Non-estrogen-based treatments for menopausal symptoms

The British Menopause Society Council is committed to provide up-to-date authoritative reviews to aid health professionals to inform and advise women about key issues in postreproductive health. This guidance refers to non-estrogen-based treatments for menopausal symptoms, such as hot flushes, symptoms of urogenital atrophy and lack of sexual desire. Treatment of choice should be based on up to-date information and targeted to individual women's needs. Non-hormonal strategies may be useful for women with estrogen-dependent disease such as breast cancer.     

Stepfamily childbearing in Sweden: quantum and tempo effects, 1950-99

Several studies have demonstrated that stepfamily couples have a higher risk of childbearing than couples in a stable union with the same total number of children. Analysing retrospective data from a nationally representative sample of Swedish adults, we find that the risk of a second or third birth is higher when it is the first or second child in a new union. We also find a faster pace of childbearing after stepfamily formation than after a shared birth. The risk of a second birth (in total) is only a little higher in the first two years after stepfamily formation than in the first two years after a shared birth, and thereafter the risk is lower for stepfamilies. The risk of a third birth (in total) is particularly high early in the stepfamily union and remains higher than that of couples with two shared children for at least five years. The stepfamily difference was lower after than before 1980, when the Swedish government introduced parental leave incentives for short birth intervals.     

A comparison of estimators for regression models with change points

We consider two problems concerning locating change points in a linear regression model. One involves jump discontinuities (change-point) in a regression model and the other involves regression lines connected at unknown points. We compare four methods for estimating single or multiple change points in a regression model, when both the error variance and regression coefficients change simultaneously at the unknown point(s): Bayesian, Julious, grid search, and the segmented methods. The proposed methods are evaluated via a simulation study and compared via some standard measures of estimation bias and precision. Finally, the methods are illustrated and compared using three real data sets. The simulation and empirical results overall favor both the segmented and Bayesian methods of estimation, which simultaneously estimate the change point and the other model parameters, though only the Bayesian method is able to handle both continuous and dis-continuous change point problems successfully. If it is known that regression lines are continuous then the segmented method ranked first among methods.     

The Impact of Devolution on Nonprofits

The following article reviews the results of a multiphase study of nonprofit social service organizations serving children and youth in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of devolution and related efforts to introduce the new public management in the nonprofit sector. Study results strongly suggest that the capacity of community-based and faith-based organizations to adopt the business-oriented approach required to meet the expectations of government contracts is profoundly limited by their financial and human resources and by the conflict that a market orientation can present to the nonprofit mission.     

Connecting Complex Processes: A Decade of Research on Immigrant Families

This review examines research on immigrant families in the United States from the past decade from multiple disciplinary perspectives. This work has used variations on assimilation and acculturation perspectives. In the case of the assimilation perspectives, the focus has largely been on family formation, whereas research using acculturation perspectives has focused more on intrafamily relationships. But, over the course of the decade, an interesting integrative model has emerged to address interactions of attitudes and values with structural conditions in the receiving and sending communities. Some of this effort to integrate perspectives can be found in studies of transnational families. The review concludes with some suggestions for continuing this integration and expanding studies to include dynamics of migration and family processes simultaneously.     

Developmental Foundations and Clinical Applications of Social Information Processing: A Review

Social information processing has emerged as an important construct in understanding children's interpersonal functioning. This article reviews (a) the theoretical models guiding research, (b) the development of normative and atypical social problem solving, and (c) the connection between social information processing and individual differences in functioning. Finally, this review ends with a summary of efficacy of programs aimed at preventing social information processing biases or intervening with youth who display dysfunctional social information processing skills.     

中国农民的公平观念:基于村委会选举调查的实证研究

改革开放以来,中国弥漫着一种以结果,特别是经济发展结果论是非定成败的倾向,民意调查也表明公众认为经济发展优先于政治改革。那么,在于己有利的结果、达到分配公平的结果与程序的公平之间,究竟何者对中国人的公平观更具解释力?本文通过对我们关于农村居民对村委会选举公平性的情景实验调查数据的分析来回答这个问题,发现程序特征和分配公平对公平观的影响力,数倍于于己有利的结果的影响力。这些发现表明,中国的基层政治民主化具有公民政治文化基础。     

Expression and ambivalence over expression of negative emotion: cross-sectional associations with psychosocial factors and health-related quality of life in postmenopausal women

Inhibition of emotional expression has been associated with the incidence and progression of breast cancer and other chronic illnesses. The important health-related factor, however, may be ambivalence about the expression of emotions rather than repression itself. This cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from 159,557 participants in the Women's Health Initiative examined the influence of expression of negative emotion and ambivalence about expression of emotion on psychosocial factors and health-related quality of life measured by the Medical Outcomes Study Short-form 36 (SF-36). Overall, observed correlations were modest but in the expected direction; that is, greater ambivalence about negative emotional expression was associated with worse general health and poorer psychosocial risk profile. Ambivalence about expressing negative emotion was more highly correlated with psychosocial factors and health-related quality of life than emotional expression. In general, our analysis supports prior studies suggesting that ambivalence may be more important to consider in studies of health-related outcomes than expression.     

Bereavement: an incomplete rite of passage

A bereavement ritual observed during anthropological fieldwork in Peru gives basis to this article which asserts that bereavement has become an incomplete rite of passage. The article reviews the role of ritual and rites of passage, examines other anthropologic examples of death and bereavement rituals, and identifies the lack of post-funeral ritual for many bereaved individuals in the United States. While funerary rituals which end with the funeral and burial of the dead are helpful in providing immediate structure for the bereaved, they are not congruent with the long-term emotional needs and reconstruction of meaning within grief. The author acknowledges value of both private ritual and reunions of the community of mourners, and recommends that bereavement counselors and/or the funeral industry offer to help bereaved construct a "ritual of remembrance and new meaning" after time has allowed them to move along in meaning reconstruction processes of making sense, finding benefits, and identity change.