In this volume we present some o~ the papers that were delivered at FUR-82 - the First International Con~erence on Foundations o~ Utility and Risk Theory in Oslo, June 1982. The purpose o~ the con~erence was to provide a ~orum within which scientists could report on interesting applications o~ modern decision theory and exchange ideas about controversial issues in the ~oundations o~ the theory o~ choice under un certainty. With that purpose in mind we have selected a mixture of applied and theoretical papers that we hope will appeal to a wide spectrum o~ readers ~rom graduate students in social science departments and business schools to people involved in making hardheaded decisions in business and government. In an introductory article Ole Hagen gives an overview o~ various paradoxes in utility and risk theory and discusses these in the light o~ scientific methodology. He concludes the article by calling ~or joint efforts to provide decision makers with warkable theories. Kenneth Arrow takes up the same issue on a broad basis in his paper where he discusses the implications o~ behavior under uncertainty for policy. In the theoretical papers the reader will ~ind attempts at de~initive Statements of the meaning o~ old concepts and suggestions for the adoption o~ new concepts. For instance, Maurice Allais discusses four di~ferent interpretations o~ the axioms o~ probability and explains the need ~or an empirical characterization o~ the concept of chance.

As the real world is rapidly becoming more and more complicated, economists need to venture beyond the boundaries of mainstream economics and integrate philosophical thought and complexity into their analytical frameworks. In this context, this volume brings together papers on economic theory and its related issues, exploring complex production systems and heterogeneously interacting human behavior. The author challenges economists to integrate economic theory and moral science anew by referring to evolutionary economics and socio-econophysics. The three parts of the book focus on the complexities of production and social interaction, the moral science of heterogeneous economic interaction, and the Avatamsaka 's dilemma of the two-person game with only positive spillovers.

The Anthropology of Child and Youth Care Work presents and illustrates an anthropological model of child and youth care work and explores the associated benefits of such an approach. Author Rivka A. Eisikovits'model enhances workers'on-the-job effectiveness with clients and co-workers and improves intra- and inter-organizational communication with other human service providers. This book prepares child and youth care providers, educators, researchers, administrators, consultants, supervisors, and organizers to become change-sensitive, process-oriented observers, analysts, and co-designers of the systems within which they function and those with which they interact, such as families, communities, and referral agencies. The model presented in The Anthropology of Child and Youth Care Work offers readers an organic continuum between everyday work experience and conceptual practice, organizing such haphazard events into a systemized body of knowledge. Although providing specific skills, it is more than a technology--it is a humanistic worldview from which a humanistic practice philosophy can be derived. Specific points of this philosophy that child and youth care professionals learn about include: the cultural learning theory ethnographic inquiry and description staff-client relations the sick-role trap microcultural events in residential settings the relationship between treatment and education subsystems a heuristic approach to service delivery family cultural ethnography for cultural sensitizationEisikovits'anthropologic perspective broadens the horizons of child and youth care work and equips practitioners to transcend narrowly drawn organizational boundaries. By presenting caregivers as cultural translators between their clients and various decision-making forums, The Anthropology of Child and Youth Care Work prepares them to face the challenges of a dynamic emergent profession and helps them perform successfully in a rapidly changing social context that requires constant assessment of needs and evaluation of performance.

Over the past decade, several major natural disasters have had devastating impacts throughout the United States and the world. Since larger populations now live and work on land vulnerable to various hazards, natural disasters can be expected to affect more people each year. As a result, the social work profession soon will be stretched to its limits as it attempts to respond to growing human needs in the wake of hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, floods, earthquakes, and human-made technological disasters. Research on Social Work and Disasters provides the essential strategies social work researchers, other social scientists in the area of disaster research, and emergency management personnel need to prepare for and recover from all forms of disaster.Focusing on hazard, risk, and disaster research, this book presents conceptual approaches and empirical findings in this emerging and important area of social work. It includes research on natural and technological disasters as they impact both rural and urban environments. Research on Social Work and Disasters offers conceptual and methodological guidelines for social work researchers and provides insight into the range of opportunities and issues relevant for disaster research. Specific topics you will learn about include: research design, methodology, and measurement community awareness and activism traumatic stress and stress debriefing funding and ethical issues vulnerable populations hazard education action researchResearch on Social Work and Disasters not only addresses effective strategies for responding in the aftermath of particular disasters, but also suggests significant ways in which the social work profession can become involved in prevention, mitigation, and preparedness activities. The book features examples of recent research on disasters chosen to illustrate a variety of types of disasters, theoretical approaches, methodologies, and levels of analysis. The implications drawn from this book are consistent in suggesting the responsibility of society to care for vulnerable populations and to share the burdens caused by catastrophic events.

