Family Development Cycle,Social Class,and Inequality in Rwanda1

Abstract The relative importance of social class differences (social differentiation) and stages of the family development cycle (demographic differentiation) on income inequalities in rural Rwanda are discussed and compared using survey data from 1,019 households. Both forms of differentiation are conceptualized as dynamic processes that intersect through their mutual inclusion of landholding—land being fundamental to our understanding of social class in the Third World and likewise closely tied to the timing of the developmental stages of the family cycle. Findings demonstrate that both forms of differentiation are vitally important, in roughly equal proportions, to household income generation in Rwanda. Emphasis is placed on the direct effects of the social class variables and on the indirect effects of the demographic differentiation process. The importance of the impact of contextual variables, such as land scarcity and the absence of alternative nonfarm employment, on income inequality are assessed.     

Vulnerabilities and risks in population and environment studies

In the study of risks , different sciences use the same category in different ways, each related to its own ontological assumptions. But many of these fields communicate very little with one another. This article seeks to approximate two of these areas of study that have shown similar concerns and that can mutually strengthen one another, namely, geography and demography. Geography was one of the first disciplines to include risk in its environmental dimension and has had broad experience in simultaneously focusing on social and natural dynamics. Demography, on the other hand, faces greater difficulties because only recently has it incorporated the environmental dimension into its scientific scope. Both have brought the concept of vulnerability into their conceptual framework as complementary to that of risk. Geographers understand vulnerability as a more symbiotic form of the relationship between society and nature, whereas demographers give it a strong socioeconomic component. In this regard, the conceptual discussion on risks and vulnerabilities, in its attempt at approximating these two fields, is a way of conceptually advancing and strengthening the different approaches to empirical work, especially in population–environment studies which is the common ground for the dialogue between the two disciplines.

Improved model selection criteria for SETAR time series models

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we obtain the asymptotic properties of the modified model selection criteria proposed by Hurvich et al. (1990. Improved estimators of Kullback-Leibler information for autoregressive model selection in small samples. Biometrika 77, 709–719) for autoregressive models. Second, we provide some highlights on the better performance of this modified criteria. Third, we extend the modification introduced by these authors to model selection criteria commonly used in the class of self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) time series models. We show the improvements of the modified criteria in their finite sample performance. In particular, for small and medium sample size the frequency of selecting the true model improves for the consistent criteria and the root mean square error (RMSE) of prediction improves for the efficient criteria. These results are illustrated via simulation with SETAR models in which we assume that the threshold and the parameters are unknown.     

Street lamps,alleys, ratio analysis,and nonprofit organizations

This article offers an accounting‐based framework for evaluating the efficiency of nonprofit organizations using four factors. Separately, these factors reflect (1) the proportion of revenues actually used in the current year, (2) the proportion of the expenditures allocated to programs, (3) the units of output produced from that spending, and (4) the value of the units produced, expressed in terms of an index value. Combined, these four factors measure the value of units produced per dollar of revenue received, an accounting measure of overall efficiency. Using this framework provides insight into both the appropriateness and the limitations of employing solely financial measures to judge nonprofit organizations and also identifies conceptual areas absent from currently available evaluation tools.     

Wie gehen wissensintensive Dienstleister mit eigenen Wissenslücken um?

With the conducted Delphi study diverse alternatives could be identified which have been used by Consultants in dealing with their own unawareness. Superior strategies, which controlled the adoption of individual steps and oriented the activities in dealing with unawareness, as well as organisational regulations for dealing with unawareness, were noticeable, which could be adopted depending on the subjective perception and assessment of the present unawareness and its relevance and impacts. The detected strategies ranged from the maintenance and use of unawareness to open communication and elimination of unawareness to total ignorance and the hiding of unawareness. Concerning organisational regulations, on the one hand formal regulations and on the other hand informal regulations could be found.     

Using Related Samples in Assessing Conformance to Safety Goals: A Nuclear Reactor Safety Application

Quantifying safety goals is a key to the regulation of activities which are beneficial on the whole but entail some risks in being performed. Determining compliance with safety goals involves dealing with uncertainties. A recent article by Bier^(I) describes some of the difficulties encountered using measures with uncertainty to determine compliance with safety goals for nuclear reactors. This paper uses a hierarchical Bayes approach to address two practical modeling problems in determining safety goal compliance under uncertainty: (1) allowing some modeling assumptions to be relaxed, and (2) allowing data from previous related samples to be included in the analysis. The two issues effect each other to the extent that relaxing some assumptions allows the use of a broader range of data. The usefulness of these changes and their impact on assessing safety compliance for nuclear reactors is shown.     

NONPROFIT INCORPORATION AMONG MOVEMENTS OF THE POOR:

Social movement scholars have begun to note the widespread use of nonprofit incorporation by social movement organizations (SMOs) in the United States. They argue that nonprofit incorporation is a voluntary act that ultimately leads to moderation in goals and tactics. I examine this argument with ethnographic data on fifteen homeless SMOs that operated in eight U.S. cities. I identify six pathways to adoption or nonadoption of nonprofit form and find that moderation, when it occurs, is not a function of nonprofit incorporation per se but of the particular pathway by which an SMO came to adopt nonprofit form. I discuss the implications of these findings for SMOs in general and for understanding the broader debates about organizational autonomy and external control of SMOs.     

MODERN MAGIC

The suggestion that students at present day universities participate in magic at exam time may seem unusual. This study views "magic" as behavior directed toward achieving an outcome, involving many everyday and commonplace acts, but seeming to rely for success on some mystical element. Hundreds of personal accounts from students describing their exam-related behaviors provide the basis for a classification system of their "magical practices." The classification yields findings regarding the use of magic for luck and the avoidance of bad luck. Student magic is found to be idiosyncratic, inconsistent, and never malevolent as it often is in preliterate societies. Such differences between preliterate magic, other modern forms, and student magic are related to the complexity and heterogeneity of the larger society, the cultural norms, and the degree of collective action involved.