White international transracial adoptive mothers' reflections on race

Through the use of qualitative data analysis of in‐depth interviews with eight white international transracial adoptive mothers, four properties emerged that describe these mothers' racial views. These properties varied in the degree that they integrated perspectives different from the white dominant culture. The mothers did not experience significant changes in their perspective on race subsequent to adoption. This paper includes a discussion of white racial identity and implications for social work practice with transracially adoptive parents.     

Initial Validation of the Socialization Self-Efficacy Scale With International Transracially Adoptive Parents

This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the 10-item Socialization Self-Efficacy Scale (SSES) using a sample of international transracially adoptive parents. This online survey design study recruited transracially adoptive parents from parenting support groups. Using a random split sample of the data, exploratory factor analysis resulted in two subfactors: cultural socialization self-efficacy and racial socialization self-efficacy. Next, confirmatory factor analysis in the remaining sample supported the two-factor structure. The findings provide strong initial support for the validity of the SSES that measures transracially adoptive parents’ motivation and belief in their ability to engage in cultural and racial socialization practices.     

Assessing goodness-of-fit for evaluation of dose-proportionality

For the clinical development of a new drug, the determination of dose-proportionality is an essential part of the pharmacokinetic evaluations, which may provide early indications of non-linear pharmacokinetics and may help to identify sub-populations with divergent clearances. Prior to making any conclusions regarding dose-proportionality, the goodness-of-fit of the model must be assessed to evaluate the model performance. We propose the use of simulation-based visual predictive checks to improve the validity of dose-proportionality conclusions for complex designs. We provide an illustrative example and include a table to facilitate review by regulatory authorities.     

TEACHING THE PRODUCTION/OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT CORE COURSE: INTEGRATING LOGISTICS PLANNING ACTIVITIES

This paper discusses the benefits of restructuring the introductory undergraduate production and operations management (pom) course to improve its pedagogical effectiveness and to better convey the importance of integrating logistics planning activities. The introduction of a dynamic integrative semester-long case study which involves students in applying pom concepts and tools through a simulation game is reported.     

Social Work Practice in Higher Education

This article examines two cases of social work practice in higher education within the context of identifying a model of social practice for use in postsecondary educational settings. The case studies provide insight into a model of social work practice that reflects both the traditional clinical model, which focuses on individual change, and the school-community-pupil relations model, which focuses on system change. The author also discusses implications for social work educators who see college/university counseling centers as an arena for social work practice.     

The dynamics of hapū research relationships

Abstract

The Whakaki Lake Trust has a long history of being an active kaitiaki of Whakaki Lake and has developed a hapū-based restoration and enhancement programme at the Lake property. Part of this programme has involved working with a range of external agencies and researchers. Research relationships have become an important part of the restoration process to build the capability and capacity of hapū to execute activities associated with restoration. In addition, relationships have provided an opportunity to strengthen and expand the knowledge base that hapū can draw upon to inform ecological restoration and resource management decisions. Some of these relationships have been adversarial and a source of much frustration. As a consequence the Trust has developed very clear expectations and policy around working with others. My experience of developing a doctoral research project with Whakaki Lake Trust is used here to discuss hapū expectations of research and resultant academic dilemmas.     

A proposal for a new PhD level curriculum on quantitative methods for drug development

This paper provides an overview of “Improving Design, Evaluation and Analysis of early drug development Studies” (IDEAS), a European Commission–funded network bringing together leading academic institutions and small‐ to large‐sized pharmaceutical companies to train a cohort of graduate‐level medical statisticians. The network is composed of a diverse mix of public and private sector partners spread across Europe, which will host 14 early‐stage researchers for 36 months. IDEAS training activities are composed of a well‐rounded mixture of specialist methodological components and generic transferable skills. Particular attention is paid to fostering collaborations between researchers and supervisors, which span academia and the private sector. Within this paper, we review existing medical statistics programmes (MSc and PhD) and highlight the training they provide on skills relevant to drug development. Motivated by this review and our experiences with the IDEAS project, we propose a concept for a joint, harmonised European PhD programme to train statisticians in quantitative methods for drug development.     

Penalized Maximum Likelihood Estimator for Normal Mixtures

The estimation of the parameters of a mixture of Gaussian densities is considered, within the framework of maximum likelihood. Due to unboundedness of the likelihood function, the maximum likelihood estimator fails to exist. We adopt a solution to likelihood function degeneracy which consists in penalizing the likelihood function. The resulting penalized likelihood function is then bounded over the parameter space and the existence of the penalized maximum likelihood estimator is granted. As original contribution we provide asymptotic properties, and in particular a consistency proof, for the penalized maximum likelihood estimator. Numerical examples are provided in the finite data case, showing the performances of the penalized estimator compared to the standard one.     

Female MSW Students' Satisfaction with Practicum Supervision: The Effect of Supervisor Gender

This report of a spring 1995 study involving 78 female MSW students at the University of Georgia compares the degrees of satisfaction with field practicum supervision of those with female and male field instructors respectively, using previously published measures of supervision satisfaction. One statistically significant but practically unimportant difference was revealed favoring male supervisors. The results are discussed in terms of past literature on gender in clinical supervision; areas for future research are also suggested. The little existing empirical research appears to support a gender-neutral policy for matching MSW students with practicum supervisors.