Child maltreatment in Greece: a review of research

Child maltreatment can be traced in Greek mythology, history and literature. Greek society has always used passive or active violence towards its dependent members, including children. In the last 17 years there have been a number of studies describing child maltreatment in contemporary Greece. Most have used small clinical samples; nevertheless, their findings are comparable to those of other countries and their results support the psychopathological causality of child maltreatment. A number of studies on child-rearing practices and on children's socialization have revealed an extensive use of physical punishment related to the child's opposition to parental authority and high parental expectations often linked with the child's school performance. Another small set of studies assessed the effectiveness of social policy and the appropriateness of the child protection system. On the basis of the studies on child maltreatment in Greece, the author proposes firstly the adoption of an operational definition which takes into consideration community attitudes and culture. A second proposal relates to the application of an ecological theoretical model stressing the mutual interaction of different systems and their cumulative effects. Lastly, it is suggested that social policy measures should be introduced in the field of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Linear or Nonlinear? Automatic Structure Discovery for Partially Linear Models

Partially linear models provide a useful class of tools for modeling complex data by naturally incorporating a combination of linear and nonlinear effects within one framework. One key question in partially linear models is the choice of model structure, that is, how to decide which covariates are linear and which are nonlinear. This is a fundamental, yet largely unsolved problem for partially linear models. In practice, one often assumes that the model structure is given or known and then makes estimation and inference based on that structure. Alternatively, there are two methods in common use for tackling the problem: hypotheses testing and visual screening based on the marginal fits. Both methods are quite useful in practice but have their drawbacks. First, it is difficult to construct a powerful procedure for testing multiple hypotheses of linear against nonlinear fits. Second, the screening procedure based on the scatterplots of individual covariate fits may provide an educated guess on the regression function form, but the procedure is ad hoc and lacks theoretical justifications. In this article, we propose a new approach to structure selection for partially linear models, called the LAND (Linear And Nonlinear Discoverer). The procedure is developed in an elegant mathematical framework and possesses desired theoretical and computational properties. Under certain regularity conditions, we show that the LAND estimator is able to identify the underlying true model structure correctly and at the same time estimate the multivariate regression function consistently. The convergence rate of the new estimator is established as well. We further propose an iterative algorithm to implement the procedure and illustrate its performance by simulated and real examples. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Hard or Soft Classification? Large-margin Unified Machines

Margin-based classifiers have been popular in both machine learning and statistics for classification problems. Among numerous classifiers, some are hard classifiers while some are soft ones. Soft classifiers explicitly estimate the class conditional probabilities and then perform classification based on estimated probabilities. In contrast, hard classifiers directly target on the classification decision boundary without producing the probability estimation. These two types of classifiers are based on different philosophies and each has its own merits. In this paper, we propose a novel family of large-margin classifiers, namely large-margin unified machines (LUMs), which covers a broad range of margin-based classifiers including both hard and soft ones. By offering a natural bridge from soft to hard classification, the LUM provides a unified algorithm to fit various classifiers and hence a convenient platform to compare hard and soft classification. Both theoretical consistency and numerical performance of LUMs are explored. Our numerical study sheds some light on the choice between hard and soft classifiers in various classification problems.     

Surface Estimation, Variable Selection, and the Nonparametric Oracle Property

Variable selection for multivariate nonparametric regression is an important, yet challenging, problem due, in part, to the infinite dimensionality of the function space. An ideal selection procedure should be automatic, stable, easy to use, and have desirable asymptotic properties. In particular, we define a selection procedure to be nonparametric oracle (np-oracle) if it consistently selects the correct subset of predictors and at the same time estimates the smooth surface at the optimal nonparametric rate, as the sample size goes to infinity. In this paper, we propose a model selection procedure for nonparametric models, and explore the conditions under which the new method enjoys the aforementioned properties. Developed in the framework of smoothing spline ANOVA, our estimator is obtained via solving a regularization problem with a novel adaptive penalty on the sum of functional component norms. Theoretical properties of the new estimator are established. Additionally, numerous simulated and real examples further demonstrate that the new approach substantially outperforms other existing methods in the finite sample setting.     

The influence of the birthplace and models of care on midwifery practice for the management of women in labour

This paper will examine how the settings in which midwives practice (the birthplace) and models of care affect midwives’ decision making during the management of labour. One-hundred-and-four independent, team and hospital based midwives and 100 low obstetric risk nulliparous women to whom labour care was provided were surveyed. These midwives and women resided in the Auckland metropolitan area of New Zealand. The majority of midwives who participated worked in models of care which provided women with continuity of carer and care, however, this was not found to influence the way the midwives provided labour care. Instead, practice was found to be relatively homogenous regardless of whether the midwives worked in independent, team, or hospital-based practice. The birthplace setting in which the labour care took place did influence midwifery practice. The majority of midwives provided labour care in large obstetric hospitals and identified practices dominated by the medical model of care. Practice was described as being influenced by intervention and the need for technology, however, this did not prevent the majority of women from perceiving they were actively involved in the decision making process and that they worked in partnership with their midwives. Closer examination of the midwives’ decision making processes whilst providing the labour care revealed that the midwives’ individual decisions were influenced by the needs of the women rather than the hospital protocols. What became evident was that the midwives in this study had adopted a humanistic approach to care whereby technology was used alongside relationship-centred care.     

My own business,not my children’s: negotiating funeral rites and the mobility and communication juncture among Chinese migrants in Melbourne

The article analyses cross-generational negotiations of funeral rites of Chinese migrants in Melbourne, Australia. It discusses the intersections between migration and death, with reference to the meaning of death and funeral rites linking multiple generations in migrant life. These intersections create a ‘mobility juncture’ to engrain their legacy and communicate across generations. We interviewed 36 Chinese migrants and 5 funeral professionals. Data analysis showed that the participants were open to discussing death, funeral preparation, and pre-purchasing a grave-plot. The socio-economically independent life style in Australia has brought about changes to their perception and preparation of their final journey. Yet, the significance of the grave-site as a point of communication between the past and the present/future remains, naturally leading to active construction of a communication juncture. Strong incentives for preparing their own funeral and burial place included a wish to ease the burden for their children and a lack of confidence in their children’s knowledge and future implementation of diverse Chinese funeral rites. Filial piety and family values remain significant, but they continue to undergo changes in the Australian context.     

Strengthening urban community governance through geographical information systems and participation: An evaluation of my Google Map and service coordination

It is increasingly common for urban planners and local policymakers to adopt interactive technologies, such as geographical information systems (GISs), to inform their decision making and to enhance performance. This paper aimed to assess the role that interactive technology can play in enhancing urban governance to meet social needs by improving local organisations’ capacities, client access, and service effectiveness and responsiveness, as well as community building. Using the previous research framework on mapping community capacity developed by Brudney et al. (Community Development Journal, 2016, 52, 354) and Çöltekin et al. (Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 2009, 36, 5–17), we examined a simulated online interactive map for service provision in Hong Kong and interviewed around 20 local community organisations and 100 local residents about their user experience, their willingness to support its long-term adoption and their challenges. Our findings reveal that local residents find the interactive map helpful, particularly in improving service access, whereas local organisations are more reluctant to adopt such technology due to high maintenance costs. The implications of our study include the need to develop incentives to encourage technology adoption, to improve the capacity of local organisations and to establish better links between community organisations and local residents to identify sustainable financing (through crowdsourcing) for GIS applications to improve urban community governance.