Search

The rise of the Internet, social media, and digitized historical archives has produced a colossal amount of text-based data in recent years. While computer scientists have produced powerful new tools for automated analyses of such 'big data,' they lack the theoretical direction necessary to extract meaning from them. Meanwhile, cultural sociologists have produced sophisticated theories of the social origins of meaning, but lack the methodological capacity to explore them beyond micro-levels of analysis. I propose a synthesis of these two fields that adjoins conventional qualitative methods and new techniques for automated analysis of large amounts of text in iterative fashion. First, I explain how automated text extraction methods may be used to map the contours of cultural environments. Second, I discuss the potential of automated text-classification methods to classify different types of culture such as frames, schema, or symbolic boundaries. Finally, I explain how these new tools can be combined with conventional qualitative methods to trace the evolution of such cultural elements over time. While my assessment of the integration of big data and cultural sociology is optimistic, my conclusion highlights several challenges in implementing this agenda. These include a lack of information about the social context in which texts are produced, the construction of reliable coding schemes that can be automated algorithmically, and the relatively high entry costs for cultural sociologists who wish to develop the technical expertise currently necessary to work with big data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptions of well-being are cognitive representations of the nature and experience of well-being. These conceptions can be described generally by the degree to which hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions are emphasized as important aspects of the experience of well-being. In two studies, the prediction that eudaimonic dimensions of individual conceptions of well-being are more robustly associated with self-reported well-being than hedonic dimensions was investigated. Correlational analyses indicated that both hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions were associated with well-being, with more robust associations observed between the eudaimonic dimension and each measure of well-being. In several regression analyses, only the eudaimonic dimension significantly predicted well-being, with the hedonic dimension failing to account for unique variance in well-being beyond that predicted by the eudaimonic dimension. Results thus generally suggest that conceptualizing well-being in eudaimonic terms may be relatively more important for positive psychological functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present a new global evaluation methodology for constructing composite indicators. Given the limitations in the construction of wellbeing indicators that include a gender perspective, this paper proposes separate measures for men and women, using new linear programming models to improve the traditional Data Envelopment Analysis models. We obtain composite indicators using common weights (which are most and least favourable) so that the indicators' values are able to discriminate between all units and provide a global vision of each one. This approach does not require prior knowledge of the weights for initial indicators, nor does it require a normalization method. Thus, the new composite indicator is less subjective than others. For the practical implementation of this proposal, we use the countries of the European Union as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study life course trajectories and ageing, scientific expertise is needed beyond epidemiology. More specifically, appropriate models of life course require a theoretical micro-foundation, need to incorporate multi-level context conditions and the interplay between them. It also requires the application of additional social scientific research methods that go beyond the application of statistical methods based on the multi-stage life table. These research theories and methods are available in disciplines like sociology, cultural anthropology, psychology, demography and economics. To effectively study healthy ageing of populations the individual approach of epidemiology has to be extended with the macro-population and socio-cultural approach of (social) demography and the institutional and network approaches of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes methods for testing mediation and moderation effects in a dataset, both together and separately. Investigations of this kind are especially valuable in prevention research to obtain information on the process by which a program achieves its effects and whether the program is effective for subgroups of individuals. A general model that simultaneously estimates mediation and moderation effects is presented, and the utility of combining the effects into a single model is described. Possible effects of interest in the model are explained, as are statistical methods to assess these effects. The methods are further illustrated in a hypothetical prevention program example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A tightened linkage between theory and data would enhance cumulative sociological knowledge. Toward that end this article selectivity reviews and develops social structural theories – theories that explain data. It focuses on statistical methods and process models because both approaches advance cumulative social science, and the tension between their advocates works against disciplinary solidarity. Boudon’s structural schematics cover all of the examples, suggesting a common perspective that can lessen the friction among practitioners of these forms of quantitative analysis and refocus much of the diversity of current sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the help of a continuation theorem based on Gaines and Mawhin's coincidence degree, several verifiable criteria are established for the global existence of positive periodic solutions of a class of non–autonomous single species population model with delays (both state–dependent delays and continuous delays) and feedback control. After that, by constructing a suitable Lyapunov functional, sufficient conditions which guarantee the existence of a unique globally asymptotic stable positive periodic solution of a kind of nonlinear feedback control ecosystem are obtained. Our results extend and improve the existing results, and have further applications in population dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of International Migration & Integration is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Discusses the psychological, sociological, and economic processes that can produce bias in the interpretation and use of social science research evidence by researchers and research consumers. Details of the alleged U.S. distortion of Dutch drug statistics; Reason for the misinterpretations of research; Information on the Dutch cannabis policies and outcomes.

