Healthy Grandparenthood: How Long Is It,and How Has It Changed?

Healthy grandparenthood represents the period of overlap during which grandparents and grandchildren can build relationships, and grandparents can make intergenerational transfers to younger kin. The health of grandparents has important implications for upward and downward intergenerational transfers within kinship networks in aging societies. Although the length of grandparenthood is determined by fertility and mortality patterns, the amount of time spent as a healthy grandparent is also affected by morbidity. In this study, we estimate the length of healthy grandparenthood for the first time. Using U.S. and Canadian data, we examine changes in the length of healthy grandparenthood during years when grandparenthood was postponed, health improved, and mortality declined. We also examine variation in healthy grandparenthood by education and race/ethnicity within the United States. Our findings show that the period of healthy grandparenthood is becoming longer because of improvements in health and mortality, which more than offset delays in grandparenthood. Important variation exists within the United States by race/ethnicity and education, which has important implications for family relationships and transfers.     

Government Student Loan Default: Differences between Graduates of the Liberal Arts and Applied Fields in Canadian Colleges and Universities

Les programmes de prêts étudiants du gouvernement sont de plus en plus disponibles pour permettre aux étudiants de familles défavorisées un meilleur accès à l'éducation. En revanche, il est inquiétant d'observer des niveaux d'endettement élevés chez les étudiants et les difficultés qu'ont certains à rembourser ces dettes. Dans cette étude, des données de l'Enquête Nationale auprès des Diplômes 2005 (END) de Statistiques Canada sont analysées dans le but d'établir des liens entre les domaines d'étude et le non‐remboursement des dettes sur les prêts étudiants du gouvernement pour un échantillon de diplômés des collèges et universités. Les analyses prennent en compte les effets de facteurs alternatifs liés au statu socio‐économique et aux revenus. Les résultats démontrent que le niveau d'éducation (collégial versus universitaire) et les domaines d'étude sont des déterminants importants du risque de non‐remboursement des dettes sur les prêts étudiants deux ans après l'obtention du diplôme. De plus, ces résultats sont stables en tenant compte des différences de revenus. Government student loan programs have become increasingly available to provide opportunities and upward mobility for students of disadvantaged backgrounds. Rising student debt and its impact on the repayment experiences of recent postsecondary graduates has become an important concern. This study employs data from Statistics Canada's 2005 National Graduates Survey to examine the relationship between field of study and loan default on government‐supported student loans for graduates of community college and baccalaureate‐level university programs when controlling for many factors relating to sociodemographic characteristics and earnings. Overall, both level of schooling (college versus university) and field of study are significant predictors of whether graduates report defaulting on their government student loans within two years of graduation. However, these findings are relatively unrelated to earnings.     

Reports of Conferences,Institutes, and Seminars

This quarter's column features a report from Electronic Resources and Libraries held March 16–19, 2014, in Austin, TX; another from Potomac Technical Processing Librarians (PTPL) held in Annapolis, MD, on October 17, 2014; and several reports from ALA Midwinter held January 30–February 3, 2015, in Chicago, IL. By necessity, these reports are not exhaustive in covering the respective conferences.     

Band-limited component estimation in time-limited economic series

This paper tackles the issue of economic time-series modeling from a joint time and frequency-domain standpoint, with the objective of estimating the latent trend-cycle component. Since time-series records are data strings over a finite time span, they read as samples of contiguous data drawn from realizations of stochastic processes aligned with the time arrow. This accounts for the interpretation of time series as time-limited signals. Economic time series (up to a disturbance term) result from latent components known as trend, cycle, and seasonality, whose generating stochastic processes are harmonizable on a finite average-power argument. In addition, since trend is associated with long-run regular movements, and cycle with medium-term economic fluctuation, both of these turn out to be band-limited components. Recognizing such a frequency-domain location permits a filter-based approach to component estimation. This is accomplished through a Toeplitz matrix operator with sinc functions as entries, mirroring the ideal low-pass filter impulse response. The notion of virtual transfer function is developed and its closed-form expression derived in order to evaluate the filter features. The paper is completed by applying this filter to quarterly data from Italian industrial production, thus shedding light on the performance of the estimation procedure.     

Play in Middle Childhood: Everyday Play Behaviour and Associated Emotions

Children's reports about their play in middle childhood and the emotions they associate with play have received limited research attention. Using focus groups, this study asked 38 children in the UK about what, where and with whom they played. They were also asked how play made them feel. Children reported a wide range of play behaviours, with outdoor and traditional games being just as prominently mentioned as play with electronic devices. The emotional importance of play in middle childhood was apparent, with children associating play with strong positive emotions, and not being able to play with negative emotions and anxiety.     

Book Review

Abstract

Uprooting and Health: Psycho-social Problems of Students from Abroad: Uprooting and Health: Psycho-social Problems of Students from Abroad, Charles A. A. Zwingmann and Alexander D. G. Gunn. Geneva, World Health Organization, 1983, 89pp.

