Monitoring the conforming fraction of high-quality processes using a control chart p under a small sample size and an alternative estimator

In this paper, we propose to change the traditional monitored statistic in a control chart p, by changing the sampling proportion ${\hat{p}}$ to a new statistics denoted as ${\tilde{p}}$ . We aim to minimize problems in designing the control chart p for high quality processes when only a small sample size is available. The idea of the new statistics is simple, as it involves taking two independent samples of a Bernoulli population. From each sample, the sampling proportion is calculated, and the new statistic to monitor is the weighted mean of the sampling proportion of each sample employed to weight the overall sampling proportion. We note that the control chart p that employs the new ${\tilde{p}}$ statistic provides more in-control values of average run length closer to the usual fixed value of 370 than the traditional statistic, that is, the sampling proportion. Numerical examples illustrate the new proposal.     

Multiple-output quantile regression through optimal quantization

A new nonparametric quantile regression method based on the concept of optimal quantization was developed recently and was showed to provide estimators that often dominate their classical, kernel-type, competitors. In the present work, we extend this method to multiple-output regression problems. We show how quantization allows approximating population multiple-output regression quantiles based on halfspace depth. We prove that this approximation becomes arbitrarily accurate as the size of the quantization grid goes to infinity. We also derive a weak consistency result for a sample version of the proposed regression quantiles. Through simulations, we compare the performances of our estimators with (local constant and local bilinear) kernel competitors. The results reveal that the proposed quantization-based estimators, which are local constant in nature, outperform their kernel counterparts and even often dominate their local bilinear kernel competitors. The various approaches are also compared on artificial and real data.     

Improvising Prescription: Evidence from the Emergency Room

Global medical practice is increasingly standardizing through evidence‐based approaches and quality certification procedures. Despite this increasing standardization, medical work in emergency units necessarily involves sensitivity to the individual, the particular and the unexpected. While much medical practice is routine, important improvisational elements remain significant. Standardization and improvisation can be seen as two conflicting logics. However, they are not incompatible, although the occurrence of improvisation in highly structured and institutionally complex environments remains underexplored. The study presents the process of improvisation in the tightly controlled work environment of the emergency room. The authors conducted an in situ ethnographic observation of an emergency unit. An inductive approach shows professionals combining ostensive compliance with protocols with necessary and occasional ‘underlife’ improvisations. The duality of improvisation as simultaneously present and absent is related to pressures in the institutional domain as well as to practical needs emerging from the operational realm. The intense presence of procedures and work processes enables flexible improvised performances that paradoxically end up reinforcing institutional pressures for standardization.     

Relationship Between Maternal Sensitivity During Early Interaction and Maternal Ability in Perceiving Infants' Body and Face

Maternal sensitivity has been considered an indicator of mother‐infant quality interaction, however little is known about the perception processes associated to this parental behavior style. Here we aimed to explore the relationship between maternal sensitivity during a face‐to‐face interaction with their infants and maternal ability in perceiving infants' body and face. Thirty‐six 6 month‐old infants and their mothers were videotaped during a mother‐infant interaction to identify those with high and low sensitivity. Then, mothers were tested using an inversion effect paradigm requiring the visual discrimination of upright and inverted pictures of whole bodies and faces of their own and unfamiliar infants; this allowed estimation of their configural perceptual processing abilities. Results showed that high‐sensitivity mothers showed reduced body configural processing for others' infants as compared to configural processing of their own infant, whereas low‐sensitivity mothers were engaged in comparable body configural processing independently from infant identity. Infants' face configural processing did not distinguish between high‐ and low‐sensitivity mothers. Our findings suggest that high‐sensitivity mothers have refined their use of configural processing of body postures to be selective for their own infants, suggesting that this visuo‐perceptual strategy makes much more efficient the mothers' ability in detecting, discriminating and recognizing own infant's cues.     

Modeling initiation into drug injection among street youth

This study aimed at examining the predictors of initiation into drug injection among street youth using social cognitive theory framework. A prospective cohort study based on semi-annual interviews was carried out. Psychosocial determinants referred to avoidance of initiation. Other potential predictors were: sociodemographic characteristics, relationships with injectors, parent's substance misuse, drug use patterns, homelessness, survival sex, sexual abuse. Independent predictors were identified using Cox proportional hazards regression models. Among the 352 participants, high control beliefs about avoidance of initiation was protective while younger age, daily alcohol consumption, heroin use, cocaine use, and survival sex all increased risk of initiation. Preventive strategies targeting street youth should both enhance youth's control beliefs and actual control over their substance use and improve their life conditions.     

Inclusion and/or Integration: the debate is still on in Brazil

The paper states the confusion still present in the Brazilian debates about inclusion and integration. Drawing from the Brazilian legislation and conceptualisations, the paradigmatic difference between inclusion and integration is discussed, and seen by the author as part of a historical process towards further humanisation. Rather than arguing for one or another, it is pointed that in some contexts, because of their histories and timing, perhaps the most appropriate is to consider the existence of both as equally important.     

Brazilian Concepts of Special Education

The paper questions the idea of a single national perspective on special education, despite the relatively recent movement towards a national policy for the integration of disabled people in the mainstream educational system. It is argued that the adoption of the principle of integration, as proposed by the international community, has not necessarily led, in the Brazilian case, those involved with special education to a review of special education in the sense of being part of an inclusive educational system. The paper shows that in a country of continental dimensions like Brazil, there are marked differences in the way special education is conceptualised and provided. Such differences occur at various levels: regional local and even institutional. Some of the factors that promote these differences are of a historical and political nature. The paper suggests that these factors must be taken into account by those involved with special education, especially when there are attempts to make generalisations about the concept and practice of special education.