This article deals with principles that can serve as guidelines for creating and disseminating dubious social problems statistics. It was said that in contemporary society, social problems must compete for attention, to the degree that one problem gains media coverage and moves to the top of politicians' agenda or become the subject of public concern. Social problems statistics often involve dubious data. Activists trying to promote a new social problem view false negatives as more troubling than false positives. Any effort to improve the quality of public discussion of social statistics needs to begin with the understanding that numbers are socially constructed. Public discussions of social statistics need to chart a middle path between naivete, the assumption that numbers are simply true and cynicism, the suspicion that figures are outright lies told by people with bad motives.

There are many situations that exist in science and technology where the performance of a set of subjects that are in competition with one another is evaluated in some way by a set of evaluators who act as judges. This paper presents a methodology by which these judges themselves can be evaluated in a manner that describes the relative standards they use in the evaluation process, their consistency, and how well they compare to a hypothetical ideal judge. The methodology is computationally simple, can be justified in a theoretical manner, and is easy to apply across a wide range of problem types. It can also be used in a predictive manner to indicate how absent judges would have most likely evaluated subjects if they were able to make such an evaluation. A number of empirical examples which fully describe the methodology are discussed in this paper along with the results of applying it to a sizeable real-world problem. The methodology is applicable to a number of areas of physical and social sciences and can be extended, as presented in this manuscript, in a manner which can be applied to other diverse problems in mathematical sociology, computer engineering, and graph theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Goodman (1972) proposed several models for the analysis of the general 1 x 1 square tables with particular emphasis on social mobility data. We demonstrate in this paper, that most of his models can be reproduced by combinations of both new models proposed here and the various well known models that have received considerable attention in the literature. Our presentation here is both concise and simple to comprehend. The various models considered in this study are fitted to ten data sets that include the much analyzed 5 x 5 Danish and British Social mobility data sets. Results suggest that in some cases more parsimonious models than those considered earlier by various authors are possible for the explanations of the variations in the data analyzed in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While a great deal of the literature has been dedicated to statistical modeling to use illustrate conceptual models, one simple but important area, not adequately covered, is the exploration of the "causal nexus". This is that usually unexplored area between a predictor variable and the criterion variable which may beg the question. "Why?" That is, why as that indicator or predictor variable related to the criterion? Or, just how are they related? To explore the nexus a series of progressively more accurate hypotheses should be tested. This process is termed a "nexus analytic approach" In this research note the process, the logic, and a form for its presentation is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polynomial regression, long known to provide an approach to curvilinear analyses, is limited by its inability to provide clearly interpretable results as required by disciplines such as sociology. First, as social scientist J.A. Stimson emphasize, any attempt to attach meaning in the sense of partial effects of the polynomial terms is nonsensical. Second, when polynomial regression is used in sociological explanation, the absolute contribution of each term in the equation becomes critical. With ordinary polynomial regression, the multicollinearity is of such magnitude that it is usually not possible to obtain stable estimates of each variable's contribution. This paper demonstrates the limitations of the translation technique and presents a straightforward algorithm for its application when appropriate. A special form of the polynomial is then developed which, for specific shapes of the function, can estimate a polynomial of any degree without encountering the problems which have limited application of the polynomial to both theory and measurement models.

The more one has read about whether or not it is problematical to use ratio correlations to test various sociological hypotheses, the more convincing the arguments on both sides of the question have seemed. One explanation for this, of course, is one's own naivete. Another explanation of this apparent contradiction is that the evident authority of these various arguments may depend on the assumed statistical conditions used to illustrate them. The results in the article suggest no single "solution" to the particular ratio-correlation problem considered here, at least in the statistical sense. Authors have suggested that there is, however, a general conceptual and theoretical solution. The solution has two parts: the theoretical argument must clearly involve concepts, which require ratio measurement; and the definitions of these concepts must address the problem of how the concepts are to be measured. This solution involves nothing new, at least in a very general way. In the introductory methods courses, and occasionally in the advanced ones, authors preach as a kind of revealed truth the need for a clear link between theoretical argument and testing, unequivocally mediated by the operational definitions of the concepts.

