Partying before the party: examining prepartying behavior among college students

OBJECTIVE: The authors examined the phenomenon known to college students as prepartying, which is the consumption of alcohol prior to attending an event or activity (eg, party, bar, concert) at which more alcohol may be consumed. PARTICIPANTS: To explore the extent of this behavior, the authors surveyed 227 college students about each drinking event over a 1-month period. RESULTS: Principal results revealed that 64% of participants engaged in prepartying (75% of drinkers) and that prepartying is involved in approximately 45% of all drinking events. Prepartying was predictive of more drinking throughout the day of the drinking event and alcohol-related negative consequences. Men and women engaged in this behavior at similar rates, and prepartying was most related to social reasons for drinking. CONCLUSION: Because prepartying is well-known among students, the authors suggest that clinicians and researchers target it to better understand college drinking and to help students understand the associated dangers.     

Toward an Animal Model of Gambling: Delay Discounting and the Allure of Unpredictable Outcomes

Laboratory investigations of gambling are sometimes criticized as lacking ecological validity because the stakes wagered by human subjects are not real or no real monetary losses are experienced. These problems may be partially addressed by studying gambling in laboratory animals. Toward this end, data are summarized which demonstrate that laboratory animals will work substantially harder and prefer to work under gambling-like schedules of reinforcement in which the number of responses per win is unpredictable. These findings are consistent with a delay discounting model of gambling which holds that rewards obtained following unpredictable delays are more valuable than rewards obtained following predictable delays. According to the delay discounting model, individuals that discount delayed rewards at a high rate (like pathological gamblers) perceive unpredictably delayed rewards to be of substantially greater value than predictable rewards. The reviewed findings and empirical model support the utility of studying animal behavior as an ecologically valid first-approximation of human gambling.     

E-Government and Bureaucracy: Toward a Better Understanding of Intranet Implementation and Its Effect on Red Tape

This article examines the interaction between bureaucratic redtape and intranet usage in state human service agencies. Wepropose a sociotechnical model for the relationship betweenintranet usage and bureaucratic red tape that takes into accountthe complexities of causal linkages including bidirectionalcausal relationships and a range of internal and external influences.This model is tested with data from the National AdministrativeStudies Project, Phase II. While we are not able to corroboratethe "demand pull" hypothesis advanced by Bretschneider and colleagues,we do find support for its corollary (the "technology push"hypothesis) indicating that intranet usage is associated withreduction in red tape. This finding on the salutary effect ofintranet usage holds for both a global measure of red tape anda more specific procurement red tape measure. We conclude witha discussion of the implications of our findings.     

AIDS Risk Behaviors among American and Australian Homeless Youth

We examined HIV/AIDS risk behaviors among homeless youth in cross-national data collected in Melbourne, Australia ( n = 398), and Los Angeles, California ( n = 498). Using structural equation modeling, we found that the Australian youth reported greater involvement in AIDS risk behaviors than the American youth and the Australian youth were more involved in intervening risk factors that promote risk behaviors and less involved with protective factors that reduce risk behaviors. Youth reporting the highest rates of delinquent behaviors also had peers engaging in delinquent acts, used alcohol and marijuana, and were more likely to utilize social services. These findings underscore the importance of having a service sector that is able to adequately address the needs of homeless youth .     

Architectural and built environment discourses in an educational context: the Gottscho and Schleisner Collection

This essay examines architectural photographs of schools produced for consumer magazines like House Beautiful, which helped create aspirations for the rising American middle class during the period 1935–1959. It reveals the way that schools for the upper-middle classes were promulgated as ‘role models’ for the boom in school construction that accompanied the post-war baby boom. We examined images of exterior and interior school architecture and built environments in the Gottscho and Schleisner photography collection at the Library of Congress. Through Allan Sekula's process of archivisation and the use of constant comparative analysis, we re-organised the images in this collection and identified the prominent middle-class, architectural discourse inscribed on, in and surrounding the schools. We further discuss the maintenance of middle-class ideology through the guiding force of ‘conspicuous consumption’ patterns – the power behind the prominence of the archive and its accumulation process.     

Automated patient linking for electronic health record and child welfare databases

Abstract

There are 427,000 children in protective custody in the United States. A lack of integration between the child welfare data system and electronic health record systems complicates the communication of critical health history details to caregivers. We created and evaluated automated 10 custom algorithms linking these data. Deterministic matching was performed using combinations of first and last name, date of birth, and gender. If unmatched, a nondeterministic algorithm allowed for punctuation differences and letter transpositions. Of the children linked deterministically, 91.3% were linked. Of the ones undergoing nondeterministic matching, 71.3% were linked. Sharing integrated data is the first step in systematically improving health outcomes for children in protective custody. This approach represents an automatable and scalable solution that could help merge data from two disparate sources.     

