Estimating progression-free survival in paediatric brain tumour patients when some progression statuses are unknown

In oncology, progression-free survival time, which is defined as the minimum of the times to disease progression or death, often is used to characterize treatment and covariate effects. We are motivated by the desire to estimate the progression time distribution on the basis of data from 780 paediatric patients with choroid plexus tumours, which are a rare brain cancer where disease progression always precedes death. In retrospective data on 674 patients, the times to death or censoring were recorded but progression times were missing. In a prospective study of 106 patients, both times were recorded but there were only 20 non-censored progression times and 10 non-censored survival times. Consequently, estimating the progression time distribution is complicated by the problems that, for most of the patients, either the survival time is known but the progression time is not known, or the survival time is right censored and it is not known whether the patient's disease progressed before censoring. For data with these missingness structures, we formulate a family of Bayesian parametric likelihoods and present methods for estimating the progression time distribution. The underlying idea is that estimating the association between the time to progression and subsequent survival time from patients having complete data provides a basis for utilizing covariates and partial event time data of other patients to infer their missing progression times. We illustrate the methodology by analysing the brain tumour data, and we also present a simulation study.     

Let’s Not,and Say We Would: Imagined and Actual Responses to Witnessing Homophobia

We compared imagined versus actual affective and behavioral responses to witnessing a homophobic slur. Participants (N = 72) witnessed a confederate using a homophobic slur, imagined the same scenario, or were not exposed to the slur. Those who imagined hearing the slur reported significantly higher levels of negative affect than those who actually witnessed the slur, and nearly one half of them reported that they would confront the slur, whereas no participants who actually heard the slur confronted it. These findings reveal a discrepancy between imagined and real responses to homophobic remarks, and they have implications for the likelihood that heterosexuals will actually confront homophobic remarks.     

The impact of household capital income on income inequality��a factor decomposition analysis for the UK, Germany and the USA

This paper analyses the contribution of capital income to income inequality in a cross-national comparison. Using micro-data from the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) for three prominent panel studies, namely the BHPS for the UK, the SOEP for West Germany, and the PSID for the USA, we use the factor decomposition method described by Shorrocks (Econometrica 50:193–211, 1982). The factor decomposition of disposable income into single income components shows that capital income is exceedingly volatile and that its share in disposable income has risen recent years. Moreover, capital income makes a disproportionately high contribution to overall inequality in relation to its share in disposable income. This applies to Germany and the USA in particular. Thus capital income accounts for a large part of disparity in all three countries.     

Restrained domination in cubic graphs

Let G=(V,E) be a graph. A set S⊆V is a restrained dominating set if every vertex in V−S is adjacent to a vertex in S and to a vertex in V−S. The restrained domination number of G, denoted γ _r (G), is the smallest cardinality of a restrained dominating set of G. A graph G is said to be cubic if every vertex has degree three. In this paper, we study restrained domination in cubic graphs. We show that if G is a cubic graph of order n, then g_r(G) 3 \fracn4\gamma_{r}(G)\geq \frac{n}{4} , and characterize the extremal graphs achieving this lower bound. Furthermore, we show that if G is a cubic graph of order n, then g_r(G) ￡ \frac5n11.\gamma _{r}(G)\leq \frac{5n}{11}. Lastly, we show that if G is a claw-free cubic graph, then γ _r (G)=γ(G).     

The Japanese version of the Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire: a study in dental technicians

To test the psychometric properties and criterion validity of the Japanese version of the EffortReward Imbalance (ERI) Questionnaire (Siegrist, 1996), a survey was conducted among 105 male dental technicians. The Japanese version of the questionnaire was developed through a backtranslation process. Internal consistency and factorial structure were tested and the criterion validity with respect to musculoskeletal symptoms was estimated with the help of a correlation matrix and logistic regression analysis. In psychometric terms, the factorial structure of the scales measuring the components of the theoretical concept was replicated satisfactorily, and internal consistencies of the scales measuring the extrinsic and intrinsic components of the model were appropriate. Significant associations between components of the ERI and musculoskeletal symptoms were found. Logistic regression analysis revealed a significantly elevated risk of musculoskeletal symptoms in participants scoring high on the scale measuring the model's intrinsic component, 'overcommitment'. This study indicates that, at least for the occupational group under study, the Japanese version of the ERI Questionnaire is a feasible and psychometrically well justified new measure for assessing psychosocial stress at work with relevance to health.     

Mead's Theory of Emergence as a Framework for Multilevel Sociological Inquiry

This article explores Mead's theory of emergence. The essence of this theory is conditional interactionism. In this perspective, every social fact is an emergent arising out of preconditioned interaction between the acting unit and the social and nonsocial environment. Its nature is shaped by (1) the patterns, processes, and contents of the interaction, including their mediation by such factors as perception/meaning, reflective thinking, role‐taking‐based rationality, emotion, nonsymbolic power in use, and reality testing; and (2) the preexisting conditions of both the acting unit and the environment that underlie this interaction. I argue that Mead's conditional interactionism can be used as a powerful guide for sociological inquiry at all levels of research and that it has the potential to function as a metatheoretical approach to compete with both the objectivist/structuralist and the subjectivist/phenomenological traditions. Mead's theory of emergence is probably the greatest treasure we can unearth from his semineglected legacy.     

Die Verfügbarkeit partnerschaftlich gebundener Akteure für den Partnermarkt

Drawing on data from the German Family Survey 2000, the paper analyses the availability of persons already committed in an intimate relationship for the marriage market on the background of family economics and exchange theory. The probability of separation and immediately getting involved in a Availability varies with some easily observable traits: duration of relationship, cohabitation and marital status, age of partners, sex and — for female actors — the age of the youngest child. The connection of these traits to the commitment in the current relationship is in most cases very obvious and common sense. Thus the traits may be interpreted as indicators of availability by other actors on the marriage market. In contrast to usual assumptions, unmarried persons are available for the marriage market only to a rather small extent if they cohabit with or without a shared household. Married persons are available for the marriage market up to a small, but measureable extent, too.     

Wie verändert sich die häusliche Arbeitsteilung im Eheverlauf – oder: was kann man wie schlussfolgern?

Using the Bamberg study of married couples Schulz and Blossfeld (2006) analyze the change in the division of domestic labor and see a trend toward traditionalization. Hereby the economic theory of the family should be falsified. This result is critized in three perspectives: first, a stronger participation of men is used as the dependent variable whereby the interesting processes are misspecified. Second, only the educations of men and women, but not changes in education are looked at which would be necessary to test the economic theory. Third, the used statistical model makes some simplifications necessary which hardens the interpretation of the empirical results. With all these critics the economic theory of the family should not be defended blindly, but a test of this theory is not possible in the manner tried here.