Immigrants' Language Skills and Visa Category1

This article is concerned with the determinants of English language proficiency among immigrants in a longitudinal survey for Australia. It focuses on both visa category and variables derived from an economic model of the determinants of destination‐language proficiency among immigrants. Skills‐tested and economic immigrants have the greatest proficiency shortly after immigration, followed by family‐based visa recipients, with refugees having the lowest proficiency. Other variables the same, these differences disappear by 3.5 years after immigration for speaking skills; and although they diminish, they persist longer for reading and writing skills. The variables generated from the model of destination‐language proficiency (such as schooling and age at migration) are, in part, predictions of visa category, but they are more important statistically for explaining proficiency.     

Empowering part-time nurses in the treatment of depressed inpatients.

1. With the consistent number of part-time nurses in the workforce, hospitals would benefit by more actively integrating them into professional nursing practice. 2. Empowering part-time nurses by affording them the opportunity to provide primary care has the potential to effectively use part-time personnel, decrease the workload for full-time staff, offer more flexibility in scheduling, and result in savings for hospitals in terms of nursing recruitment and retention. 3. This program has successfully developed and implemented a model of primary nursing that places three part-time nurses on a team capable of handling two to three primary patients. The success of this model has been attributed to excellent communication, trust in one another's professional skills, and nursing expertise.     

Analytical approximations for iterated bootstrap confidence intervals

Standard algorithms for the construction of iterated bootstrap confidence intervals are computationally very demanding, requiring nested levels of bootstrap resampling. We propose an alternative approach to constructing double bootstrap confidence intervals that involves replacing the inner level of resampling by an analytical approximation. This approximation is based on saddlepoint methods and a tail probability approximation of DiCiccio and Martin (1991). Our technique significantly reduces the computational expense of iterated bootstrap calculations. A formal algorithm for the construction of our approximate iterated bootstrap confidence intervals is presented, and some crucial practical issues arising in its implementation are discussed. Our procedure is illustrated in the case of constructing confidence intervals for ratios of means using both real and simulated data. We repeat an experiment of Schenker (1985) involving the construction of bootstrap confidence intervals for a variance and demonstrate that our technique makes feasible the construction of accurate bootstrap confidence intervals in that context. Finally, we investigate the use of our technique in a more complex setting, that of constructing confidence intervals for a correlation coefficient.     

African American family life in societal context: Crisis and hope

Since 1965 hundreds of articles and books have been published about African American families. Nevertheless, our understanding of these families continues to be limited. There is a tendency to gloss over important within-group differences; thus, monolithic, stereotypic and inaccurance portrayals of Black family life are common. This paper sets aside debates of Black family pathology or viability, focusing instead on these families' essential character. The paper seeks to understand Black families on their own terms, locating them in relevant social, historical, political and cultural contexts. Key empirical patterns and trends reveal dramatic changes in Black family geographic location, headship, quality of life and socioeconomic status since 1950.A complex picture is revealed. There has been gradual but steady overall improvement alongside persistent, extreme racial disparties and pronounced class disparities among Black families. The proposed Black Family Socio-Ecological Context model specifies and connects institutional, interpersonal, environmental, temporal and cultural facts that shape the essential character of Black family life in such a way as to produce characteristics simultaneously shared and idiosyncratic. The model also provides an organized, systematic accounting of research and public policy issues relevant to the study of African American families.An early version co-authored with Richard A. English was presented during the National Council on Family Relations Meetings in Portland, Oregon, October 1980.     

丰水区筑坝截流——调丰补歉

该文从中国人口快速增长、经济建设加快、用水量逐年增大 ,加上气候变暖、少雨干旱将持续到 2 0 15年 ,我国北方水生态环境日趋恶化现状 ,说明在丰水区筑坝截流、调丰补歉势在必行 ,完全符合生态经济学发展原则和国际水法     

Expected sample moments of concomitants of selected order statistics

In this paper, the task of determining expected values of sample moments, where the sample members have been selected based on noisy information, is considered. This task is a recurring problem in the theory of evolution strategies. Exact expressions for expected values of sums of products of concomitants of selected order statistics are derived. Then, using Edgeworth and Cornish-Fisher approximations, explicit results that depend on coefficients that can be determined numerically are obtained. While the results are exact only for normal populations, it is shown experimentally that including skewness and kurtosis in the calculations can yield greatly improved results for other distributions.     

