Total testosterone levels are correlated to metabolic syndrome components

Introduction: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a constellation of interrelated risk factors of metabolic origin. Some studies suggest a possible link between low total testosterone (TT) levels and the presence of MetS.

Aim: To analyze the strength and independence of associations between TT and MetS components in non-diabetic men.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 143 non-diabetic men older than 40 were analyzed.

Main outcomes measure: Blood samples were collected to evaluate metabolic profile and TT levels. MetS was defined as the presence of three or more of the following characteristics: fasting blood glucose levels?≥?100?mg/dL, triglyceride?≥?150?mg/dL, HDL-c??102?cm.

Results: Mean age of the study population was 61.5?±?8.61 years old. MetS was present in 47.9% of the individuals. Thirty-four men had low TT and MetS was observed in 23 (70%) against 50 (46%) in those with normal TT (≥?300?ng/dL) (OR 4.94, p?p?=?0.03) and HDL-c (Beta: 0.19; p?=?0.04) remained significantly correlated with TT levels.

Conclusions: Low TT levels were associated with MetS diagnosis. Abdominal obesity was the MetS component independently correlated to low TT levels.     

The Influence of Career Planning on Career Thoughts in STEM‐Interested Undergraduates

Undergraduate career planning courses have shown efficacy in decreasing students’ negative career thoughts; however, universities have minimally applied these courses to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) populations. This study compared the influence of a STEM‐focused career planning course for undecided STEM students with a seminar course for decided STEM majors. An analysis of covariance with covariate adjustment revealed that undecided career planning students had lower adjusted mean scores on a measure of negative career thinking than the decided STEM majors after the first semester of college. The results provide support for the efficacy of STEM‐focused career planning courses and measuring negative career thoughts with STEM undergraduates.     

A Comparative Study of Segregation Patterns in Belgium,Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden: Neighbourhood Concentration and Representation of Non-European Migrants

In this paper, we use geo-coded, individual-level register data on four European countries to compute comparative measures of segregation that are independent of existing geographical sub-divisions. The focus is on non-European migrants, for whom aggregates of egocentric neighbourhoods (with different population counts) are used to assess small-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale segregation patterns. At the smallest scale level, corresponding to neighbourhoods with 200 persons, patterns of over- and under-representation are strikingly similar. At larger-scale levels, Belgium stands out as having relatively strong over- and under-representation. More than 55% of the Belgian population lives in large-scale neighbourhoods with moderate under- or over-representation of non-European migrants. In the other countries, the corresponding figures are between 30 and 40%. Possible explanations for the variation across countries are differences in housing policies and refugee placement policies. Sweden has the largest and Denmark the smallest non-European migrant population, in relative terms. Thus, in both migrant-dense and native-born-dense areas, Swedish neighbourhoods have a higher concentration and Denmark a lower concentration of non-European migrants than the other countries. For large-scale, migrant-dense neighbourhoods, however, levels of concentration are similar in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Thus, to the extent that such concentrations contribute to spatial inequalities, these countries are facing similar policy challenges.     

Psychometric properties of the “parent-child relationship inventory” (PCRI) in a portuguese forensic sample

In Portugal, there is a gap regarding psychological tests validated for forensic contexts, particularly those related to child custody issues. The Parent–Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) is one of the most used instruments in child custody contexts. This study aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of PCRI in a Portuguese forensic sample. PCRI factorial structure and psychometric properties were analyzed in a sample of 144 parents involved in child custody assessments. The questionnaire showed good internal consistency, except for the parental support, autonomy, and role orientation scales. It also showed good discriminant capacity. The confirmatory factor analysis did not replicate the 7-factor model proposed by Gerard. The results were discussed based on the use of PCRI in the context of child custody assessment.     

Eliciting Subjective Survival Curves: Lessons from Partial Identification

When analyzing data on subjective expectations of continuous outcomes, researchers have access to a limited number of reported probabilities for each respondent from which to construct complete distribution functions. Moreover, reported probabilities may be rounded and thus not equal to true beliefs. Using survival expectations elicited from a representative sample from the Netherlands, we investigate what can be learned if we take these two sources of missing information into account and expectations are therefore only partially identified. We find novel evidence for rounding by checking whether reported expectations are consistent with a hazard of death that increases weakly with age. Only 39% of reported beliefs are consistent with this under the assumption that all probabilities are reported precisely, while 92% are if we allow for rounding. Using the available information to construct bounds on subjective life expectancy, we show that the data alone are not sufficiently informative to allow for useful inference in partially identified linear models, even in the absence of rounding. We propose to improve precision by interpolation between rounded probabilities. Interpolation in combination with a limited amount of rounding does yield informative intervals.     