Politics and Philosophy in Russian Social Democracy: Alexander Bogdanov and the Sociotheoretical Foundations of Vpered

Il’f and Petrov’s travel memoir, Odnoetazhnaia Amerika (One-Storied America), is an account of their travels across the United States in the mid-thirties. This work—much edited and censored for changing political climates—was a state-sponsored attempt to reveal the “real” America to the Soviet reader. Although many critics have asserted that Il’f and Petrov’s treatment of America is surprisingly positive, regarding the work as “positive satire” ignores important stylistic and rhetorical devices operational in the text. The authors’ positive assessments of America are invariably about services, behaviours or habits they judge to be potentially useful in the building of socialism. More interesting is how the text reflects on Soviet culture; One-Storied America is an instrument of mythologization of the authors’ native land in the tradition of much travel literature. Their frame of reference for the observations about the exotic, alien world they encounter is their own culture and establishing difference, in this case, entails value judgement: what is svoi is superior. The foreignness of the other (America) is established by Il’f and Petrov through plot structure and through linguistic tropes. Average Americans— those who are not politically conscious—are characterized as limited, prejudiced and lacking taste, and this is reflected in their primitive language. Those who are ideologically sympathetic (either Americans or displaced Russians) speak excellent Russian; their speech is not marked as other. One-Storied America can thus be read as Il’f and Petrov’s attempt to exploit the foreignness of American culture in the service of Soviet cultural construction. They are particularly concerned with the construction of image and perception—and misapprehension and fear of the other are effective tools.     

Reasons for the adoption of celibacy among older men and women living with HIV/AIDS

The reasons for becoming celibate following diagnosis with HIV/AIDS were examined using focused interviews with 63 infected older adults (ages 50 ‐ 68). Forty‐eight percent reported they were currently celibate or had been celibate following diagnosis with HIV/AIDS. Women reported celibacy (78%) more than men (36%). Although men and women reported some similar reasons for celibacy, most notably fear of infecting others and fear of reinfection, we also found gender differences in the reasons for celibacy. Additional reasons offered by women included loss of interest in sex, anger and distrust of men, and desire to focus on themselves rather than men. Other reasons offered by men included fear of rejection or stigma‐tization, difficulty with sexual performance, and negative body image. The prevalence of celibacy and the finding that many reasons for celibacy are related to fear, anger, and distrust suggests that older adults may have difficulty resuming healthy sexual relationships following diagnosis with HIV/AIDS.     

The sexual partnerships of people with serious mental illness

We compared the sexualities of people with serious mental illness and the general population using the National Health and Social Life Survey (Laumann et al, 1994) and the Indiana Mental Health Services and HTV Risk Study (Wright, 1999). We investigated whether and how the sexual behaviors and relationships of people with serious mental illness differ from the general populations’ and identified factors differently influencing the organization of sexuality in these two groups. We found evidence that the relationships of people with serious mental illness are characterized by less intimacy and commitment than those of the general population. Additionally, although people with serious mental illness use condoms more consistently, they are also more likely to have concurrent relationships and tend to have sex sooner with new partners, which may contribute to a higher risk of contracting HFV. Our findings point to a need for a paradigm shift in the way that clinicians and researchers conceptualize and manage client sexuality. A less individualistic approach that takes into consideration the relationship context and social and institutional constraints is needed.     

Collective Efficacy and Crime in Los Angeles Neighborhoods: Implications for the Latino Paradox*

We use data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Study (LAFANS) to examine the degree to which social ties and collective efficacy influence neighborhood levels of crime, net of neighborhood structural characteristics. Results indicate that residential instability and collective efficacy were each associated with lower log odds of robbery victimization, while social ties had a positive effect on robbery victimization. Further, collective efficacy mediated 77 percent of the association between concentrated disadvantage and robbery victimization, while social ties had no mediating effect. The mediation effect for concentrated disadvantage, however, was substantially weaker in the Latino neighborhoods (where it was 52%) than in the non‐Latino neighborhoods (where it was 82%), suggesting that a “Latino paradox” may be present in which crime rates in Latino neighborhoods appear to have less to do with local levels of collective efficacy than in non‐Latino neighborhoods. Implications for future research bearing on both the Latino paradox and the systemic model of social control are discussed.