Political competence and ideological constraint

Converse's definition of ideological contraint is expanded to provide for various respondent identified ideological dimensions rather than an all encompassing liberal-conservative dimension. Using this redefinition a sample of adults is shown to have high levels of ideological constraint. Ideological constraint is shown to vary with the degree of cognitive complexity and the degree of preference evaluability. The latter is a new concept that suggests that some issues will be easier for a respondent to demonstrate constraint on depending upon the availability and applicability of preference criteria. Salience is also shown to have a positive relationship with ideological constraint, but only when preference evaluability is high.     

Acute Middle Ear Infection in Small Children: A Bayesian Analysis Using Multiple Time Scales

The study is based on a sample of 965 children living in Oulu region (Finland), who were monitored for acute middle ear infections from birth to the age of two years. We introduce a nonparametrically defined intensity model for ear infections, which involves both fixed and time dependent covariates, such as calendar time, current age, length of breast-feeding time until present, or current type of day care. Unmeasured heterogeneity, which manifests itself in frequent infections in some children and rare in others and which cannot be explained in terms of the known covariates, is modelled by using individual frailty parameters. A Bayesian approach is proposed to solve the inferential problem. The numerical work is carried out by Monte Carlo integration (Metropolis-Hastings algorithm).     

Periodic review of foster care: a brief national assessment.

A survey of statewide public agencies shows that a majority of states have some form of judicial or administrative periodic review, although few have both. The organizational level of authority and degree of foster care specialization of agencies are positively correlated with administrative review and negatively correlated with judicial review.     

Complaining Our Way to Quality: Complaints, Contracts and the Voluntary Sector

The research on which this paper is based is part of a wider study of quality assurance and the voluntary sector. The focus of this paper is on complaints procedures, as part of quality assurance mechanisms, where voluntary agencies are the contracted service providers. The authors argue that, with the introduction of contracting and particularly with its further development, the way in which complaints mechanisms currently operate will need to be revised if they are to be an effective part of the quality assurance process.     

Tales of transition: self-narrative and direct scribing in exploring care-leaving

Direct scribing is a technique that transforms oral discourse into written text, basically by typing oral material verbatim . It was developed in practice with youth in child welfare care and adapted for research data collection. The technique flattens the power imbalance in the interview situation and between oral speech and written text, supports self-reflection, democratizes the ownership of written material, is potentially empowering, and is an efficient means to produce high-quality text. The origins in practice are reviewed and a research application is discussed in detail. Thirty youths aged 18/19 from child welfare constructed self-narratives about how they conceptualized and managed the adolescent transition, and collaborated with the researcher in analysing the narrative as a story. Each interview was direct scribed and printed copy given to the participant. Participants were introduced to direct scribing by completing a questionnaire presented on a note-book computer, and some took part in a gender-specific group discussion as a final data-collection event, which was audio-taped and transcribed. The value of direct scribing and self-narrative in this research project and possibilities for other applications are discussed.     

A Trivariate Distribution for the Height,Weight, and Fat of Adult Men*

Using exploratory data analysis, probability plots, scatterplots, and computer animations to rotate and visualize the data, we fit a trivariate Normal distribution to data for the height, the natural logarithm of body weight, and the body fat for 646 men between the ages of 50 and 80 years as reported by the medical staff of the U.S. Veterans Administration's “Normative Aging Study” in Boston, MA. Although these data do not include any children, women, or young men, the measurements represent the best data that we could find through a 4-year search. We believe that these data are well measured and reliable for men in the specified age range and that these data reveal an interesting statistical pattern for use in probabilistic PBPK models.     

Life satisfaction in midlife childless and empty-nest men and women

The primary purpose of this study was to contrast the life satisfaction of midlife empty-nest and childless individuals. Seventy-two men and women reported on their satisfaction with 11 areas of life as well as with regard to children. Empty-nest individuals were more satisfied than childless persons with regard to their decisions regarding children; however, the childless individuals were not unhappy with their decisions. Empty-nest individuals were also more positive than childless individuals about contact with children. There were no differences between the two groups with regard to areas of life satisfaction not related to children; nor were there significant gender differences in life satisfaction. The results were discussed in relation to both theory and data concerning midlife satisfaction and adjustment.SMS AssociatesThe research was completed by James E. Bell in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the masters of counseling degree at Arizona State University.