Can Psychosocial Intervention Improve Peer and Sibling Relations Among War‐affected Children? Impact and Mediating Analyses in a Randomized Controlled Trial

Social resources are considered important protectors in traumatic conditions, but few studies have analyzed their role in psychosocial interventions among war‐affected children. We examined (1) whether a psychosocial intervention (teaching recovery techniques, TRT) is effective in improving peer and sibling relations, and (2) whether these potentially improved relations mediate the intervention's impacts on children's mental health. Participants were 428 Palestinian children [10–13 (mean = 11.29, standard deviation SD = .68)‐year‐old girls (49.4 percent) and boys (50.6 percent)], who were cluster‐randomized into the TRT and wait‐list control groups. They reported the quality of peer (friendship and loneliness) and sibling (intimacy, warmth, conflict, and rivalry) relations, and posttraumatic stress, depressive and psychological distress symptoms, as well as psychosocial well‐being at baseline (T1), postintervention (T2), and six month follow‐up (T3). Results showed gender‐specific TRT intervention effects: Loneliness in peer relations reduced among boys and sibling rivalry reduced among girls. The TRT prevented the increase in sibling conflict that happened in the control group. The mediating hypothesis was partially substantiated for improved peer relations, and beneficial changes in sibling relations were generally associated with improved mental health.     

Repression and popular collective action: Evidence from the West Bank

This article examines the connection between state repression and the dynamics of popular collective action in the Palestinian West Bank from 1976 to 1985. Unlike traditional social movement research that focuses on structural causes, the analysis is confined here to the interaction between the state and its challengers. How shifts in the form and level of repression affected the rate of collective action is the main question addressed. A dynamic, continuous-time model, based on systematic evidence, is used to answer this question. Assuming a Weibull parameterization, the model allows for time dependence of the hazard rate. With a few exceptions, repression was found to increase the rate of collective action. This finding contradicts certain hypotheses advanced by movement researchers regarding the efficacy of state coercion and control, and suggests that repression may appropriately be considered a powerful mobilizational force in similar contexts.An earlier version was presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 1991.     

The Organizational Dynamics of the U.S. Environmental Movement: Legitimation,Resource Mobilization,and Political Opportunity*

Abstract We analyze the relationship between legitimation, resource mobilization, and political opportunity and the founding rate of national environmental organizations between 1895 and 1994. We address recent criticisms that organizational ecologists' reliance on the density dependence model—which treats legitimation as an unmeasured intervening variable—has failed to capture the active sociopolitical character of this process. We advocate a more historical approach to legitimation which relies on print media to construct direct measures of legitimation. Specifically, we use the yearly count of environmental books published as a measure of the legitimacy of environmentalism in the U.S. This count remains statistically significant and positively related to foundings even when other variables are added to the model. A negative second‐order effect of total books suggests that the recent proliferation of state and local environmental organizations is beginning to depress the founding rate of national organizations. Variations in resource mobilization and political opportunity also have affected foundings, though variables measuring the latter were not significant in the full model.     

Migration and the Reproduction of Poverty: The Refugee Camps in Jordan

This study examines the link between poverty and migration into and out of camps, using 1999 household survey data on the refugee camp populations in Jordan and a binomial logistic regression. The findings show a clear clustering of poverty in the camps, where about one‐third of households are poor. Results from several nested regression models show that in‐migration is not the cause of persistent poverty in the camps. On the other hand, human capital variables, especially education, economic activity, and “social inheritance”, as well as demographic factors such as household headship and dependency rate have significant effects on poverty incidence. Some theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Efficient estimation for the conditional autoregressive model

Recently, spatial regression models have been attracting a great deal of attention in areas ranging from effect of traffic congestion on accident rates to the analysis of trends in gastric cancer mortality. In this paper, we propose efficient estimators for the regression coefficients of the spatial conditional autoregressive model, when uncertain auxiliary information is available about these coefficients. We provide efficiency comparisons of the proposed estimators based on asymptotic risk analysis and Monte Carlo simulations. We apply the proposed methods to real data on Boston housing prices and illustrate how a bootstrapping approach can be employed to compute prediction errors of the estimators.     

