Uniform strong convergence results for the conditional kaplan-meier estimator and its quantiles

We consider a fixed design model in which the responses are possibly right censored. The aim of this paper is to establish some important almost sure convergence properties of the Kaplan-Meier type estimator for the lifetime distribution at a given covariate value. We also consider the corresponding quantile estimator and obtain a modulus of continuity result. Our rates of uniform strong convergence are obtained via exponential probability bounds.     

Sons and daughters of foster carers and the impact of fostering on their everyday life

The paper presents results from a study of sons and daughters of foster carers, and the impact of fostering on their lives. Children and young people participated in focus groups and discussion groups, and 684 answered a questionnaire. Eight were interviewed in‐depth. The results from the study showed that sons and daughters of foster carers were highly involved in the fostering assignment. Most children and young people valued their relationship with foster children, but even though relations to foster children were good, fostering could imply complicated changes of everyday life. Sons and daughters of foster carers may have to cope with conflicts connected to behavioural disorders of foster children, and they gained knowledge about foster children’s problematic lives. Fostering also implied contact with natural parents of foster children. Such contact could challenge children’s and young people’s’ perception of adequate parenthood. For some respondents it was hard to become aware of the dysfunctional parenting, abuse and/or neglect to which foster children might have been exposed. The results of the study provided evidence of the need to acknowledge the contribution to fostering made by sons and daughters of foster carers, and also to recognize the impact fostering may have on their lives.     

Older Peoples’ Descriptions of Becoming and Being Respite Care Recipients

The number of older people in the western world is increasing. Advancing age creates the need for care, including respite care. The aim of this study is to describe the experience of older people of becoming and being respite care recipients. Admission to respite care is a response to a range of practicalities in the home, such as the need to maintain privacy, dissatisfaction with home care, and deterioration in health. However, the participants in this study had little or no involvement in the decision regarding respite care placement. Activities, training, and medical treatment were found to be important to respite care recipients’ satisfaction with their care.     

Convergence or mediation? Experts of vulnerability and the vulnerability of experts’ discourses on nanotechnologies – a case study

Since 2004, risk in the context of nanotechnologies has been criticized as being too abstract and an all-inclusive category. Moreover, the concept of risk is not precise enough to describe the potential issues related to the development of nanotechnologies. Instead, experts on technological development emphasize risk communication. In the field of nanotechnologies, this term was redefined in February 2005 in relation to the question of societal acceptance of nanotechnologies. Risk communication is about gaining stakeholder acceptance of policy decisions, whilst the public and stakeholders are encouraged to participate actively in the communication process through public consultations or hearings. Thus, on the one hand, the category of risk has been pragmatically nuanced to better highlight the vulnerability of the communication of nanotechnologies. On the other hand, this vulnerable communication is not the result of a deficit of information. It is based on the idea of participation, where vulnerability hinges on the social groups specialized in the design, application and diffusion of nanotechnologies within society. How is such participation possible, and what does it entail? We develop this question in the framework of a comparative survey of experts in the development of nanotechnologies in Grenoble (France) and Hamburg (Germany).     

Correction of Density Estimators that are not Densities

Abstract. Several old and new density estimators may have good theoretical performance, but are hampered by not being bona fide densities; they may be negative in certain regions or may not integrate to 1. One can therefore not simulate from them, for example. This paper develops general modification methods that turn any density estimator into one which is a bona fide density, and which is always better in performance under one set of conditions and arbitrarily close in performance under a complementary set of conditions. This improvement-for-free procedure can, in particular, be applied for higher-order kernel estimators, classes of modern h ⁴ bias kernel type estimators, superkernel estimators, the sinc kernel estimator, the k -NN estimator, orthogonal expansion estimators, and for various recently developed semi-parametric density estimators.     

Sociological Ambivalence and Family Ties: A Critical Perspective

We develop the concept of ambivalence as structurally created contradictions that are made manifest in interaction. We discuss how our reconceptualization enhances the relevance of ambivalence to sociological analyses of family ties. Ambivalence is a particularly useful concept when imbedded in a theoretical framework that views social structure as structured social relations, and individuals as actors who exercise agency as they negotiate relationships within the constraints of social structure. The strengths of conceptualizing ambivalence within this framework are illustrated with examples of caring for older family members and of balancing paid work and family responsibilities.     

Job Satisfaction: A Study of Sydney Adults

About one quarter of the 20,434 men and about one fifth of the 17,211 women who had a Medicheck screening expressed dissatisfaction with their job. Single men and single women were the least satisfied. The most positive aspects of work for men and women were that the job was interesting and that there was independence and freedom. Boredom, as well as not using one's potential, discriminated clearly between those satisfied with their job and those not, for both men and women. Job dissatisfaction was closely associated with other psychosocial problems and in particular with life dissatisfaction.     

The Measurement and Evaluation of Social Attitudes in Two British Cohort Studies

This paper presents an empirical evaluation of the internal consistency and validity of six attitudes scales assessing left–right beliefs, political cynicism, antiracism, libertarian-authoritarian views, and gender equality (two versions) in two large nationally representative samples of the British population born in 1958 and 1970. In the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) 10,827 participants completed a series of social attitudes items in 1991 at age 33 and again in 2000 at age 42. In 2000 at age 30, 11,114 participants of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) completed a broadly similar set of items of which 8,906 participants had also completed a shorter version of the same social attitudes questionnaires 4 years earlier in 1996, at age 26. Based on the data from the two cohorts we conducted confirmatory analyses to evaluate the factor structure of the six social attitudes scales using Structural Equation Modelling. In addition we tested the predictive as well as concurrent validity of the scales by establishing associations within the scales across time and their associations with indicators of voting behaviour and political interest. All six attitudes scales have good internal reliability and factorial stability, and external validity, they are robust and consistent over time. The measures also have wide applicability for researchers interested in social attitudes and behaviour in times of social change.