The “Tiering” of Citizenship and Residency and the “Hierarchization” of Migrant Communities: The United Arab Emirates in Historical Context

The local population of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) constitutes less than 11.5 percent of the total population. In response to their growing numerical minority status, many Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, including the UAE, have become more stringent about their citizenship, nationality, and employment policies. The natural questions to follow are: Why have UAE nationality and citizenship laws diverged from the anticipated “opening” of nationality and citizenship policies that some assumed would accompany globalization? In the specific context of the UAE, what factors have shaped and changed these policies over time?     

A Note on Computing the Noncentrality Parameter of the Noncentral F-Distribution

In this paper we present a modification to Newton's method that is suitable for computing percentage points as well as other parameter estimation. The method is locally quadratically convergent.     

A note on some characterizations of the hyperexponential distribution

In this paper, the hyperexponential distribution is characterized using relationships between two moments of order statistics. Also another characterization is introduced by considering the conditional expected spacings of order statistics.     

Sexual and reproductive health knowledge and information-seeking behavior among middle eastern female university students: a systematic review

Objectives: The objective of this study was to collate the level of sexual and reproductive health knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and behavior among female university students, in addition to identifying their sources of information in Middle Eastern and North African countries. Methods: A systematic review was conducted with a search in Medline, EMBASE, Web of Knowledge, PsycINFO, and CINAHL from inception to February 2013. Included were studies in any language describing sexual and reproductive health knowledge and attitudes among female university students. Results: Nine studies were included, and all were cross-sectional surveys. There was a general lack of knowledge of sexual and reproductive health. The highest knowledge levels reported were for HIV. Conclusions: There are deficiencies in sexual and reproductive health knowledge and behavior in Middle Eastern and North African countries. Studies are needed to evaluate how to provide culturally sensitive sexual and reproductive health information.     

A Behaviour-Based Peer-Nomination Measure of Social Withdrawal in Children

Research on social withdrawal has been impeded by problems in the definition of the construct and in its measurement. The purpose of this study was to develop a behaviourally-based peer-nomination measure useful in measuring two types of withdrawal: Inhibited/Wary and Self-Conscious/Anxious. In Study 1, we report the development of the measure. We examined whether this two-factor structure would be supported by data obtained from multiple informants. Data were collected from children in grades 3, 5, and 7, and their peers and teachers. Intercorrelations of peer-, teacher-, and self-reports of the Behaviour-Based Peer-Nomination Measures of social withdrawal supported the validity of the Inhibited/Wary dimension; teacher-peer agreement also provided support for the validity of the Self-Conscious/Anxious dimension. In Study2, the Behaviour-Based Peer-Nomination Measure of Social Withdrawal was cross-validated against observed play behaviour with 120 boys and girls. Results revealed some concordances between observational and peer-nomination data.     

Generalization and efficient computation of the box-meyer analysis for orthogonal designs

Box and Meyer (1986) [1] proposed a Bayesian analysis for saturated orthogonal dedigns, based on the widely-used method of examining normal plots of effects estimates. Stephenson, Hulting, and Moore (1989) [5] give an algorithm for computing this analysis, but it can be quite slow for even 2⁵ designs. In this paper we extend the technique to cover all orthogonal factorial designs, rather than just saturated ones, and we show how the computational algorithm can be greatly improved, both in terms of accuracy and speed. With these extensions and improvements the Box-Meyer method becomes viable as a technique for interactive analysis of any orthogonal factorial design, not just small, saturated ones.     

Western Donor Assistance and Gender Empowerment in the Palestinian Territories and Beyond

Since the end of the Cold War, the quest to spread democracy has become the rallying call of many Western donor agencies. Reflecting this new agenda, new program priorities prevailed that placed greater emphasis on civil society development, civic engagement and gender empowerment. Contrary to expectations, however, many of these programs have often adversely affected existing social movements. Most scholars attempting to explain these unintended outcomes have focused on the impact of NGO professionalization. Examining the Palestinian women's movement, this article addresses the inadequacy of this explanation and focuses on the political dimension of this discussion by illustrating how Western donors' lack of understanding of the Palestinian women's movement and its “embeddedness” in the broader political context served to weaken and undermine this movement. The influx of Western donor assistance in the post-Madrid, post-Oslo era, along with the greater emphasis on Western promoted gender empowerment, undermined the cohesiveness of the women's movement by exacerbating existing political polarization (that went beyond Islamist and secular divisions) and disempowering many grassroots activists. Effectively, many of these activists were transformed from active political participants involved in their organizations to the recipients of skills and services in need of awareness raising. Findings in this article also speak to current regional developments, especially in light of the current Arab uprisings and the promise of greater Western involvement to empower women in the region.     

On the Characterization of a Mixture of Generalized Power Function Distributions by Conditional Expectation of Order Statistics

In the present article, we give some theorems to characterize the mixture of two generalized power function distributions based on conditional expectation of order statistics.     

Gauss-laguerre dynamics:an efficient method of computing integrals in multiple comparisons

Computing with Gauss-Laguerre quadratures is a common practice when computing the distribution of the studentized version of many statistics used in normal theory multiple comparisons. We study the dynamics of the points associated with such quadrature and apply the results to the simple example of the studentized maximum modulus. Because most distributions used in multiple comparisons require relatively expensive numerical quadrature for evaluation of their non-studentized integrand, the efficiency of the suggested method is clear as it requires fewer integrand evaluations than the standard Gauss-Laguerre quadrature.