bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Knowledge Structures, Social Information Processing, and Children’s Aggressive Behavior
Authors: Salzer Burks Virginia , Laird Robert D. , Dodge Kenneth A. , Pettit Gregory S. , Bates John E.
Published: March 2003

Although a multitude of factors may be involved in the development of children’s violent behavior, the actual aggressive act is preceded by a decision‐making process that serves as the proximal control mechanism. The primary goal of this longitudinal study was to understand the nature of this proximal control mechanism involved in children’s aggressive acts by focusing on two aspects of social cognitions: social information processing and stored knowledge (i.e., internal knowledge structures that are the latent memories of past events). It was hypothesized that: (1) children with hostile knowledge structures will display more biased patterns of aggressive social information processing than children whose knowledge structures are less hostile and negative; (2) children who display hostile knowledge structures will behave in chronically aggressive ways; and (3) the development of hostile knowledge structures and hostile patterns of social information processing contribute to the stability of aggressive behavior and thus partially mediate the relation between early and later aggressive behavior. 585 boys and girls (19% African‐American) were followed from kindergarten through eighth grade. Results from this investigation support the hypotheses and are discussed in terms of the significance of the inclusion of knowledge structures in our theories of the mental processes involved in children’s violent behaviour.
A Genetic Analysis of Differential Experiences of Adolescent Siblings Across Three Years
Authors: Pike Alison , Manke Beth , Reiss David , Plomin Robert
Published: March 2003

Environmental factors work to make siblings in the same family different from one another rather than similar. The Sibling Inventory of Differential Experience (SIDE; Daniels & Plomin, 1985) was constructed to evaluate how differently siblings perceive their experiences to be across three domains: parental treatment, sibling treatment, and peer characteristics. The goals of the study were threefold: to assess the degree to which siblings agree about their differential experiences; to examine the stability of perceived differential treatment across three years; and to assess genetic and environmental contributions to the SIDE using both the twin design and the stepfamily design. These goals were explored using a genetically sensitive sample of 719 same‐sex sibling pairs ranging from 10 to 18 years of age of whom 94% of eligible pairs were retested three years later. Results indicated moderate agreement between siblings, and considerable stability across 3 years. As in previous research on the SIDE, MZ vs. DZ results indicated greater genetic influence than did results for full siblings vs. genetically unrelated siblings. The results suggest that, although intended as a measure of nonshared environment, the SIDE is not impervious to genetic influence as assessed by the twin design.
Children’s Anger Attribution Bias: Relations to Family Environment and Social Adjustment
Authors: Schultz David , Izard Carroll E. , Ackerman Brian P.
Published: March 2003

We examined the relations of caregiver depression and family instability to preschool children’s anger attribution bias and emotion attribution accuracy on a test of emotion situation knowledge. After controlling for age, gender, and verbal ability, caregiver depression and family instability predicted children’s anger attribution bias but not the overall accuracy of their emotion attributions. We also divided children into groups low and high on teacher reports of aggression and groups low and high on teacher reports of peer rejection and examined the anger attribution bias of these groups. For boys but not girls, greater anger attribution bias predicted higher levels of aggression. For all children, greater anger attribution bias predicted higher levels of peer rejection. Results suggest that the misattribution of anger to others may be an important component of some children’s early emotional and social difficulties.
Boys will be Boys: The Effect of Social Evaluation Concerns on Gender‐Typing
Authors: Banerjee Robin , Lintern Vicki
Published: March 2003

Previous research has demonstrated that young children hold strong gender stereotypes for activities and toy preferences. Some researchers have argued that this rigid gender‐typing displayed by young children is associated with peer reinforcement for stereotypical behaviour and punishment of counterstereotypical behaviour. The present study tests the hypothesis that the gender‐typing displayed by young children is at least in part an active self presentational effort to win positive evaluation from peers. Sixty‐four children aged between 4 and 9 years described themselves in terms of their activity and toy preferences, once when alone and once when in front of a group of same‐sex peers. They also completed a task measuring the rigidity of their gender stereotypes. It was found using both group‐based and individual‐based analyses that the children with the most rigid stereotypes—young boys—were more likely to present themselves as sex‐typed in front of the peer audience than when alone. The older boys and the girls in all age groups tended to have less rigid stereotypes and their self‐descriptions were in general not influenced by the presence of an audience. These results show that self‐presentational concerns do influence children’s gender‐typed behaviour, and that these concerns may vary with age and gender.
Adolescent Peer Groups and Social Identity
Authors: Tarrant Mark
Published: March 2003

