Resource Review

Abstract

Cynthia Parsons. Serving to Learn, Learning to Serve—Civics and Service from A to Z. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press. 1996. 112 pages. $18 paper, $40 hard cover.     

Variables Affecting Readiness to Benefit From Career Interventions

This article identifies and briefly describes the broad range of variables that may influence clients’ readiness to benefit from career interventions. The article also discusses consequences of low readiness for effective use of career interventions and addresses implications for practice as well as for future research. Variables contributing to low readiness for effective use of career interventions include personal characteristics and circumstances; knowledge of self, options, and decision making; and prior experience with career interventions. Consequences of low readiness for using career interventions include premature disengagement, negative perception of skills and interests, selective acquisition of incomplete information, premature choice foreclosure, protracted exploration, dependent decision‐making style, and poor evaluation of options.     

Bayesian Interval Estimation for the Difference in TPRs and FPRs of Two Diagnostic Tests with Unverified Negatives

We derive Bayesian interval estimators for the differences in the true positive rates and false positive rates of two dichotomous diagnostic tests applied to the members of two distinct populations. The populations have varying disease prevalences with unverified negatives. We compare the performance of the Bayesian credible interval to the Wald interval using Monte Carlo simulation for a spectrum of different TPRs, FPRs, and sample sizes. For the case of a low TPR and low FPR, we found that a Bayesian credible interval with relatively noninformative priors performed well. We obtain similar interval comparison results for the cases of a high TPR and high FPR, a high TPR and low FPR, and of a high TPR and mixed FPR after incorporating mildly informative priors.     

Reports of Conferences,Institutes, and Seminars

A busy time for librarians was late May through early July 2008 with the Ohio Valley Group of Technical Services Librarians meeting May 14–16, the North American Serials Interest Group meeting June 5–8, and an American Library Association preconference Electronic Serials 101: What I Wished I’d Known Before I Got in Over My Head, June 27.     

A comparison of some lack of fit tests based on near replicates

Several tests for regression lack of fit proposed by Christensen (1989), Shillington (1979) and Neill and Johnson (1985) are compared. The tests considered are applicable for the case of nonreplication and reduce to the classical lack of fit test when independent replications are available. A simulation study is used to compare the size and power of the test procedures for small sample sizes and various configurations of nonreplication. In addition, each test is shown to be consistent as well as invariant with respect to location and scale changes made on the regressor variables.     

Bayesian prediction for small areas using sur models

Sample surveys are usually designed and analyzed to produce estimates for larger areas and/or populations. Nevertheless, sample sizes are often not large enough to give adequate precision for small area estimates of interest. To circumvent such difficulties, borrowing strength from related small areas via modeling becomes essential. In line with this, we propose a hierarchical multivariate Bayes prediction method for small area estimation based on the seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) model. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated through simulation studies.     

Library Relocation & Collection Shifts

Abstract

For authors, publishers, and researchers, the information roadmap charts and utilizes evolving technology. “Infomediary” is a new name for an old role, describing participation in both traditional and emerging ways to deliver information and publications. This article briefly defines the role of the infomediary and the types of services provided by companies such as Ingenta, ISI (Institute for Scientific Information), and Gale. The best infomediaries will provide rational order to the growing and changing base aggregation of published material as it moves from researcher to author to publisher to library and back to researcher, particularly as that material evolves from print to electronic form.