Ethnic diversity,ethnic threat,and social cohesion: (re)-evaluating the role of perceived out-group threat and prejudice in the relationship between community ethnic diversity and intra-community cohesion

Research frequently demonstrates diverse communities exhibit lower intra-community cohesion. Recent studies suggest there is little evidence perceived ethnic threat plays a role in this relationship. This paper re-examines the roles of ethnic threat and prejudice in the diversity/cohesion relationship. First, we test threat/prejudice as conceptualised in the literature: as mediators of diversity’s effect. Second, we test a reformulation of the roles of threat/prejudice: as moderators of diversity’s effect. Applying multi-level models to cross-sectional and longitudinal data of White British individuals across England and Oldham (a unique English town case-study) we find neighbour-trust lower in diverse communities. However, perceived-threat/prejudice does not mediate this relationship. Instead, we find perceived-threat/prejudice moderate diversity’s impact on neighbour-trust. The result is diversity only reduces neighbour-trust among individuals who already viewed out-groups as threatening. Longitudinal analysis confirms the importance of out-group attitudes in the diversity/neighbour-trust relationship. In diverse communities, residents whose out-group attitudes improve, or worsen, become more, or less, trusting of their neighbours. However, in homogeneous communities, changes in out-group attitudes are not linked to changes in neighbour-trust. We therefore argue and demonstrate that perceived-threat emerges from other societal processes (such as socio-economic precariousness) and it is when individuals who already view out-groups as threatening experience diverse neighbourhoods that local cohesion declines.     

Multivariate CUSUM chart: properties and enhancements

The multivariate CUSUM#1 control chart of Pignatiello and Runger (J. Qual. Technol. 22:173–186, 1991) is widely used in practical applications due to its good ability to detect shifts of small and medium size in a process of interest. This paper investigates properties and suggests several refinements of this chart. The performance of the competing procedures is evaluated within a Monte Carlo simulation study. The suggested log MCUSUM chart proves to be the best among the investigated alternatives for the considered performance criteria.     

Tree-based modeling of time-varying coefficients in discrete time-to-event models

Lifetime Data Analysis - Hazard models are popular tools for the modeling of discrete time-to-event data. In particular two approaches for modeling time dependent effects are in common use. The...     

Multisystemic Therapy for Child Abuse and Neglect: Do Parents Show Improvement in Parental Mental Health Problems and Parental Stress?

Multisystemic Therapy for Child Abuse and Neglect (MST-CAN) is an evidence-based program for families with children who experience maltreatment. This clinical trial is the first evaluation of MST-CAN in a German-speaking area. Parental psychological problems and parental stress have been shown to be risk factors for child abuse and neglect. By the end of treatment, parents reported significantly less psychological distress than before the start of MST-CAN. Six months after treatment, this reduction was still evident. However, parents did not report any significant reduction of parental stress at any of the three time points. MST-CAN is an effective intervention for child maltreatment that not only combats child abuse and neglect but also has the potential to alleviate parental psychological distress.     

New characteristics for portfolio surveillance

This paper elaborates the tools for the surveillance of the global minimum variance portfolio weights. Golosnoy and Schmid [V. Golosnoy and W. Schmid, EWMA control charts for optimal portfolio weights, Sequential Anal. 26 (2007), pp. 195–224] introduced exponentially weighted moving average-type control charts for this task based on the processes of the estimated weights as well as of their first differences. This paper proposes the new approximations to these processes exhibiting better stochastic properties for sequential monitoring purposes. The control schemes for the new processes are compared for different types of economically relevant changes using Monte Carlo simulations. The suggested procedures appear to be superior for the considered performance measures.     

Psychosocial treatment and relations between children in residential boarding schools and their parents

The present study examined the impact of psychosocial treatment for children in residential boarding schools on relations with their parents and family, and on the extent of the children's satisfaction with the boarding school. Fifty-one boarding schools (91% of the boarding institutions in Israel) participated in the longitudinal study. The sample consisted of 418 respondents, including boarding school directors, social workers, psychologists, programme directors, counsellors, therapists, and house mothers. The findings reveal that the children maintained a moderate level of contact with their parents and families. The children's overall level of satisfaction with the boarding school was found to be moderate, and increased to the extent that they received more hours of psychosocial and therapeutic care.     

Overlooking the most vulnerable: the child welfare research agenda 2005–2010

Literature highlighting both the archaeology (chronology) of child welfare developments or genealogy (insight into the discourses shaping such developments) is rare. Even less available are investigations into the research agenda regarding child welfare. This paper attempts to provide a snapshot of the priorities for child welfare researchers as represented in the international literature from 2005 to 2010 and the discourses inherent within these. The qualitative study suggests that issues regarding the identification and responses to child abuse dominate, these concerns being framed individualistically and tending to ignore sociopolitical realities. Such a construction of the research agenda potentially marginalizes systemic factors and limits the relevance of the research agenda in contexts where poverty, community violence (including war) and migration (forced and voluntary) are in the foreground. The lived realities facing the majority of the world's children are thus overlooked. The research agenda must be expanded to address the context of the most vulnerable children and to promote child welfare alternatives that speak to their experiences.     

EWNA charts for monitoring the mean and the autocovariances of stationary processes

In this paper various types of EWMA control charts are introduced for the simultaneous monitoring of the mean and the autocovariances. The target process is assumed to be a stationary process up to fourth-order or an ARMA process with heavy tailed innovations. The case of a Gaussian process is included in our results as well. The charts are compared within a simulation study. As a measure of the performance the average run length is taken. The target process is an ARMA (1,1) process with Student-t distributed innovations. The behavior of the charts is analyzed with respect to several out-of-control models. The best design parameters are determined for each chart. Our comparisons show that the multivariate EWMA chart applied to the residuals has the best overall performance.