The analysis of transition times in multistate stochastic processes using proportional hazard regression models

Extensions to Cox's proportional hazards regression model (Cox, 1972) for the analysis of survival data are considered for a more general multistate framework. This framework allows several transient disease states between initial entry state and death as well as incorporating possible competing causes of death. Methods for parameter and function estimation within this extension are presented and applied to the analysis of data from the Stanford Heart Transplantation Program (Crowley and Hu,1977).     

Assessing Television’s ‘Political Dramas’

Because drama is so important to the television schedules, and because television remains a ubiquitous and pervasive medium, TV drama is a constant cultural presence. Some of its stories are about politics, featuring the work of government, the contestation of elections, party rivalry and negotiation, and so on, with a cast of characters including leaders, advisors, journalists, celebrities and citizens: they echo, refract, replay, model and feed into narratives about real‐world politics in a variety of ways. Dramatic stories of this kind are important for the sake of their potential contribution to what citizens believe ‐ and feel ‐ about politics itself. Dramatised political stories and characters appear in a wide range of genres, from factually based docudramas to situation comedy and soap opera, and have become the focus of international academic attention for a number of scholars in politics departments as well as those working from within media and cultural studies. This article looks at a range of approaches to studying political drama on television, raising questions about generic variety, the ideas and the kinds of analysis that have been applied and the varying assessments that have been put forward.     

Are Blogs Here to Stay?: An Examination of the Longevity and Currency of a Static List of Library and Information Science Weblogs

The chronological entries in Weblogs or blogs record musings, opinions, news or other information supplied by individuals or groups. The nature of blogs is ephemeral in that the content is closely tied to the time period of the posting. The author examines the library and information science blogs listed on Susan Herzog’s “BlogBib: Select Librarian/Library Blogs” to see if they were being updated thirteen months after Herzog stopped maintaining the Web site.¹ Active, inactive, ceased, and blogs with changed URLs were recorded. Extra content was noted.     

Residential Preferences: What's Terrorism Got to Do with It?

Security has long been recognized as an element in residential preference and its relative importance has risen with fear of extremist attacks on U.S. cities. Using polling data from 2004, this research investigates whether the security breaches of 9/11 in New York City influenced residential preferences in New York State. Our results confirm that perceived risks are greatest downstate but exert little overall net effect on (re)location plans. A stabilizing effect may be evident where preferences are reinforced among upstate residents who respond to downstate risk by strengthening “stay put” attitudes. An inspection of real‐estate data in the northern reaches of the New York Metropolitan Area suggests a risk‐averse hedging strategy—city residents relocating in stages by acquiring open land and the option to build and move should renewed terrorist attacks occur.     

Measuring the Effectiveness of Experiential Date Nights: A Qualitative Study

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examines the experience of 13 couples who attended a relationship education date night in two metropolitan areas in a western state. The intent of these date nights was to reach audiences that may not attend traditional classroom relationship education. Reasons for, benefits of attending, and impacts were explored with participants. Findings indicate that most participants had fun and enjoyed spending time together, learned qualities and skills of healthy relationships, and had positive learning experiences with other couples. Additionally, although most individuals’ reason for attending was to have fun, most experienced a positive impact on their relationships after the event, such as improved communication, increase in affection and gratitude, or spending more time together. This finding may indicate that regardless of the reasons for attending, it is possible to create an environment for learning relationship skills that can, and most likely will, extend beyond the night of the event and could potentially lead to long-term positive impacts in relationships. Based on findings and existing research, activity-based relationship education, such as date nights, needs to be taken seriously as a model for couple education and considered as part of a well-rounded approach to relationship education.     

Synergists and Qualities Salient to Low-Income Parents' Positive Assessment of Marital Health

Researchers sought low-income couples who considered their marriages to be “good or very good” to inform the process of how individuals and their partners establish and maintain a healthy marriage under significant financial limitations. Twenty married parents participated in semistructured interviews that sought their insights into backgrounds and antecedents that impacted their own and their partners' development and current positive marital assessment. Analysis using grounded theory methods generated a model that posits synergists enhancing the development of qualities that contributed to spouses' positive assessments. The four synergists were sensitizing experiences, a partner-as-rescuer mind-set, acute parental influences, and religious influences. The four requisite high-priority qualities associated with these synergists were love, commitment, appreciation, and child-centeredness.     

Fathers as ‘core business’ in child welfare practice and research: An interdisciplinary review

This literature review draws from a wide array of interdisciplinary research to argue that fathers need to be included in child welfare practice and research to the same extent as mothers. Social work and child maltreatment literature highlight that fathers are often overlooked and viewed more negatively than mothers in child welfare practice. There are noteworthy theoretical and practical reasons for this poor engagement of fathers in practice. However, advances in attachment theory and recent research findings from developmental and fathering literature indicate that fathers influence their children independently from mothers and equally strongly. Further research demonstrates that fathers and father figures can be both potential risk factors and protective factors in the lives of vulnerable children. Therefore, children are placed at increased risk if dangerous fathers are not engaged, and are also significantly disadvantaged if supportive fathers are not engaged. The review concludes with practical implications for child welfare practice and research.     

‘The question of the day’: The maintenance of racial rhetoric in Queensland,Australia: William Lane and Pauline Hanson as racial ideologues

Since the late nineteenth century Australian racial ideologues have identified retrogressive immigration policies and practices with the national interest. They have consistently argued that ethnic and racial diversity will led to rapid decay and national fragmentation. In the vast north‐east state of Queensland, the most racially diverse area of Australia historically, the arguments have been most persuasively articulated. Queensland has produced, not unsurprisingly, the most vehement and obsessive racial ideologues both on the left and right of politics. William Lane and Pauline Hanson, though separated by a century, both argue that the possibilities of imminent invasion from the north, the polluting effects on national strength from non‐British immigration and ethnic diversity will destroy national cohesion. The continued and widespread acceptance of these ideas demonstrates both the virulence and persistance of racial ideologies in Australia.