Geographies of a silent transition: a geographically weighted regression approach to regional fertility differences in Turkey

The fertility decline that Turkey has gone through in the last few decades is characterised by sharp regional inequalities, with western regions representing patterns akin to developed countries and those in the east resembling “third-world” countries, while central regions represent an in-between case. With the help of geographically weighted regression (GWR), this article is an attempt to set up a model of causal relationships that could account for the regional fertility differentials. The results indicate that the fertility decline is not a single and all-embracing process covering all regions. On the contrary, there are regions differentiated qualitatively from each other in terms of the underlying causes of the existing fertility levels.     

Modeling heteroscedastic age-period-cohort cancer data

The extent to which cancer will be a burden on the Canadian health-care system will be determined by future cancer rates and future population levels in the high-risk age groups. Parametric models of incidence and mortality rates for various cancers may be used to obtain medium-term forecasts of rates, which then can be used in conjunction with population projections to obtain forecasts of total incidence and mortality. Age-period-cohort cancer data often exhibit marked heteroscedasticity, which complicates the modeling of the data. Methods to allow for the effects of this heteroscedasticity on residual processes are developed and discussed in the context of modeling Canadian female breast-cancer incidence data.     

“I Don't Go By Sean Patrick”: On-Line/Off-Line/Out Identity and SeanPatrickLive.com

Web cams are cameras that are attached to a computer in order to send continuously updated pictures over the Internet. SeanPatrickLive is a Web cam site that documented the life of Sean, a gay man living in the Washington, D.C. area. This essay is the result of ethnographic interviews with Sean Patrick. It discusses Web cams within the context of the cyberqueer, examining how sexuality is presented on-line, using the Internet and the Web cam as a form of gay/queer politics, and performing identity on- and off-line.     

Defining child abuse: Exploring variations in ratings of discipline severity among child welfare practitioners

This study investigated child welfare practitioners’ ratings of the severity of parental discipline practices. Ratings varied by the type of act, age of the child, and by chronicity. Exploratory investigation into changes across time found that current practitioners (N = 27) rated several practices (e.g. spanking and shaking) as more severe than did professionals (N = 24) sampled in 1977. Results underscore the complexity of defining child maltreatment and offer implications for practitioners, applied researchers, and child welfare policy makers.The authors Stephen D. Whitney, Emiko A. Tajima, Todd I. Herrenkohl, and Bu Huang are affiliated with the School of Social Work, University of Washington.Work on this project is supported by funds from the Social Work Prevention Research Center, School of Social Work, University of Washington (National Institute of Mental Health Grant R24MH56599, Lewayne Gilchrist, PI) and by the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund.     

Tests for a difference in timing of physiological response between two brain regions measured by using functional magnetic resonance imaging

Summary.  Functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) measures the physiological response of the human brain to experimentally controlled stimulation. In a periodically designed experiment it is of interest to test for a difference in the timing (phase shift) of the response between two anatomically distinct brain regions. We suggest two tests for an interregional difference in phase shift: one based on asymptotic theory and one based on bootstrapping. Whilst the two procedures differ in some of their assumptions, both tests rely on employing the large number of voxels (three-dimensional pixels) in non-activated brain regions to take account of spatial autocorrelation between voxelwise phase shift observations within the activated regions of interest. As an example we apply both tests, and their counterparts assuming spatial independence, to FMRI phase shift data that were acquired from a normal young woman during performance of a periodically designed covert verbal fluency task. We conclude that it is necessary to take account of spatial autocovariance between voxelwise FMRI time series parameter estimates such as the phase shift, and that the most promising way of achieving this is by modelling the spatial autocorrelation structure from a suitably defined base region of the image slice.     

Religion as a Meaning System: Policy Implications for the New Millennium

The development of social policy related to religion has received increasing focus in recent years, yet psychology continues to play a relatively minor role in this important domain. In the current article, religion's positive and negative influences as a meaning system on individual, community, and societal well-being are delineated. The challenges facing psychology in contributing to public policy development in the religious arena are examined, challenges that stem from profound differences in the meaning systems of religion, government, and psychology. These challenges notwithstanding, a number of different pathways in the domains of applied research, community practice, and policy development are delineated through which psychology can help to maximize positive, and minimize negative, outcomes in the religion and social policy arena.     

Slack-variable models versus Scheffé's mixture models

Slack-variable models are compared against Scheffé's polynomial model for mixture experiments. The notion of model equivalence and the use of various diagnostic measures provide effective tools in making such comparisons, particularly when the experimental region is highly constrained. It is demonstrated that the choice of the best fitting model, through variable selection, depends on which mixture component is selected as a slack variable, and on the size of the fitted model. In addition, the equivalence of two well-known representations of a complete mixture model is shown to be valid. Two numerical examples are presented.     

THE McMASTER FAMILY ASSESSMENT DEVICE: RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY*

This paper reports a series of studies investigating the reliability and validity of the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD). The results indicated that the FAD has: (a) adequate test-retest reliability, (b) low correlations with social desirability, (c) moderate correlations with other self-report measures of family functioning, and (d) differentiates significantly between clinician-rated healthy and unhealthy families. Cut-off scores for identifying healthy and unhealthy families also were developed which have adequate sensitivity and specificity. Additionally, the relationships between the FAD, Family Unit Inventory, and FACES-II suggests that the cohension and adaptability scales from the FACES-II have a linear relationship with health/pathology.     

The teaching of the concepts of statistical tests of hypotheses to non-statisticians

The logic underlying the formulation of statistical tests of hypothesis can be counterintuitive for the non-mathematician, e.g. to test whether two treatments are different, why suppose they are equal? When introducing the topic of hypothesis testing, it is easy to present the formal fiamework for the testing procedure without explaining the logic behind it. In courses for statisticians, one may often (unjustifiably) rely on the understanding of probability concepts as a foundation for understanding statistical inference, but in courses taught to non-statisticians where there is minimal discussion of probability, it is essential that explanations must be based on concepts the students can readily understand. The method proposed here for teaching the concept of hypothesis testing makes an analogy to the judicial system, whereby a person is assumed innocent until sufficient evidence warrants a verdict of guilty. Analogies for the different elements of statistical tests are presented and discussed, together with a classroom fiamework for discussion of statistical tests.