Weight and Weight-Related Behaviors Among 2-Year College Students

Abstract

Objectives and Participants: The purpose of this article is to describe weight indicators and weight-related behaviors of students enrolled in 2-year colleges, including sex differences. Methods: During Fall 2011 and Spring 2012, 441 students from 3 Minnesota community colleges enrolled in the Choosing Healthy Options in College Environments and Settings (CHOICES) Study and completed baseline assessments. Participants completed a baseline survey evaluating eating and activity patterns, sleep, and stress and measures of height, weight, waist circumference, and body fat. Results: Participants were primarily female (68%), white (73%), with a mean age of 22.8 years, and 66.2% reporting an annual income < $12,000. Almost half (47%) were overweight or obese. Young males appeared to engage the most in risky health behaviors and had higher levels of overweight or obesity, compared with young females. Conclusions: Findings confirm the need for innovative interventions targeting this understudied and underserved young adult population.     

Conceptualizing,Measuring, and Theorizing the Third Sector: Embedding Statistical and Methodological Developments Awaiting Broader Scholarly Take-up

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This article reviews and calls attention to the work underlying significant improvements in the conceptualization,...     

Good decision vs. good results: Outcome bias in the evaluation of financial agents

Theory and Decision - We document outcome bias in situations where an agent makes risky financial decisions for a principal. In three experiments, we show that the principal’s evaluations and...     

Optimal Steiner trees under node and edge privacy conflicts

Journal of Combinatorial Optimization - In this work, we suggest concepts and solution methodologies for a series of strategic network design problems that find application in highly data-sensitive...     

Minimal manipulability: anonymity and unanimity

This paper is concerned with the minimal number of profiles at which a unanimous and anonymous social choice function for three alternatives is manipulable. The lower bound is derived and examples of social choice functions attaining the lower bound are given. It is conjectured that these social choice functions are in fact all minimally manipulable social choice functions. Since some of these social choice functions are Pareto optimal, it follows that the lower bound also holds for Pareto optimal and anonymous social choice functions. Some of the minimally manipulable Pareto optimal and anonymous social choice functions can be interpreted as status quo voting.     

A spatial model for the needle losses of pine-trees in the forests of Baden-Württemberg: an application of Bayesian structured additive regression

Summary.  The data that are analysed are from a monitoring survey which was carried out in 1994 in the forests of Baden-Württemberg, a federal state in the south-western region of Germany. The survey is part of a large monitoring scheme that has been carried out since the 1980s at different spatial and temporal resolutions to observe the increase in forest damage. One indicator for tree vitality is tree defoliation, which is mainly caused by intrinsic factors, age and stand conditions, but also by biotic (e.g. insects) and abiotic stresses (e.g. industrial emissions). In the survey, needle loss of pine-trees and many potential covariates are recorded at about 580 grid points of a 4 km × 4 km grid. The aim is to identify a set of predictors for needle loss and to investigate the relationships between the needle loss and the predictors. The response variable needle loss is recorded as a percentage in 5% steps estimated by eye using binoculars and categorized into healthy trees (10% or less), intermediate trees (10–25%) and damaged trees (25% or more). We use a Bayesian cumulative threshold model with non-linear functions of continuous variables and a random effect for spatial heterogeneity. For both the non-linear functions and the spatial random effect we use Bayesian versions of P -splines as priors. Our method is novel in that it deals with several non-standard data requirements: the ordinal response variable (the categorized version of needle loss), non-linear effects of covariates, spatial heterogeneity and prediction with missing covariates. The model is a special case of models with a geoadditive or more generally structured additive predictor. Inference can be based on Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques or mixed model technology.     

From facts to stories or from stories to facts? Analyzing public relations history in public relations textbooks

Leading PR-historiography provides a picture of an evolutionary process of public relations activity in which PR develops from a manipulative to a two-way, dialogue-oriented communication process. We analyzed a number of public relations textbooks to determine how their authors present PR history. Our major findings are: (1) The construct of the progressive development of PR is evenly spread throughout textbooks; (2) The majority of textbooks simply rely on storytelling and not on a theory-driven approach to PR history as we would prefer to see in PR textbooks that are used to teach university students; (3) The PR history presented in the books seems to be influenced by a paradigmatic stance. However, citation context analysis did not enable us to trace back the dissemination of this viewpoint to one paradigmatic author, and so we assume that the so-called obliteration effect prevents this proof.     

Eine neuer Weg zur Beschreibung beruflicher Leistung: Eigenverantwortung

Self-responsible behavior is introduced as a new part of work performance. It is defined as an organizational behavior, which should be well adapted to a difficult and extra-ordinary situation lacking a well-defined task. A decreasing frequency of clearly defined tasks and roles is observable because of changes due to general restructuring, cutting off hierarchy levels and out-sourcing of major organizational functions. Employees acting in a self-responsible manner face these situations by defining their tasks on their own risk. Other new theories of extra-role behavior (e.g. organizational citizenship behavior, contextual performance or whistle blowing) are classified as either self-responsible or as “carrying out one′s duty” regarding the criteria ‘usefulness for the organization’ and ‘gratuitousness of acts’.     

United we stand? