A Study of An Alternative School for Pregnant and/or Parenting Teens: Quantitative and Qualitative Evidence

In response to multiple problems faced by pregnant and parenting teens, many alternative school-based comprehensive programs have been established throughout the United States. By collecting data from a sample of enrollees of such a school-based comprehensive program and comparing them with data collected from a sample of non-enrollees, the present study systematically evaluates the program. The results of the study seem to suggest that the program participants were more likely to have higher educational aspiration, better reproductive health outcomes, higher contraceptive use, and more breast-feeding practice and intention than those of their non-participating counterparts. The implications of the study findings for comprehensive school-based program for pregnant and/or parenting teens are discussed.Ruhul Amin is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Health Disparities Solutions and Senior Research Scientist in the Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD 21239. Dorothy C. Browne is the Director of the Institute for Urban Research, Jamir Ahmed is a research assistant at the Center for Health Disparities Solutions and Takanori Sato is research assistants at the Institute for Urban Research, Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD 21239.     

Two notions of positive ageing based on stochastic dominance

The negative effects of age on the life length of a device or positive ageing are commonly used criteria for classifying life distributions. In this paper two notions of positive ageing are considered. These are the new better (worse) than used in average conditional survival probability and harmonic new better (worse) than used in upper tail. Closure of these notions under mixture and convolution are studied. The survivals of a device subject to discrete shocks of these notions of ageing which occur according to homogeneous Poisson processes are studied. A cumulative damage model is considered. Two test statistics are proposed for the two notions of ageing.     

Preservation properties for the Laplace transform ordering of residual lives

Several preservation results for the Laplace transform ordering of residual lives (Lt−rl) are given. In particular, we show that theTt−rl-order is preserved under convolutions, mixtures and weak convergence. Some examples of interest in reliability theory are also presented.     

On the NBAFR (NWAFR) class of life distributions

Recently Loh (1984) presented a new generalization of the NBU class of life distributions called New Better than Average Failure Rate (NBAFR). In this paper several properties of this class are presented. For instance the closure property of its dual (NWAFR) under the operation of mixture is obtained and characterization of the NBAFR (NWAFR) property by using the Laplace transform and its relation to the cumulative damage model is studied. Some shock models which give rise to the NBAFR (NWAFR) class are discussed. Finally, a test statistic for testing exponentiality against the NBAFR alternatives is presented.     

Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Shame: Three Key Variables in Reducing School Bullying

This study examined the relationships between forgiveness, reconciliation, shame and school bullying. The sample consisted of 1,875 Bangladeshi adolescents (60% girls) in grades 7 to 10 ( M = 8.28). In a structural equation model, both forgiveness and reconciliation directly predicted less bullying. In addition to the direct effect, an indirect pathway showed reconciliation reduced bullying via adaptive shame management. Shame acknowledgment predicted less bullying whereas shame displacement predicted more in accord with the shame management theory. An alternative model was also tested, which demonstrated that parental forgiveness eroded when children displaced their shame. The nature of the intersection between these two theoretically viable psychological models has implications for both restorative justice theory and practice.     

Stock Market and Aggregate Investment Behavior in Malaysia: An Empirical Analysis

The present paper analyzes the role of stock market, more specifically real stock prices and stock market uncertainty/volatility, on aggregate investment behavior for an emerging market, Malaysia. Employing the autoregressive distributed lags approach to cointegration test, the paper establishes a long run equilibrium that ties the aggregate investment to its determinants—real income, real stock prices, real lending rate and stock market volatility. In the long run, we document a positive relation between aggregate investment and real stock prices and a negative relation between aggregate investment and stock market volatility. These results are further supported by our analyses of their dynamic interactions based on Granger causality and impulse-response functions. Based on the results, the real stock market prices, which has yet reached the level recorded prior to the crisis, may have explained the low investment in Malaysia after the Asian crisis. Moreover, the stock market volatility can also post a threat to the investment performance.     

Estimation from Burr type XII distribution using progressive first-failure censored data

In this paper, a new life test plan called a progressively first-failure-censoring scheme introduced by Wu and Ku? [On estimation based on progressive first-failure-censored sampling, Comput. Statist. Data Anal. 53(10) (2009), pp. 3659–3670] is considered. Based on this type of censoring, the maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayes estimates for some survival time parameters namely reliability and hazard functions, as well as the parameters of the Burr-XII distribution are obtained. The Bayes estimators relative to both the symmetric and asymmetric loss functions are discussed. We use the conjugate prior for the one-shape parameter and discrete prior for the other parameter. Exact and approximate confidence intervals with the exact confidence region for the two-shape parameters are derived. A numerical example using the real data set is provided to illustrate the proposed estimation methods developed here. The ML and the different Bayes estimates are compared via a Monte Carlo simulation study.     

On the estimation of reliabilty function in a Weibull lifetime distribution

The estimation of the reliability function of the Weibull lifetime model is considered in the presence of uncertain prior information (not in the form of prior distribution) on the parameter of interest. This information is assumed to be available in some sort of a realistic conjecture. In this article, we focus on how to combine sample and non-sample information together in order to achieve improved estimation performance. Three classes of point estimatiors, namely, the unrestricted estimator, the shrinkage estimator and shrinkage preliminary test estimator (SPTE) are proposed. Their asymptotic biases and mean-squared errors are derived and compared. The relative dominance picture of the estimators is presented. Interestingly, the proposed SPTE dominates the unrestricted estimator in a range that is wider than that of the usual preliminary test estimator. A small-scale simulation experiment is used to examine the small sample properties of the proposed estimators. Our simulation investigations have provided strong evidence that corroborates with asymptotic theory. The suggested estimation methods are applied to a published data set to illustrate the performance of the estimators in a real-life situation.     

Exploring the effects of workplace support on work-life experience: a study of Malaysia

To date most studies of workplace support and work-life experience have been of contexts where government policies and legislation to protect employee work-life balance interests are well established, such as US, UK, and other European countries. Little scrutiny has been given to these issues in less developed economies, where support and protection in terms of work-life policies and legislation at the national level is rather limited. Malaysia, the setting of this study, provides such a context. Two types of organizational support, work flexibility and superior support, are studied for their impact on work-life experience of Malaysians. The findings of this study are based on a national survey of working adults in Malaysia. Work-life experience is conceptualized to capture conflict and enrichment aspects, as well as bidirectional effects between work and nonwork. Results show that work flexibility and superior support lower work-life conflict marginally but facilitate greater work-life enrichment among Malaysians. The paper also draws out implications of these findings for human resource development professionals operating in workplace settings within national contexts with limited mandatory work-life provisions.