An analysis of variables affecting length of stay in foster care

The purpose of this paper was to find out whether the relationship between type of contact with agency and/or child in foster care and average number of contacts over time makes any difference in length of stay in foster care. Four types of contacts were examined: Family—Agency, Family Initiated—Agency, Social Worker—Initiated, and Family—Child. Results indicated that there were critical numbers for each contact type found to be statistically significant that would tend to reduce the length of the child's stay in foster care. The importance of contact during the first month of placement was emphasized.     

Estimating the distribution of one-dimensional discrete scan statistics viewed as extremes of 1-dependent stationary sequences

Discrete one-dimensional scan statistics can be viewed as extremes of 1-dependent stationary sequences. A result of Haiman [1999. First passage time for some stationary processes. Stochastic Process. Appl. 80, 231–248] provides approximations of the distributions of extremes of 1-dependent stationary sequences together with sharp bounds for the corresponding errors. We apply this result to scan statistics generated by Bernoulli r.v.'s and to the charge problem.     

Multiculturalism and political integration in the Netherlands: Rotterdam,Enschede

The article discusses the situation of minorities in Rotterdam and Enschede, both declined industrial cities with decreasing employment opportunities and with significant ratios of migrant populations: 40 per cent in Rotterdam, 22.6 per cent in Enschede. The study delineates how ‘relavant practices’ of multiculturalism have emerged in the two cities and their relation to national policies of migration and integration with particular emphasis on the comparative advantages and disadvantages of each city and with reference to the role played by ethnic mobilization.     

Job Development in a Veterans Administration Hospital

This department provides a showcase for actual practices. Effective and ineffective procedures or techniques are displayed, as well as successful and unsuccessful programs or projects. Reports, not to exceed six typed, double-spaced pages, are to include a succinct, summary sentence of up to 30 words and are to be submitted in triplicate. Authors may wish to make longer reports available to interested readers.     

Heterogeneity and the implied dynamics of regional growth rates: Was the nonmetropolitan turnaround an artifact of aggregation?

The spatial units of analysis employed in urban and regional research display considerable internal heterogeneity in terms of the social, demographic, and economic variables used to describe them. One implication of this has been overlooked in the literature, namely, that aggregate rates may have an implicit dynamic of change. Differential internal rates modify the composition of the aggregate, changing the relative importance of subareas in determining the aggregate rate. To demonstrate this, methods for decomposing the change in growth rates due to heterogeneity are developed and applied to nonmetropolitan growth rates between 1950 and 1980. Internal heterogeneity was found to be an important, and sometimes even a dominant, component of change. Furthermore, the analysis sheds considerable light on the reasons for the changes in aggregate rates that marked the nonmetropolitan turnaround.