This study investigated processes by which adolescents form positive evaluations of their peer groups. One‐hundred and fifteen male and female adolescents aged 14–15 years made a series of comparisons between their own peer group (the ingroup) and a group of which they were not a member (the outgroup). In line with the predictions of social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), participants behaved consistently in ways which favoured the ingroup: compared to the outgroup, the ingroup was associated to a greater extent with positive characteristics (e.g. being fun, nice, and honest) and to a lesser extent with negative characteristics (e.g. being ignorant, unfriendly, and boring). Their responses were also related to levels of identification with the ingroup: at higher levels of identification participants reported more favourable evaluations of their groups. These findings extend earlier research and show how the benefits derived from group membership in adolescence are in part realised through intergroup processes.
An Experimental Analysis of Children's Dislike of Aggressors and Victims
Authors: Courtney Mary Lynne , Cohen Robert , Deptula Daneen P. , Kitzmann Katherine M.
Published: March 2003

We experimentally examined social contextual factors that might moderate children's dislike for aggressors and for victims of aggression, by varying both the aggressor's behavior (aggressive toward multiple children versus aggressive only toward one child) and the victim's behavior (passive versus assertive). Children (117 male and female fourth to sixth graders) listened to one of four scenarios describing the experiences of boys at a summer camp and rated how much they liked the aggressor, the victim, and the other children in the scenario; children also reported how much they thought the aggressor, victim, and others liked each other. Overall, and consistent with previous research, children disliked aggressors the most, followed by victims and then by the other children in the scenarios. Importantly, children's liking was influenced by the social context in which the aggression occurred, particularly in regards to how the victim responded. Aggressors (general or focused) were liked more if their victim was assertive rather than nonassertive. Furthermore, children liked nonassertive victims less than assertive victims, particularly a nonassertive victim in response to a general aggressor. Inferred liking among the group members also was dependent on the social context of the provocation. This research highlights the need to consider aggression as more than a set of behaviors. Aggression is a social event embedded within a social context and interpersonal relationships must be considered.
Independence, Risk and Compulsion: Conflicts In Mental Health Policy
Authors: Goodwin Simon
Published: March 2003

During the second half of the 20th century the mental hospital population in England and Wales has fallen by some two‐thirds. This dramatic shift in mental health policy has been based, in part, upon a policy assumption concerning the therapeutic benefits of hospital discharge for mental patients. This view derives from an acknowledgement of the potentially negative impact of institutional life and, conversely, a recognition of the beneficial effect of a return to independent living in the community. Yet, in recent years, concern has grown about the risks posed to the health and safety of patients and to the safety of other members of the community as a result of hospital discharge. In turn this has led to a policy shift in favour of increasing use of compulsory community powers. This article identifies the tensions in policy that exist between the goal of independence, the recognition of risk and the implementation of compulsory community powers, and seeks to provide an assessment of the extent to which they can be reconciled.
The Changing Face of Pensions in Latin America: Design and Prospects of Individual Capitalization Pension Plans
Authors: Barrientos Armando
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses the spread of individual capitalization pension plans in Latin America in the 1990s. Following the example of Chile in 1980, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru have all introduced individual capitalization pension schemes in the 1990s. The paper discusses the rationale for the reforms and compares the main design features of the reformed pension systems in these countries. Lastly, the likely success of pension reform is discussed by focusing on issues of pension scheme coverage, benefit adequacy and administrative costs.
Single Homelessness as Social Exclusion: The Unique and the Extreme
Authors: Pleace Nicholas
Published: March 2003

Recent research into single homelessness and rough sleeping has begun to consider the issue using the concepts and the language of social exclusion. This paper considers the new literature and what it may mean in terms of changing our understanding of single homelessness and rough sleeping (called street homelessness in the United States). The paper begins by reviewing the concept of social exclusion and the recent literature on single homelessness and drawing associations between the analysis of social exclusion and the emerging academic work on the nature of single homelessness and rough sleeping. Drawing on this literature, it is argued that single homelessness needs to be reconceptualized and viewed as one of the products generated by the process of social exclusion. The paper concludes with the argument that single homelessness and rough sleeping are a form of social exclusion, characterized chiefly by the inability of a section of the socially excluded population to get access to welfare services and social housing, and that “homelessness” does not actually exist as a discrete social problem with unique characteristics and causes.
Welfare Policies and the Construction of Welfare Relations in a Residual Welfare State: The Case of Hong Kong
Authors: Chan Chak‐Kwan
Published: March 2003

