Age and gender differences in the well-being of midlife and aging parents with children with mental health or developmental problems: report of a national study

Using data from the Study of Midlife in the United States (MIDUS), this article examines: (1) the effect of having children with developmental or mental health problems on parents' mental and physical health, (2) the extent to which this effect varies by parental age and gender and (3) the effects of disability-related factors on the well-being of parents of children with disabilities. Compared to parents of non-disabled children, parents of disabled children experienced significantly higher levels of negative affect, marginally poorer psychological well-being, and significantly more somatic symptoms, controlling for sociodemographic variables. Mothers did not differ from fathers in their well-being. Older parents were significantly less likely to experience the negative effect of having a disabled child than younger parents, suggesting an age-related attenuation of the stress of non-normative parenting.     

An interactive web-based method of outreach to college students at risk for suicide

OBJECTIVE AND PARTICIPANTS: From 2002 to 2005, the authors tested an interactive, Web-based method to encourage college students at risk for suicide to seek treatment. METHODS: The authors invited students at 2 universities to complete an online questionnaire that screened for depression and other suicide risk factors. Respondents received a personalized assessment and were able to communicate anonymously with a clinical counselor online. At-risk students were urged to attend in-person evaluation and treatment. RESULTS: A total of 1,162 students (8% of those invited) completed the screening questionnaire; 981 (84.4%) were designated as at high or moderate risk. Among this group, 190 (19.4%) attended an in-person evaluation session with the counselor, and 132 (13.5%) entered treatment. Students who engaged in online dialogues with the counselor were 3 times more likely than were those who did not to come for evaluation and enter treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The method has considerable promise for encouraging previously untreated, at-risk college students to get help.     

Partnerships in Transition: Managing Organizational and Collaborative Change

Despite the abundance of literature on collaboration, very little attention is devoted to exploring the how partnerships transition over time. This article reports the findings of a study that examined how a mature partnership adjusted to a new administrative team while moving forward with a strategic plan to advance the partnership's mission. Key informant interviews revealed that when stable leadership is not present during transitional phases, the broker organization's capacity to facilitate the collaborative effort will be limited when priorities shift toward maintaining its organizational capacity for survival instead of the collective goals of the partnership.     

Disentangling mode-specific selection and measurement bias in social surveys

A large-scale mixed-mode experiment linked to the Dutch Crime Victimization Survey was conducted in 2011. The experiment consisted of two waves; one wave with random assignment to one of the modes web, paper, telephone and face-to-face, and one follow-up wave to the full sample with interviewer modes only.The objective of the experiment is to estimate total mode effects and more specifically the corresponding mode effect components arising from undercoverage, nonresponse and measurement.In this paper, mode-specific selection and measurement bias are defined, and estimators for the bias terms based on the experimental design are introduced and discussed. The proposed estimators are applied to a number of key survey variables from the Labour Force Survey and the Crime Victimization Survey.     

Urban ecosystems and sustainable urban development—analysing and assessing interacting systems in the Stockholm region

In order to build competence for sustainability analysis and assessment of urban systems, it is seen as essential to build on models representing urban form, landuse and transportation, urban metabolism, as well as ecological processes. This type of analysis of interacting sub-systems requires an advanced model integration platform, yet open for learning and for further development. Moreover, since the aim is to increase urban experience with ecosystem management in the wide sense, the platform needs to be open and easily available, with high visualisation capacity. For this purpose, the LEAM model was applied to the Stockholm Region and two potential future scenarios were developed, resulting from alternative policies. The scenarios differed widely and the dense urban development of Scenario Compact could be visualised, destroying much of the Greenstructure of Stockholm, while Scenario Urban Nature steered the development more to outer suburbs and some sprawl. For demonstration of the need for further development of biodiversity assessment models, a network model tied to a prioritised ecological profile was applied and altered by the scenarios. It could be shown that the Greenstructure did not support this profile very well. Thus, there is a need for dynamic models for negotiations, finding alternative solutions and interacting with other models. The LEAM Stockholm case study is planned to be further developed, to interact with more advanced transport and land use models, as well as analysing energy systems and urban water issues. This will enable integrated sustainability analysis and assessment of complex urban systems, for integration in the planning process in Stockholm as well as for comparative sustainability studies between different cities, with the goal to build more sustainable urban systems and to increase urban experiences in ecosystem management.     