Over the past decade, several major natural disasters have had devastating impacts throughout the United States and the world. Since larger populations now live and work on land vulnerable to various hazards, natural disasters can be expected to affect more people each year. As a result, the social work profession soon will be stretched to its limits as it attempts to respond to growing human needs in the wake of hurricanes, tornadoes, storms, floods, earthquakes, and human-made technological disasters. Research on Social Work and Disasters provides the essential strategies social work researchers, other social scientists in the area of disaster research, and emergency management personnel need to prepare for and recover from all forms of disaster.Focusing on hazard, risk, and disaster research, this book presents conceptual approaches and empirical findings in this emerging and important area of social work. It includes research on natural and technological disasters as they impact both rural and urban environments. Research on Social Work and Disasters offers conceptual and methodological guidelines for social work researchers and provides insight into the range of opportunities and issues relevant for disaster research. Specific topics you will learn about include: research design, methodology, and measurement community awareness and activism traumatic stress and stress debriefing funding and ethical issues vulnerable populations hazard education action researchResearch on Social Work and Disasters not only addresses effective strategies for responding in the aftermath of particular disasters, but also suggests significant ways in which the social work profession can become involved in prevention, mitigation, and preparedness activities. The book features examples of recent research on disasters chosen to illustrate a variety of types of disasters, theoretical approaches, methodologies, and levels of analysis. The implications drawn from this book are consistent in suggesting the responsibility of society to care for vulnerable populations and to share the burdens caused by catastrophic events.

Since its first appearance in 1979, Research in Finance has been publishing papers that cover important and interesting issues in finance and economics. The topics found in the series span a wide range; previous volumes have included papers on corporate financial management policy, asset pricing and investment management, corporate control and governance, bank regulations and management, and the analysis of financial derivatives and their applications in risk management and in venture capital investment. These papers, among others, have made significant contributions to the literature.
In this volume, Bajaj, Vijh and Westerfield present evidence showing that ownership structure affects a firm's agency costs of cash flow, which, in turn, influences the market's reaction to changes in the firm's dividend policy. McNabb and Martin examine the relationship between managerial entrenchment and the effectiveness of internal governance mechanisms and the firm performances. In their paper, Kang, Karim and Rutledge apply a relative excess value ratio approach to empirically examine the association between the CEO compensations and the firms' performances. And Almisher, Buell and Kish, using accounting beta as a proxy for ex ante systematic risk of a firm, find a strong positive relationship between the firm's systematic risk and the subsequent degree of underpricing of its IPO.
Also in this volume, Kwan and Wilcox show the disparity between accounting and actual cost reductions in bank mergers, and point out the importance of avoiding the accounting bias in reporting the cost reduction in bank mergers. Gunther and Siems empirically find that a desire to hedge balance sheet positions andhaving a strong capital position are the key motivations for banks' involvement in derivatives activities. Shyu and Reichert examine the key financial and regulatory factors that determine the derivatives activities of both U.S. and foreign banks. In their paper, Yin, Wu and Chen explore the joint effects of the changes in capital regulation and deposit insurance system on banks' returns and risks in Taiwan.
Based upon the one-factor equilibrium term structure model of Cox-Ingersoll-Ross, Chen and Chaudhury examine the market values and dynamic interest rate risks of existing swap positions. Chang and Ho derive formula of duration for different bonds under the Heath-Jarrow-Morton model of term structure and compare the relative performances of dynamic and static immunization strategies. In their paper, Boyle, Byoun and Park use intraday transactions data to show that the S&P 500 index option market leads the cash index, and that the lead-lag relation has resulted in a significant bias of the implied volatility that confirms their theoretical conjecture. Finally, Bubna uses a moral hazard model to address issues in the formation of syndicates in venture capital industry and to present some useful policy implications.
May the contributions within this volume be of significant interest and usefulness to its readers. And may Research in Finance continue to publish papers of the highest caliber, to the benefit of academics and practitioners alike.

This collection of 11 original in-depth accounts of qualitative research and evaluation in developing countries argues that such innovative methods offer considerable advantages over traditional methods. With examples drawn from Asia, Africa, the South Pacific, Central America and the Caribbean, each chapter focuses upon a specific method-such as qualitative interviews, fieldwork or document analysis-and considers related theoretical and practical issues. Key issues addressed include the identification of appropriate research questions; access; research ethics; practitioner research; case study evaluation; North-South collaboration and the potential of qualitative research for policy-making and theory.