Each welfare system has its own welfare relations for shaping and maintaining certain types of welfare practices and welfare ideologies. Welfare relations concern the distribution of welfare responsibilities among various social institutions, the public’s welfare expectations and entitlements, and the status of welfare recipients. Welfare policies, which are a legal basis of the dominant class’s philosophy as well as a mechanism for policing welfare recipients’ use of benefits, play an important role in shaping and constructing the welfare relations of a country. This paper discusses how welfare policies construct the required welfare relations with regard to Hong Kong’s social security system. It is argued that the persistence of Hong Kong's residual welfare model is partly based on the residual welfare relations which facilitate family‐centred and market‐oriented welfare practices.
Policy Change at a Time of Retrenchment: Recent Pension Reform in France, Germany, Italy and the UK
Authors: Taylor‐Gooby Peter
Published: March 2003

Two influential recent approaches to social policy in Europe imply (for different reasons) that the reforms currently on the agenda, which typically involve cost‐containment, are peculiarly difficult to achieve. Esping‐Andersen sees much of Europe as set in a “frozen welfare landscape”, due to the power of the interests advantaged by the status quo. Pierson sees retrenchment as a peculiarly difficult problem for all governments, regardless of their political ideology. This paper reviews recent pension policy in France, Germany, Italy and the UK. It argues that developments in Germany indicate that it is possible to achieve appropriate policy change in the country which is often used as the paradigm of entrenched interests without major restructuring of the system. Conversely, recent reforms in the UK (seen by Pierson as the country which has achieved the most rapid changes) appear disproportionate to the scale of the problems faced and may have damaged pensioners' interests. This indicates that the capacity to achieve substantial reform is not necessarily in itself a virtue. The real issue is the quality of reform achieved.
Unequal Partners? Local Government Reorganization and the Voluntary Sector
Authors: Craig Gary , Manthorpe Jill
Published: March 2003

British local government has recently undergone its most far‐reaching reorganization for twenty‐five years. The impact of this reorganization was considerable within local authorities but it also substantially affected other organizations with which they worked at a local level. This paper explores the perspectives of voluntary sector organizations involved in social care: a set of actors which, prior to reorganization, had been encouraged by central and local government, through notions of partnership and through community care legislation, to undertake more direct roles in service delivery, consultation and strategic planning. During the consultative period prior to reorganization, many voluntary organizations reported that they had been marginal to the process. Reflecting on the process of reorganization itself, many voluntary organization respondents commented that it had been disruptive and provoked considerable anxiety. Post‐reorganization, voluntary organizations felt that rebuilding of relationships was necessary and that the promise of partnership had meant little in practice at a time of potential crisis for local.
Recognizing Diversity and Group Processes in International, Collaborative Research Work: A Case Study
Authors: Ettorre Elizabeth
Published: March 2003

The myth that most if not all senior researchers who have national prominence can ‘successfully’ manage international research is alive and well in the academy today. Many researchers believe that research management and consultancy is acquired through a process of trial and error and demands little contemplation or training. The purpose of this paper is to break these myths and to establish various benchmarks for good research management, particularly on an international level. The guiding assumption of the paper is that as research becomes more global, high‐quality research management is a necessary resource, which demands sensitivity to diversity as well as an awareness of group processes. This means those issues such as language, race, ethnicity, gender, disability and group work should not only inform our research findings but also guide our research practice in international collaborative settings. Throughout this paper, I use a case study of a large EU‐funded project as a way of illustrating key themes.
Review: Comparing the Social Policy Experience of Britain and Taiwan
Authors: Lam C.‐W.
Published: March 2003

Book reviewed in this article:

Catherine Jones Finer (ed.), Comparing the Social Policy Experience of Britain and Taiwan
Food Safety and Consumers: Constructions of Choice and Risk
Authors: Draper Alizon , Green Judith
Published: March 2003

This paper argues that food safety did not arise as a “new” obsession at the end of the twentieth century, but has been an intermittent object of public and policy concern over the last two hundred years in the UK. However, the nature of food policy has shifted over that period, from an orientation towards protecting a largely ignorant public from fraud, through controlling the risks potentially arising from negligence in food–handling, to informing rational consumers to enable them to “choose” the right foods. Most recently, the public have had a nominally more active role in food policy, as citizens consulted on the content of the policy agenda. Drawing on histories of food policy in the UK and social science research on consumers, this paper explores the links between the changing risks and publics addressed by British food policy.
Is GP Restratification Beginning in England?
Authors: Sheaff Rod , Smith Keri , Dickson Marny
Published: March 2003

