Adaptive two-treatment two-period crossover design for binary treatment responses incorporating carry-over effects

Adaptive designs are sometimes used in a phase III clinical trial with the goal of allocating a larger number of patients to the better treatment. In the present paper we use some adaptive designs in a two-treatment two-period crossover trial in the presence of possible carry-over effects, where the treatment responses are binary. We use some simple designs to choose between the possible treatment combinations AA, AB, BA or BB. The goal is to use the better treatment a larger proportion of times. We calculate the allocation proportions to the possible treatment combinations and their standard deviations. We also investigate related inferential problems, for which related asymptotics are derived. The proposed procedure is compared with a possible competitor. Finally we use real data sets to illustrate the applicability of our proposed design.     

Mapping Our Way: New Formations in Technical Services: Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians Annual Conference

The annual meeting of the Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians (OVGTSL) was held May 16–18, 2007, at the Holiday Inn-University Plaza in Bowling Green, Kentucky. One hundred twenty technical services librarians from Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and points beyond gathered for programming centered around the theme of “Mapping Our Way: New Formations in Technical Services.”     

Estimation of Traffic Intensity Based on Queue Length in a Single M/M/1 Queue

In this article, maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) as well as Bayes estimator of traffic intensity (ρ) in an M/M/1/∞ queueing model in equilibrium based on number of customers present in the queue at successive departure epochs have been worked out. Estimates of some functions of ρ which provide measures of effectiveness of the queue have also been derived. A comprehensive simulation study starting with the transition probability matrix has been carried out in the last section.     

Mapping Our Way: New Formations in Technical Services: Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians Annual Conference

Abstract

The annual meeting of the Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians (OVGTSL) was held May 16–18, 2007, at the Holiday Inn-University Plaza in Bowling Green, Kentucky. One hundred twenty technical services librarians from Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and points beyond gathered for programming centered around the theme of “Mapping Our Way: New Formations in Technical Services.”     

Sociology and social policy: from a love-hate relationship with the state to cynicism and pragmatism

Les sociologues québécois ont été au coeur de ce que Ton a appelé la Révolution tranquille. lis ont inspiré des réformes, animé des projets et joué le rôle d'éminences grises auprés du gouvernement. Cependant, au milieu des années '70, plusieurs sont devenus de plus en plus critiques de l'intervention de l'État en matiére de politiques sociales: non seulement L'État n'a-t-il pas réussi à redistribuer les ressources des plus riches vers les plus pauvres, mail il a aussi paralysé l'action des groupes communautaires et des autres mouvements sociaux. Le présent article recense les publications sur l'État et les politiques sociales depuis 1975. Les auteurs concluent que les sociologues québécois sont de moins en moins intéressés par l'État, concentrant davantage leur attention sur les groupes en besoin.
Quebec's sociologists have been at the heart of the so-called Revolution tranquille. They have inspired reforms, animated projects and served as 'grey eminences' to the government. Yet, by the mid 1970s, many had grown intensely critical of state intervention in social policies: not only was the state incapable of really redistributing resources from the rich to the poor, but it was also paralysing the action of community groups and other social movements. In this article, the francophone literature on the state and social policy since 1975 is reviewed. The authors conclude that Québec sociologists have become less fixated on the state, and are beginning to turn their attention more and more to specific social groups in need.     

Pseudo‐likelihood estimation in ARCH models

The author presents asymptotic results for the class of pseudo‐likelihood estimators in the autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic models introduced by Engle (1982). Unlike what is required for the quasi‐likelihood estimator, some estimators in the class he considers do not require the finiteness of the fourth moment of the error density. Thus his method is applicable to heavy‐tailed error distributions for which moments higher than two may not exist.     

Silent Partners: Women in Farm Magazine Success Stories, 1934–19911

Abstract Women's contributions to the farm and farm household have historically been undervalued. An analysis of farm magazine “success” stories through six decades indicates that these stories may be a vehicle for reproducing and transmitting a traditional domestic ideology that separates farm production from the rest of the farm household and that rarely portrays women as significant contributors to the economic well-being of either. Magazine stories depict women as spouses or farm helpers, but not as producers or decision-makers. Farm magazines thus offer few models of realistic gender relations for either farm women or farm men.     

Reliability estimates of some survey data on family planning

Summary A follow-up study employing the panel design which aimed to evaluate the temporal stability of rural respondents' answers to KAP and fertility-related questions after a lapse of nearly five months revealed that reports by females on factual data dealing with socio-economic and demographic topics are as highly reliable as are those of males. The study based on 79 males and 81 females in Haryana further supports the hypothesis that re-test reliabilities of factual data such as respondent's age, religion, occupation, etc. are substantially higher than those of knowledge about contraceptives. Attitude items showed very low re-test reliabilities although the internal consistency reliabilities of the two attitude scales were found to vary within the range of 0.72 to 0.88. Both attitude scales were found to have a very high reproducibility coefficient, all higher than 0.95, for both the interview sessions. Re-test reliabilities of data on contraceptive use were also found to be moderately high. However, the rates of loop insertion and condom use as reported by female respondents are likely to show a substantial amount of gross error as is evident from their low re-test reliabilities. The findings of the present study cast serious doubt on the assumption that married males are not capable of accurately reporting the pregnancy histories of their wives. Several implications of the findings are discussed. From the methodological point of view they suggest a need to develop improved techniques for assessing attitudes toward family planning programmes and abortion as well as to knowledge of contraceptive methods and desired family size. The findings also justify the inclusion of eligible male respondents in KAP and fertility surveys.