Bayesian locally optimal design of knockout tournaments

The elimination or knockout format is one of the most common designs for pairing competitors in tournaments and leagues. In each round of a knockout tournament, the losers are eliminated while the winners advance to the next round. Typically, the goal of such a design is to identify the overall best player. Using a common probability model for expressing relative player strengths, we develop an adaptive approach to pairing players each round in which the probability that the best player advances to the next round is maximized. We evaluate our method using simulated game outcomes under several data-generating mechanisms, and compare it to random pairings, to the standard knockout format, and to two variants of the standard format.     

Educating for Social Justice: Making sense of multicultural and antiracist theory and practice with Canadian teacher activists 1

This paper presents an argument for further engagement between educational scholars and school-based social justice activists. An analysis of one segment of the broad field of social justice education focuses on multicultural and antiracist education, particularly as they are understood in the Canadian socio-political context. A brief overview of the literature from UK and US sources highlights their complex and often overlapping concerns, and the need for more dialogue across national boundaries toward progressive social change. Excerpts from in-depth interviews with four Canadian teacher-activists reveal the potential for educators to take up various debates and findings from the academic literature in their daily struggles to work for social justice.     

Trait Expressiveness and Marital Satisfaction: The Role of Idealization Processes

This study examined the processes that underlie the association between trait expressiveness and marital satisfaction. A total of 168 newlywed couples participated in a four‐wave, 13‐year longitudinal study of marriage. Cross‐sectional and longitudinal path analyses suggested that expressiveness promotes satisfaction by leading spouses to engage in affectionate behavior and by leading them to idealize their partner. Expressive people formed idealized images of their partner because they brought out the best in their partner's behavior and because they interpreted their partner's behavior in a favorable light. The study extends previous research by showing that the benefits of trait expressiveness extend into the second decade of marriage and by providing a plausible explanation of the connections between trait expressiveness and marital satisfaction.     

The Impact of Maternal Characteristics and Sensitivity on the Concordance Between Maternal Reports and Laboratory Observations of Infant Negative Emotionality

The moderating role of maternal characteristics and maternal sensitivity on the concordance between maternal reports and laboratory observations of negative emotionality was examined. Participants were 90 primiparous mothers and their infants. Mothers completed questionnaires about remembered care from their own parents and their depressive symptoms prenatally, infant temperament (distress to novelty and distress to limitations), and depressive symptoms postnatally. Mothers and infants participated in a laboratory assessment of infant temperament (distress to novelty and limitations) and maternal sensitivity at 6 months postpartum. Several factors that moderate the degree of concordance between maternal reports and behavioral observations were identified, as predicted. Novelty concordance was higher when mothers reported having their emotional needs met in childhood and low prenatal depressive symptoms. Limitations concordance was higher when mothers were less sensitive during the observational tasks. Methodological and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Troubled Children,Troubled Marriages — Whose Problem Is It?

Therapists working in Child and Adolescent Services commonly face the dilemma of if, how and when to address marital problems when the presenting problem is with a child. This article examines the different ways that some of the central family therapy models approach this issue. The Structural, Haley-Madanes Strategic and Milan Systemic models share the assumption that the child's symptoms are reflective of underlying family disturbance, with marital problems given a central place in the hypothesising. In contrast, the Solution Focused and Narrative approaches avoid assumptions about the deeper purpose of symptoms, focusing instead on the impact of the problem on family relationships, including the marriage. This emphasis ensures that parents do not receive either a direct or indirect message that their marriage is to blame. Consequently, a safe context is provided for addressing marital disturbance and for understanding its broader social base. Therapy is about noticing and expanding solution behaviours and competencies, rather than drawing out deeper pathologies. Case examples are used to illustrate the clinical applications of a Solution Focused-Narrative approach when children's problems emerge in conjunction with marital problems.     

Effects of Category Order on Answers in Mail and Telephone Surveys1

Abstract Past research suggests that mail surveys encourage a primacy effect, which is a tendency to choose the first answers from a list, whereas telephone surveys encourage a recency effect, a tendency to choose the last answers from a list. This paper summarizes results from 82 new experiments conducted in 12 separate surveys in seven states. Only four of 33 mail survey comparisons exhibited significant primacy effects, while five of 26 experiments in telephone surveys exhibited recency effects. In addition, only three of 23 cross-method comparisons produced a significant primacy/recency effect in the expected manner. The conclusion is that the prevalence of primacy and recency effects has been over-estimated by past research and a new theoretical approach that takes into account multiple causation is needed for examining these effects.     

Beyond recruitment: Predictors of differential participation in a national antihunger organization

Surprisingly little research has sought to explain differential participation after recruitment into social movement organizations (SMOs). This study examines the influence of several sets of predictors on participation by members of a national organization in the antihunger movement. The findings highlight the importance of incentive, ideological, and microstructural factors for differential participation and suggest that favorable perceptions of SMOs also promote participation. Final remarks address the implications of the findings for the social movement and voluntary organization literatures.     

Abuse of children in day care centres: Characteristics and consequences

While day care sexual abuse cases share features in common with sexual abuse in other settings, many characteristics of abuse in day care settings merit special attention. These factors include the young age of the child victims, the involvement of multiple victims and multiple perpetrators, females as perpetrators, use of extreme threats, severity of the abuse, and in some instances ritualistic activities. Research findings support clinical impressions that children are negatively impacted by sexual abuse in day care. Consequences of abuse in day care include anxiety, excessive fearfulness, behavioural disturbances, sexual acting out and sleep disorders. Parents whose children are abused in day care centres also experience psychological distress with symptom profiles consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder. Abuse of children in day care settings warrants a specialized treatment approach. A major goal of treatment is to decrease symptomatology among all family members.     

Female Labor Force Participation in Urban and Rural China1

Abstract The objective of this study is to examine female labor force participation and its determinants in rural and urban China. The sociological literature has demonstrated that participation tends to increase in urban and industrialized places where women have higher levels of education and fewer children, where more workers are engaged in service pursuits, and where family structure is less traditional. With the use of data on counties and cities (N = 2,377) from the I-percent sample of the 1982 census of the People's Republic of China, it was found that female labor force participation is likely to rise in areas with increased agricultural employment, educational levels, proportion of female-headed households, and higher male-to-female sex ratios. Both the size of the service sector and the fertility rate had negligible effects on female labor force participation. Although, on average, rural places have slightly higher levels of female labor force participation, when other variables are controlled, urban places have a higher rate of female participation. In addition, the findings suggest that market factors (i.e., education) are more likely to determine the rate of female labor force participation in urban areas; whereas demographic and social factors (i.e., sex ratio and household structure) play a more important role in explaining the female labor force participation in rural counties.