English National Health Service general practice is being restructured through the introduction of primary care groups (PCGs) and trusts (PCTs), and the personal medical services (PMS) schemes. Theories of GPs’ professional organization have to be modernized accordingly. Past theories have tended to concentrate on the occupational level rather than consider the effects of different forms of market and quasi–market on practitioners’ income and their ability to control their everyday practice. This paper extends the theory of professionalization, as an occupational group’s strategy for control over its work, to cover these matters, and thereby hypothesizes an explanation of GP responses to current changes in NHS primary health care. Case study data from four PCGs and four PMS pilots suggest that general practitioners are responding in some cases by defending enclaves of traditional general practice; in others by concentrating on clinical rather than managerial interests; and in others again by forming a new dominant coalition with NHS managers. Restratification seems to be beginning in NHS general practice although other policy developments may yet prevent it. Researchers should monitor this potentially important change as PCTs form.
Greek Policy towards Immigration and Immigrants
Authors: Kiprianos Pandelis , Balias Stathis , Passas Vaggelis
Published: March 2003

The policy of Greek authorities towards immigrants is the subject of this paper. By the term “policy” we mean both the legal framework concerning immigration and the practices of Greek authorities and their agencies regarding immigrants. We argue that this policy is defined by the commitments and the obligations undertaken by Greece as a member of the EU, but also by the number, the ethnic composition, the economic and social situation of immigrants, the attitudes of Greeks towards them and, also, the effects of their presence. In this context, the policy is characterized by dilemmas and hesitations. This is due to the attitudes of Greek opinion and concerns about the possibility that the immigrants could in the long term create problems of national integration. Those main concerns are counterbalanced, to some extent, by the contribution of immigrants to the economy. Like other members of the EU, Greek authorities have tried twice, in 1997 and in 2001, to legalize the illegal immigrants. Legalization seems to benefit both the immigrants and the Greeks. Crime rates have been reduced and xenophobia is losing ground. On the other hand, recent studies have shown that the situation of the immigrants has started to improve. Despite these positive developments, the dilemmas of immigration policy have already registered in everyday life and allow for various hostile practices towards the immigrant population.
Organic Farming and Sustainable Rural Development: A Multifaceted and Promising Convergence
Authors: Pugliese Patrizia
Published: March 2003

Over the past few years, convergence between organic farming and processes of rural development has been progressively acknowledged and organic practices and practitioners have been effectively involved in various rural development projects. Nevertheless, organic farming's potential contribution to rural development processes has not been explored extensively in the specialized literature. This paper illustrates the manifold synergies existing between organic farming and sustainable rural development, through a specific framework of analysis built on the implicit assumption that both modern, dynamic and multifaceted organic farming systems and rural economies are ‘hybrid and composite networks,’ which can be analyzed according to an evolutionary perspective and to the network analysis approach. The work identifies four main points of communality between organic farming and sustainable rural development: innovation, conservation, participation and integration. All of them are critical aspects in current strategies for sustainable rural development, and, at the same time, key features of modern organic farming ideology and practices within an eu context.
Gendered agricultural and rural restructuring: a case study of Northern Ireland
Authors: Shortall Sally
Published: March 2003

This article focuses on two specific gender related changes that are linked to agricultural and rural restructuring, at least partly motivated by the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The first relates to the increase in part–time farming and women’s increasing off–farm work, linked to falling farm incomes and reduced subsidies. The second relates to women’s participation in rural development policy and practice. Both part–time farming and rural development initiatives can be seen as potentially enhancing gender equality. It could be suggested that off–farm income provides women with financial independence, and places them in a position where they expect and receive more equitable sharing of household decision making power. Rural development initiatives are understood as offering a new form of governance that is more inclusive, more representative, and more transparent. They are seen as providing scope to include women in political structures in a way that has not previously been achieved. However, it is argued in this article that ideological and cultural barriers exist, such that agricultural and rural restructuring unfolds in a gendered fashion, which support the status quo. This is not to suggest that gender or cultural ideologies are static. This is clear in the competing ideologies of equality legislation in Northern Ireland and traditional cultural practice. Despite this struggle, the current face of agricultural and rural restructuring is not one that significantly advances gender equality.
2. Measures of Multigroup Segregation
Authors: Reardon Sean F. , Firebaugh Glenn
Published: March 2003

