Statistical approaches for conducting network meta-analysis in drug development

We introduce health technology assessment and evidence synthesis briefly, and then concentrate on the statistical approaches used for conducting network meta-analysis (NMA) in the development and approval of new health technologies. NMA is an extension of standard meta-analysis where indirect as well as direct information is combined and can be seen as similar to the analysis of incomplete-block designs. We illustrate it with an example involving three treatments, using fixed-effects and random-effects models, and using frequentist and Bayesian approaches. As most statisticians in the pharmaceutical industry are familiar with SAS? software for analyzing clinical trials, we provide example code for each of the methods we illustrate. One issue that has been overlooked in the literature is the choice of constraints applied to random effects, and we show how this affects the estimates and standard errors and propose a symmetric set of constraints that is equivalent to most current practice. Finally, we discuss the role of statisticians in planning and carrying out NMAs and the strategy for dealing with important issues such as heterogeneity.     

Honourable Sacrifice: A Visual Ethnography of the Family Lives of Korean Children with Autistic Siblings

Literature on the siblings of disabled children has been dominated by western psychosocial theories that focus on stresses associated with being a ‘young carer’ or on children as active agents realising their ‘rights’ rather than as the victims of familial expectations. This article presents the findings of a visual ethnographic study exploring the lives of nine children living with an autistic sibling in South Korea (hereafter Korea). Despite personal challenges and family tensions, experiences of ‘being’ a sibling were strongly influenced by Confucian familist cultural values in which sacrifice plays a central role in achieving honourable and harmonious family life.     

The Development of Students' Mathematics Self‐Concept in Relation to Gender: Different Countries,Different Trajectories?

Gender differences in the development of children's and adolescents' academic self‐perceptions have received increasing attention in recent years. This study extends previous research by examining the development of mathematics self‐concept across grades 7–12 in three cultural settings: Australia (Sydney; N=1,333), the United States (Michigan; N=2,443), and Germany (four federal states; N=4,688). Results of latent growth curve models document very similar patterns of self‐concept development in males and females in the three settings. First, gender differences in favor of boys were observed at the beginning of the observation period (grade 7). Second, gender was not significantly related to self‐concept change in either group, meaning that initial differences persisted across time. Third, the results provided no evidence that the form of the longitudinal change trajectories for mathematics self‐concept differed across the cultural settings. This pattern of results is inconsistent with explanatory models that predict converging or diverging gender differences in mathematics self‐concept. Furthermore, the results indicate that self‐concept development may be highly similar across western cultural settings.     

Incorporating the Period Eye

ABSTRACT

In recent years, museums have staged a number of “exhibitions of exhibitions.” These experiments in institutional, curatorial, and artistic revivalism have ranged from allusions to and quotations from past installations to full-scale re-enactments and reconstructions. The motivations of the curators and artists responsible for these diverse projects have included the desire to recuperate both famous and forgotten shows and also to reproduce past modalities of display and spectatorship, and thus build an archive of the immaterial through retrospective and performance practices. Some of the most interesting “exhibitions of exhibitions” have focused on the historical conditions and institutional conventions of spectatorship, with the objective of alerting the contemporary viewer to differences in the performativity of spectatorship, past and present. By evoking former practices of looking, walking, and touching, these exhibitions also remind us that techniques of the museum visitor are both embodied and acquired. They require the contemporary viewer to recalibrate their choreography of their looking and moving; put another way, they activate what Michael Baxandall termed the “period eye” in order to decode the visual effects of the exhibition and to relocate oneself in the position of the historical spectator. This article explores how a number of recent exhibitions have redrawn attention to the corporeality of museum visiting and viewing, as well as to the historical acquisition of competences and attitudes that we take for granted today.     

Rhetoric to action: a study of stakeholder perceptions of aging well in two local communities

This qualitative study of local perceptions of policy goals and action in relation to aging reports 31 stakeholder interviews within 2 Australian communities exploring (a) the meaning of aging well; and (b) preferred policy actions to achieve positive aging outcomes. Findings suggest that community perceptions of aging well are broadly consistent with the goals of national and international policy frameworks in focusing on 3 dimensions--health, social engagement, and security. Further, participants believe that achievement of positive aging outcomes requires a mix of self-help, community action, and government intervention--particularly government support and encouragement for aging well initiatives.     

Wage Cuts as Investment in Future Wage Growth

Abstract. Wage cuts are often presumed to reflect an adverse change in economic constraints. However, several theoretical models have shown they can be a form of investment in future wage growth. This paper provides empirical evidence of the latter by explicitly modeling the worker's job choice when the job offer consists of both a starting wage and expected future wage growth. We use our analytical model to estimate the distribution of job offers faced by workers who are searching across jobs differing in both initial wage and expected wage growth. For females, roughly one‐third of job changes that result in immediate wage cuts are transitions to jobs that have a higher value function than the existing job. For males, the corresponding value is one‐fifth.     

Shards of the old looking glass: restoring the significance of identity in promoting positive outcomes for looked‐after children

There is a driving force within current UK child welfare policies which promotes a strengths led approach to both assessment and care planning for children in need. Social policy emphasizes the importance of tangible outcomes such as education achievement, which have been enshrined in statute. However, other developmental outcomes, such as identity, are subordinated. Notwithstanding the relevance of these more concrete indicators, this paper suggests that this focus has left a gap at theoretical, strategic and operational levels relating to more psychosocial aspects of human growth and development, such as identity. This paper seeks to redress that gap by considering identity as both a process and an outcome. Following a review of the literature on identity development, it presents an analysis of semi‐structured interviews with 13 young people and their social workers. The findings show how young people's identity is shaped by their relationships, can be a protective mechanism, and deferred or put on standby. In the concluding discussion the implications for social work practice are highlighted.