Community-Based Design Research: Learning Across Generations and Strategic Transformations of Institutional Relations Toward Axiological Innovations

The socio-ecological challenges facing communities in the 21st century are building towards a critical conjuncture of history, culture, power, and profound inequity. Scholars working in the service of social transformation and improving the wellbeing of communities are calling for creative, deliberate, and consequential interventions. Tharp & O’Donnell (this issue) call for increased engagement between Cultural-Community Psychology and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory to lead this kind of call. Drawing from our experiences in community based design research, we argue for cultivating axiological innovations in research and interventions. We explore three examples including: critical historicity, inter-generational learning, and strategic transformations of institutional relations.     

Mistreatment and self-reported emotional symptoms: results from the National Elder Mistreatment Study

Many community-residing older adults in the United States report past year mistreatment; however, little is known about mental health correlates of abuse. This study investigated whether a recent history of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse is associated with self-reported emotional symptoms (e.g., anxiety, depression) among a representative sample of older adults. Results demonstrated that each abuse type increased likelihood of reporting emotional symptoms; when other known correlates were controlled, only emotional abuse remained a significant predictor. Additional study of mistreatment-related correlates of depression and anxiety is needed, with a focus on the often overlooked category of emotional mistreatment.     

Estimating the exponential reliability function for a system in series with type II censored data

The problem of estimating the one parameter exponential reliability function for a system composed of l componentes in series is considered. Under the type II censoring scheme, the Bayes nature of the minimum variance unbiased estimator is demonstrated and the admissibility of related generalized Bayes estimators is established. For the one component case, the best unbiased estimator is admissible.     

Cross-cultural issues in illness and wellness: Implications for depression

This paper addresses cultural factors in illness and wellness, using depression as a specific context. The issue of cultural relativism and commensurability of diagnosis and evaluation of outcomes across cultures is discussed. The concepts underlying traditional systems of healing are compared to those of Western orthodox medicine.     

Civic-secular and ethnic nationalisms as bases of the nation-state: multiculturalism at the crossroads? 1

The dominant Eurocentric paradigm of the nation and the nation-state was premised on western historical experience that was indigenous to the west but claimed universality for the rest. Many post-colonial countries, particularly those that went through national liberation struggles, like India and China, with multi-ethnic mobilisations, established sovereign states. The nationalist leaders claimed the unity of nationhood for their culturally diverse countries (states), with their millennia-deep civilisational identity, compelling a new discourse on the untenability of the classic Eurocentric paradigm. The second development witnessed the inevitable cultural heterogenisation of the western countries premised on the expansion of the (immigrant) labour market through an ever-enveloping regime of economic liberalisation and world trade. The catharsis of the invasion of cheaper labour from culturally diverse countries, often native-displacing, resulted in western countries attempting to accommodate the emerging changing reality in the context of mono-cultural nations through the concept and policy of multiculturalism. In spite of this, western countries have been witness to intercultural violence, racial discrimination and threats of home grown terrorism. The paper seeks to distinguish between ‘pluralism’ and ‘multiculturalism’ and argues for a reformulation of the concept of the nation-state that will have greater applicability across states.     

Reporting Rape in a National Sample of College Women

Abstract

Background: Studies indicate that a small percentage of rapes are reported to law enforcement officials. Research also suggests that rapes perpetrated by a stranger are more likely to be reported and that rapes involving drugs and/or alcohol are less likely to be reported. College women represent a unique and understudied population with regard to reporting rape. Methods: In the current study, the authors interviewed a national sample of 2,000 college women about rape experiences in 2006. Results: Only 11.5% of college women in the sample reported their most recent/only rape experience to authorities, with only 2.7% of rapes involving drugs and/or alcohol reported. Minority status (ie, nonwhite race) was associated with lower likelihood of reporting, whereas sustaining injuries during the rape was associated with increased likelihood of reporting. Discussion: Reporting, particularly for rapes involving drugs and alcohol, is low among college women. Implications for policy are discussed.     

Testing the difference of two exponential means using generalized p-values

There are no exact fixed-level tests for testing the null hypothesis that the difference of two exponential means is less than or equal to a prespecified value θ₀. For this testing problem, there are several approximate testing procedures available in the literature. Using an extended definition of p-values, Tsui and Weerahandi (1989) gave an exact significance test for this testing problem. In this paper, the performance of that procedure is investigated and is compared with approximate procedures. A size and power comparison is carried out using a simulation study. Its findings show that the test based on the generalized p-value guarantees the intended size and that it is either as good as or outperforms approximate procedures available in the literature, both in power and in size.     

Do Asset Market Prices Reflect Traders' Judgment Biases?

The existence of base rate fallacy (BRF) bias is explored employing: (i) a context treatment with a narrative story applied to asset markets and (ii) an isomorphic abstract setting using balls-and-bingo cages. Probability estimates reflect a BRF bias in both treatments, but is stronger with context. Prices track highest expected dividend values (HEDVs) with context, resulting in strongly biased prices relative to the Bayesian norm when biased traders have HEDVs. In the abstract treatment prices do not track HEDVs nearly as closely, resulting in prices closer to the BRF bias only when most traders hold biased beliefs.     

营造传统———新加坡国庆庆典

文章分析了涂尔干和韦伯的经典社会学思想对新加坡国庆庆典的解释力。作者提出,新加坡国庆庆典是一种与民族-国家有关的有预谋、有意识的表象建构。它被发明成传统,需要科层的、理性的组织。它在有机团结的社会中,创造了机械团结,并且必须通过对国家机构的操控来实现。简言之,新加坡的国庆庆典说明了,涂尔干的功能要通过韦伯的方法实现。     

Bayesian analysis of competing risks with partially masked cause of failure

Summary. Bayesian analysis of system failure data from engineering applications under a competing risks framework is considered when the cause of failure may not have been exactly identified but has only been narrowed down to a subset of all potential risks. In statistical literature, such data are termed masked failure data. In addition to masking, failure times could be right censored owing to the removal of prototypes at a prespecified time or could be interval censored in the case of periodically acquired readings. In this setting, a general Bayesian formulation is investigated that includes most commonly used parametric lifetime distributions and that is sufficiently flexible to handle complex forms of censoring. The methodology is illustrated in two engineering applications with a special focus on model comparison issues.