Improving Flood Risk Communication by Focusing on Prevention‐Focused Motivation

This article proposes an approach to flood risk communication that gives particular emphasis to the distinction between prevention and promotion motivation. According to E. Tory Higgins, the promotion system and the prevention system are assumed to coexist in every person, but one or the other may be temporarily or chronically more accessible. These insights have far‐reaching implications for our understanding of people's reasoning about risks. Flood risk communication framed in terms of prevention involves the notions of chance and harm, woven into a story about particular events that necessitate decisions to be more careful about safety issues and protect one's family and oneself from danger. The article describes how the insights worked out in practice, using a flood risk communication experiment among a sample from the general population in a highly populated river delta of the Netherlands. It had a posttest‐only control group design (n = 2,302). The results showed that risk communication had a large effect on the participants’ responses and that this effect was higher among chronic prevention‐focused people than among others. Any information that increased the fit between a prevention‐framed message and a person's chronic prevention motivation produced stronger situationally induced, prevention‐focused responses. This may significantly improve communication about risks. In contrast, the notion of water city projects, featuring waterside living, had more appeal to promotion‐focused people.     

The multicriteria selection of products in technological diversification strategies: an application to the Spanish automotive industry based on AHP

The economic recession, the dynamism and complexity of the markets and the generalised globalisation of the world economy have forced many companies to rethink and reorganise their industrial strategies. Through identifying and taking advantage of the key technologies of a company, this work presents a new and original methodology for dealing with a general technological diversification process. The methodology, which includes an innovative cognitive perspective and its corresponding decisional tool (decision support system) has been used to select the best product in a process of technological diversification that, along with the key technologies, identifies the sub-levels consonant to the sub-technologies and applications to sectors and products. The multicriteria selection tool employed in the proposed methodology, based on the analytic hierarchy process, allows the integration of multiple scenarios, actors and criteria, both tangible and intangible. The methodology has been applied to a case study in the Spanish automotive auxiliary sector.     

Racial/ethnic and socio‐economic biases in child maltreatment severity assessment in Spanish child protection services caseworkers

Evidence from several countries has shown the over‐representation of racial/ethnic minority groups in child protection services (CPS). The objective of the present study was to explore whether racial/ethnic and socio‐economic biases influence Spanish CPS caseworkers' judgements of the severity of child maltreatment. Moreover, the study attempted to explore the influence on these judgements of the use of structured instruments and professional experience. Two case vignettes of child maltreatment were presented to 405 CPS caseworkers and 169 students of social work and psychology. Family ethnic origin and income were manipulated in the vignettes. The findings showed no statistical evidence of biases related to family ethnic origin or socio‐economic status (SES) in Spanish CPS caseworkers' judgements of maltreatment severity. Biases related to family SES were found for students for the vignettes of physical abuse. CPS caseworkers and students who did not use a structured instrument to assess maltreatment severity tended to underestimate the severity for the vignettes of parental incapacity to control child/adolescent behaviour and to overestimate it for the vignettes of physical abuse. CPS caseworkers who used a structured instrument showed higher percentages of accuracy and inter‐rater agreement, supporting the relevance of structured tools in reducing potential caseworkers' biases.     

Urban and agricultural soils: conflicts and trade-offs in the optimization of ecosystem services

On-going human population growth and changing patterns of resource consumption are increasing global demand for ecosystem services, many of which are provided by soils. Some of these ecosystem services are linearly related to the surface area of pervious soil, whereas others show non-linear relationships, making ecosystem service optimization a complex task. As limited land availability creates conflicting demands among various types of land use, a central challenge is how to weigh these conflicting interests and how to achieve the best solutions possible from a perspective of sustainable societal development. These conflicting interests become most apparent in soils that are the most heavily used by humans for specific purposes: urban soils used for green spaces, housing, and other infrastructure and agricultural soils for producing food, fibres and biofuels. We argue that, despite their seemingly divergent uses of land, agricultural and urban soils share common features with regards to interactions between ecosystem services, and that the trade-offs associated with decision-making, while scale- and context-dependent, can be surprisingly similar between the two systems. We propose that the trade-offs within land use types and their soil-related ecosystems services are often disproportional, and quantifying these will enable ecologists and soil scientists to help policy makers optimizing management decisions when confronted with demands for multiple services under limited land availability.