Tedious: feminized labor in machine-readable cataloging

This essay examines previously unexplored IBM reports and manuals that document the development of Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) in the 1960s to understand gendered assumptions manufacturers made about the labor of information retrieval and to ultimately discuss the ways in which MARC transformed the feminized labor of information, making it more diffuse and shifting expectations about productivity. In the process, this essay will show that cataloging, like other forms of women’s labor transformed by technology in the latter part of the twentieth century, has a complicated relationship to the market labor and industrialization. Finally, this essay ends by connecting MARC and feminized labor to the contemporary discussion of BIBFRAME.     

Impulsivity as a Risk Factor for HIV Transmission in Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Delay Discounting Approach

Delay discounting (DD) is a measure of impulsivity that describes the subjective decline in value of a consequence as the delay to that consequence increases. We sought to assess whether the results of a monetary DD task would be predictive of sexual risk-taking in a group of Internet-using men who have sex with men (MSM). 1402 participants completed an online survey that included questions about the participant’s demographics, sexual history and behavior, drug use, sexual compulsivity, and a monetary DD task. High DD was associated with increased odds of reporting >2 UAI partners in the past 12 months [aOR = 1.5 (1.1–2.1)]. Future studies should examine the utility of DD as a predictor of risky sexual behavior, as well as explore the possibility of HIV prevention interventions targeting DD.     

Estimation in an empirical bayes model for longitudinal and cross‐sectionally clustered binary data

Some studies generate data that can be grouped into clusters in more than one way. Consider for instance a smoking prevention study in which responses on smoking status are collected over several years in a cohort of students from a number of different schools. This yields longitudinal data, also cross‐sectionaliy clustered in schools. The authors present a model for analyzing binary data of this type, combining generalized estimating equations and estimation of random effects to address the longitudinal and cross‐sectional dependence, respectively. The estimation procedure for this model is discussed, as are the results of a simulation study used to investigate the properties of its estimates. An illustration using data from a smoking prevention trial is given.     

A value of information framework for assessing the trade-offs associated with uncertainty,duration, and cost of chemical toxicity testing

A number of investigators have explored the use of value of information (VOI) analysis to evaluate alternative information collection procedures in diverse decision-making contexts. This paper presents an analytic framework for determining the value of toxicity information used in risk-based decision making. The framework is specifically designed to explore the trade-offs between cost, timeliness, and uncertainty reduction associated with different toxicity-testing methodologies. The use of the proposed framework is demonstrated by two illustrative applications which, although based on simplified assumptions, show the insights that can be obtained through the use of VOI analysis. Specifically, these results suggest that timeliness of information collection has a significant impact on estimates of the VOI of chemical toxicity tests, even in the presence of smaller reductions in uncertainty. The framework introduces the concept of the expected value of delayed sample information, as an extension to the usual expected value of sample information, to accommodate the reductions in value resulting from delayed decision making. Our analysis also suggests that lower cost and higher throughput testing also may be beneficial in terms of public health benefits by increasing the number of substances that can be evaluated within a given budget. When the relative value is expressed in terms of return-on-investment per testing strategy, the differences can be substantial.     

Critical approaches to private education in the Global South

This article highlights the key themes that animate the critical discourse on private education initiatives targeting poor children in the Global South. Scholars in the field remain skeptical that public-private partnerships, low-fee private schools, and various subsidy and voucher programs are best suited to addressing the underlying issues of equity and quality that plague public education systems in low- and middle-income countries. Most, however, tend to adopt one of two different, though complementary, lines of analysis in drawing attention to the issue. Some scholars, for instance, use empirical evidence to show how low-fee private schools fall short of delivering on promises to address the needs of all children and enhancing basic literacy and numeracy scores in comparison to public schools. Other scholars, however, map networks of people and money to reveal how private education in the Global South is guided by power and profit. The paper outlines the moral and analytic interests that guide these two approaches to the challenge private education presents, while also making the case for an additional mode of analysis that would test the democratic and social justice claims that feature in mission statements of larger foundations and institutions set in vulnerable societies.     

Increasing inter‐generational social mobility: is educational expansion the answer?

Reforms which increase the stock of education in a society have long been held by policy‐makers as key to improving rates of intergenerational social mobility. Yet, despite the intuitive plausibility of this idea, the empirical evidence in support of an effect of educational expansion on social fluidity is both indirect and weak. In this paper we use the raising of the minimum school leaving age from 15 to 16 years in England and Wales in 1972 to estimate the effect of educational participation and qualification attainment on rates of intergenerational social class mobility. Because, in expectation, children born immediately before and after the policy was implemented are statistically exchangeable, the difference in the amount of education they received may be treated as exogenously determined. The exogenous nature of the additional education gain means that differences in rates of social mobility between cohorts affected by the reform can be treated as having been caused by the additional education. The data for the analysis come from the ONS Longitudinal Study, which links individual records from successive decennial censuses between 1971 and 2001. Our findings show that, although the reform resulted in an increase in educational attainment in the population as a whole and a weakening of the association between attainment and class origin, there was no reliably discernible increase in the rate of intergenerational social mobility.     

The Beginnings of Child Welfare Research in the United States

The author reviews the beginnings of child welfare research in the United States with an emphasis on the contributions of several outstanding individuals as well as the conflict between hereditarian and reformist values and attitudes. Both hereditarian and reformist values and attitudes had tremendous influence on the development of child welfare research as well as the helping professions.