From mistress to hooker: 40 years of cartoon humor in men's magazines

This paper explores mass media humor and its relationship to the changing nature of male sexual mores and prostitution. All cartoons in the two leading men's magazines,Esquire andPlayboy, with prostituion as the topic were subjected to a content analysis. The change in content of these cartoons over the 40 year period covered is described.     

INFORMATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF MONEY, INTEREST RATE, and PRICE RULES

The information available to private agents determines the effectiveness of various types of monetary policy. In an economy in which private agents have differential information sets, the ranking of three classes of monetary policy rules critically depends on the specification of agents' information sets. A price rule, for example, minimizes the variance of output around its full information level when agents observe both the interest rate and money stock. More generally, if all three monetary policy variables (the money stock, the price level and the interest rate) are contemporaneously observed, the policy ranking is indeterminate.     

Value-based management consulting in a third world country located within the United States

The Navajo Nation (the Navajo Reservation in the western United States) appears to be a third world country within the boundaries of one of the most prosperous and technically advanced countries in the world. This paper discusses the cultural and economic factors that have been ignored by business consultants to the Native Americans, especially the Navajo. The economic plight of the Navajo can be partially blamed on the application of generic management techniques for the past 40 years by consultants treating the Navajo as members of their own dominate culture. This paper also discusses the ethical implications of ignoring cultural differences under the guise of supplying professional services to minority cultures.     

Teachers’ Effortful Control and Student Functioning: Mediating and Moderating Processes

Evidence is emerging that teachers’ dispositional characteristics are related to students’ classroom functioning, but processes are not well understood. We examined associations between second‐grade teachers’ effortful control (EC), student‐teacher closeness or conflict, students’ EC, and changes in students’ externalizing behaviors and reading and math achievement. Teachers’ EC was directly related to their students’ externalizing behaviors, but not achievement. Conflict, but not closeness, mediated associations between teachers’ EC and students’ externalizing behaviors. In moderated mediation tests, conflict was positively associated with externalizing behaviors most strongly for students low or moderate in EC. Closeness was positively associated with reading achievement, and negatively associated with math achievement, only for low‐EC students.     

Player transgressions and the management of the sport sponsor relationship

Player transgressions in sport relate to on- or off-field incidents that are out of the ordinary and may bring negative repercussions for stakeholders as a result of their association with the team, athlete or sport. Based on a series of depth interviews conducted with executives representing major Australian team-based sporting organizations, this paper outlines the effects that these incidents can have on relationships with sponsors from a sport organization perspective. The findings serve to develop a conceptual model that illustrates that the impact of transgressions is determined by a number of factors, which are discussed. The paper further presents a number of implications for the sport organization's public relations strategy, given that the role of public relations has evolved from primarily a communications focus to a more strategic management of relationships with various publics and stakeholders.     

On MCMC sampling in hierarchical longitudinal models

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms have revolutionized Bayesian practice. In their simplest form (i.e., when parameters are updated one at a time) they are, however, often slow to converge when applied to high-dimensional statistical models. A remedy for this problem is to block the parameters into groups, which are then updated simultaneously using either a Gibbs or Metropolis-Hastings step. In this paper we construct several (partially and fully blocked) MCMC algorithms for minimizing the autocorrelation in MCMC samples arising from important classes of longitudinal data models. We exploit an identity used by Chib (1995) in the context of Bayes factor computation to show how the parameters in a general linear mixed model may be updated in a single block, improving convergence and producing essentially independent draws from the posterior of the parameters of interest. We also investigate the value of blocking in non-Gaussian mixed models, as well as in a class of binary response data longitudinal models. We illustrate the approaches in detail with three real-data examples.     

The Application of Genetic Information for Regulatory Standard Setting Under the Clean Air Act: A Decision-Analytic Approach

In 2002, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an “Interim Policy on Genomics,” stating a commitment to developing guidance on the inclusion of genetic information in regulatory decision making. This statement was followed in 2004 by a document exploring the potential implications. Genetic information can play a key role in understanding and quantifying human susceptibility, an essential step in many of the risk assessments used to shape policy. For example, the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) requires EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for criteria pollutants at levels to protect even sensitive populations from adverse health effects with an adequate margin of safety. Asthmatics are generally regarded as a sensitive population, yet substantial research gaps in understanding genetic susceptibility and disease have hindered quantitative risk analysis. This case study assesses the potential role of genomic information regarding susceptible populations in the NAAQS process for fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) under the CAA. In this initial assessment, we model the contribution of a single polymorphism to asthma risk and mortality risk; however, multiple polymorphisms and interactions (gene‐gene and gene‐environment) are known to play key roles in the disease process. We show that the impact of new information about susceptibility on estimates of population risk or average risk derived from large epidemiological studies depends on the circumstances. We also suggest that analysis of a single polymorphism, or other risk factor such as health status, may or may not change estimates of individual risk enough to alter a particular regulatory decision, but this depends on specific characteristics of the decision and risk information. We also show how new information about susceptibility in the context of the NAAQS for PM_2.5 could have a large impact on the estimated distribution of individual risk. This would occur if a group were consequently identified (based on genetic and/or disease status), that accounted for a disproportionate share of observed effects. Our results highlight certain conditions under which genetic information is likely to have an impact on risk estimates and the balance of costs and benefits within groups, and highlight critical research needs. As future studies explore more fully the relationship between exposure, genetic makeup, and disease status, the opportunity for genetic information and disease status to play pivotal roles in regulation can only increase.