Norbert Elias has been recognized as one of the key social scientists of the 20th century at least in sociology, political science and history. This book will address Norbert Elias's approach to empirical research, the use of his work in empirical research, and compare him with other theorists.

The term "skill" encompasses an array of topics and issues. For example, individuals are skilled in a variety of domains such as chess, typing, air traffic control, or knitting; researchers study skill in a variety of ways, including speed of acquisition, accuracy of performance, and retention over time; and there are a variety of approaches to the study of skill such as computer modeling or experimental analysis. Contributing to the understanding of whether, how, when, and why skills may decline as a function of age is the goal of this volume.
This book is based on the Aging and Skill Conference sponsored by the Center for Applied Cognitive Research on Aging. The broad focus of the conference was to discuss cognitive theories underlying age-related skill acquisition, transfer, and retention and to discuss applications of these theories to such issues as age-adaptive training, compensatory strategies and devices, and utilization of new and existing technology. The contributors were asked to discuss the cognitive theory relevant to their topic, explain how the theory informs the field about aging, examine where gaps exist among general cognitive theory in this area and theories of aging, and demonstrate the practical relevance of the theory to enhancing or enabling activities of daily living--for work, home, or leisure--for older adults.
This is the first book to focus exclusively on aging and skill. It covers a range of abilities, provides the theoretical basis for the current status of age-related differences in skill, and offers direct evidence of the applicability of research on proficiency to aspects of daily living. Each chapter was written either by an expert in the field of aging, or by an expert in the field of skill--many expert in both areas.

This book was written with the belief that ordinal statistical methods--sometimes discussed under the title of "nonparametric statistics"--deserve much more serious attention as research tools than they have traditionally had. There are three classes of reasons for this:
*Many behavioral variables constitute only ordinal scales, not interval measurements that are required for traditional statistics.
*Various research issues that are of primary interest in behavioral research are themselves questions about order: Which group scores higher? Is the order on this variable similar to the order on that?
*Inferences from ordinal statistics are less subject to distributional peculiarities of the data than are those from traditional statistics.
Taking an innovative approach, this book treats ordinal methods in an integrated way rather than as a compendium of unrelated methods, and emphasizes that the ordinal quantities are highly meaningful in their own right, not just as stand-ins for more traditional correlations or analyses of variance. In fact, since the ordinal statistics have desirable descriptive properties of their own, the book treats them parametrically, rather then nonparametrically. The author discusses how ordinal statistics can be applied in a much wider set of research situations than has usually been thought, and that they can often come closer to answering the researcher's primary questions than traditional ones can. And he includes some extensions of ordinal methods in order to accomplish that end.

Basic researchers unlock the secrets of nature; applied researchers unlock the means by which those secrets of nature can change people's lives. Neither basic nor applied research has an independent impact. These volumes examine the convergence of basic and applied research in the field of memory. "Volume 1: Theory and Context, " focuses on the methods for understanding and applying basic memory theory, while "Volume 2: Practical Applications, " expands the understanding of practical memory research by providing in-depth research examples and findings.
If the science of memory is to make a significant contribution to society, coordinating our basic and applied efforts and determining how they complement each other become of paramount importance. These volumes will help in this regard--both as textbooks demonstrating how to investigate memory and apply basic memory theory, and as reference sources leading to a better understanding of certain problems in basic and applied memory research.
Readers of these volumes will gain a thorough grasp of the way major themes relate to basic and applied research collaboration, how programmatic basic and applied research can be conducted on particular memory problems, and the manner in which basic and applied work in major problem areas has been incorporated into the field of memory. Both volumes present important information that will be indispensable to researchers and students alike.

This is the first technical book that considers tests as public tools and examines how to engineer and process test data, extract the structure within the data to be visualized, and thereby make test results useful for students, teachers, and the society. The author does not differentiate test data analysis from data engineering and information visualization. This monograph introduces the following methods of engineering or processing test data, including the latest machine learning techniques: classical test theory (CTT), item response theory (IRT), latent class analysis (LCA), latent rank analysis (LRA), biclustering (co-clustering), and Bayesian network model (BNM). CTT and IRT are methods for analyzing test data and evaluating students' abilities on a continuous scale. LCA and LRA assess examinees by classifying them into nominal and ordinal clusters, respectively, where the adequate number of clusters is estimated from the data. Biclustering classifies examinees into groups (latent clusters) while classifying items into fields (factors). Particularly, the infinite relational model discussed in this book is a biclustering method feasible under the condition that neither the number of groups nor the number of fields is known beforehand. Additionally, the local dependence LRA, local dependence biclustering, and bicluster network model are methods that search and visualize inter-item (or inter-field) network structure using the mechanism of BNM. As this book offers a new perspective on test data analysis methods, it is certain to widen readers' perspective on test data analysis.

