Evaluating Forecasts from State-Dependent Autoregressive Models for US GDP Growth Rate. Comparison with Alternative Approaches

The aim of the paper is to compare the forecasting performance of a class of statedependent autoregressive (SDAR) models for univariate time series with two alternative families of nonlinear models, such as the SETAR and the GARCH models. The study is conducted on US GDP growth rate using quarterly data. Two methods of forecast comparison are employed. The first method consists in evaluation the average performance by using two measures such as the root mean square error (RMSE) and the mean absolute error (MAE) over different forecast horizons, while the second method make use of one of the most used statistical test to compare the accuracy of two forecast methods such as the Diebold-Mariano test. JEL classification numbers: C22, E37, F47. Keywords: Nonlinear models for time series, GDP growth rate, Forecasting accuracy.

Alternative Families and White Fragility

This chapter zeroes in on Horrible White People shows’ generic structures, aesthetic innovations, and relationship to sitcom history, focusing particularly on how the sitcom has historically perpetuated an idealized form of aspirational white domesticity and contained, incorporated, or appropriated racial and ethnic diversity. This chapter traces the significant ways Horrible White People shows break from sitcom conventions and highlight how rather than celebrate or romanticize kinship and solidarity as the genre’s traditional focus on idealized nuclear families does, this cycle of bleakly comic, white-cast rom-com sitcoms wallows in the anxieties and neuroses of contemporary alternative family structures and relationships. These failed white subjects disrupt the utopic family sitcom and romantic comedy’s generic structures with serialized plots and replace the fantasy of familial unity and heterosexual coupling with self-destructive narcissism. The darker lighting, isolating single-camera cinematography, and grimmer aesthetics of these shows centralize families that are unable to protect members from the outside world. So, by delving into the high-production-value aesthetics and the usually bleak affects of the cycle, the focus is on the ways in which these dystopian white couples and families function to either justify or come to grips with the failures of contemporary white political and social liberalism. Horrible White People shows challenge the conventions and histories of the sitcom genre to appear progressive, self-critical, antiracist, inclusive, and feminist, but they ultimately recentralize white suffering under the seemingly protective guise of liberal social critique. The disillusion with family and lack of narrative closure in these shows leaves the white protagonists suspended in a space of precarity, unable to fulfill their neoliberal capacity without the safety of family, jobs, or often even ambition.

Stretched Kinship

Queer kinships are often physically and emotionally stretched when people leave their original families to pursue education and employment through internal or international migration. This chapter argues that the so-called “coming out as coming home” strategy no longer works, and “home” has often become an impossible location for people to return to. It proposes a new paradigm of “stretched kinship” to consider a wide range of practices in queer homecoming and homemaking to better understand and make sense of the changing queer kinship structures shaping and shaped by today’s queer Chinese cultures and mobilities. It further explores “alternative families” as an emerging form of queer family-building, through which “home” once again becomes a possible ontological and symbolic location and destination.

The Effectiveness of Family Group Counseling Program Based on Structural Theory in the Parenting Skills and Family Parental Adjustment among Alternative Families

This study aimed to explore the impact of a family group counseling program in the parenting skills and family parental adjustment among alternative families that have included a child into their families through alternative care programs offered by the Ministry of Social Development. The study population which was selected in a purposive way, consisted of (16) alternative families. They were randomly assigned into which experimental group (8) families and the control group (8) families, the parental skills and the family parental adjustment scales were applied pre, posttest and fellow up test at the study groups. A family counseling program based on structural theory had been developed, it consists of (15) sessions and applied on the experimental group. The results of the study indicated: There were statistically significant differences in the total, sub tests parental skills, and the family parental adjustment; were in a favor of the experimental group. There were no statistically significant differences in the parental skills and family adjustment according to the gender. There were no statistically significant differences between post-test and the follow-up test on the experimental group in the parental skills and family parental adjustment. The study recommended applying this program, on alternative families.