Short‐Term‐Effectiveness of a Relationship Education Program for Distressed Military Couples,in the Context of Foreign Assignments for the German Armed Forces. Preliminary Findings From a Randomized Controlled Study

This study examines the short‐term effectiveness of a relationship education program designed for military couples. Distressed couples were randomly placed in either a wait‐list control group or an intervention group. We conducted training sessions before a 3‐month foreign assignment, and refresher courses approximately 6‐week post‐assignment. We analyzed the dyadic data of 32 couples, using hierarchical linear modeling in a two‐level model. Reduction in unresolved conflicts was found in the intervention group, with large pre–post effects for both partners. Relationship satisfaction scores were improved, with moderate‐to‐large effects only for soldiers, rather than their partners. Post‐follow‐up effect sizes suggested further improvement in the intervention group. Future research should examine the long‐term effectiveness of this treatment.     

Kunst und Preise

How are prices established in the market for contemporary art? Buyers in this market are confronted with fundamental uncertainty since “quality” is only difficult to determine and the development of prices is non-predictable. Since the emergence of a market for contemporary art presupposes at least the possibility for intentional rational decision-making, this uncertainty must be reduced. We argue that the value of a piece of art or an artist is established in an intersubjective process of granting reputation by experts and institutions in the field of art. This is achieved primarily through the institutions of the art market and the training of artists, i.e. through galleries, curators, critics, art dealers, journalists, collectors, and art schools. They participate jointly in the making of artistic reputation of the artist’s work that provides, in turn, the basis for the determination of its economic value. For testing this hypothesis we assembled and analyzed two datasets with data on the biographies of artists and prices for their works.     

Estimating Particle Shape and Orientation Using Volume Tensors

We develop statistical procedures for estimating shape and orientation of arbitrary three‐dimensional particles. We focus on the case where particles cannot be observed directly, but only via sections. Volume tensors are used for describing particle shape and orientation, and we derive stereological estimators of the tensors. These estimators are combined to provide consistent estimators of the moments of the so‐called particle cover density. The covariance structure associated with the particle cover density depends on the orientation and shape of the particles. For instance, if the distribution of the typical particle is invariant under rotations, then the covariance matrix is proportional to the identity matrix. We develop a non‐parametric test for such isotropy. A flexible Lévy‐based particle model is proposed, which may be analysed using a generalized method of moments in which the volume tensors enter. The developed methods are used to study the cell organization in the human brain cortex.     

Soziale Einflüsse auf die Klassenwahl im Generationen- und Periodenvergleich:

Social influences on the class vote result in a higher SPD-vote of workers who live in class homogeneous environments. These environments can be operationalized as ego-centric networks. In West Germany, these social influences are restricted to older cohorts and earlier Bundestag elections. This result gets corroborated by applying a more sophisticated dynamic version of an influence model, which analyses the relationship between party identification and the vote intention. It is shown that workers who do not identify with a party get mobilized as SPD-voters during election campaigns if they have contacts with other workers. This effect cannot be observed with ALLBUS-data from 1980, 1990 and 2000 for which interviewing did not take place during election campaigns. What has not changed in the last decades is the recruitment of friends and acquaintances from the same social class and subjective class identification under the impact of class homogeneous networks. What has changed is the politisation of these class homogeneous networks.     

The maximization of determinants of block Toeplitz matrices with applications in optimal design theory

We consider the maximization of the determinant of the trigonometric moment matrix of a matrix measure on the unit circle. The results are analog to those obtained by Dette and Studden (2005) for moment matrices of matrix measures on a compact interval. A statistical application in optimal design theory is considered and we present several optimal designs for Fourier regression models.     

Determining Usage When Vendors Do Not Provide Data

ABSTRACT

When library resource vendors do not provide usage data in consistent, manipulable formats, librarians must find other means to enable themselves to make data-driven collection development decisions. At Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) Libraries, two different approaches have been implemented: OpenURL link resolver analysis and EZproxy log analysis using grep, a GNU open source command-line utility. This column provides an overview of each solution.     

Peripheral Inclusion Through Informal Silencing and Voice — A Study of LGB Officers in the Swedish Police

Seen through the growth of progressive diversity policies it may appear that contemporary organizations are sites of equality. But although inclusion is the formally stated aim of many organizations, exclusionary pressures toward LGBT workers still challenge sexual minorities' access to full inclusion. A central concern in this paper is exploring how to understand inclusion in organizational contexts where inclusion is formally advocated, and yet where both inclusionary and exclusionary pressures exist. Drawing on an interview study of Swedish gay and lesbian police officers we present the concept ‘peripheral inclusion' as a way to understand inclusion in contemporary organizational life. In addition, we theorize that the dynamics between silencing and voice is a key mode that impacts the informal ways in which exclusion and inclusion occur. We thereby contribute to previous research on inclusion that has focused on the degree to which minorities are included by conceptualizing the mode in which inclusion occurs in everyday work. Studying modes and degrees of inclusion and exclusion in relation to each other highlights how inclusion is a collective and fragile process in which inclusionary and exclusionary pressures coexist, and that questions of who and what is included in contemporary organizations are shifting and open questions.     

The problem of being a paradigm: the emergence of neural stem cells as example for “Kuhnian” revolution in biology or misconception of the scientific community?

In a thought experiment we want to test how the emergence of adult neural stem cells could constitute an example for a scientific revolution in the sense of Thomas Kuhn. In his major work, “The structure of scientific revolutions, 3rd edn, University of Chicago Press, Chicago” (Kuhn 1996), the philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn, states that scientific progress is not a cumulative process, but new theories appear by a rather revolutionary sequence of events. Kuhn built his theory on landmark events taken from chemistry and physics, lacking examples from biology. Beginning with Ramon y Cajal’s famous quote, “no new neurons after birth”, from the early years of the twentieth century, and Reynolds and Weiss’s conflicting finding in 1992 of adult neural stem cells giving rise to new neurons, we will test how the finding of neural stem cells in the adult brain matches with Kuhn’s theory. The pivotal problem of defining a paradigm will be our main focus, since the emergence of adult neural stem cells has been acclaimed by the scientific community as the rebuttal of Ramon y Cajal’s paradigm.