A survey of recent Belgian population policy

In this article, an outline of the demographic situation of Belgium is given, stressing the different situation of the Walloon and Flemish communities. Family allowance policy in Belgium is described, and its status in a general scheme of social security legislation assessed. It is shown that family allowances have been regarded as part of a general system of social security rather than as part of population policy.     

Bodily Entanglement: Bergson and Thresholds in the Sociology of Affect

D. H. Lawrence's and Henri Bergson's systemic accounts of life in terms of material connectivity/entanglement and durational self-differentiation provide an exciting alternative to static, analytical and atomistic approaches to consciousness, the individual and the group. However, they pose important questions regarding the precise nature of boundaries in a dynamic, materially connected universe. Where does consciousness begin and end, where does the individual begin and end, where does the group begin and end? How do discrete entities emerge at all in a universe of flux, transformation and connectivity? This paper suggests that we might think in terms of dynamic 'thresholds' produced by systems of selection and limitation. Some pointers in this direction are taken from Bergson himself, but also from the work of the complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman and the neurophilosopher Gerald Edelman. One way that this might be applied in practice is demonstrated by use of a case study on African-American youth culture taken from the work of Jock Young.     

Sex offenses against female children perpetrated by men who are not pedophiles

Previous research and clinical impression indicate two possible predictors of gynephilic preference among offenders against female children: (1) the occurrence of the offense within a father‐daughter (or stepdaughter) relationship, and (2) victimization of only one child. Validation of these putative predictors was by phallometric test results of a total of 187 male adult subjects: 95 “incest” offenders against female children, 54 such non‐incest offenders, and 38 offenders against adult females. Each of these predictors showed to be valid in its own right, and the interaction of the two did not increase prediction potential.     

Standards of Care for Research with Participants Who Identify as LGBTQ+

ABSTRACT

The following standards of care have been developed to support the continued development of research with individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus individuals whose orientations differ from those who identify as heterosexual and cisgender (LGBTQ+). The guidelines presented are conceived as a working document that reflect the current state and body of knowledge that can inform and provide reference for counseling research, and can be used in the preparation and training of future researchers. The standards outlined in this document will continue to evolve as does research, LGBTQ+ communities, and the sociopolitical climate.     

Characterizing variation of nonparametric random probability measures using the Kullback–Leibler divergence

This work characterizes the dispersion of some popular random probability measures, including the bootstrap, the Bayesian bootstrap, and the Pólya tree prior. This dispersion is measured in terms of the variation of the Kullback–Leibler divergence of a random draw from the process to that of its baseline centring measure. By providing a quantitative expression of this dispersion around the baseline distribution, our work provides insight for comparing different parameterizations of the models and for the setting of prior parameters in applied Bayesian settings. This highlights some limitations of the existing canonical choice of parameter settings in the Pólya tree process.     

The Prevalence and Course of Pathological Gambling in the Mood Disorders

The objective of the current investigation was to examine the prevalence of pathological gambling (PG) in a psychiatric sample with a history of mood disorder, and the concurrent and longitudinal association of PG and mood disorder symptoms according to retrospective report. A total of 275 (100 male, 175 female) psychiatric outpatients in Ontario, Canada, with a lifetime diagnosis of a depressive (n = 138) or bipolar disorder (n = 137), completed the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, South Oaks Gambling Screen and Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation. Correlational and cross-lagged panel analyses evaluated the relation between PG and mood disorder symptom course. The prevalence of PG was elevated within patients with a mood disorder; there was no difference across diagnosis. Concurrent PG and mood disorder symptoms were positively correlated; however, longitudinal analyses revealed no evidence for an association between PG and mood disorder symptoms when symptom stability was taken into account. Despite the elevated prevalence of PG within mood disorders, and the concurrent association between PG and mood disorder symptoms, no direct association was found between these types of pathology. Prospective designs and intervening variables are required to advance understanding of the etiological associations between these disorders.     

Developing Qualitative Career Assessment Processes

Assessment has been integral to career counseling since the early 1900s. During that time, the greatest amount of attention was focused on quantitative assessment. Thus, there is still very little to guide the development and conduct of qualitative assessment in career counseling. The authors present an overview of qualitative career assessment and its theoretical underpinnings and propose suggestions that could guide the development of qualitative career assessment instruments.     

DISTRIBUTIONS IN R WITH ROTATIONAL SYMMETRIES1

Let X ∈ R be a random vector with a distribution which is invariant under rotations within the subspaces V_j (dim V_j. = q_j) whose direct sum is R. The large sample distributions of the eigenvalues and vectors of M_n= n^-1Σⁿ_l x_ix_i are studied. In particular it is shown that several eigenvalue results of Anderson & Stephens (1972) for uniformly distributed unit vectors hold more generally.     

INDEX TO VOLUME 8 (1 990)

This article provides a simple shrinkage representation that describes the operational characteristics of various forecasting methods designed for a large number of orthogonal predictors (such as principal components). These methods include pretest methods, Bayesian model averaging, empirical Bayes, and bagging. We compare empirically forecasts from these methods with dynamic factor model (DFM) forecasts using a U.S. macroeconomic dataset with 143 quarterly variables spanning 1960–2008. For most series, including measures of real economic activity, the shrinkage forecasts are inferior to the DFM forecasts. This article has online supplementary material.     

Housing,Demographic Change and the Private Rental Sector

Housing policy and provision in Australia are primarily oriented towards meeting the needs of the traditional nuclear family household. Households who cannot afford to buy their own home and are not eligible for public housing have no alternative but to rent in the private sector. Many of these households are single headed, groups, unemployed or on low-incomes. However, even in the private rental sector family households are favoured by landlords and estate agents and gain access to the better standard accommodation. Flexible and innovative policies in the public sector are urgently needed to meet the housing needs of the growing number of non-nuclear family households.