A Discrete Variable Chain Graph for Applicants for Credit

A bank offering unsecured personal loans may be interested in several related outcome variables, including defaulting on the repayments, early repayment or failing to take up an offered loan. Current predictive models used by banks typically consider such variables individually. However, the fact that they are related to each other, and to many interrelated potential predictor variables, suggests that graphical models may provide an attractive alternative solution. We developed such a model for a data set of 15 variables measured on a set of 14 000 applications for unsecured personal loans. The resulting global model of behaviour enabled us to identify several previously unsuspected relationships of considerable interest to the bank. For example, we discovered important but obscure relationships between taking out insurance, prior delinquency with a credit card and delinquency with the loan.     

Designing an ADP planning process

A great deal has been written about the frustrations of carrying out long range planning in large organizations. Although far less has been written about ADP planning, similar frustrations (as well as benefits) have been suggested.The case study described in this article deals with the recent experiences of a large, federal regulatory agency— the Food and Drug Administration—in the design and implementation of an ADP planning process from 1974 to the present. Although the process was designed to meet the Agency's specific needs, many of the lessons learned will be useful to others contemplating a process for their organization (public or private).     

Seeing poor children: Three artists' views

This essay explores representations of poverty in art. In so doing, the visual arts are offered as a supplement to traditional textual studies of poverty. The depiction of poor children in particular is rare before the modern period, and reasons for this are explored. Significant literary and artistic treatments of children in poverty, which begin to appear in the 19th century, are considered in the context of philosophical, political, and economic developments of the time. The New York painter of street children J. G. Brown represents Victorian era painters of poor children in that he distanced himself and his images from reality. More involved in the lives of the poor was the early 20th-century German printmaker Ka¨the Kollwitz, who steered away from the impetus to abstraction of that period in favor of an emotionally charged, politicized, activist approach which focused on the topic of children in misery. Finally, the use of photographs to document poor children is briefly summarized to set the stage for a consideration of the work of Wendy Ewald. This artist's novel approach of giving poor children the means to depict themselves and their own world breaks down the barrier between artist and subject and unifies them in a common purpose.     

Assessing multiple prior models of behaviour under ambiguity

The recent spate of theoretical models of behaviour under ambiguity can be partitioned into two sets: those involving multiple priors and those not involving multiple priors. This paper provides an experimental investigation into the first set. Using an appropriate experimental interface we examine the fitted and predictive power of the various theories. We first estimate subject-by-subject, and then estimate and predict using a mixture model over the contending theories. The individual estimates suggest that 24% of our 149 subjects have behaviour consistent with Expected Utility, 56% with the Smooth Model, 11% with Rank Dependent Expected Utility and 9% with the Alpha Model; these figures are close to the mixing proportions obtained from the mixture estimates where the respective posterior probabilities of each of them being of the various types are 25%, 50%, 20% and 5%; and using the predictions 22%, 53%, 22% and 3%. The Smooth model appears the best.     

Examining coping strategies used by Spanish female social work students: evidence for the importance of social problem-solving abilities

The present study examined the role of social problem-solving abilities in the coping strategies used by 310 female social work students from Spain. Results from comparative analyses of the coping strategies, used by students to deal with stressful situations, indicated the greater use of functional forms of coping (eg problem solving and cognitive restructuring), compared to dysfunctional forms of coping (eg problem avoidance and wishful thinking). Moreover, results from regression analyses indicated that constructive social problem-solving abilities, namely, positive problem orientation and rational problem solving, predicted the use of functional coping strategies (eg problem solving, cognitive restructuring, and express emotions). Alternatively, one damaging social problem-solving ability, namely, negative problem orientation, predicted the use of dysfunctional coping strategies (eg problem avoidance, wishful thinking, self criticism, and social withdrawal). Taken together, these findings provide an important first step for understanding what and how social problem-solving abilities might inform how social work students cope with stressful situations as they arise. Some implications for social work education and training are discussed.     

