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Efforts to improve the public welfare and child welfare system sparked an unprecedented amount of federal legislation in the 1990s, including the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and Interethnic Adoption Provisions of 1996 (MEPA-IEP), and welfare reform. Such reforms allow an unprecedented degree of flexibility, but little is known about their implementation. Researchers administered the Local Agency Survey to the first national probability sample of public child welfare agencies from 1999 to 2000. Findings indicate that ASFA has had the most effect on child welfare service delivery. Welfare reform has had less effect, and MEPA-IEP seems to have had little effect at all.

Held in October 2018, The Big Data Meets Survey Science conference, also known as "BigSurv18," provided a first-of-its-kind opportunity for survey researchers, statisticians, computer scientists, and data scientists to convene under the same roof. At this conference, scientists from multiple disciplines were able to exchange ideas about their work might influence and enhance the work of others. This was a landmark event, especially for survey researchers and statisticians, whose industry has been buffeted of late by falling response rates and rising costs at the same time as a proliferation of new tools and techniques, coupled with increasing availability of data, has resulted in "Big Data" approaches to describing and modelling human behavior.

Scale score measures are ubiquitous in the psychological literature and can be used as both dependent and independent variables in data analysis. Poor reliability of scale score measures leads to inflated standard errors and/or biased estimates, particularly in multivariate analysis. Reliability estimation is usually an integral step to assess data quality in the analysis of scale score data. Cronbach's [alpha] is a widely used indicator of reliability but, due to its rather strong assumptions, can be a poor estimator (L. J. Cronbach, 1951). For longitudinal data, an alternative approach is the simplex method; however, it too requires assumptions that may not hold in practice. One effective approach is an alternative estimator of reliability that relaxes the assumptions of both Cronbach's [alpha] and the simplex estimator and thus generalizes both estimators. Using data from a large-scale panel survey, the benefits of the statistical properties of this estimator are investigated, and its use is illustrated and compared with the more traditional estimators of reliability. (Contains 4 footnotes, 4 tables and 4 figures.)

This paper examines reporting in specific consumer item categories (or commodities) and estimates expenditure underreporting due to survey respondents who erroneously report no expenditure in a category. Our approach for estimating underreporting errors is a two-step process. In the first step, a Markov latent class analysis is performed to estimate the proportion of consumers in various subpopulations who fail to report their actual expenditure in a particular commodity. Once this proportion is estimated, the dollar value of the missing expenditure is estimated using the mean expenditure of those in that subpopulation that did report an expenditure. Finally, the estimates are evaluated and discussed in light of external data on expenditure underreporting.

Conducting reinterviews is an effective method to estimate and reduce response errors in interview surveys. As part of the School Health Policies and Programs Study 2000 (SHPPS), RTI used reinterview methods to assist in designing and evaluating survey questions. Reinterviews were conducted in the field test with selected respondents to identify discrepancies between the original interviews and reinterviews. Reconciliation interviews were then conducted to determine the reasons for the discrepancies in terms of comprehension, recall, encoding, response options, or other problems. In this paper, we describe the design of the reinterview and reconciliation study and discuss the implications of using these methods for questionnaire design and evaluation, specifically in comparison to cognitive interviewing.

The federal government's move away from affirmative action combined with a growing national indifference to civil rights has resulted in major setbacks in the education of American Indians. Tribalism can be part of a solution with programs that reinforce a student's connection to parents, community, and tribe. (MLW)

Leydig cell tumors are rare sex cord-stromal tumors that account for less than 1% of all testicular tumors. Less than 10% of these tumors show metastatic malignant behavior. Herein we present a case of metastatic malignant Leydig cell tumor in an iliac lymph node diagnosed on fine-needle aspiration (FNA) in a 70-year-old man. The patient was referred from an outside institution with lymphadenopathy and had a past medical history of lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma/Waldenström's macroglobulinemia and past surgical history of orchiectomy. An iliac lymph node FNA was performed demonstrating large discohesive plasmacytoid cells with indistinct cell borders; abundant and finely granular cytoplasm; round, eccentric nuclei with evenly distributed chromatin; and prominent nucleoli. The tumor cells were positive for inhibin and negative for calretinin and keratin leading to the diagnosis of metastatic malignant Leydig cell tumor. Review of the patient's history and of previous pathologic material, careful evaluation of cytomorphologic features, and the judicious use of immunohistochemistry can allow an accurate diagnosis of metastatic Leydig cell tumor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes a computer program which will randomly select questions and change the arrangement of answers each time the program is run, providing realistic practice for standardized test-taking. A listing of the program is provided in AppleSoft BASIC, and modifications for the IBM-PC are included. (LP)

Two models of in-service education programs for secondary school teachers are described--the on-site model and the teacher center model. (MM)