In this paper we derive and evaluate measures of multigroup segregation. After describing four ways to conceptualize the measurement of multigroup segregation—as the disproportionality in group (e.g., race) proportions across organizational units (e.g., schools or census tracts), as the strength of association between nominal variables indexing group and organizational unit membership, as the ratio of between-unit diversity to total diversity, and as the weighted average of two-group segregation indices—we derive six multigroup segregation indices: a dissimilarity index (D), a Gini index (G), an information theory index (H), a squared coefficient of variation index (C), a relative diversity index (R), and a normalized exposure index (P). We evaluate these six indices against a set of seven desirable properties of segregation indices. We conclude that the information theory index H is the most conceptually and mathematically satisfactory index, since it alone obeys the principle of transfers in the multigroup case. Moreover, H is the only multigroup index that can be decomposed into a sum of between- and within-group components.
4. Reasoning with Partial Knowledge
Authors: Pólos László , Hannan Michael T.
Published: March 2003

We investigate how sociological argumentation differs from classical first-order logic. We focus on theories about age dependence of organizational mortality. The overall pattern of argument does not comply with the classical monotonicity principle: Adding premises overturns conclusions in an argument. The cause of nonmonotonicity is the need to derive conclusions from partial knowledge. We identify metaprinciples that appear to guide the observed sociological argumentation patterns, and we formalize a semantics to represent them. This semantics yields a new kind of logical consequence relation. We demonstrate that this new logic can reproduce the results of informal sociological theorizing and lead to new insights. It allows us to unify existing theory fragments, and it paves the way toward a complete classical theory.

Observed inferential patterns which seem “wrong” according to one notion of inference might just as well signal that the speaker is engaged in correct execution of another style of reasoning.

—Johan van Benthem (1996)
2. Sequence Comparison Viaalignment and Gibbs Sampling: A Formal Analysis of the Emergence of the Modern Sociological Article
Authors: Abbott Andrew , Barman Emily
Published: March 2003

Various substantive literatures in sociology seek small regularities in sequences: turning points in the life course, catalytic moments in organizational change, sharp turns in occupational trajectories, and the like. Commonly these are turning points, but they may also be simple local patterns. This paper reports a method for discovering such regularities even when they are quite faint, applying that method to rhetorical regularities in sociological articles. The paper begins by analyzing the overall sequence structure of such articles and then gives a basic introduction to Gibbs sampling, one member of the broader class of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. It then reports an algorithm employing Gibbs sampling to find local sequence regularities and applies that algorithm to demonstrate the subsequence regularities present in sociological articles. Substantively, the paper shows that the rhetorical structure of sociological articles changed from one pattern to another in the period 1895–1965 and that certain faint but standard rhetorical subsequences became characteristic of articles in the later period. Methodologically, it introduces a broad class of methods that provide effective approaches to a number of previously intractable statistical questions.
Ideological Language and Social Movement Mobilization: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Segregationists' Ideologies
Authors: Platt Gerald M. , Williams Rhys H.
Published: March 2003

The current “cultural turn” in the study of social movements has produced a number of concepts formulating the cultural-symbolic dimension of collective actions. This proliferation, however, has resulted in some confusion about which cultural-symbolic concept is best applied to understanding cultural processes involved in social movements. We articulate a new definition of ideology that makes it an empirically useful concept to the study of social-movement mobilization. It is also formulated as autonomous of concepts such as culture and hegemony and of other cultural-symbolic concepts presently used in the movement literature to explain participant mobilization. We demonstrate the usefulness of our ideology concept by analyzing letters written to Martin Luther King, Jr. from segregationists opposed to the integration of American society. The analysis indicates that the letter writers particularized segregationist culture, creating ideologies that fit their structural, cultural, and immediate circumstances, and that the ideologies they constructed thereby acted to mobilize their countermovement participation. The particularizing resulted in four differentiated ideological versions of segregationist culture. The empirically acquired variety of ideological versions is inconsistent with the role attributed to cultural-symbolic concepts in the social-movement literature and requires theoretical clarification. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical implications for social-movement theory of the variety of segregationist ideologies.
Agency and structure: the impact of ethnic identity and racism on the health of ethnic minority people
Authors: Karlsen Saffron , Nazroo James Y.
Published: March 2003

Abstract To understand ethnic inequalities in health, we must take account of the relationship between ethnic minority status, structural disadvantage and agency. So far, the direct effects of racial oppression on health, and the role of ethnicity as identity, which is in part a product of agency, have been ignored. We set out to redress this balance using data from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities. Factor analysis suggested that dimensions of ethnic identity were consistent across the various ethnic minority groups. Initially some of these dimensions of ethnic identity appeared to be related to health, but in a multivariate model the factor relating to a racialised identity was the only one that exhibited any relationship with health. These findings suggest that ethnic identity is not related to health. Rather, the multivariate analyses presented here showed strong independent relationships between health and experiences of racism, perceived racial discrimination and class.
Age and Gender in Women’s Accounts of Their Health: Interviews with Women in South Wales
Authors: Charles Nickie , Walters Vivienne
Published: March 2003

In‐depth interviews with 35 women in a working‐class community in South Wales suggest that there are generational differences both in the ways women talk about health and in their health experiences. These are linked with women’s differing social circumstances; changes over time in the ways in which health and ill health are explained; and the physical changes which are an unavoidable part of embodiment.