Odd Couples: A History of Gay Marriage in Scandinavia

Richard Bauman, Let Your Words Be Few: Symbolism of Speaking and Silence among Seventeenth‐Century Quakers (1983), viii + 168 (Cambridge University Press, £19.50, paperback £6.50).

Richard B. Sheridan, Doctors and Slaves: A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680–1834 (1985), xxii+420 (Cambridge University Press, £25.00).

Alice Goldstein, Determinants of Change and Response among Jews and Catholics in a Nineteenth‐Century German Village (1984), iv+48 (Jewish Social Studies Monograph Series 3, New York, distributed by Columbia University Press: New York and London, n.p.).

Rita Aldenhoff, Schulze‐Delitzsch. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Liberalismus zwischen Revolution und Reichsgrundung (1984), 245+notes and index (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden‐Baden, n.p.).

Louis Perouas, Refus d'une religion, religion d'un refus en Limousin rural, 1880–1940 (1985), 245 (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, paperback 120F). (Refusal of a Religion, Religion of Refusal in the Rural Limousin, 1880–1940.)

Gordon Phillips and Noel Whiteside, Casual Labour: The Unemployment Question in the Port Transport Industry 1880–1970 (1985), x+324 (Clarendon Press, £25.00).

American Family History: A Historical Bibliography (1984), xii+282 (ABC‐Clio Research Guide 12, Clio Press, Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford, £30.50).     

Pareto utility

In searching for an appropriate utility function in the expected utility framework, we formulate four properties that we want the utility function to satisfy. We conduct a search for such a function, and we identify Pareto utility as a function satisfying all four desired properties. Pareto utility is a flexible yet simple and parsimonious two-parameter family. It exhibits decreasing absolute risk aversion and increasing but bounded relative risk aversion. It is applicable irrespective of the probability distribution relevant to the prospect to be evaluated. Pareto utility is therefore particularly suited for catastrophic risk analysis. A new and related class of generalized exponential (gexpo) utility functions is also studied. This class is particularly relevant in situations where absolute risk tolerance is thought to be concave rather than linear.     

中国与西方过程思维中的内在超越性

中国传统的儒释道三个哲学世界观,都是过程思想。宇宙基本的二重性,也很受怀特海的青睐,恰如中国古典哲学中的阴阳概念。亚洲哲学所强调的内在超越性是一种超越经典认知方式的人类经验的内在愿景。对支撑意识的神经生物机制的研究表明,文化的差异可能在特定的大脑激活模式中找到其根源。中国古典哲学多基于直觉性解释,关注"怎样"的问题,主要是由右脑半球主导的。西方哲学则主要涉及左脑半球体现关注"什么"问题的精神活动。可是,在深层意识反思方面,大脑的不平衡并不能阻止我们通过整个大脑的作用,用终极概念来给经验现实一个最终的、纯粹的解释。因而,内在超越性将不再是依赖于文化的,而是东、西方所共有的一种普遍意识。     

Eunuchoid sexuality in four syndromes

Using HTDM and SAM Questionnaires, heterosexual development and sexual activity were investigated in the following patients: two men with a Klinefelter syndrome associated with developmental anomalies of the penis, two patients with testicular agenesis, 14 men with hypogonadism, and three “fertile eunuchs.” Through comparison with a control group of 204 adult well‐developed, fertile, and potent men it was ascertained that the heterosexual development of the patients was distinctly retarded and that their sexual activity was lower. These insufficiencies in sex life were of the same character regardless of the diversity of etiopathogenetic mechanisms which had led to the disturbance of somatosexual development.