation and soils on carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmosphere. Vegetation can extract CO₂ through photosynthesis, but respiration, decay of soil organic matter and disturbance effects such as fire return it to the atmosphere. The balance of these processes is the net carbon flux. To estimate the biospheric carbon flux for England and Wales, we address the statistical problem of inference for the sum of multiple outputs from a complex deterministic computer code whose input parameters are uncertain. The code is a process model which simulates the carbon dynamics of vegetation and soils, including the amount of carbon that is stored as a result of photosynthesis and the amount that is returned to the atmosphere through respiration. The aggregation of outputs corresponding to multiple sites and types of vegetation in a region gives an estimate of the total carbon flux for that region over a period of time. Expert prior opinions are elicited for marginal uncertainty about the relevant input parameters and for correlations of inputs between sites. A Gaussian process model is used to build emulators of the multiple code outputs and Bayesian uncertainty analysis is then used to propagate uncertainty in the input parameters through to uncertainty on the aggregated output. Numerical results are presented for England and Wales in the year 2000. It is estimated that vegetation and soils in England and Wales constituted a net sink of 7.55 Mt C (1 Mt C = 10¹² g of carbon) in 2000, with standard deviation 0.56 Mt C resulting from the sources of uncertainty that are considered.     

Reflections of an ordinary life

Philip Anderson (not his real name) was one of thirty people who talked to Wendy Booth and Tim Booth as part of their recently published study Growing Up with Parents who have Learning Difficulties (London: Routledge, 1998). Philip's stoy illustrates many of the themes common to the experience of this group: resilience in the face of risk; the importance of family, especially grandma; social exclusion; the effects of hardship; and the enduring nature of parent-child bonds.     

Fertility decline in Scotland, England and Wales, and Ireland: comparisons from the 1911 census of fertility

Data on family size by year of marriage, age at marriage, and duration of marriage, from the 1911 Fertility Census, are compared between Scotland, England and Wales, Irish county boroughs, and the rest of Ireland. While means show significant inter-country differences, from the 1880s marked similarities are found across all the countries in the pattern of fertility decline, strongly suggesting significant fertility limitation in rural Ireland well before 1911. Noting the implications for the use of rural Ireland as a natural fertility population, the data are instead compared with the Coale-Trussell and Hinde-Woods schedules. The former provides more plausible results, which imply strong period rather than cohort effects in the fertility decline. Except in rural Ireland, little evidence is found for significant fertility limitation early in marriage among younger marrying couples, but many older marrying couples appear to have stopped childbearing at very low parities from an early date.     

The Dark Side of the Force: A Case Study of Restructuring and Social Capital1

Abstract This paper uses a case study of a Southern textile community to show how a distinct form of social capital is embedded in local networks of power and domination. Textile firms and communities in the South have undergone restructuring: technology and labor processes have modernized, firms have merged, consolidated, or closed, and the number of workers has declined. An analysis of Cannon Mills and its associated mill community of Kannapolis identifies the sources of the paternalist form of social capital that dominated work and community social relations. Corporate mergers, downsizing, technological change, shifts in the labor market, municipal incorporation, and labor organizing contributed to the transformation and decline of paternalistic social capital. The case study reminds social scientists that social capital is a context dependent form of power that can be created, accumulated, or destroyed. While many current analyses treat social capital as an unquestioned positive force, the case study reveals the dark side of social capital.     

Relationships Between Candidate Self-Monitoring, Perceived Personality, and Selection Interview Outcomes

A study into the relationships between candidateself-monitoring ability, interviewer perceptions ofcandidate personality, and interviewer outcome decisionsin the context of actual graduate recruitment interviews (n = 130) is presented. Detailedpsychometric norm data is also reported on the Lennoxand Wolfe (1984) revised Self-Monitoring (RS-M) scale,together with the results of confirmatory factoranalyses into the factor structure of this measure. Itwas found that candidate self-monitoring ability wasonly moderately and nonsignificantly related tointerviewer outcome evaluations, and thatself-monitoring was generally uncorrelated with thepositiveness of recruiter impressions of candidatepersonality. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed thata two correlated factor structure for the RS-M scale, inaccordance with the original authors' formulation,provided the most parsimonious fit. Norm data for theRS-M scale is reported for this sample of Britishgraduates, including item statistics, item to subscale,item to scale correlations, and internal reliabilitycoefficients. Implications for future research intocandidate impression management, self-monitoring,interviewer decision making, and the practicalimplications arising from these findings arediscussed.