The ability to perform their roles with respect to social reproduction was a key element in women’s definitions of their health. Older women talked about arthritis and the ways in which it was a challenge to keep doing things while younger women talked about the stress they felt in juggling the roles of mother, wife, daughter and worker. Younger women were also more likely to talk about the problematic nature of gender relations and high levels of unemployment. Age thus structures women’s health problems and the ways they explain them.
Transforming the Mental Health Field: The Early History of the National Association for Mental Health
Authors: Crossley Nick
Published: March 2003

The paper begins by noting the absence of any sustained analysis of post‐war mental health pressure groups and movements. This is deemed problematic because such movements and groups have had a strong presence during this period and because movements, as such, are afforded a central role in much contemporary sociology on account of their role in the process of social change. Next the paper considers how such analysis should be conducted, and suggests a three‐phase model for periodising the activity of the groups and movements of the post‐war era. The largest part of the paper is then devoted to an examination of one particular aspect of the first phase: the birth of the National Association For Mental Health and their activities in their first ten years of life. Much can be learned from the study of this group.
Waiting for the cure: mapping the social relations of human gene therapy research
Authors: Stockdale Alan
Published: March 2003

This paper maps out the relationships between key participants in cystic fibrosis (CF) gene therapy research. These include relationships among researchers, physicians, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF), people with CF, and their families. Due to the structure of these relationships, aspects of the research process are at odds with the interests of people with CF. The CFF as an organisation focuses narrowly on a particular research agenda to the exclusion of other potentially competing concerns. People with CF are in a weak position to organise and assert their interests. Clinicians are more sceptical of the research enterprise but fail to play an effective mediating role for patients because of their own weak position relative to CF researchinterests.
DNA identification and surveillance creep
Authors: Nelkin Dorothy , Andrews Lori
Published: March 2003

The use of DNA fingerprinting as a means of identification is expanding. The technology appeals to military, law enforcement, and other government authorities: those seeking evidence to establish the identity of a dead body, a missing person, a relative, or the perpetrator of a crime. The increased use of DNA identification and the development of DNA banking systems have intensified concerns about surveillance and privacy. More than just a source of identification, DNA databanks are also subject to abuse for political or economic ends. This article describes the expansion of mandatory genetic testing focusing on disputes that have occured when those required to provide DNA samples raise concerns about psychological harm and discrimination based on the information revealed by their DNA. We use these disputes to analyse the problems of 'surveillance creep' as growing numbers of people have their DNA on file.
Apostasy to orthodoxy: debates before a Commission of Inquiry into chiropractic
Authors: Dew Kevin
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the arguments presented at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into chiropractic, which took place in New Zealand in 1978. Drawing on the work of Potter, it suggests that the protagonists in the debate, the medical profession and its allies on one side and the chiropractic profession on the other, developed rhetorical strategies to counter competing versions of the world. An unusual feature of this debate was that it took place before ‘impartial’ judges. The paper demonstrates the delicate process of negotiation performed by chiropractic groups when confronting medicine in an open forum. The paper concludes that in order to resolve the competing rhetorics, the Commissioners sought for a compromise, which at once embedded chiropractic within the public health service in New Zealand and ‘de‐radicalised’ its claims.
Self‐help groups in Belgium: their place in the care network
Authors: Damen Sofie , Mortelmans Dimitri , Van Hove Erik
Published: March 2003

Many academics consider self‐help groups as an important factor in the resurgence of democratic life in society. The academic debate on self‐help groups however, neglects the contextual connection of these groups. The article is based on a two‐fold piece of research in Belgium on self‐help groups. The image and the position of self‐help groups for breast cancer patients is examined. On the one hand, a quantitative network analysis shows the place of the group within the official medical health care network. On the other, this analysis is complemented by qualitative interviews on breast cancer patients. From these two analyses, some marked differences are detected between the positive image of self‐help groups in academic literature and the personal views of their target group (breast cancer patients).
System induced setbacks in stroke recovery
Authors: Hart Elizabeth
Published: March 2003

