整个世界都在变成科学元勘——法迪勒·马赞德兰尼对话布鲁诺·拉图尔

如何在这片森林中生存?如何使之保持活力?拉图尔就当前的全球生态危机提出了这些问题,但当应用于STS的森林——或者用拉图尔自己的隐喻生物多样性时,这些问题也同样恰当.在访谈中,拉图尔描绘了一幅STS生存模式的特殊图景.在这一图景中,STS既非对科学的批判也非对科学的辅助,而是通过教育与合作将不言而喻的STS敏感性融入科学之中.尽管拉图尔承认STS领域在立场和进路上存在诸多差异,但他淡化了这些差异,将所有感染STS人的定义特征设定为共同致力于将以大写的S开头的科学(Science)转化为一些可以进行经验研究的问题.毫无疑问,他所描绘的是一幅建构主义的图景,社会科学家和自然科学家、工程师、艺术家以及政治家们在其中共同建设世界.     

Determinants of Health and the Quality of Life in the Bella Coola Valley

The aim of this investigation is to obtain some baseline self-reported data on the health status and overall quality of life of all residents of the Bella Coola Valley of British Columbia aged 17 years or older, and to measure the impact of a set of designated health determinants on their health and quality of life. In the period from August to November 2001, a variety of procedures were used to ensure that all eligible residents of the Valley received a copy of our questionnaire, and 687 useable questionnaires were obtained for our working dataset. Health status was measured by SF-36 and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control healthy days items. Thirty-one items were used to measure the Provincial Health Officer’s designated determinants of health in four clusters, namely, biological, social and economic, health behaviours and health services determinants. Quality of life was measured by satisfaction levels in 13 specific domains of life (e.g., family, financial security), four global items (e.g., happiness, life satisfaction) and one global Subjective Well-Being Index. Besides obtaining baseline figures on all our measures for the Valley, we made some comparisons among our figures and those from other areas, e.g., Prince George, BC. Most of the measures indicated that the health status and quality of life of Bella Coola Valley residents were lower than those of Prince George residents. For the sample as a whole, SF-36 scores on the eight dimensions ran from 82.3 (physical functioning) to 50.0 (social functioning), with a mean of 62.7. Residents in the Valley averaged 6.5 days in the past 30 in which their health was physically not good, 5.5 days when it was mentally not good and 4.1 days when their health limited their usual daily activities. Eleven percent of respondents described their general health as “excellent” and another 27% said it was “very good”. On a 7-point scale from 1=very dissatisfied to 7=very satisfied, respondents had average life satisfaction and satisfaction with the overall quality of life scores of 5.5. For specific domains of life, the lowest mean level of satisfaction was reported for federal and provincial government officials (3.3) and the highest was reported for living partners and personal safety around home (5.8). Regarding bivariate relations, each of the eight dimensions of SF-36 was significantly correlated with a single item measure of general health, and five of the eight were significantly correlated with the number of good health days. Happiness and the Subjective Well-Being Index were positively but moderately correlated with six of the eight dimensions, and life satisfaction was positively correlated with five. Age was negatively related to general health, but positively related to life satisfaction. Not being of aboriginal descent was positively related to all of the four global health indicators and to the Subjective Well-Being Index. Education was positively related to the four global health measures but not to the three global quality of life measures. The Social Support and Good Family Indexes were positively related to all seven global measures. There was a positive correlation between six of the seven global measures and the frequency with which respondents participated in activities sponsored by voluntary organizations. Frequency of smoking was negatively associated with every global dependent variable except the Physical Health Index. Frequency of skipping meals was negatively associated and average hours of sleep per night was positively associated with all seven global measures. Turning to multivariate relationships, the four clusters of health determinants explained from 12% (SF-36 Mental Health Index) to 24% (general health) of the variance in the dependent global health variables, and from 20% (happiness) to 26% (Subjective Well-Being Index) of the variance in the dependent global quality of life variables. Adding domain satisfaction scores to the total set of predictors allowed us to explain from 20% (SF-36 Mental health Index) to 29% (general health) of the variance in the dependent global health variables, and from 39% (happiness) to 62% (life satisfaction) in the dependent global quality of life variables. By including measures of social support and good family relationships in our set of health determinants, we practically guaranteed that the latter would be relatively strongly predictive of global quality of life.     

Bayesian deconvolution of oil well test data using Gaussian processes

We use Bayesian methods to infer an unobserved function that is convolved with a known kernel. Our method is based on the assumption that the function of interest is a Gaussian process and, assuming a particular correlation structure, the resulting convolution is also a Gaussian process. This fact is used to obtain inferences regarding the unobserved process, effectively providing a deconvolution method. We apply the methodology to the problem of estimating the parameters of an oil reservoir from well-test pressure data. Here, the unknown process describes the structure of the well. Applications to data from Mexican oil wells show very accurate results.     

