Child sexual abuse and attachment theory:are we rushing headlong into another controversy?

The child sexual abuse knowledge base has developed within a highly charged political and social context. As such, early theories of sexual abuse were susceptible to biases that reflected the larger sociocultural context. The purpose of this paper is to consider whether attachment theory as it is applied to child sexual abuse might also be susceptible to such biases. Although this paper concludes that attachment theory can potentially add an important dimension to the conceptualization of child sexual abuse and its dynamics, it is also suggested that attachment theory may remain at risk for becoming a vehicle for transmitting political and ideological agendas.     

Widowhood and spirituality: coping responses to bereavement

Nearly half of women age 65 or older are widows and nearly 70% of these women live alone. Because older women are three times more likely than their male counterparts to be widowed, widowhood has been labeled a primarily female phenomenon. This review article has two aims: (a) to discuss the impact of widowhood on the lives of older women and (b) to discuss how religion and spirituality may be used as coping methods for conjugal loss. After reviewing the literature the authors conclude that older women use religious coping as well as religious and spiritual beliefs and behaviors to facilitate positive adjustment to the loss of a spouse.     

Merging data from multiple sources: pretest and shrinkage perspectives

In this article, we have developed asymptotic theory for the simultaneous estimation of the k means of arbitrary populations under the common mean hypothesis and further assuming that corresponding population variances are unknown and unequal. The unrestricted estimator, the Graybill-Deal-type restricted estimator, the preliminary test, and the Stein-type shrinkage estimators are suggested. A large sample test statistic is also proposed as a pretest for testing the common mean hypothesis. Under the sequence of local alternatives and squared error loss, we have compared the asymptotic properties of the estimators by means of asymptotic distributional quadratic bias and risk. Comprehensive Monte-Carlo simulation experiments were conducted to study the relative risk performance of the estimators with reference to the unrestricted estimator in finite samples. Two real-data examples are also furnished to illustrate the application of the suggested estimation strategies.     

New masculinities in universities? Discourses,ambivalence and potential change

In this article, we explore forms and possible implications of new masculinities in universities, and elucidate how they relate to hegemonic masculinity. ‘New masculinities’ coins a particular tradition of naming in Nordic masculinity studies. In the Nordic context, gendered social relations are shaped by State policies and equality discourses, which are increasingly embracing father‐friendly initiatives. New masculinities refers to the increased involvement of men in caring practices and especially in fathering. Our empirical study comprises in‐depth interviews with young male academics in a Finnish business school. We elucidate, first, the ambivalence and struggles between masculinities in the discourses of these men and, second, how the construction of masculinities is specific to societal, sociocultural and local contexts. Relations of class, and middle‐class notions of the ‘good life’ in particular, emerge as central for understanding the experiences of these men. Beyond the Nordic countries, we argue that while the change potential of caring masculinity stems from particular contexts, the concept of new masculinities is helpful in capturing the ambivalence and struggles between hegemonic and caring masculinities rather than dismissing the latter as subordinate to the former.     

Sexual Messages in Black and White: A discourse analysis of Essence and Cosmo

The research presented employed critical discourse analysis to examine advice columns on sex and women's sexual freedom as expressed in two popular women's magazines, Essence and Cosmopolitan, over a three-year period. Essence has a Black female audience, Cosmo a predominantly White female audience. Critical discourse analysis is concerned with language as a primary force for the production and reproduction of ideology and belief systems that come to be accepted as common sense. The study asked whether and to what extent sex talk in these two magazines mirrored tenets of sexual liberation as set forth by “second-wave feminism.” Findings showed that while both magazines reinforced women's right to sexual pleasure and to ask for what they wanted, Essence came closest to mirroring the tenets of women's liberation by advocating women's right to say no to men's bad behavior and to be their own persons. By contrast, Cosmo advised women to be innovative in exciting and keeping their men and to be more flexible in managing men's less than desirable behavior.     

Optimizing inventory and marketing policy for non-instantaneous deteriorating items with generalized type deterioration and holding cost rates

This paper considers an inventory system with non-instantaneous deteriorating item in which demand rate is a function of advertisement of an item and selling price. This paper aids the retailer in maximizing the total profit by determining optimal inventory and marketing parameters. In contrast to previous inventory models, an arbitrary holding cost rate and arbitrary deterioration rate have been incorporated to provide general framework to the model. First, a mathematical model is formulated and then some useful theoretical results have been framed to characterize the optimal solutions. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the optimal solutions are also derived. An algorithm is designed to find the optimum solutions of the proposed model. Numerical examples are included to illustrate the algorithmic procedure and the effects of key parameters are studied to analyze the behavior of the model.     

Clinical observations on interferences of early father absence in the achievement of femininity

In clinical work, we have observed that the loss of the father through divorce has a significant effect on the young girl's developing sense of feminity. This paper briefly reviews the research findings from sex-role development theory and psychoanalytic theory, and presents clinical discussions of latency aged girls whose parents divorced during their daughter's early and oedipal years. The most common defensive or coping patterns seen in these child patients during latency are identified, with clinical material presented to illustrate both the existence of these patterns and implications for treatment.