Regression Analysis of Restricted Mean Survival Time Based on Pseudo-Observations

Regression models for survival data are often specified from the hazard function while classical regression analysis of quantitative outcomes focuses on the mean value (possibly after suitable transformations). Methods for regression analysis of mean survival time and the related quantity, the restricted mean survival time, are reviewed and compared to a method based on pseudo-observations. Both Monte Carlo simulations and two real data sets are studied. It is concluded that while existing methods may be superior for analysis of the mean, pseudo-observations seem well suited when the restricted mean is studied.     

On the multivariate structure of wellbeing

A mapping sentence is provided for defining the universe of observations of wellbeing. According to this, assessment of wellbeing is attitudinal. Data from several studies verify that the First Law of Attitude holds for wellbeing. These data also show the structure of the interrelationships among the variables to be that of intermeshing cylindrexes, in an SSA space of four dimensions. Areas of life play the role of polarizing facets, while self-versus-community and situation-versus-treatment serve as axial facets. Modulating facets include primary-to-secondary interaction, and generality-to-specificity.     

A Comparative Analysis of Propositions Describing Social Movement Organizations*

Natural history, observational, and interview data from a study of two anti-pornography crusades and the social movement organizations which created and directed them are used to assess nine propositions formulated by Zald and Ash (1966) concerning the structure and dynamics of social movement organizations. The Zald-Ash propositions were formulated from the literature on national, established social movement organizations. This paper explores the applicability of the propositions to those organizations which are small and emerging. The propositions are generally supported. Discrepancies are accounted for by the significant influence of leadership orientation, goal specificity, and incentive structure in determining other structural and dynamic characteristics of small or emerging social movement organizations.     

Social context and adolescent health behavior: does school-level smoking prevalence affect students' subsequent smoking behavior?

This paper examines the links between individual adolescent smoking behavior and actual and perceived smoking behavior in the individual's school cohort. We hypothesized that students enrolled in schools with higher smoking prevalence among students in their grade are more likely to smoke subsequently. We also expected perceived school-level prevalence of smoking to have a greater impact than actual prevalence because the former is a more direct measure of perceived norms. Adjusting for demographics, actual school-level prevalence at baseline (grade 7) was strongly associated with smoking frequency one year later. However, the association disappeared after adjusting for individual smoking frequency at baseline. School-level prevalence did not moderate the association between individual's baseline and subsequent smoking frequency. Perceived prevalence of smoking among grade 8 students and two measures tapping the behavior of smaller peer groups--cigarette offers and exposure to friends and other peers who smoke--were associated with increased risk of smoking.     

Daubert v. Merrell Dow pharmaceuticals: Toward a better relationship between law and science

[Scientists] are neither Gods nor charlatans; they are merely experts, like every other expert on the political stage. They have, of course, their special area of expertise, the physical world, but their knowledge is no more immaculate than that of economists, health policy makers, police officers, legal advocates, weather forecasters, travel agents, car mechanics, or plumbers. The expertise that we need to deal with them is the well‐developed expertise of everyday life; it is what we use when we deal with plumbers and the rest. Plumbers are not perfect-far from it‐but society is not beset with anti‐plumbers because being anti-plumbing is not a choice available to us.1     

The Impact of Racism on Social Work Education

One of the most difficult problems in teaching social services has to do with the development of an analytic framework for an understanding of the delivery of social services within the community. This paper examines a particular systems framework that allows the student to conceptualize and evaluate what services are being delivered, what specific inputs and connections of agency with community act to produce this service, and what changes in the system may be possible. The model allows ready connection with practice, policy, and research components of the curriculum.     

Continuity of utility functions representing fuzzy preferences

In a previous paper, we established necessary and sufficient conditions for a given binary fuzzy relation to be representable by a utility function. In this article, we construct a crisp order topology associated to a given weakly complete fuzzy pre-order and introduce the notion of “continuous fuzzy pre-order.” We show that this new condition and the conditions introduced in the previous paper are together necessary and sufficient for a numerical representation of a given weakly complete fuzzy pre-order by a continuous utility function.     

Survival dilemmas: Case study of an adult child of a schizophrenic parent

This article describes aspects of the treatment of an adult child of a schizophrenic parent. Many theories on irrationality in the family setting illuminate the range of impingement on the child's reality when a parent is disturbed in this way. Current research has absorbed itself in interpretations of data on risk, vulnerability, disorder, and early trauma, which have implications for prevention as well as therapeutic treatment of the adult survivor. Profound effects on Ms. P's early development are elaborated in the therapy, in which the treatment stance is influenced by Kohut's theories of the self, particularly as applied to the establishment within the holding environment of specific transferences that facilitate reconstructive work.