This study reports research on the experiences of stroke survivors and their informal carers who are receiving stroke services in the community. As part of a qualitative evaluation of a Pilot Community Stroke Service in Nottingham, England, interviews were conducted with stroke survivors, their families and friends, alongside interviews with the managers and professionals providing the service. The findings from the interview data were compared across cases and with findings from analyses of documentary data such as clients’ individual plans, and participant observational data, such as those of team meetings. Data analysis revealed that of the 57 survivors, 13 had suffered setbacks that were a direct consequence of their interactions with health and social care services and were system induced. This paper introduces and discusses the concept of the system induced setback by exploring the experiences of these 13 survivors. Implications for understanding the interplay of service provision and disease process are highlighted.
Operationalising the collection of ethnicity data in studies of the sociology of health and illness
Authors: Aspinall Peter J.
Published: March 2003

In response to the burgeoning interest in ethnic health issues and related published research, a number of recent contributors have attempted to clarify or systematise the usage of overarching terminology like ‘ethnicity’, ‘race’, ‘culture’, and ‘racism’, including the development of guidelines. However, the operational problems of how to collect ethnicity data in studies of the sociology of health and illness have not been satisfactorily addressed. This paper explores conceptual issues, notably, the meanings of ethnic identity and ethnic origin/ancestry; methodological approaches, including which dimensions to collect, multidimensional versus global measures, and exclusive groups versus optional ethnicity; and also practical issues such as method of assignment. The approach calls for a stronger development of the theoretical understandings of ethnicity and work on how best ethnicity should be conceptualised and measured in the different approaches to explaining ethnic inequalities in health.
The emergence and implications of a mental health ethos in juvenile justice
Authors: Armstrong Sarah
Published: March 2003

Study of the interaction of mental health and justice systems tends to focus on the ways that the respective realms inadvertently ‘capture’ each other's target populations. There has been little research into a system‐level analysis that can answer questions about how styles, organising principles and institutional values of one system relate to and are sometimes incorporated by the other. This paper reconsiders juvenile de‐institutionalisation in Massachusetts to document the emergence of a mental health ethos in the state's juvenile justice system of community‐based treatment. The emergence of this ethos superficially bears out an influential thesis in the sociology of punishment that penal practice has now become charactised by an amoral actuarialism. A more sophisticated criminological awareness of developments in mental health and the sociology of medicine would show how a mental health ethos might instead be understood to challenge the actuarial thesis, by providing a framework that reconciles the traditional aims of retribution and rehabilitation in punishment.
Nonparametric Estimation under Censoring and Passive Registration
Authors: Gill R. D.
Published: March 2003

The classical random censorship model assumes that we follow an individual continuously up to the time of failure or censoring, so observing this time as well as the indicator of its type. Under passive registration we only get information on the state of the individual at random observation or registration times. In this paper we assume that these registration times are the times of events in an independent Poisson process, stopped at failure or censoring; the time of failure is also observed if not censored. This problem turns up in historical demography, where the survival time of interest is the life‐length, censoring is by emigration, and the observation times are times of births of children, and other life‐events. (Church registers contain dates of births, marriages, deaths, but not emigrations.) The model is shown to be related to the problem of estimating a density known to be monotone. This leads to an explicit description of the non‐parametric maximum likelihood estimator of the survival function (based on i.i.d. observations from this model) and to an analysis of its large sample properties.
Bayesian estimation of transition probabilities from repeated cross sections
Authors: Pelzer Ben , Eisinga Rob
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses some simple practical advantages of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods in estimating entry and exit transition probabilities from repeated independent surveys. Simulated data are used to illustrate the usefulness of MCMC methods when the likelihood function has multiple local maxima. Actual data on the evaluation of an HIV prevention intervention program among drug users are used to demonstrate the advantage of using prior information to enhance parameter identificaiton. The latter example also demonstrates an important strength of the MCMC approach, namely the ability to make inferences on arbitrary functions of model parameters.
Forward recursion for markov decision processes with skip‐free‐to‐the‐right transitions part ii: non‐standard applications
Authors: Wijngaard J. , Stidham S.
Published: March 2003

This paper is the sequel to Wijngaard and Stidham (1986). The topic is a countable state average reward semi‐Markov decision process with a transition mechanism that is skip‐free to the right. The applications are controlled GI/M/1 queues. Skip‐free to the right means that state n cannot be reached from the states i(<n) without reaching first state n−1. In such decision processes the reversed optimality equation can be used to estimate the optimal average reward by bi‐section. Wijngaard and Stidham (1986) show that it is possible to use upper and lower bounds on the value function for this bi‐section. This paper considers queueing problems where this bi‐section can not be used in a standard way. Instead of an upper bound on the value function is is possible now to use the character of the optimal strategy.
Rotation Patterns and Trend Estimation for Repeated Surveys Using Rotation Group Estimates
Authors: McLaren C. H. , Steel D. G.
Published: March 2003

