A Polynomial Method for Temporal Disaggregation of Multivariate Time Series

Equations are presented to calculate inverse CV, skew and PWM functions for the Pearson-3, log-normal, extreme-value and log-logistic distributions. Such inverse functions are used for moment and PWM estimates. Close numerical approximations are derived for the inverse functions that do not exist explicitly. This is intended to overcome the intractable nature of moment and PWM estimates.     

Chicks with dicks, men in dresses: what it means to be a drag queen

One of the burning questions about drag queens among both scholars and audiences is whether they are more gender-revolutionaries than gender-conservatives. Do they primarily destabilize gender and sexual categories by making visible the social basis of femininity and masculinity, heterosexuality and homosexuality? Or are they more apt to reinforce the dominant binary and hierarchical gender and sexual systems by appropriating gender displays and expressing sexual desires associated with traditional femininity and institutionalized heterosexuality? We address this question through a case study of drag queens at the 801 Cabaret in Key West, Florida. On the basis of life histories, observations of their performances, and focus groups with audience members, we examine the role of gender and sexuality in the process of becoming a drag queen and in the personal identities of drag queens. We find that transgenderism, same-sex sexuality, and theatrical performance are central to the personal identities of these drag queens, who use drag to forge personal and collective identities that are neither masculine nor feminine, but rather their own complex genders.     

“No One Talked About It”: Social Work Field Placements and Sexual Harassment

ABSTRACT

Increasing student safety is an important part of Title IX compliance for colleges and universities. Sexual harassment is an all too common experience for college students, although little is known about incidences in social work field placements. The extent of training and preparation received by students from social work program and field instructors is also unknown. This study explores the extent of training and knowledge about sexual harassment in social work field placements from a sample of 535 BSW and MSW students. Only 51% of social work students received training about sexual harassment, with 21% receiving training from their school’s field office. Participants who had received training felt more prepared to address safety concerns in field. Implications for social work education are discussed.     

Multiplicative rates model for recurrent events in case-cohort studies

Lifetime Data Analysis - In large prospective cohort studies, accumulation of covariate information and follow-up data make up the majority of the cost involved in the study. This might lead to the...     

Perspectives of South African caregivers in receipt of Child Support Grants: Implications for family strengthening interventions

Cash transfers have delivered measurable benefits for poor and vulnerable children in low‐ and middle‐income countries. However, on its own, a cash transfer is insufficient to promote holistic child well‐being. In the quest for appropriate complementary family support services, known as ‘cash plus’ programing, this qualitative study sought to explore the perspectives of a group of South African caregivers, all of whom were in receipt of a Child Support Grant (CSG), in relation to their own caregiving and family functioning. Critical areas of support to families were identified to further scale up the already positive impacts of the CSG, such as mental health services, social supports for caregivers, decreasing levels of poverty and growing caregiving knowledge and skills. Key conclusions are that improving the quality and integration of public services and developing culturally appropriate and evidence‐based family strengthening programmes are critical to complement and boost the positive impacts of the CSG.     

Transforming child and family services in urban communities in South Africa: lessons from the South

Post‐apartheid, South African agencies have been required to shift their services in fundamental ways, including offering services in previously un‐resourced areas, honouring the rights of children and families, ensuring that users, staff and governing bodies are representative of the population and providing developmental social welfare services in place of child protection‐oriented interventions only. A study of urban South African child welfare agencies provides insight into the complex task of managing and leading change. In view of overloaded change agenda and resource constraints, managers focused on effecting incremental change and prioritized the most ‘rewarding’ change efforts. Transforming practice towards a developmental approach was less successful. Structural interventions were also not prioritized. Child welfare agencies internationally face demands to transform in response to the effects of local change and globalization. The study's insights might resonate with agencies working for change in other societal contexts.     

Therapists Working in New and Old Ways: An Integrative Ecological Framework for Non‐Familial Intergenerational Relationships

Non‐familial intergenerational (NFIG) relationships can complement conventional therapeutic interventions. We discuss the intergenerational gap and structural changes families have experienced over the last several decades. We advocate for an integrative framework combining non‐familial intergenerational opportunities with conventional therapeutic interventions. Finally, we address logistical and ethical dimensions of the integrative framework and participants' fitness, motivation, potential, and needs within non‐familial intergenerational programs/partnerships.     

Selecting the best exponential population under Type-II progressive censoring scheme via empirical Bayes approach

The problem of selecting a population according to “selection and ranking” is an important statistical problem. The ideas in selecting the best populations with some demands having optimal criterion have been suggested originally by Bechhofer (1954 Bechhofer, R. E. (1954). A single-sample multiple-decision procedure for ranking means of normal populations with known variances. The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 25:16–39. [Google Scholar]) and Gupta (1956 Gupta, S. S. (1956). On a decision rule for a problem in ranking means. Mimeograph Series No. 150. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina. [Google Scholar], 1965 Gupta, S. S. (1965). On some multiple decision (selection and ranking) rules. Technometrics 7:225–245. [Google Scholar]). In the area of ranking and selection, the large part of literature is connected with a single criterion. However, this may not satisfy the experimenter’s demand. We follow methodology of Huang and Lai (1999 Huang, W. T., Lai, Y. T. (1999). Empirical Bayes procedures for selecting the best population with multiple criteria. Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics 51:281–299. [Google Scholar]) and the main focus of this article is to select a best population under Type-II progressively censored data for the case of right tail exponential distributions with a bounded and unbounded supports for μ_i. We formulate the problem and develop a Bayesian setup with two kinds of bounded and unbounded prior for μ_i. We introduce an empirical Bayes procedure and study the large sample behavior of the proposed rule. It is shown that the proposed empirical Bayes selection rule is asymptotically optimal.