Why the Focus of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse has Largely Remained on the Catholic Church amongst Other Non-Catholic Christian Denominations and Religions

ABSTRACT

The current study considers reasons for the consistent focus of academic research and mainstream media on clerical child sexual abuse (cCSA) largely within the Roman Catholic Church, seeming to ignore cCSA in other Christian denominations and religions. This study includes an analysis of traditional mainstream media and case reports on cCSA in non-Catholic churches and other religious faiths. The authors highlight the inadequacy of research and identify a wide range of gaps in this so far neglected area. Commonalities of cCSA and institutional responses are identified across denominations and religions, and reasons for the apparent over focus on the Catholic Church are discussed. The mains potential reasons identified were: (a) the centralized nature of the Church’s universal organizational stature and management structure; (b) the anti-Catholic political and media bias in Protestant-dominated developed countries; (c) secular legal systems with access to powerful lawyers and insurance companies to locate responsibility at organizational level in order to seek compensation and finally; (d) the organized institutional power exercisable by respective bishops to silence victims. Future research needs to move beyond analysis of existing academic literature, press, and case review reports to comparative empirical studies across denominations and religions.     

GIS and development control system for a local authority in Malaysia

The process of development control involves a technique for the systematic compilation of expert quantitative analysis and qualitative assessment of project land use and property development viability, including its effect on the surrounding area, and the presentation of results in a way that enables the importance of the predicted results, and the scope of modifying or mitigating them to be properly evaluated by the relevant decision making body before a planning permission is rendered. Taking the local authorities in Malaysia as an example, this paper will discuss and demonstrate the development of a GIS database and its integration and application for development and building control. The first part of the paper examines the functions of local authorities particularly in the context of development control. In this study, the procedure involved in granting a planning permission as well as enforcement becomes the main focus because it determines the bulk of the system design. The study identifies seven sub-systems namely planning permission, building control, planning enforcement, geospatial database, information kiosk, document processing and presentation sub-systems. The system is developed using a combination of office automation, CAD, GIS, multimedia and other software packages. This paper will focus on the development of the GIS for the purpose of development control. The components of the GIS database include land information, buildings, existing developments, planning information, development plans, utilities, community facilities, transportation, environment and the socio-economy database. The GIS database will be used at every stage of development control, for example, in initial discussions, registration, invitation of objections, the development control process, the consideration by Technical Committee and the consideration by Planning Committee. It is anticipated that the GIS database could be used by many parties involved in the process as a reference point in evaluating a planning submission. Having access to the database will provide flexibility in assessing a proposed development and deciding on the overall urban growth management programme in the most cost-effective manner. The system will also provide transparency and consistency in the development control procedure.     

A new approach to choose acceptance cutoff for approximate Bayesian computation

The approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) algorithm is used to estimate parameters from complicated phenomena, where likelihood is intractable. Here, we report the development of an algorithm to choose the tolerance level for ABC. We have illustrated the performance of our proposed method by simulating the estimation of scaled mutation and recombination rates. The result shows that the proposed algorithm performs well.     

Minimal Neighbor Designs in Linear Blocks

Neighbor designs are useful to neutralize the neighbor effects. In literature, most of the constructed neighbor designs are in circular blocks but linear blocks have more practical application in field experiments. In this article, some infinite series of minimal neighbor designs are constructed in proper linear blocks. There are many situations where minimal neighbor designs cannot be constructed in proper linear blocks. To overcome this problem neighbor designs in improper linear blocks and GN₂-designs in proper linear blocks are constructed.     

Construction of Neighbor-Balanced Designs in Linear Blocks

Neighbor-balanced designs are useful to remove the neighbor effects in experiments where the performance of a treatment is affected by the treatments applied to its adjacent neighbors. In this article, neighbor-balanced designs are constructed in linear blocks of (i) equal sizes and (ii) two different sizes k ₁ and k ₂.     

New invariant and consistent chi-squared type goodness-of-fit tests for multivariate normality and a related comparative simulation study

ABSTRACT

New invariant and consistent goodness-of-fit tests for multivariate normality are introduced. Tests are based on the Karhunen–Loève transformation of a multidimensional sample from a population. A comparison of simulated powers of tests and other well-known tests with respect to some alternatives is given. The simulation study demonstrates that power of the proposed McCull test almost does not depend on the number of grouping cells. The test shows an advantage over other chi-squared type tests. However, averaged over all of the simulated conditions examined in this article, the Anderson–Darling type and the Cramer–von Mises type tests seem to be the best.     

One-Hit Models of Carcinogenesis: Conservative or Not?

One-hit formulas are widely believed to be "conservative" when used to analyze carcinogenesis bioassays, in the sense that they will rarely underestimate risks of cancer at low exposures. Such formulas are generally applied to the lifetime incidence of cancer at a specific site, with risks estimated from animal data at zero dose (control), and two or more additional doses that are appreciable fractions of a maximum tolerated dose. No empirical study has demonstrated that the one-hit formula is conservative in the sense described. The Carcinogenesis Bioassay Database System contains data on 1212 separate bioassays of 308 chemical substances tested at exactly three evaluable doses. These provided sufficient data to examine 8432 specific combinations of cancer site with sex, species, and chemical. For each of these we fitted a one-hit formula to the zero and maximum dose data points, then examined the relation of the fitted curve to the incidence rate observed at the mid-dose, with and without adjustment for intercurrent mortality. Both underestimates and overestimates of risk at mid-dose occurred substantially more often than expected by chance. We cannot tell whether such underestimates would occur at lower doses, but offer six biological reasons why underestimates might be expected. In a high percentage of animal bioassays, the one-hit formula is not conservative when applied in the usual way to animal data. It remains possible that the one-hit formula may indeed be conservative at sufficiently low doses (below the observational range), but the usual procedure, applied to the usual dose range, can be nonconservative in estimating the slope of the formula at such low doses. Risk assessments for regulation of carcinogens should incorporate some measure of additional uncertainty.     

On the use ofR-estimators in analyzing repeated measures incomplete block clinical trials with baseline values as covariates

Summary This article develops a rank based inference using a dispersion function for repeated measures incomplete block designs (IBD) with baseline values as covariates. Scores, Waldtype and drop in dispersion tests are developed for testing slope equals zero and equality of treatment effects. Multiple comparison procedures are also developed usingR-estimators which are obtained by minimizing a piece-wise linear dispersion function. A consistent estimator of a scale parameter, which appears in test statistic as a standardizing constant, is discussed. A data set from pharmaceutical research, which compares 12μg and 24μg formoterol (asthma drug) solution aerosol with a placebo treatment, is analyzed using the result of this article. Part of this work was completed when the author was a faculty member at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Worcester, Massachusetts. The view expressed in this article are those of the author and not those of the United States. Food and Drug Administration.     

Providing sex education to adolescents in rural Bangladesh: experiences from BRAC

In 1995, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee set up an Adolescent Reproductive Health Education (ARHE) program to provide information about reproductive health to adolescents in rural areas. This article explores the impact of the ARHE on adolescent girls and boys, their parents, and community members among rural areas in Bangladesh. Drawing on data from the field research conducted among the target audience, it is noted that ARHE has mobilized the community. It helped break the silence and shame about sensitive topics, such as menstruation, family planning methods, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. Subsequently, these developments have affected relationships between adolescents and their parents, and among adolescents themselves. Moreover, the diffusion of knowledge as a result of the ARHE is occurring in the context of a wider process affecting rural areas of Bangladesh, involving the media, books, exposure to urban and nontraditional ways of life, and schooling. The need for additional research, with a greater focus on adolescents who participate in the program and go on to marry, is highlighted.