Arrow's theorem for economic environments and effective social preferences

Arrow's impossibility theorem has been proved for the realm of private goods and economic preferences by Border and by Bordes and Le Breton. However, their proofs require the exclusion of the zero vector from the commodity space. This paper proves the impossibility theorem for the entire allocation space and the classical domain of economic preferences by adding effectiveness to Arrow's hypothesis. Social preference is effective if every nonempty compact set contains at least one socially optimal allocation.Financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada) is gratefully acknowledged. The comments of an anonymous referee were much appreciated. The author assumes responsibility for any errors.     

Couples Therapy: Unravelling the Strands

Work with couples is one of the more widely practised forms of counselling or psychotherapy, yet seems to have found it difficult to establish its own identity and theoretical base. A theoretical tradition specific to work with the couple relationship has, however, developed over the past 40 years. Recently, this tradition has become more clearly demarcated and has begun to show signs of vigorous growth. It is important for therapists whose primary identification is with individual or family therapy, but who work with couples, to be familiar with this theoretical tradition, and with its practice implications. This paper selects six aspects of theory relating to couples therapy that the author has found useful in practice, and seeks to show how, separately and together, they can illuminate the nature and dynamics of the couple relationship.     

Towards Being Down Without Being Out: Self Help on Skid Row

If the lot of the homeless man in Australian cities is to improve the impetus will have to come largely from within—that is through self help. Amelioration of the skid row life style in Australia will probably come in the form of increased sense of group identity, the establishment of clearly defined home territories, improved communication among those agencies that cater to the needs of homeless persons, and a change in the general public's perception of what constitutes skid row and its inhabitants. Brisbane's 139 Club, a drop in centre for the homeless, is an example of self help approaches to bringing about this amelioration of the skid row life style.     

Getting to yes … or no: Nonprofit decision making and interorganizational restructuring

This article explores the decision‐making process nonprofit organizations use to determine whether to pursue merger or other forms of interorganizational restructuring. The research uses a case study design, analyzing four examples of interorganizational restructuring. The findings describe both the structure and the characteristics of the processes used in four cases. The research found that the decision‐making processes used in the four cases had several core elements. Participants in restructuring customized decision‐making processes to meet their needs, and power dynamics shaped those processes. Findings about the characteristics of the process emphasize the importance of communication and trust. How partners used power affected the decision‐making process and had implications for postmerger success. Decision‐making processes for cases involving two partners exhibited characteristics that were different from those involving multiple partners. Future research should consider the role of trust in restructuring decisions and the responsibilities of board and staff in the restructuring assessment process.     

Critical understandings of child development: the development of a module for a post-qualifying certificate course in child protection studies

This paper explores the dilemmas involved in selecting appropriate theoretical and research material to help social workers in practice. Concentrating on the needs of those working in child care and protection, the paper uses the example of the area of child development knowledge to illustrate a process of presenting theory for practice. Specifically, the focus is on the redevelopment of a child development module for a post-qualifying certificate course in child care and protection that aims to encourage students to make critical use of current research and theory. The paper explains the reasoning behind the choice of attachment theory as the underpinning theoretical framework. It also addresses possible pitfalls in an uncritical use of such theory. The paper finally sets out how the module addresses the need social workers have for a framework to guide intervention in individual cases. The dimensions described are those of individual vulnerability or resilience and factors in the environment that are adverse or protective.     

Parenting as a Dynamic Process: A Test of the Resource Dilution Hypothesis

In this paper, we tested the resource dilution hypothesis, which posits that, because parenting resources are finite, the addition of a new sibling depletes parenting resources for other children in the household. We estimated growth curve models on the self‐reported parenting practices of mothers using four waves of data collected biennially between 1994 and 2000 on a nationally representative sample of 2,082 Canadian children aged 2 to 5 at initial interview and in continuously intact, two‐biological‐parent households. Results showed that when new children were added to the household, mothers exhibited declines in positive interaction, but increased their levels of consistent parenting. Taken together, these findings suggested that parenting resources were reallocated, rather than diluted, when family size increased.     

COVARIANCE MODELS FOR LATTICE DATA

Given observations on an m × n lattice, approximate maximum likelihood estimates are derived for a family of models including direct covariance, spatial moving average, conditional autoregressive and simultaneous autoregressive models. The approach involves expressing the (approximate) covariance matrix of the observed variables in terms of a linear combination of neighbour relationship matrices, raised to a power. The structure is such that the eigenvectors of the covariance matrix are independent of the parameters of interest. This result leads to a simple Fisher scoring type algorithm for estimating the parameters. The ideas are illustrated by fitting models to some remotely sensed data.