From Provocation and Combustibility Toward Mutuality: Once More with Less Rage,Please

This paper presents a summary and excerpts taken from the psychoanalytic treatment, spanning over 16 years, of a highly disturbed and provocative male patient. Prior to referral, the man had been unsuccessfully treated psychopharmacologically for a depressive illness with severe somatic and affective symptoms and behavioral disturbances. A highlight of the case is the emergence of a therapeutic impasse that developed around the patient's attempt to connect intensely with the analyst; the patient attempted to repair his own damaged phallic narcissism by demanding that the analyst participate in a ritualized sexual enactment, which threatened the destruction of the treatment process. The resolution of the impasse was accomplished through the analyst's reaffirming the frame and recovering his own disrupted composure and ref lectiveness, while maintaining a compassionate and caring attitude toward the patient.     

Demographic and Organizational Variables That Affect Southeastern College and University Student Health Promotion

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between demographic and organizational variables and college student health promotion efforts. Two hundred and forty-one college administrators from 14 southern states were surveyed to determine factors that may affect college student health promotion programming. Enrollment, tuition, affiliation, and highest degree offered were the demographic variables that were examined. The organizational variables were goals, control, motivation, interaction, and decision making. The methods of gathering information regarding student health problems, the kinds of health promotion programs offered, the methods of publicizing the programs, and the extent of student participation in health promotion programs were the dependent variables.

The statistical tests for the effects of the demographic and organizational variables on student health promotion efforts indicate that a relationship does exist. Combined multiple regression analysis equations that include all of the organizational variables demonstrated graphically the effects of interaction among the independent organizational variables and the dependent variables. These combined equations were better predictors of student health promotion programs and services than any of the organizational variables taken separately. Future studies of the factors that affect student participation in health promotion programs, the extent of student participation, and the effects of a student participation should be conducted.     

Mediation and Minority Members of Academe

Focus groups are used to gather information from minorities in a university setting. Minority members of three campus groups (students, staff, and faculty) identified issues that could lead to relational conflicts. Alternative methods of dispute resolution are discussed in terms of their suitability and viability for use by minorities in academe. Mediation is presented as the preferred process for conflict resolution on an increasing number of college and university campuses. Mediation as a form of sociological practice in academia is a wide-open field of opportunity.     

«Land of East Wind»: mise en forme d'une mémoire mi'gmaq*

This essay follows from an historical study of Heron Island (Baie des Chaleurs), and in particular, the relationship between the island and the members, past and present, of the Eel River Bar Band, from the reserve of the same name. It aims to explore elements brought to light through my observation of members of the band, and notably the processes by which the latter strive to fashion a renewed connection with Heron Island; that is, to Self and to the world. Purposefully multidisciplinary, this study focusses on the representation/construction of space and on the manner in which it acts upon its derivatives in the form of collective memory and identity. Situated at the intersection of the symbolic and material realms, this essay endeavours to shed light on the formation of the narratives that, in this instance, constitute the production (mise en scene) of a perspective space of symbolization and social objectification—a process articulated on the enunciation of goals related to socio‐economic development and autonomy. At the same time, it is an attempt to account for a number of correlates to discourse, particularly practices related to social reconfiguration and the exercise of power, in a context marked by a quest for self‐determination and revitalism. In short, it is an examination of a case of resistance and accommodation by a small indigenous group seeking a new world‐vision. Le présent essai découle d'une étude historique portant sur l'île au Héron (Baie‐des‐Chaleurs) et en particulier sur les liens qui s'éta‐blissent entre celle‐ci et les membres, passés et présents, de la bande Eel River Bar, de la réserve du même nom. Il vise à explorer les éléments mis en relief par des observations faites dans le cadre de mes relations avec des membres de la bande, notamment les processus de l'élaboration d'un rapport renouveléà l'île au Héron, c'est‐à‐dire au Soi et au monde. Résolument multidisciplinaire, c'est une étude de cas qui porte sur la représentation/construction de l'espace et sur la façon dont celle‐ci influe sur la mémoire collective et sur l'identité qui en dérive. Sis à l'intersection de l'univers symbolique et de l'univers matériel, cet essai cherche à mettre au jour la formation des récits qui, dans ce cas, constituent la mise en scène d'un espace perspectif de symbolisation et d'objectivation sociale, un processus articulé sur l'énonciation de desseins de développement socio‐économique et d'autonomie. Parallèlement, il s'attache àéclairer les pratiques corrélatives au discursif, qui se nomment reconfiguration sociale et déploiement du pouvoir, dans un contexte de prise en main et de velléités revitalistes. En somme, il s'agit d'examiner un cas de résistance et d'accommodement de la part d'un groupe autochtone de petite taille, en mal de vision‐monde.