Forecasting the Incidence of Cancer in Regional Victoria,Australia

Loddon Mallee Integrated Cancer Service plays a key role in planning the delivery of cancer services in the Loddon Mallee Region of Victoria, Australia. Forecasting the incidence of cancer is an important part of planning for these services. This article is written from an industry perspective. We describe the context of our work, review the literature on forecasting the incidence of cancer, discuss contemporary approaches, describe our experience with forecasting models, and list issues associated with applying these models. An extensive bibliography illustrates the world-wide interest in this forecasting problem. We hope that it is useful to researchers.     

The Ethics of Research With Men who Have Learning Disabilities and Abusive Sexual Behaviour: a minefield in a vacuum

In the wake of the recent awareness of the sexual abuse of people with learning disabilities is the recognition that a small number of men with learning disabilities are themselves sexually abusing. The need to understand the men's behaviour and provide effective responses is pressing yet the search for an ethical course of enquiry appears illusory. The two conflicting dilemmas which make this task so difficult are whether the men's learning disabilities preclude their giving informed consent to the research process, and/or whether men who are sexually abusing have lost some rights to exclude themselves from research which is intended to prevent further abuse. This paper explores in depth these dilemmas and describes the authors' attempts to resolve them as they attempted to devise a protocol for consent to involvement in a qualitative study of men with learning disabilities who sexually abuse. Issues raised in this particular context have relevance to many other issues in learning disability services where robust ethical debate is needed, but often glossed over.     

Additive and Multiplicative Models and Multistage Carcinogenesis Theory

In light of the Armitage-Doll multistage carcinogenesis theory, this paper examines the assumption that an additive relative risk relationship is indicative of two carcinogens that affect the same stage in the cancer process. We present formulas to compute excess cancer risks for a variety of patterns for limited exposure durations to two carcinogens that affect the first and penultimate stages; and using an index of synergy proposed by Thomas (1982), we find a number of these patterns to produce additive, or nearly additive, relative risk relationships. The consistent feature of these patterns is that the two exposure periods are of short duration and occur close together.     

Social workers in private practice: What are they really doing?

At one level, private practice may represent a fairly evolved manifestation of the expanded professional growth and sophistication of the individual social worker who embarks upon this highly individualized proprietary enterprise. However, on a larger scale, this widespread shift toward private practice may indicate a collective disenchantment with agency practice per se and represent a concerted attempt to redefine the fundamental aims and values of social work practice.     

Coming Together: New Taxonomies for the Analysis of Social Relations

In previous work, we have noted a certain rigidity in sociology's approach to the topic of social relations (Cerulo 1997; Cerulo and Ruane 1997; Cerulo, Ruane, and Chayko 1992). With few exceptions, literature on the subject dichotomizes social relations with reference to the scope of the interaction (small group versus large group) and the mode by which social actors connect (direct connections versus mediated connections). Further, many researchers implicitly rank the social value of each relational form. Sociologists typically identify a society's primary and most valuable relations as the result of direct, physically copresent exchange, exchange involving relatively few interactants. In contrast, secondary relations often are characterized as faceless, impersonal, ingenuous, and fleeting–the result of large-group exchange established via mediated or mechanized connections. Cerulo (1997) suggested the need to reformulate any definition of social relations built upon the small group/large group or the direct/mediated dichotomies. She presented several critical elements upon which new definitions could be built. In this piece, we configure those elements, building six new analytic taxonomies–tools we hope will provoke a richer discussion of connecting, interacting, and resulting forms of social relations.     

Information subsidies and agenda-building during the Israel–Lebanon crisis

This study examined the impact of information subsidies on media coverage during a crisis. Using the July 2006 Israel–Lebanon conflict as a backdrop, this research reviewed access that U.S. military public affairs officers provided the media and analyzed subsequent coverage for the presence of the military's message. Coverage was more neutral to positive than negative. Items containing organizational messages were more positive; those quoting practitioner-facilitated sources introduced organizational messages into coverage and generated more positive coverage. Access to information subsidies had a positive impact on coverage and aided in the successful transfer of attribute salience from practitioners to the media.     

Gambling participation in Australia: findings from the national Household Expenditure Survey

Regression modeling is used to predict gambling patterns in Australia on the basis of the unit record files underlying the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Household Expenditure Survey of 6,892 households. The four largest categories of gambling expenditure are examined, namely: lottery tickets, lotto-type games and instant lottery (scratch cards), TAB (pari-mutuel wagering) and related on course betting, and poker (slot) machines and ticket machines. Determining factors analyzed include the source and level of household income, family composition and structure, welfare status, gender, age, ethnicity and geographic location. Apart from the determinants of expenditure varying widely across the different types of gambling activity, the results generally indicate that the source of household income is more important than the level of income and that household composition and regional location are likewise significant in determining gambling expenditure.      

Child,Parent, and Situational Correlates of Familial Ethnic/Race Socialization

This study examines child, parent, and situational correlates of familial ethnic/race socialization using nationally representative data gathered as part of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998 – 1999 (ECLS‐K). The ECLS‐K sample (N = 18,950) includes White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, American Indian, and multiracial kindergarteners, with survey data available at the child, parent/guardian, teacher, and school level. We find that child correlates such as race and gender, parent correlates such as education and warmth of parent‐child relationship, and situational correlates such as percent of minorities at the child’s school and cultural event participation influence how often family members discuss children’s ethnic/racial heritage with them. We advocate for continued research of contextualized family dynamics.     

GREAT MEN AND HARD TIMES: SOCIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Sociology at the University of Minnesota has had a long and distinguished history. From its founding in 1910 many prominent sociologists have taught and have graduated from the department. We present an overview of the growth of the department, and certain influential events which affected the direction of department governance and intellectual development. The department achieved its "Golden Age" under the leadership of F. Stuart Chapin, who chaired the department for nearly three decades (1922–1951). We speculate about the internal and external pressures that have affected the Minnesota department-and other sociology departments-over the past two decades, during its period of greatest expansion but of significant tensions as well.     

Gendered Power and Privilege: Taking Lenski One Step Further

In Power and Privilege , Gerhard Lenski's theory of the evolution of systems of inequality, he showed some recognition of gender inequality but, as universally accepted in sociology at the time, "social" stratification was conceptualized implicitly as inequality between male household heads. To move from this to explaining gender inequality requires consideration of constructs in addition to those developed by Lenski, but in terms of his typology of societies based on technology and size of economic surplus, the level of gender stratification tracks that of "social" stratification and the basic variables he delineates remain centrally important.