Convex partitions with 2-edge connected dual graphs

It is shown that for every finite set of disjoint convex polygonal obstacles in the plane, with a total of n vertices, the free space around the obstacles can be partitioned into open convex cells whose dual graph (defined below) is 2-edge connected. Intuitively, every edge of the dual graph corresponds to a pair of adjacent cells that are both incident to the same vertex.     

Shrinkage and LASSO strategies in high-dimensional heteroscedastic models

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we consider the estimation problem of the parameter vector in the linear regression model with heteroscedastic errors. First, under heteroscedastic errors, we study the performance of shrinkage-type estimators and their performance as compared to theunrestricted and restricted least squares estimators. In order to accommodate the heteroscedastic structure, we generalize an identity which is useful in deriving the risk function. Thanks to the established identity, we prove that shrinkage estimators dominate the unrestricted estimator. Finally, we explore the performance of high-dimensional heteroscedastic regression estimator as compared to classical LASSO and shrinkage estimators.     

Comparison of k independent,zero‐heavy lognormal distributions

Lachenbruch ( 1976 , 2001 ) introduced two‐part tests for comparison of two means in zero‐inflated continuous data. We are extending this approach and compare k independent distributions (by comparing their means, either overall or the departure from equal proportion of zeros and equal means of nonzero values) by introducing two tests: a two‐part Wald test and a two‐part likelihood ratio test. If the continuous part of the distributions is lognormal then the proposed two test statistics have asymptotically chi‐square distribution with $2(k-1)$ degrees of freedom. A simulation study was conducted to compare the performance of the proposed tests with several well‐known tests such as ANOVA, Welch ( 1951 ), Brown & Forsythe ( 1974 ), Kruskal–Wallis, and one‐part Wald test proposed by Tu & Zhou ( 1999 ). Results indicate that the proposed tests keep the nominal type I error and have consistently best power among all tests being compared. An application to rainfall data is provided as an example. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 39: 690–702; 2011. © 2011 Statistical Society of Canada     

The transition to lower fertility in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: evidence from recent surveys

Using recent data from three national-level surveys conducted in 1995, 2000, and 2004, we provide evidence that Palestinian fertility rates in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, historically among the highest in the world, began to slow especially in the West Bank, but stalled in Gaza during the recent Intifada. The TFR in the early 2000s was 4.6 per woman, down from 6.2 a decade earlier. However, most of the decline in Gaza’s fertility appears to have taken place during the early 1990s, before the onset of the second Intifada. In Gaza, the TFR decreased from 7.4 to 5.7 during the 1990s, but changed only slightly to 5.6 during the second Intifada period. Surprisingly, contraceptive prevalence has not changed during these years, and the transition to lower fertility was mainly due to changes in nuptiality. Demand for children remains high, although there is evidence of unmet need for contraception. The continuing conflict and worsening economic situation provide clues to the persistence of high fertility among Palestinian women.

Familial relations and labor market outcomes: the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

We analyze intra-family support among Palestinians living in Lebanon, using detailed household survey data from the refugee camps and Palestinian communities in Lebanon and latent class analysis technique. The study uncovers five latent classes of familial exchange. Two different theoretical models—the solidarity and reciprocal exchange—are used to examine the link between patterns of assistance and labor market conditions. Contrary to the solidarity account, we find no evidence of high familial assistance among the unemployed, or those excluded from the labor market, and this is true regardless of type of exchange. However, the camp population is more likely to engage in exchange relations than their non-camp counterparts. The married, loners, educated, employed, and those with stronger ties to relatives are more likely to be money exchangers. The findings are similar for care receivers, but age and gender figure prominently here. Some policy implications of the findings are discussed.