Use of a more general model for bioavailability studies

Use of a multivariate model for bioavailability crossover studies is discussed. The model affords a convenient way to obtain from untransformed data exact confidence intervals and general hypothesis tests for ratios that are pertinent for comparing formulations. Previously, confidence intervals for the case of a two period study of two formulations have been presented. This paper treats the case of three or more formulations in a study in which each subject receives each formulation. The model requires weaker assumptions than the assumptions of other models that have been commonly used. In addition to inferences on ratios, it is pointed out how to obtain from the model tests of the hypotheses of equal formulation effects, equal period effects, and equal sequence effects. The use of these concepts for studies in which a formulation is received more than once by subjects isalso discussed.     

On the consistency of rank transformed regression

Rank-transformed regression (RTR) was proposed by Iman and Conover (1979) as an alternative to isotonic regression. This paper studies the consistency of the estimate obtained by RTR and show that, in general case, the estimate is not mean-square-error (MSE) consistent. The bias of the estimate is also studied by simulation.     

Books on History and Government Published in the United States from February 17, to March 17, 1934

Due to the changing landscape of K-12 education in the United States, particularly issues arising from funding, safety, accessibility, and standardization, the frequency at which teachers utilize traditional field trips has diminished over the last few decades. Thanks to continued advances in communicative technology, however, teachers are able to offer students virtual field trips (VFTs). Although not a perfect substitute for real life field trips, VFTs still take students beyond the classroom walls and help bring history, geography, economics, and civics to life. Still, there is some work teachers need to be aware of when planning to use VFTs. This paper attempts to help teachers in that avenue including providing a theoretical background for VFTs, explaining the basic benefits and limitations of VFTs, and detailing ways teachers can use VFTs. Finally, this paper provides a list of quality platforms, which teachers can use to locate VFTs.     

Methods for Measuring Mechanisms of Contention

A substantial intellectual movement has been growing in the social sciences around the adoption of mechanism- and process-based explanations as complements to variable-based explanations, or even as substitutes for them. But once we have recognized the validity and dignity of studying mechanisms and processes, what is the next step? Recently, both political scientists’ and sociologists’ discussions have begun to turn away from correlation to mechanism-based approaches to causation. But there is still a widespread assumption that mechanisms are unobservable. We maintain that ways can be developed to observe the presence or absence of mechanisms either directly or indirectly. In this paper, by way of example, we put forward four methods—two direct and two indirect—for measuring mechanisms of contention.     

TigerPlace, A State-Academic-Private Project to Revolutionize Traditional Long-Term Care

The Aging in Place Project at the University of Missouri (MU) required legislation in 1999 and 2001 to be fully realized. An innovative home health agency was initiated by the Sinclair School of Nursing specifically to help older adults age in place in the environment of their choice. In 2004, an innovative independent living environment was built and is operated by a private long term care company, as a special facility where residents can truly age in place and never fear being moved to a traditional nursing home unless they choose to do so. With care provided by the home care agency with registered nurse care coordination services, residents receive preventative and early illness recognition assistance that have markedly improved their lives. Evaluation of aging in place reveal registered nurse care coordination improves outcomes of cognition, depression, activities of daily living, incontinence, pain, and shortness of breath as well as delaying or preventing nursing home placement. Links with MU students, faculty, and nearly every school or college on campus enrich the lives of the students and residents of the housing environment. Research projects are encouraged and residents who choose to participate are enjoying helping with developing cutting technology to help other seniors age in place.     

Towards the Disintegration of Child Welfare Services

This paper examines market issues in the provision of children's services in the light of the changing role and practice of local authorities contracting for welfare services. In adult services, where there has been a legal requirement to reorganize on market lines, the services have had to modify some of their earlier contracting practices to take account of the complex requirements of health and welfare services and it is argued that relational contracting offers a more appropriate paradigm for these. Following the implementation of the Children Act 1989, although not a requirement of the Act, many of the organizational systems in relation to markets, originally developed for adult services, have been adopted for children's services. Two areas of services for children, day care and fostering services, are discussed in order to demonstrate that these contracting systems are inappropriate and often dysfunctional for the children concerned. It is argued that there is a widening gap between contracting systems in adult and children's services which needs to be addressed. In general, it is concluded that the philosophies of the market place are flawed when applied to children's services.     

生活在安第斯山区的土著是否明显地存在因缺氧而造成的生育力下降的问题——对戈尔斯坦、查隆和比尔的回应

在最近的文章中(见1983出版的<美国人类学家>期刊,总第85期,第28-49页),戈尔斯坦、查隆和比尔对埃伯尔森、贝克、达特和我引申出来的一个假说--缺氧引起安第斯山区土著的生育力下降--提出了批评.     

Determinism and the Recovery of Human Agency: The Embodying of Persons

Intending the recovery of human agency with the aid of theories of human socio-cultural life, Turner and Harre do so however in terms of conflicting conceptions of the embodying of persons. Consequently, their theories share the problem of determinism and embodied human agency. This is the problem of the proper location of agency with regard to the person, the body, and society. These theories then are in fundamental conflict on exactly this issue of the proper location of agency. Turner's thesis of location: in the beginning is the body, and therefore the person. Thus Turner's recovery of agency: the effectiveness of persons resides in the discourse-independent agency of the bodies of persons. Harre's thesis of location: in the beginning is the person, and therefore the body. Thus Harre's recovery of agency: the effectiveness of persons resides in the discursive agency of persons embodied. For both Turner and Harre the intent to recover agency through embodiment is also a scientific intent. Thus, the problem of the proper location of agency requires that agency must be formulated in terms of ubiquitous determinism and not regularity determinism: only the former provides a conception of causal powers. To answer the question of location Turner is led to Merleau-Pontian phenomenology and its conception of the lived body. Instead, Harre enlists a realist philosophy of science with its special conception of causual powers. A systematic conception of agentive causation is shown to constitute the recovery of human agency and to enable us to make principled determinations in the assignment of agency. It is argued that, since phenomenology presumes the ontology of regularity determinism, it cannot provide us with what it in fact denies, a conception of causal powers. It is argued that Merleau-Ponty moved from his idea of the actual body as lived to the actual body as flesh, and in that reformulation it is best understood as causal powers. It is argued that without a conception of causal powers Turner's use of the lived body to establish the agency of effective persons must fail, revealing instead that the effectiveness of persons is the discursive agency of persons embodied. Persons discursively embodied enact the practices of speech acts and action signs systems.