According to sociologist Kenneth Arrow's celebrated impossibility theorem, the following six conditions governing a pairwise collective-choice process are jointly inconsistent: collective rationality, unrestricted domain, independence, Pareto condition, non-dictatorship, and the assumption that the universal set A of alternatives has three or more members. The condition of collective rationality states that the relations of collective preference and collective indifference are both transitive. The author in this article generalizes the Mass-Colell-Sonnenschein theorem in three ways. First, he weaken the unrestricted domain condition by dropping the assumption that the domain contains nonlinear individual preferences; second, he drop the condition of positive responsiveness, which says that a single individual can break any tie; and third, in place of acyclicity or even triple acyclicity, he assume only that, for some possible cycle size, there is no collective-preference cycle of that size.

This article clarifies the generalized product-moment system by reintroducing the (squared) semi-partial correlation coefficient in the context of path analysis. This statistic is virtually un-explicated in most sociological statistics texts and presentations of path analysis, even though it is of fundamental importance in assessing the usefulness of an independent variable. Usefulness is the increment in explained variance, due to an independent variable when it is added last to a regression equation. In simple multivariate causal systems, a variable's unique effect and its path coefficient have a simple relationship. In such systems it is efficacious to convert the squared path coefficient into a unique effect since the squared path coefficient overestimates the direct causal effect. When commonalities analysis is applied to systems with exogenous and endogenous variables, then path-analytic decomposition rules should guide the allocation of commonalities as portraying causal effect. Without this allocation, a unique effect may underestimate the actual causal influence.

Age data for 3,393 children, six years of age and under, in rural Bangladesh are analyzed for the level and pattern of age misstatement. Random error, age heaping at whole years, and preferences for particular ages are found in the data. Variation in age reporting is discovered to increase monotonically with age. Systematic errors in age misstatement display modest overstatement for the first four years of life and more pronounced understatement for ages 4, 5, and 6. Age misstatement is examined for its effect on one indicator often used in nutritional surveillance--weight-for-age of children. The impact of the various types of age misstatement (a) increases the difficulty of interpreting weight-for-age and (b) obscures accurate understanding of malnutrition in Bangladeshi children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have now been formally warned that not only is .05 not sacred, but the selection of a significance level is a complex process. One major suggestion by sociologist J.K. Skipper, et al. is that the researcher should no longer choose a standard level, but reports the obtained level, e.g., .40 or .003. On the one hand, this suggestion seems to involve less thinking than choosing the conventional .05 or .01. At least here there are two or three conventions on which to base a selection. On the other hand, reporting the obtained level and letting the reader figure out the significance is not entirely a new suggestion. Some authors already have been reporting the obtained level, and they do not appear to give more consideration to the dynamics of a significance level any more than their more conventional colleagues. However, the article by Skipper and his associates may prove to be important, if it can sensitize sociologists to some of the serious problems involved with tests of significance. The authors give three suggestions pertaining to significance levels and how to report them: (1) think and reflect on the arbitrary nature of conventional levels of significance, (2) report the actual level obtained, and (3) regardless of the level obtained, give an opinion on whether or not it supports the hypothesis. If these suggestions are followed extensively in research reporting, some of the problems of interpreting significance tests should diminish.

Presents a letter to the editor about the article "Theorizing and Statistics."

The article provides statistical information related to sexual behavior surveys and astronomy. The average duration of sexual intercourse, according to a U.S. survey, is 7 minutes 54 seconds. On the other hand, the distance traveled by Earth around the Sun is 14,191 kilometers based on the calculation of British astronomers. Meanwhile, 143 million kilometers is the total amount the Earth moves during sex based in the expansion of the Universe.

Presents a letter to the editor in response to the article "On Being Scientific: Changing Styles of Presentation of Sociological Research," by James L. McCartney, on research in sociology, published in the February 1970 issue of "The American Sociologist."