“The Relationship of Dietary Calcium to the Maintenance of Skeletal Integrity in Man–-An Interface of Endocrinology and Nutrition,” Robert Marcus. Calcium restriction reliably produces osteoporosis in animals, but the impact of dietary calcium on age-related bone loss in man is controversial. The opinion that calcium intake is not clearly related to bone mass or to osteoporosis is well-entrenched in the nutrition literature, and has been influential in setting recommended intakes for the American public. This position rests on the poor correlation between habitual calcium intake and the incidence of osteoporosis in some non-Western countries, and on demonstrations that young men can achieve calcium balance on low intakes. However, such data neglect a variety of factors which determine calcium nutriture. These include the efficiency of mineral utilization, gonadal status, and the effect of dietary protein. It has recently been demonstrated that calcium requirements increase during adult life in women. This increase is attributable in large measure, but not completely, to estrogen deprivation associated with the menopause. In addition, the American diet is abundant in protein, a situation which may be deleterious to bone. Based on the evidence currently available, it is reasonable to propose that adolescent and young women consume one gram of calcium daily, and that this intake be increased to 1500 mg at the time of menopause. (Metabolism 1982 January;31(1):93)

“Campylobacter Enteritis: Early Diagnosis with Gram's Stain,” David D. Ho, Mark J. Ault, Mary A. Ault, Glen H. Murata. Campylobacter jejuni has become one of the most important causes of infectious diarrhea in the United States. We examined the utility of Gram's stain of stool for the rapid presumptive diagnosis of Campylobacter enteritis in a large, urban hospital and found that this test has a sensitivity of 43.5% and a specificity of 99.4%. We believe that Gram's stain of stool could be used to direct the early management of up to one half of patients infected with this pathogen. (Archives of Internal Medicine 1982;142:1858–1860)     

Fair Trade: Social regulation in global food markets

This article analyzes the theoretical and empirical parameters of social regulation in contemporary global food markets, focusing on the rapidly expanding Fair Trade initiative. Fair Trade seeks to transform North/South relations by fostering ethical consumption, producer empowerment, and certified commodity sales. This initiative joins an array of labor and environmental standard and certification systems which are often conceptualized as “private regulations” since they depend on the voluntary participation of firms. I argue that these new institutional arrangements are better understood as “social regulations” since they operate beyond the traditional bounds of private and public (corporate and state) domains and are animated by individual and collective actors. In the case of Fair Trade, I illuminate how relational and civic values are embedded in economic practices and institutions and how new quality assessments are promoted as much by social movement groups and loosely aligned consumers and producers as they are by market forces. This initiative's recent commercial success has deepened price competition and buyer control and eroded its traditional peasant base, yet it has simultaneously created new openings for progressive politics. The study reveals the complex and contested nature of social regulation in the global food market as movement efforts move beyond critique to institution building.     

Relations between Temperament and Anger Regulation over Early Childhood

Theory suggests temperamental reactivity [negative affectivity (NA)] and regulation [effortful control (EC)] predict variation in the development of emotion regulation (ER). However, few studies report such relations, particularly studies utilizing observational measures of children's ER behaviors in longitudinal designs. Using multilevel modeling, the present study tested whether (1) between‐person differences in mean levels of mother‐reported child NA and EC (aggregated across age) and (2) within‐person changes in NA and EC from the ages of 18 to 42 months predicted subsequent improvements in laboratory‐based observations of children's anger regulation from the ages of 24 to 48 months. As expected, mean level of EC (aggregated across age) predicted longer latency to anger; however, no other temperament variables predicted anger expression. Mean level of EC also predicted the latency to a child's use of one regulatory strategy, distraction. Finally, decreases in NA were associated with age‐related changes in how long children used distractions and how quickly they bid calmly to their mother. Implications for relations between temperament and anger regulation are discussed in terms of both conceptual and methodological issues.     

Rates of Asymptomatic Nonurethral Gonorrhea and Chlamydia in a Population of University Men Who Have Sex With Men

ABSTRACT

Objective: To evaluate a text message (SMS) program as a booster to an in-person alcohol intervention with mandated college students. Participants: Undergraduates (N = 224; 46% female) who violated an on-campus alcohol policy over a 2-semester period in 2014. Methods: The SMS program sent drinking-related queries each Thursday and Sunday and provided tailored feedback for 6 weeks. Response rates to SMS drinking-related queries and the associations between weekend drinking plans, drinking-limit goal commitment, and alcohol consumption were examined. Gender differences were explored. Results: Ninety percent of SMS queries were completed. Weekend binge drinking decreased over 6 weeks, and drinking-limit goal commitment was associated with less alcohol consumption. Compared with women, men had greater reductions in alcohol consumption when they committed to a drinking-limit goal. Conclusions: Preliminary evidence suggests that an SMS program could be useful as a booster for helping mandated students reduce weekend binge drinking.     

Current practices in intake and service in family welfare organizations 1 : A study of the experience of eight agencies in 1934–35

Autism spectrum disorders include difficulties with social interaction, repetitive behavior, sensory sensitivity, and, often, concomitant language deficits. Psychodynamic theory is a powerful tool in explaining and treating the behavioral symptoms of autism. Specifically, the object relations theories of Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion explicate the meanings and developmental challenges associated with autism. The epistemology of heuristics, with the use of triangulation, supports psychodynamic theory as one of multiple ways of interpreting phenomena. In this particular situation, the symptoms and presenting issues associated with autism evident in this composite clinical case are drawn from one of the author’s practice. This report illustrates the use of psychodynamic formulations and treatment in the psychotherapeutic work with a 12-year-old boy diagnosed with autism whom we call Austin.