Published findings from the spouse assault replication program: A critical review

Published reports from seven jointly developed experiments have addressed whether or not arrest is an effective deterrent to misdemeanor spouse assault. Findings supporting a deterrent effect, no effect, and an escalation effect have been reported by the original authors and in interpretations of the published findings by other authors. This review found many methodologically defensible approaches used in these reports but not one of these approaches was used consistently in all published reports. Tables reporting the raw data on the prevalence and incidence of repeat incidents are presented to provide a more consistent comparison across all seven experiments. This review concludes that the available information is incomplete and inadequate for a definitive statement about the results of these experiments. Researchers and policy makers are urged to use caution in interpreting the findings available to date.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45108/1/10940_2005_Article_BF02221298.pd

ESTIMATING PARKING ACCUMULATION DEMANDS AT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

More elementary school children are being transported to and from school by automobile. In fact, so many parents are transporting children that traffic congestion occurs on the surrounding streets at school beginning and dismissal times, creating a school rush hour. This article presents methods to estimate the parking demand during these peak periods. Elementary schools in typical post-World War II suburban neighborhoods were targeted, where transportation is limited to automobile or school bus. Investigators determined that vehicle accumulation at schools approximates the demand for parking space. School officials can reduce school traffic congestion and enhance traffic safety by providing adequate parking

Comparing 'visual' effect size indices for single-case designs

Effect size indices are indispensable for carrying out meta-analyses and can also be seen as an alternative for making decisions about the effectiveness of a treatment in an individual applied study. The desirable features of the procedures for quantifying the magnitude of intervention effect include educational/clinical meaningfulness, calculus easiness, insensitivity to autocorrelation, low false alarm and low miss rates. Three effect size indices related to visual analysis are compared according to the aforementioned criteria. The comparison is made by means of data sets with known parameters: degree of serial dependence, presence or absence of general trend, changes in level and/or in slope. The percent of nonoverlapping data showed the highest discrimination between data sets with and without intervention effect. In cases when autocorrelation or trend is present, the percentage of data points exceeding the median may be a better option to quantify the effectiveness of a psychological treatment