The Redevelopment of Bus Depots: A Transaction Cost Economic Analysis of a Change in the Use of Land in Hong Kong

This is a pioneering study on bus depots based on a review of the English-language literature on or related to them, which is motivated by the prevalence of real estate projects using the land of the former depots. The review is followed by some conjectures about the transaction cost advantages of bus depot sites as a source of development land and examines the hypothesis that redevelopment projects using former bus depots, compared to other uses, in Hong Kong are more easily approved under the statutory planning system. The literature review found that bus depots have attracted much academic attention, although research angles were conditioned by different social perceptions of bus depots. The empirical results of this case study did not reject the hypothesis. The limitations and implications of the study are discussed.     

Income,Relationship Quality,and Parenting: Associations With Child Development in Two‐Parent Families

Prior research suggests considerable heterogeneity in the advantages of living in a 2‐parent family. Specifically, children living with married biological parents exhibit more favorable outcomes than children living with cohabiting biological parents and with married and cohabiting stepparents. To explain these differences, researchers have focused almost exclusively on differences in the levels of factors such as income, parental relationship quality, and parenting quality across family types. In this study the authors examined whether differences in the benefits associated with these factors might also account for some of the variation in children's cognition and social‐emotional development. Focusing on children at the time they enter kindergarten, they found only weak evidence of differences in benefits across family types. Instead, they found that children living in stepfather families experienced above‐average levels of parental relationship quality and parenting quality, which in turn played a protective role vis‐à‐vis their cognitive and social‐emotional development.     

Effect of consumption choices on fluxes of carbon,nitrogen and phosphorus through households

Households are an important scale of analysis for human ecosystems because they are a major source of pollutants and could thus be a new focus for pollution management, particularly for education-based source reduction strategies. The household is also a meaningful unit for analysis of human ecosystems, being common to all human cultures. This study develops a Household Flux Calculator (HFC) to compute C, N, and P fluxes for scenarios intended to represent three levels of household consumption: low, typical, and high. All three scenarios were developed for suburban households with two adults and two children in the Minneapolis-St. Paul (Twin Cities) metropolitan area, Minnesota. Calculated ratios of fluxes between high and low consumption households were 3.5:1 for C, 2.7:1 for N and 1.4:1 for P. Results suggest a high level of discretionary consumption that could be reduced without a substantial reduction in standard of living. Thus, modest changes in behavior in high consumption households would greatly reduce fluxes of C, N, and P without major changes in lifestyle.

The Bystander Approach: Strengths-Based Sexual Assault Prevention With At-Risk Groups

Bystander intervention is described as a promising approach for social workers engaged with groups labeled “at risk” for perpetrating sexual violence. An exploratory study was conducted with one at-risk group, student-athletes, to determine their willingness to intervene as bystanders in situations involving sexual violence. A survey was administered to 205 participants, focus groups held with nine teams, and individual interviews conducted with 22 student-athletes. Results indicate that the closeness of the team bond is the most significant predictor for willingness to intervene. Many student-athletes reported a willingness to intervene in situations involving sexual violence but need further skill development to do so effectively. Implications for social workers implementing the bystander approach with at-risk groups are discussed, such as skill development and utilization of the strengths perspective.     

On Cross-Lagged Panel Models With Serially Correlated Errors

Cross-lagged panel studies are studies in which two or more variables are measured for a large number of subjects at each of several points in time. The variables divide naturally into two sets, and the purpose of the analysis is to estimate and test the cross-effects between the two sets. One approach to this analysis is to treat the cross-effects as parameters in regression equations. This study contributes to this approach by extending the regression model to a multivariate model that captures the correlation among the variables and allows the errors in the model to be correlated over time.     

A comparison of robust regression techniques for the estimation of weibull parameters

In this paper several alternative robust reqression techniques are compared for estimating parameters of a Weibull distribution . In addition to the usual least squares (L₂) and least absolute deviation (L₁) methods, a number of one-step reweighting schemes based on the L₁residuals are considered. The results of an extensive series of Monte Carlo simulation experiments demonstrate that the Anscmbe reweighting scheme generally produces the best Weibull estimates over the range of sample sizes and parameter values studied.     

Alcohol Advertising in College Newspapers: A 7-Year Follow-up

Abstract

The authors report on the frequency and nature of alcohol advertisements in a representative sample of college newspapers from 1984/85 and compare these with results of a similar study conducted 7 years earlier, in 1977/78. On average, nearly 24 column inches of space per issùe were devoted to national alcohol advertisements in 1984/85. This represents a significant decrease from an earlier period. The space devoted to national alcohol advertisements, however, still far exceeded that for comparison products (books, soft drinks). Local alcohol advertisements averaged 20 column inches per issue and were somewhat more frequent than in the previous study. The content of the advertisements differed markedly from the messages presented 7 years earlier. Although national alcohol advertisements in 1977/78 frequently ridiculed education and study, none did so in 1984/85, when appeals were to taste and product quality instead. Fantasy themes also were relatively common. Very few national alcohol advertisements featured athletes or group drinking. Sponsorship of campus activities by the alcohol industry, however, had increased since the earlier study. In contrast to national advertisements, many local advertisements consisted of inducements to drink through special offers and happy hours. Some encouraged irresponsible and heavy drinking. Interestingly, alcohol advertisements were just as frequent in papers from states with higher minimum drinking ages and were more frequent in papers from campuses with higher proportions of women students.     

Editor’s Introduction: Semiotics and Sociology

This article provides a brief summary of the individual papers in the issue, indicating their logical and thematic connections as well as their relationship to Charles S. Peirce’s semiotics and Norbert Wiley’s model of ‘the semiotic self.’ The significance of the articles for the future development of sociology is also considered.     

The Impact of Stigma on the Child with Obesity: Implications for Social Work Practice and Research

Childhood obesity has greatly increased in the past 20 years and is highly stigmatized in today’s society. The effectiveness of obesity prevention efforts is threatened by the systemic impact of stigma that surrounds obesity. As childhood obesity increases so to does the responsibility of social workers to implement multi level interventions that not only assist children who are experiencing stigmatization, but are aimed at reducing stigmatization. This article reviews the origins of overweight stigmatization and the psychosocial influences of such stigmatization. The implications for social work practice and research from a systemic approach are addressed.     

Logistic regression analysis of epidemiologic data: theory and practice

The use of logistic regression analysis is widely applicable to epidemiologic studies concerned with quantifying an association between a study factor (i.e., an exposure variable) and a health outcome (i.e., disease status). This paper reviews the general characteristics of the logistic model and illustrates its use in epidemiologic inquiry. Particular emphasis is given to the control of extraneous variables in the context of follow-up and case-control studies. Techniques for both unconditional and conditional maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters in the logistic model are described and illustrated. A general analysis strategy is also presented which incorporates the assessment of both interaction and confounding in quantifying an exposure-disease association of interest.