Age Cohort, Ancestry, and Immigrant Generation Influences in Family Relations and Psychological Well-Being among Black Caribbean Family Members

Immigration is contributing to the U.S. population becoming increasingly ethnically diverse. This article examines the role of family relations and well-being among different generations of Black Caribbean immigrants. Family disruptions, such as migration, can have complex effects on the support networks and emotional well-being of family members. Data from a recently completed national study of American Blacks in the United States, however, reveal significant similarities across ancestry and immigrant status in family contact, solidarity and well-being. It is concluded that intrafamilial relations may serve to overcome barriers of geographical distance in providing comparable levels of contact, solidarity, and well-being for both U.S.-born and immigrant Black Caribbean family members of different generations. Because of the increasing numbers of immigrant elders, these sources of family support will become increasingly more important in bridging the gaps between government resources and needed assistance in an aging society.     

Earnings of Chinese Immigrants in the Enclave and Mainstream Economy*

La documentation sur le sujet n'est pas décisive quant à savoir si léconomie ethnique enclavée enregistre un rendement économique comparable chez les travailleurs et les entrepreneurs immigrants à ceux qui se situent dans le courant économique principal. Les auteurs de cette étude utilisent des données du Recensement du Canada de 2001 sur la langue la plus utilisée au travail din de mesurer la participation des immigrants chinois à léconomie enclavée. Après les avoir comparés au capital humain ainsi qu'aux variations liées au travail et au milieu urbain, les résultats démontrent que le rendement est moins élevé chez les hommes et chez les femmes de l'enclave que celui des gens qui se trouvent dans le courant économique principal. Les caractéristiques de la langue et le type de travail qui s'effectue dans léconomie enclavée expliquent pourquoi le rendement y est inférieur à celui obtenu dans le courant économique principal. The literature in inconclusive as to whether the immigrant enclave economy offers returns to immigrant workers and entrepreneurs comparative to those in the mainstream economy. This study uses data from the 2001 Census of Canada on language most often used at work to measure enclave economy participation for Chinese immigrants. The findings show that returns are lower for men or women in the enclave than those in the mainstream economy, respectively, after controlling for human capital, work‐related and urban variations. Language features of and job type in the enclave economy explain why returns are inferior to that of the mainstream economy.     

The Development of Anticipatory Smiling

When do infants begin to communicate positive affect about physical objects to their social partners? We examined developmental changes in the timing of smiles during episodes of initiating joint attention that involved an infant gazing between an object and a social partner. Twenty‐six typically developing infants were observed at 8, 10, and 12 months during the Early Social‐Communication Scales, a semistructured assessment for eliciting initiating joint attention and related behaviors. The proportion of infant smiling during initiating joint attention episodes did not change with age, but there was a change in the timing of the smiles. The likelihood of infants smiling at an object and then gazing at the experimenter while smiling (anticipatory smiling) increased between 8 and 10 months and remained stable between 10 and 12 months. The increase in the number of infants who smiled at an object and then made eye contact suggests a developing ability to communicate positive affect about an object.     

Loss functions for estimation of extrema with an application to disease mapping

It is often of interest to find the maximum or near maxima among a set of vector‐valued parameters in a statistical model; in the case of disease mapping, for example, these correspond to relative‐risk “hotspots” where public‐health intervention may be needed. The general problem is one of estimating nonlinear functions of the ensemble of relative risks, but biased estimates result if posterior means are simply substituted into these nonlinear functions. The authors obtain better estimates of extrema from a new, weighted ranks squared error loss function. The derivation of these Bayes estimators assumes a hidden‐Markov random‐field model for relative risks, and their behaviour is illustrated with real and simulated data.     

An Empirical Examination of Quality Certification in a "Lemons Market"

This article examines the effect third-party certification has on a market characterized by adverse selection. Using an original data set from the market for young thoroughbreds, we show that certification alleviates problems of adverse selection by examining the effect certification has on breeder decisions to retain or sell horses and the effect these decisions have on observed prices. Data on the racetrack performance of the horses confirm the results.     

Profile of Some Patients Who Prematurely Terminate Analysis

This paper is concerned with cases in which patients who have been well established in treatment decide to end it prematurely. In examining the issue among my patients who left against my advice, I isolated in some of them a number of common traits, of which the existence of a long-standing idealizing transference was central. Four of these cases are presented, including two in which the resistance was successfully penetrated and two in which it was not and the patient left treatment. The definition of premature termination is seen in the context of that of a complete analysis.     

The Effect of Learning Experiences and Context on Infant Imitation and Generalization

Over the first years of life, infants gradually develop the ability to retrieve their memories across cue and contextual changes. Whereas maturational factors drive some of these developments in memory ability, experiences occurring within the learning event may also impact infants' ability to retrieve memories in new situations. In 2 experiments we examined whether it was possible to facilitate 12‐month‐old infants' generalization of learning in the deferred imitation paradigm by varying experiences before or during the demonstration session, or during the retention interval. In Experiment 1, altering the length, timing, or variability of training had no impact on generalization; infants showed a low, but consistent level of memory retrieval. In Experiment 2, infants who experienced a unique context for encoding and retrieval exhibited generalization; infants who experienced the context prior to the demonstration session, or during the retention interval, did not. Specificity is a robust feature of infant memory and is not substantially altered by encoding experiences in an observational learning paradigm. Previous history with a learning environment can, however, impact the flexibility of memory retrieval.     

Optimal scaling of Metropolis algorithms: Heading toward general target distributions

The authors provide an overview of optimal scaling results for the Metropolis algorithm with Gaussian proposal distribution. They address in more depth the case of high‐dimensional target distributions formed of independent, but not identically distributed components. They attempt to give an intuitive explanation as to why the well‐known optimal acceptance rate of 0.234 is not always suitable. They show how to find the asymptotically optimal acceptance rate when needed, and they explain why it is sometimes necessary to turn to inhomogeneous proposal distributions. Their results are illustrated with a simple example.