Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations in Three Protracted Conflicts: Structures,Resources and Ideology

Guided by organizational and social movement theories, this study compares the structures, resource bases, ideologies, and strategies of nongovernmental organizations engaged in peace and conflict resolution (P/CROs) in three regions with extended violent conflicts: Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine. Qualitative content analysis techniques are used to analyze 27 detailed case reports. We analyze the funding patterns and structural attributes of the P/CROs in our sample, with particular attention to how they obtain fiscal resources and membership in spite of the risks they may experience. We then explore the degree of formalization among P/CROs over time and, finally, we examine the ideological frames that P/CROs use and how these frames relate to their tactics. Throughout the analysis we pay attention to how the political context of each region influences P/CRO behavior.     

Testing the monotonicity or convexity of a function using regression splines

Methods for smoothed isotonic or convex regression are useful in many applications. Sometimes the shape assumptions constitute a priori knowledge about the regression function, but often the shape is part of the research question. The authors propose tests for monotonicity and convexity using constrained and unconstrained regression splines. The tests have good large‐sample properties and the small‐sample behaviour is illustrated through simulations. Extensions to the partial linear model and the generalized regression model are presented. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 39: 89–107; 2011 © 2011 Statistical Society of Canada     

The Proximate Determinants of Educational Homogamy: The Effects of First Marriage,Marital Dissolution,Remarriage, and Educational Upgrading

This paper adapts the population balancing equation to develop a framework for studying the proximate determinants of educational homogamy. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on a cohort of women born between 1957 and 1964, we decompose the odds of homogamy in prevailing marriages into four proximate determinants: (1) first marriages, (2) first and later marital dissolutions, (3) remarriages, and (4) educational attainment after marriage. The odds of homogamy among new first marriages are lower than among prevailing marriages, but not because of selective marital dissolution, remarriage, and educational attainment after marriage, as has been speculated. Prevailing marriages are more likely to be educationally homogamous than new first marriages because of the accumulation of homogamous first marriages in the stock of marriages. First marriages overwhelmingly account for the odds of homogamy in prevailing marriages in this cohort. Marital dissolutions, remarriages, and educational upgrades after marriage have relatively small and offsetting effects. Our results suggest that, despite the high prevalence of divorce, remarriage, and continued schooling after marriage in the United States, the key to understanding trends in educational homogamy lies primarily in variation in assortative mating into first marriage.     

Listening to children imagining gender: observing the inflation of an idea

Using three of the clinical articles in this special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality as examples, the author attempts to show how their views of gender may influence clinicians' conceptualizations and treatment choices in response to children diagnosed with gender identity disorder (GID), or gender dysphoria. In particular the author argues that the belief that gender is a psychophysiological entity that is organismic and transhistorical, that is, the view known lately as essentialism, promotes more invasive interventions (e.g., endocrinological and surgical) and mistakenly deemphasizes psychological therapies as a clinical response to the suffering of trans children. He tries to show that the drawbacks of essentialism and its correlated treatment approaches are twofold, that a) they promote treatments with insufficient attention to our limited knowledge regarding their safety and efficacy, and b) they advance a reified differentiation of the genders that is politically problematic. The author suggests that a better response to trans children would be one that emphasizes the child's broadly subjective role in his or her construction of transgressive, gender-related psychological and interpersonal phenomena (both painful and not), thus, offering a deeper validation for trans children's challenges to our gender system.     

Uncertainty and Variability in Health-Related Damages from Coal-Fired Power Plants in the United States

The health‐related damages associated with emissions from coal‐fired power plants can vary greatly across facilities as a function of plant, site, and population characteristics, but the degree of variability and the contributing factors have not been formally evaluated. In this study, we modeled the monetized damages associated with 407 coal‐fired power plants in the United States, focusing on premature mortality from fine particulate matter (PM_2.5). We applied a reduced‐form chemistry‐transport model accounting for primary PM_2.5 emissions and the influence of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions on secondary particulate formation. Outputs were linked with a concentration‐response function for PM_2.5‐related mortality that incorporated nonlinearities and model uncertainty. We valued mortality with a value of statistical life approach, characterizing and propagating uncertainties in all model elements. At the median of the plant‐specific uncertainty distributions, damages across plants ranged from $30,000 to $500,000 per ton of PM_2.5, $6,000 to $50,000 per ton of SO₂, $500 to $15,000 per ton of NO_x, and $0.02 to $1.57 per kilowatt‐hour of electricity generated. Variability in damages per ton of emissions was almost entirely explained by population exposure per unit emissions (intake fraction), which itself was related to atmospheric conditions and the population size at various distances from the power plant. Variability in damages per kilowatt‐hour was highly correlated with SO₂ emissions, related to fuel and control technology characteristics, but was also correlated with atmospheric conditions and population size at various distances. Our findings emphasize that control strategies that consider variability in damages across facilities would yield more efficient outcomes.     

Excluded losses and the demand for insurance

The demand for insurance is examined when the insured asset can incur losses that are excluded from insurance coverage. These losses are negatively correlated with covered losses and hence cannot be treated as background risk. Excluded losses have strikingly different effects on the demand for insurance than does background risk and lead to a modification of many standard insurance demand results. A number of new theorems concerning the effects of excluded losses are also presented. Risk-averse and prudent decision makers reduce their demand for insurance when excluded losses increase in size or riskiness. Excluded losses are a possible explanation for why many decision makers fail to take up insurance when it is offered.     

A Note on Logistic Regression and Odds Ratios

Abstract

Observed seat belt use on a private university campus was compared with use by the general population of the state in which the university is located. It was expected, given the higher educational level and socioeconomic status of the university population, that seat belt use would be higher than it is for the general population. The results of the study indicated that seat belt use by members of the university community was actually significantly lower than that reported statewide. The statistically significant difference was even greater for front-seat passengers than for drivers on campus.     

Behavioral Intervention of Human Problems,Henry C. Rickard,Editor. Elmsford,New York: Pergamon Press, 1971. 422 Pages, $19.50 Hardbound

Defining “political salience” as the “timeliness, frequency, and public prominence of a response to apolitical event,” the author found in a literature review of social work education and practice, 1968–1972, a predominance of social policy and program development content, usually conceptual or analytic in approach. Discussion of practice roles, values, and skills appropriate to the new political realities of thai period were minimal. Part of the reporting gap was caused by publication policy and technology. A more rapid level of information transfer is suggested to assure course and practice material that would be useful in political and organizational terms.     

The Family Outreach Model: Tools for Engaging and Working With Families in Distress

The purpose of this article is to present a family intervention model to family service providers that builds on previous research in areas of social support and family problem solving. The Family Outreach Model provides a set of strategies for engaging and working with families in five phases of family coping at different points in time in the family's life. The strategies reflect intentional choices by family service providers about both collaborative and directive styles of therapeutic alliance and highlights ways to determine which style best fits with what specific families want and need, depending on the manner of family coping that it is using. Implications for programs and public policy are presented.