Using Mand Training to Establish an Echoic Repertoire in Young Children with Autism

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - This research describes a method that initially establishes a mand repertoire as the first component in producing echoic and tact repertoires in young children...     

Statistical approaches for conducting network meta-analysis in drug development

We introduce health technology assessment and evidence synthesis briefly, and then concentrate on the statistical approaches used for conducting network meta-analysis (NMA) in the development and approval of new health technologies. NMA is an extension of standard meta-analysis where indirect as well as direct information is combined and can be seen as similar to the analysis of incomplete-block designs. We illustrate it with an example involving three treatments, using fixed-effects and random-effects models, and using frequentist and Bayesian approaches. As most statisticians in the pharmaceutical industry are familiar with SAS? software for analyzing clinical trials, we provide example code for each of the methods we illustrate. One issue that has been overlooked in the literature is the choice of constraints applied to random effects, and we show how this affects the estimates and standard errors and propose a symmetric set of constraints that is equivalent to most current practice. Finally, we discuss the role of statisticians in planning and carrying out NMAs and the strategy for dealing with important issues such as heterogeneity.     

Social work and the shadow father: lessons for engaging fathers in Northern Ireland

The legislative framework of social work practice has consistently highlighted the need to work in partnership with parents, with far‐reaching implications for families. However, the importance of engaging fathers in social work practice is an issue that has received limited attention within academic debate and research. A research study undertaken across six family centres, investigated paternal involvement in family centre social work in Northern Ireland. The study involved 46 semi‐structured interviews with social workers, fathers and mothers. This paper presents the views of 22 social workers on the barriers to paternal involvement in family centre interventions. A range of factors were identified which served to inhibit or promote engagement of fathers. There were substantially more deterrents than promoters, a clear indicator of the problematic nature of paternal involvement. The findings highlight that both attitudes and practices of social workers influence the engagement of fathers. Recommendations drawn from the findings are presented for the development of father – inclusive social work practices and research.     

Hybrid-based confidence intervals for the ratio of two treatment means in the over-dispersed Poisson data

In many clinical trials and epidemiological studies, comparing the mean count response of an exposed group to a control group is often of interest. This type of data is often over-dispersed with respect to Poisson variation, and previous studies usually compared groups using confidence intervals (CIs) of the difference between the two means. However, in some situations, especially when the means are small, interval estimation of the mean ratio (MR) is preferable. Moreover, Cox and Lewis [4 D.R. Cox and P.A.W. Lewis, The Statistical Analysis of Series of Events, Methuen, London, 1966.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]] pointed out many other situations where the MR is more relevant than the difference of means. In this paper, we consider CI construction for the ratio of means between two treatments for over-dispersed Poisson data. We develop several CIs for the situation by hybridizing two separate CIs for two individual means. Extensive simulations show that all hybrid-based CIs perform reasonably well in terms of coverage. However, the CIs based on the delta method using the logarithmic transformation perform better than other intervals in the sense that they have slightly shorter interval lengths and show better balance of tail errors. These proposed CIs are illustrated with three real data examples.     

Testing for order among K populations: theory and examples

Testing for stochastic order among K populations is a common and important problem in statistical practice. It arises in the analysis of both planned experiments and observational studies. The authors develop a new nonparametric test for order among K populations that can accommodate any stochastic ordering. The test is based on a maximally selected chi‐bar‐square statistic. The authors find its limiting distribution and use simulations to derive critical values. Three important examples are used to illustrate the applicability of the general method. The authors find that the new tests outperform the existing methods in many practical cases. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 38: 97–115; 2010 © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

Determinants of Interoutsourcing: An Analytical Approach

Interoutsourcing is a round‐way process in which the vendor is its customer's customer and the customer is its vendor's vendor. While interoutsourcing is emerging as a prominent outsourcing strategy in many industries, there are no rigorous analytical studies focusing on this mechanism. In this article, we analytically demonstrate the efficacy of interoutsourcing by comparing it with normal outsourcing. Our results show that, compared with normal outsourcing, interoutsourcing acts as a self‐enforcer of vendor firms' behaviors toward increasing outsourcing service value. However, in situations where there is a mismatch of outsourcing activities, a high degree of incentive that is based on outsourcing service value, and a high cost of capital, interoutsourcing is not preferred to normal outsourcing. We discuss these results in detail and provide managerial implications for firms involved in interoutsourcing decisions.     

Reversible jump methods for generalised linear models and generalised linear mixed models

A reversible jump algorithm for Bayesian model determination among generalised linear models, under relatively diffuse prior distributions for the model parameters, is proposed. Orthogonal projections of the current linear predictor are used so that knowledge from the current model parameters is used to make effective proposals. This idea is generalised to moves of a reversible jump algorithm for model determination among generalised linear mixed models. Therefore, this algorithm exploits the full flexibility available in the reversible jump method. The algorithm is demonstrated via two examples and compared to existing methods.     

Public Attitudes toward Partisan and Neutral Symbols in Post-Agreement Northern Ireland

Using original data from the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey, this article assesses public attitudes toward key issues of symbolism intimately connected with the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process. It uses public attitudes toward the symbolic expressions of Northern Ireland's politico-religious blocs as indicators of the extent of intercommunity tolerance in the delicate post-Belfast Agreement period. Survey questions on attitudes toward flags, including the idea of a new flag for Northern Ireland; loyalist and republican murals; and memorials to the dead of the conflict, including the idea of a memorial for all of the victims of the conflict, reveal that partisan attitudes toward communal symbols of identity and commemoration persist, despite macro-level political changes heralded by the 1998 peace accord. It is argued that the consociational design of the Belfast Agreement facilitates the perpetuation of the single-identity politics of Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism. In this context, public attachment to partisan symbols remains strong.