A general approach for constructing filters to produce trend estimates from a repeated survey is described. This approach accounts for the correlation structure induced by the rotation pattern used in the survey. Different filters are developed depending on whether the trend analysis is based on elementary estimates available for each rotation group or overall estimates obtained by combining the rotation group estimates. The properties of trend estimates obtained directly from the elementary estimates, those obtained from the simple average of the rotation group estimates and trend estimates obtained from the best linear unbiased estimates of the population characteristics of interest are compared. These comparisons are done for a number of rotation pattern, enabling an assessment of the impact of the choice of rotation patterns on trend estimation.
A two–stage approach to additive time series models
Authors: Cai Zongwu
Published: March 2003

For nonlinear additive time series models, an appealing approach used in the literature to estimate the nonparametric additive components is the projection method. In this paper, it is demonstrated that the projection method might not be efficient in an asymptotic sense. To estimate additive components efficiently, a two–stage approach is proposed together with a local linear fitting and a new bandwidth selector based on the nonparametric version of the Akaike information criterion. It is shown that the two–stage method not only achieves efficiency but also makes bandwidth selection relatively easier. Also, the asymptotic normality of the resulting estimator is established. A small simulation study is carried out to illustrate the proposed methodology and the two–stage approach is applied to a real example from econometrics.
Monitoring the mean and the variance of a stationary process
Authors: Knoth S. , Schmid W.
Published: March 2003

We deal with the problem of how deviations in the mean or the variance of a time series can be detected. Several simultaneous control charts are introduced which are based on EWMA (exponentially weighted moving average) statistics for the mean and the empirical variance. The combined X − S2 EWMA chart is extended to time series. Further simultaneous charts are considered. The comparision of these schemes shows that the residual attempt must be favored if a variance change is present.
The Simple Present Tense in English: A Unified Treatment
Authors: Cowper Elizabeth
Published: March 2003

This paper provides a unified account of the matrix uses of the English simple present. The differences between eventive and stative sentences in the simple present, as well as reportive, futurate and habitual uses of eventive sentences are shown to derive straightforwardly from a single constraint on grammatical tense systems: the Principle of Non‐Simultaneity of Points. The analysis supports a view of speech time as a moment, rather than an interval, in the unmarked case, and also supports the purely Davidsonian view that only eventive sentences contain an event‐denoting element.
Reviews
Authors: Reis Marga
Published: March 2003

Book reviewed in this article:

Önnerfors, O., Verb‐erst‐Deklarativsätze. Grammatik und Pragmatik
Quirky agreement
Authors: Boeckx Cedric
Published: March 2003

Verb agreement with a nominative element is severely constrained in Icelandic when a Quirky “subject” is present: only partial (number, not person) agreement obtains. This paper tries to account for this restriction in terms of Bonet's 1994 Person‐Case‐Constraint, which blocks ‘object’ person agreement when agreement with a dative element takes place. I put forward the idea that agreement obtains with Quirky subjects, but fails to show up morphologically on the verb for non‐syntactic reasons. The analysis is extended to other languages, which allows me to address the issue of the nature of Quirky Case, and of inherent Case more generally.
An Integrable Discretization of a 2+1‐dimensional Sine‐Gordon Equation
Authors: Nimmo J. J. C. , Schief W. K.
Published: March 2003

We show that the complex discrete BKP equation that has been recently identified as an integrable discretization of the 2+1‐dimensional sine‐Gordon system introduced by Konopelchenko and Rogers admits a natural reduction to a discrete 2+1‐dimensional sine‐Gordon equation. We discuss three important properties of this equation. First, it may be interpreted as a superposition principle associated with a constrained Moutard transformation. Second, the complexified discrete sine‐Gordon equation constitutes an eigenfunction equation for the discrete sine‐Gordon system. Third, we derive a form of the equation in terms of trigonometric functions that has been studied by Konopelchenko and Schief in a discrete geometric context. A discrete Moutard transformation for the discrete sine‐Gordon equation and the corresponding Bäcklund equations are also recorded.
Instability in Parallel Flows Revisited
Authors: Friedlander Susan , Howard Louis
Published: March 2003

An example of an unstable inviscid plane parallel shear flow with classical boundary conditions is presented. The complete unstable spectrum is exhibited using techniques of continued fractions for the shear flow with profile U(y)=cos m y. For such flows spectral instability implies nonlinear instability. A three‐dimensional generalization is discussed.