Robust scale estimation in the error-components model using the empirical characteristic function

Robust estimators of the scale parameters in the error-components model are described. The new estimators are based on the empirical characteristic functions of appropriate sets of residuals and are affine equivariant, consistent and asymptotically normal. The robustness of the new estimators is investigated via influence-function calculations. The results of Monte Carlo experiments and an example based on real data illustrate the usefulness of the estimators.     

Reevaluation of task-centered social work practice

In a brief period of time, the “task-centered” approach to social work practice has become a major treatment modality, offering the clinician a degree of specificity and clarity that is often missing in more traditional practice. This paper reassesses the indications and contraindications for this model, contrasting it with other treatment approaches which also utilize the technical variables of brevity, time limits, and task assignment. The diagnostic criteria for the utilization of this approach are discussed in detail, with special emphasis on its applicability to the severely disturbed client.     

MODERN SCIENCE: Institutionalization of Knowledge and Rationalization of Power

This essay explores the relationship of scientific knowledge to political and economic power. By comparing intellectual production to economic production, the author identifies three preconditions for a knowledge discourse to achieve monopoly domination or hegemony in its market sector or cognitive domain. First, the knowledge discourse must be perceived as specialized; that is, as a unique product or service. Second, it must be credently represented as useful to dominant groups. Finally, it must achieve institutionalization. Ethnographies of scientific discourse and practice, as well as social histories of science, provide data relevant to this model. Such studies reveal the rhetorically constructed character of scientific knowledge, and hence its openness to social and political influence. But these studies also show how scientists strive to standardization; that is, they seek to render their somewhat ad hoc activities in the laboratory into replicable and reputable public accounts. The norms and techniques of this locally created standardization emerged historically, mainly in the form of objectivity and numeracy. These standards in turn serve politically to demarcate legitimate scientists from amateurs and quacks, thereby satisfying the first precondition of the model—that to be successful a knowledge discourse must be perceived as specialized. Cognitive boundaries enabled social boundaries-chiefly the marking of distinctions between disciplines and the organization of their practitioners into professional guilds. Through the creation and enforcement of such distinctions, product identification, market allocation, and oligopolization were secured. These processes also required investment capital to sustain intellectual production. Thus, to institutionalize their disciplines and themselves in research universities and specialized scientific-administrative centers, practitioners sought to demonstrate their utility to potential clients and patrons. Along the way, the disciplines became more instrumentally oriented, their concepts, methods, and topics shaped to conform to the requirements of professionalization and institutionalization. The very language of science also changed in accordance with its new emphases. The close institutionalized affinity of cognitive, political, and economic interests was largely established in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The new, institutionalized, scientific knowledge and the new, rationalized, statist and corporate     

"Homo Sociologicus" and Personality Theory

L'image que la sociologie peint de l'homme en théorie contemporaine a été l'objet de critiques qui se groupent autour des deux thèmes suivants: 1 les modéles actuels de l'univers social Agent l'homme dans un moule, en en faisant le prisonnier de ses rôles afin d'expliquer ses comportements; 2 une théorie explicite de la personnalité est un indispensable élément de toute théorie sociologique valable, puisque l'action individuelle est un passage obligatoire pour que se manifeste toute disposition commune au niveau de la collectivité. L'auteur est d'opinion que si, afin d'expliquer l'harmonie sociale, on appuie trop sur l'intériorisation des valeurs collectives, on appauvrit la notion de personnalité en plus de rabaisser, parmi les mécanismes qui produisent l'accord, ceux qui sont de caractère social plutôt que psychologique.     

The meshing of youth development and community building

Practitioners, policymakers, residents, workers, researchers, and even funders have an opportunity to merge their many practices into a more comprehensive and focused approach to change communities substantially. People are affiliated with a number of communities, and not just those with geographical definitions. There are communities based on gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, race, ethnicity, and institutions such as family and school. Building the bridges between youth development and community building and merging their principles and practices will create a force of change. This chapter lays the foundation for meshing the worlds of youth development and community building to make powerful connections that will be important to the community of youth and bring them into wider circles and forces that ultimately will be important to the adult community as well.     

The 1991 Cholera Epidemic in Peru: Not a Case of Precaution Gone Awry

The precautionary principle calls on decisionmakers to take preventive action in light of evidence indicating that there is a potential for harm to public health and the environment, even though the nature and magnitude of harm are not fully understood scientifically. Critics of the precautionary principle frequently argue that unbridled application of the principle leads to unintended damage to health and ecosystems (risk tradeoffs) and that precautious decision making leaves us vulnerable to "false-positive" risks that divert resources away from "real risks." The 1991 cholera epidemic in Peru is often cited as an example of these pitfalls of the precautionary principle. It has been mistakenly argued that application of the precautionary principle caused decisionmakers to stop chlorinating the water supply due to the risks of disinfection byproducts (DBPs), resulting in the epidemic. Through analyses of investigations conducted in the cities of Iquitos and Trujillo, Peru, literature review, and interviews with leading Peruvian infectious disease researchers, we determined that the epidemic was caused by a much more complex set of circumstances, including poor sanitation conditions, poor separation of water and waste streams, and inadequate water treatment and distribution systems. The evidence indicates that no decision was made to stop chlorinating on the basis of DBP concerns and that concerns raised about DBPs masked more important factors limiting expansion of chlorination. In fact, outside of Peru's capital Lima, chlorination of drinking water supplies at the time of the epidemic was limited at best. We conclude that the Peruvian cholera epidemic was not caused by a failure of precaution but rather by an inadequate public health infrastructure unable to control a known risk: that of microbial contamination of water supplies.     

Development and evaluation of the abortion attributes questionnaire

This paper describes the development and evaluation of the Abortion Attributes Questionnaire (AAQ), an instrument designed to assess the perceived importance of specific characteristics of abortion methods. Women receiving medical abortions ( n = 186) and women who chose surgical procedures ( n = 118) completed the AAQ. Participants were asked to rate how important each of 21 characteristics would be "when choosing between surgical and medical abortion." Factor analyses revealed that the AAQ consists of four factors and, as subscales, the factors have good internal reliability. The validity of the AAQ was established through discriminant function analysis and results indicated that three of the four factors predicted choice. Taken together, these findings provide empirical support for the constructs measured by the AAQ .     

THE LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF THE COUPLE COMMUNICATION PROGRAM

The immediate and long-term impact of the Couple Communication Program was assessed. Seventeen married couples were assigned to training groups. Change was assessed using self-report measures of marital adjustment and communication quality along with behavioral ratings of couple verbal interaction. Couples increased significantly on all measures at immediate posttest. Marital adjustment returned to pretest levels by five month follow-up. Couple perceived communication quality and rater judged communication quality maintained posttest levels. The findings suggest a need for more skills training in the program, an increase in length of the program, and consideration of program improvements designed to enhance generalization.