Modeling multiple‐response categorical data from complex surveys

Although “choose all that apply” questions are common in modern surveys, methods for analyzing associations among responses to such questions have only recently been developed. These methods are generally valid only for simple random sampling, but these types of questions often appear in surveys conducted under more complex sampling plans. The purpose of this article is to provide statistical analysis methods that can be applied to “choose all that apply” questions in complex survey sampling situations. Loglinear models are developed to incorporate the multiple responses inherent in these types of questions. Statistics to compare models and to measure association are proposed and their asymptotic distributions are derived. Monte Carlo simulations show that tests based on adjusted Pearson statistics generally hold their correct size when comparing models. These simulations also show that confidence intervals for odds ratios estimated from loglinear models have good coverage properties, while being shorter than those constructed using empirical estimates. Furthermore, the methods are shown to be applicable to more general problems of modeling associations between elements of two or more binary vectors. The proposed analysis methods are applied to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The Canadian Journal of Statistics © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

Perceived Power and Physical Violence in Marital Conflict

Relations among perceived marital power, the demand/withdraw interaction pattern, and self-reports of the use of verbal aggression and physical violence were examined in a sample of 42 married couples. Couples completed several self-report questionnaires and discussed two areas of marital dissatisfaction, one identified by the wife and one identified by the husband. These interactions were rated for the use of the demand/withdraw interaction pattern. Regression analyses revealed that lower levels of perceived power by the husbands and higher levels of perceived power by the wives were associated with the use of verbal aggression and violence by husbands and wives, the husband demand/wife withdraw interaction pattern was associated with husband's use of verbal aggression, and the wife demand/husband withdraw pattern was associated with husband's verbal aggression and violence and with wife's violence.     

Sense of community: Issues and considerations from a cross-cultural perspective

Behaviour settings such as work, family, church and community are primary settings in which we participate, they provide us with meaningful roles, relationships, and social identities. In fact, these are settings that provide us with a sense of community (SOC). SOC has been heralded as the guiding value for community research and action. It reflects the integration of people into networks and structures that provide feelings of belonging, identification and meaning. The concept has received much attention since the introduction of McMillan and Chavis' initial formulation. It is argued that research into SOC has been hampered by relying on the Sense of Community Index at the expense of the SOC model. Insights are drawn from cross-cultural psychology and research to highlight conceptual issues and to encourage exploration and the utilisation of alternative modes of investigation. Contex-tualist approaches including substantive theorising and narrative psychology, which have their roots in pragmatism, are promoted as frameworks for bringing community and SOC into focus as central to social and community development.     

A new confidence region for the multinomial distribution

A simple confidence region is proposed for the multinomial parameter. It is designed for situations having zero cell counts. Simulation studies as well as a real data application show that it performs at least as well as than at least two of the most common confidence regions.     

Tenancy,Marriage, and the Boll Weevil Infestation, 1892–1930

In the early twentieth century, the cotton-growing regions of the U.S. South were dominated by families of tenant farmers. Tenant farming created opportunities and incentives for prospective tenants to marry at young ages. These opportunities and incentives especially affected African Americans, who had few alternatives to working as tenants. Using complete-count Census of Population data from 1900–1930 and Census of Agriculture data from 1889–1929, we find that increases in tenancy over time increased the prevalence of marriage among young African Americans. We then study how marriage was affected by one of the most notorious disruptions to southern agriculture at the turn of the century: the boll weevil infestation of 1892–1922. Using historical Department of Agriculture maps, we show that the boll weevil’s arrival reduced the share of farms worked by tenants as well as the share of African Americans who married at young ages. When the boll weevil infestation altered African Americans’ opportunities and incentives to marry, the share of African Americans who married young fell accordingly. Our results provide new evidence about the effect of economic and political institutions on demographic transformations.     

Micro-ESR:微型电子自旋共振光谱仪

电子自旋共振光谱(ESR),又称顺磁共振光谱(EPR),是直接检测自由基、引起石油氧化降解含有未成对电子的活性分子以及食物的唯一方法,也在生物化学研究疾病方面起着一定的作用。本文所描述的微型、高灵敏度的ESR光谱仪通过显著降低光谱技术的成本,能够为工业和科学研究者扩大ESR光谱学的实用范围。     

Village Tolerance of Abuse,Women's Status,and the Ecology of Intimate Partner Violence in Rural Uttar Pradesh,India

We explore the multilevel determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. We focus on village tolerance of abuse and its ability to regulate the effects of individual and village‐level women's status and social capital. Using individual and village data from the 1998 to 1999 India National Family Health Survey, we find that village tolerance and women's status at individual and village levels help explain the risk of IPV. Village tolerance of abuse also moderates the ability of village‐level women's status and social capital to protect women from IPV. Results underscore the need to understand processes that sustain and/or challenge violence‐legitimating norms.     

The many (distinctive) faces of leadership: Inferring leadership domain from facial appearance

Previous research has shown that people form impressions of potential leaders from their faces and that certain facial features predict success in reaching prestigious leadership positions. However, much less is known about the accuracy or meta-accuracy of face-based leadership inferences. Here we examine a simple, but important, question: Can leadership domain be inferred from faces? We find that human judges can identify business, military, and sports leaders (but not political leaders) from their faces with above-chance accuracy. However, people are surprisingly bad at evaluating their own performance on this judgment task: We find no relationship between how well judges think they performed and their actual accuracy levels. In a follow-up study, we identify several basic dimensions of evaluation that correlate with face-based judgments of leadership domain, as well as those that predict actual leadership domain. We discuss the implications of our results for leadership perception and selection.     

Assessment of the Effect of Population and Diary Sampling Methods on Estimation of School‐Age Children Exposure to Fine Particles

Population and diary sampling methods are employed in exposure models to sample simulated individuals and their daily activity on each simulation day. Different sampling methods may lead to variations in estimated human exposure. In this study, two population sampling methods (stratified‐random and random‐random) and three diary sampling methods (random resampling, diversity and autocorrelation, and Markov‐chain cluster [MCC]) are evaluated. Their impacts on estimated children's exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) are quantified via case studies for children in Wake County, NC for July 2002. The estimated mean daily average exposure is 12.9 μg/m³ for simulated children using the stratified population sampling method, and 12.2 μg/m³ using the random sampling method. These minor differences are caused by the random sampling among ages within census tracts. Among the three diary sampling methods, there are differences in the estimated number of individuals with multiple days of exposures exceeding a benchmark of concern of 25 μg/m³ due to differences in how multiday longitudinal diaries are estimated. The MCC method is relatively more conservative. In case studies evaluated here, the MCC method led to 10% higher estimation of the number of individuals with repeated exposures exceeding the benchmark. The comparisons help to identify and contrast the capabilities of each method and to offer insight regarding implications of method choice. Exposure simulation results are robust to the two population sampling methods evaluated, and are sensitive to the choice of method for simulating longitudinal diaries, particularly when analyzing results for specific microenvironments or for exposures exceeding a benchmark of concern.