One of the most promising trends in modem political science is the develop ment of a theory of politics as rational action. Focussing on choice as the central topic of study, rational choice theorists set out to specify what alter native an actor should prefer if he has some given knowledge of the conse quences of each alternative and wants to see his preference system as fully realized as possible. But rational choice theory is not confmed to the norma tive sphere of science. It can also be used for explanatory purposes. Then, the alternatives actually chosen are specified and the task is to explain the decisions by fmding out what considerations lay behind them. The starting point for an emerging research program at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, on 'Politics as Rational Action' is to describe the major choices in fifteen different policy areas of Swedish domes tic politics and explain why they were made."

Combining anecdotal accounts, inter-professional experiences, critical debate and practical pointers to being a good observer, this book explores issues surrounding observation in social science-orientated research.

This volume is intended to serve as a didactically-oriented resource covering a broad range of advanced topics often not discussed in introductory courses on structural equation modeling (SEM). Such topics are important in furthering the understanding of foundations and assumptions underlying SEM as well as in exploring SEM as a potential tool to address new types of research questions that might not have arisen during a first course. Chapters focus on the clear explanation and application of topics, rather than on analytical derivations, and contain syntax and partial output files from popular SEM software.

The American Educational History Journal is a peer-reviewed national research journal devoted to the examination of educational topics using perspectives from a variety of disciplines. The editors of AEHJ encourage communication between scholars from numerous disciplines, nationalities, institutions, and backgrounds. Authors come from a variety of disciplines including political science, curriculum, history, philosophy, teacher education, and educational leadership. Acceptance for publication in AEHJ requires that each author present a well-articulated argument that deals substantively with questions of educational history.

Thirty-three of the top scholars in this fast moving domain present a picture of work at the cusp in social psychology -- work that deals with cognition and affect in close relationships. The present volume contains a wealth of research findings and influential theoretical accounts that spring as much from indigenous work in the close relationship field as from purebred social cognition. The chapters introduce theories and research programs concerned with the role of individual and couple differences in close relationship knowledge structures. They deal with the role of emotion and affect in close relationships. And they discuss the function of cognition and knowledge structures in relation to the developmental course of close relationships. Each section is accompanied by a critical review written by an expert in the field.
This volume is a must for any close relationship scholar interested in the latest research and theorizing about close relationships that adopt a social psychological perspective. It will also be of interest to scholars and students working in clinical psychology, social cognition, communication, individual differences, and family studies.

This volume analyses the quantification of the effect of factors measuring subjective well-being, and in particular on the metrics applied. With happiness studies flourishing over the last decades, both in number of publications as well as in their exposure, researchers working in this field are aware of potential weaknesses and pitfalls of these metrics. Contributors to this volume reflect on different factors influencing quantification, such as scale size, wording, language, biases, and cultural comparability in order to raise awareness on the tools and on their conditions of use.

The Ninth Edition of Social Statistics for a Diverse Society continues to emphasize intuition and common sense, while demonstrating the link between the practice of statistics and important social issues. Recognizing that we live in a world characterized by a growing diversity and richness of social differences, best-selling authors Frankfort-Nachmias, Leon-Guerrero, and Davis help you learn key statistical concepts through real research examples related to the dynamic interplay of race, class, gender, and other social variables. The text also helps you develop important skills such as problem-solving (through a rich variety of exercises), use of statistical software (both SPSS and Excel), and interpreting research literature.

"Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management" publishes monograph length conceptual papers designed to promote theory and research on important substantive and methodological topics in the field of human resources management. It is considered to be one of the most respectable publications in the field of human resources management and acts as a primary resource to both individuals and series.

The authors of "Research as Social Change" argue in clear and accessible language that teaching, learning and research are essentially social and deeply personal activities. This is not a conventional text, for although it is about ways in which research can be used by those in various areas of professional practice, it does not simply catalog or describe conventional research methods. The book's main concerns are qualitative research, research in action (rather than in abstraction) and case study methods. Rob Walker and Michael Schratz give examples of research that are concerned with the nature of personal memories and discuss what is worth doing in reviewing research literature. Other topics covered include the social nature of perception, the uses that research can make of drawings and photographs, the emotional relationships implicit in research and research in the context of the contemporary workplace.
Walker and Schratz develop new directions and new possibilities for research and find ways of bringing together theory and practice, the personal and the social as well as organizations and their clients. It is an important resource and means of support for all who are interested in doing research but are critical of most studies that are currently available.