The Ecology of Family Guidance in Low-Income Mexican-American and European-American Families*

This two-part study applied an ecocultural perspective to socialization of daily and long-term goals in low-income Mexican-American and European-American families with children in third, fifth, and seventh grades. The first part of the study examined family members' participation and parents' socialization goals and guidance strategies for their children's daily household chores and homework activities. The second part of the study examined parents' long-term aspirations and guidance strategies for their children's educational, vocational, and moral development. For daily activities, results showed that in Mexican-American families both parents and siblings played important roles, whereas in European-American families parents were the primary socialization agents. As predicted, in both groups parents' expertise influenced their guidance strategies. Finally, Mexican-American and European-American parents differed in their relative endorsement of gender, relational, and self-reliance goals for household chores. For long-term goals, parents in both groups held high educational, vocational, and moral aspirations for their children. However, some parents of seventh-graders had lower educational and vocational aspirations than those of fifth- and third-graders. Although expertise consistently influenced Mexican-American parents' guidance strategies, the pattern for European-American parents was mixed. The discussion highlights between- and within-group differences in daily and long-term socialization practices with an emphasis on resources and vulnerabilities in the families.     

Physician-nurse migration to the United States: regional and health status origins in relation to legislation and policy

This article examines the origins of physicians and nurses who were admitted as permanent immigrants to the US from 1962-1979. Data are mainly from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Countries used in the developmental analysis are only those whose population was estimated at 1 million or more as of mid-1979, encompassing 99% of the physicians and 97% of the nurses. Life expectancy at birth is the criterion used to differentiate origin countries by developmental dimension of health status. During the study period, health workers constituted about 30% of immigrants admitted to the US; of these, nurses and physicians constituted 72-82% throughout the study period. The period 1962-1979 has 4 distinct phases, marked by important legislative and/or policy changes; 1) 1962-1965, when the McCarran-Walter Act prevailed; 2) ending in 1968, the 2nd phase covers the transition mandated under the 1965 Immigration Act, which encouraged physician immigration; 3) the 3rd phase, 1969-1976, covers the transition to the 1976 Immigration and Nationality Act amendments; and 4) the 4th stage is 1977-1979. Results show that 1) under the McCarran-Walter Act, North America became the dominant physician source; 2) from 1966-1968, Asia attained dominance as the physician source and became even more predominant after 1968; 3) North America produced relatively few physicians in the early 1970s; 4) Europe produced substantially fewer physicians in the 1970s than in the 1960s; 5) South America, Africa, and Oceania were the lowest contributors of physicians; 6) during the McCarran-Walter years, North America and Europe produced almost 90% of nurses admitted into the US; 7) the 1965 Immigration Act and its aftermath resulted in Asia becoming the dominant source of nurses; 8) prior to the 1965 Immigration Act, Canada generated 20% of the aggregate number of physicians; 9) the Philippines surpassed Canada during the transition and India led after the transition; and 10) Canada supplied 30% of the nurses up through the transition, with the Philippines in the lead 1969-1979. Low health status countries were a relatively minor nurse source. Health status at the origin was a far less significant determinant of physician immigration than that of nurses. English language high and low health status country groups produced substantially more physician and nurse immigrants that their corresponding non-English language counterparts. The US attracted more physicians and nurses from less developed countries than more developed countries after 1968.     

Family reunification

The author explores the problem of family reunification in the context of international migration. The focus is on international and national legislation, policies, and provisions concerning family reunification. The need for international cooperation to resolve the problems arising from international migration and the desire to reunite families is noted. (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)