New Results for Computing Blaker’s Exact Confidence Interval for One Parameter Discrete Distributions

The authors state new general results for computing Blaker’s exact confidence interval limits for usual one-parameter discrete distributions. Specific results for implementing an accurate and fast algorithm are made explicit for the binomial, negative binomial, Poisson and hypergeometric model.     

Goodness-of-fit for regime-switching copula models with application to option pricing

We consider several time series, and for each of them, we fit an appropriate dynamic parametric model. This produces serially independent error terms for each time series. The dependence between these error terms is then modelled by a regime-switching copula. The EM algorithm is used for estimating the parameters and a sequential goodness-of-fit procedure based on Cramér–von Mises statistics is proposed to select the appropriate number of regimes. Numerical experiments are performed to assess the validity of the proposed methodology. As an example of application, we evaluate a European put-on-max option on the returns of two assets. To facilitate the use of our methodology, we have built a R package HMMcopula available on CRAN. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 48: 79–96; 2020 © 2020 Statistical Society of Canada     

Family Law Proceedings,Domestic Violence and the Impact upon School: A Neglected Area of Research

The aim of this article is to open up a discussion about an unexplored area of children’s lives at school. While there has been considerable discussion of issues about child protection and the cooperation between school and social services in that context, studies on the intersection between school and family law proceedings seem virtually non‐existent. This is also the case when it comes to family law proceedings and different forms of childhood adversity. Drawing upon previous and ongoing research on family law and domestic violence in Sweden, together with a number of other existing studies on children and domestic violence, this article outlines the potential impact of family law proceedings upon school as well as issues requiring further research exploration.     

Invariance Testing of the SF-36 Health Survey in Women Breast Cancer Survivors: Do Personal and Cancer-related Variables Influence the Meaning of Quality of Life Items?

Quality of life (QoL) is affected by issues specific to illness trajectory and thus, may differ, and potentially take on different meanings, at different stages in the cancer process. A widely used measure of QoL is the SF-36 Health Survey (SF-36; Ware 1993); therefore, support for its appropriateness in a given population is imperative. The current study aimed to examine the conceptual (measurement) model of the SF-36, as well as closely related models, and test the measurement invariance of the SF-36 to determine if meaningful comparisons could be made among three groups of breast cancer survivors (N = 358 [data collected in 2007–2008]; divided on time since treatment, type of treatment, and age). Good model fit was found for one of three models based on the original design of this instrument—the items to subscales model. Two models were considered for measurement invariance testing: (a) items to physical health/mental health and (b) items to subscales. Strong invariance was found for time since treatment and type of treatment for both models. Weak invariance was found for age in the first model, while strict invariance was confirmed for the subscales model. Group comparisons in QoL were made where justified. Significant differences were found only on age for physical functioning, role limitations due to emotional problems, vitality, mental health, and social functioning. Overall, results suggest that while the SF-36 can be used to examine differences in QoL for various breast cancer survivors, some conceptual issues with this instrument need to be further examined.     

Understanding outsourcing contexts through information asymmetry and capability fit

Outsourcing is a strategic activity that has long been central to operations management research and practice. Yet, there are still many outsourcing management challenges that remain. In this article, we explore two of the outsourcing challenges that motivated this special issue and are central to the 10 articles included. To do this, we develop a theoretical model that examines how variations in capability fit and information asymmetry combine to present firms with four different outsourcing contexts. We then explain how each of the articles included in this special issue relate to our theoretical model and explore several avenues for future research.     

Social investments in the knowledge economy: The politics of inclusive,stratified, and targeted reforms across the globe

As countries transition from industrial to post-industrial knowledge economies, education and skills are crucial. Consequently, policy-makers around the globe have increasingly focused on social investment, that is, policies aiming to create, mobilize, or preserve skills. Yet, countries around the globe have developed social investments to different degrees and in highly different forms. Our goal is twofold: First, we introduce a new typology of social investment policies, distinguishing nine types along two dimensions: three distributive profiles (inclusive, stratified, targeted) and three functions (skill creation, preservation, mobilization). This differentiation allows fine-grained analyses of the causes and consequences of different kinds of social investments, thus offering a perspective to study the relationship between efficiency and inclusiveness in a way that goes beyond the mere discussion how social investment policies grosso modo affect inequalities (‘equalizing’ versus ‘Matthew Effects’). Second, we theorize on the politics of social investment. We argue that the interaction of policy legacies and socioeconomic factors is the main explanation for which functions of social investment policies are introduced, whereas their distributive profiles are crucially shaped by political coalitions. We illustrate with empirical material from democracies around the globe.