Statistical considerations for design and analysis of stability,comparability and formulation tests

This article considers designed experiments for stability, comparability, and formulation testing that are analyzed with regression models in which the degradation rate is a fixed effect. In this setting, we investigate how the number of lots, the number of time points and their locations affect the precision of the entities of interest, leverages of the time points, detection of non-linearity and interim analyses. This investigation shows that modifying time point locations suggested by ICH for stability studies can significantly improve these objectives. In addition, we show that estimates of precision can be biased when a regression model that assumes independent measurements is used in the presence of within-assay session correlation. This bias can lead to longer shelf life estimates in stability studies and loss of power in comparability studies. Mixed-effect models that take into account within-assay session correlation are shown to reduce this bias. The findings in this article are obtained from well known statistical theory but provide valuable practical advice to scientists and statisticians designing and interpreting these types of experiments.     

The Varied Impact of Couple Relationship Breakdown on Children: Implications for Practice and Policy

This review of international literature assesses the impacts that the relationship breakdown of parents has on children and factors that can provide support should this occur. The parental separation process causes significant albeit short‐term distress for most children, with a minority reporting longer‐term outcomes such as socio‐economic disadvantage, behavioural problems, poor educational achievement, and physical and emotional health problems. Factors increasing the likelihood of sustained disadvantage include: poverty; poor parent–child relationships; continuing parental conflict, multiple transitions in family formation; and poor maternal mental health. Supporting the factors that can improve child outcomes, exploring opportune ways to strengthen couple and family relationships, and integrating the views of children (for example, in court‐based dispute resolution) are the leading implications for practice and policy.     

Landscape,vegetation characteristics,and group identity in an urban and suburban watershed: why the 60s matter

As highly managed ecosystems, urban areas should reflect the social characteristics of their managers, who are primarily residents. Since landscape features develop over time, we hypothesize that present-day vegetation should also reflect social characteristics of past residents. Using an urban-to-suburban watershed in the Baltimore Metropolitan Region, this paper examines the relationship between demographics, housing characteristics, and lifestyle clusters from 1960 and 2000 with areas of high woody and herbaceous vegetation cover in 1999. We find that 1960 demographics and age of housing are better predictors of high woody or tree coverage in 1999 than demographics and housing characteristics from 2000. Key variables from 1960 are percent in professional occupations (+), percent of pre-WWI housing (−), percent of post-WWII housing (+), and population density (−). Past and present demographic and housing variables are poor predictors of high herbaceous cover in 1999. Lifestyle clusters for 2000 are very good predictors of high herbaceous coverage in 1999, but lifestyle clusters from 1960 and 2000 are poor predictors of high woody vegetation coverage. These findings suggest that herbaceous or grassy areas, typically lawns, are good reflections of contemporary lifestyle characteristics of residents while neighborhoods with heavy tree canopies have largely inherited the preferred landscapes of past residents and communities. Biological growth time scales of trees and woody vegetation means that such vegetation may outlast the original inhabitants who designed, purchased, and planted them. The landscapes we see today are therefore legacies of past consumption patterns.     

ARTICLES: Studying Cognition in Flux: A Historical Treatment of Fu in the Shifting Structure of Oksapmin Mathematics

This article extends a framework for the study of culture-cognition relations to problems of historical research and diachronic analysis. As an illustrative case, we focus on mathematics in Oksapmin communities located in a remote highland area in central New Guinea. The Oksapmin, like their neighboring Mountain-Ok groups to the West, traditionally use a 27-body-part counting system for number, and there is no evidence that Oksapmin used arithmetic in prehistory. We present a coordinated analysis of shifts in functions of a word form based on field studies completed in 1978, 1980, and 2001. These shifts are related to changing collective practices of economic exchange in which arithmetical activities are increasingly important. The word form fu has changed from its use as an intensive quantifier that means "a complete group of plenty" to one that means double a numerical value. We show how the analytic framework affords a multilevel inquiry into genetic processes of change in the Oksapmin case and argue that the approach is useful for understanding the interplay between cultural and developmental processes in cognition more generally.     

Problem Gambling in Non-English Speaking Background Communities in Queensland,Australia: A Qualitative Exploration

This paper provides an overview of qualitative research into problem gambling among non-English speaking background (NESB) communities in Queensland, Australia. The focus for this pilot study was the Chinese, Greek and Vietnamese communities. Using qualitative methodologies, this community-based research explored the motivations for gambling, and the impacts of problem gambling upon individuals and communities. Findings indicate that problem gambling is evident in each of the communities of study, but the issue is characterised by a pervasive sense of denial. Gambling is an issue of enormous shame and stigma, not only for the problem gambler but their entire family. As a result, most problem gamblers do not seek professional help but try to resolve the problem themselves or within the family unit. Research findings indicate that service access could be increased through a range of strategies including the provision of culturally appropriate community education and gambling help services, partnerships between NESB communities, gambling help services and community workers, and the development and implementation of preventative strategies.     

A support group for individuals recently testing HIV positive: A psycho‐educational group model

The present paper describes an eight‐week psycho‐educational group model that is easily adaptable to any agency that is concerned with a comprehensive package of services for counseling HIV + persons, as well as for others involved in the long‐term management of issues related to the health threat presented by HIV infection.     

Slavery: A Supplementary Teaching Bibliography

This study will argue that from 1916 to 1935 Emperor Haile Selassie I adopted a two-pronged strategy of supporting the gradual abolition of slavery while taking steps towards its immediate abolition. Emperor Haile Selassie I was compelled to adopt a policy of gradual abolition due to the deposition of Iyasu V, the institutional nature of Ethiopian slavery and the agricultural primacy of the Ethiopian economy. This article will also contend that Emperor Haile Selassie I sought the immediate abolition of slavery because he wanted to improve the international image of Ethiopia, stave off a European invasion and/or partition, and prevent Ethiopia from becoming a mandate of the League of Nations.     

Letters to the Editor

This paper discusses the necessity for deroling in family therapy role plays in training situations. A theoretical exploration of the experience of role play participants is undertaken. This theoretical discussion suggests a rationale and procedure for the deroling process.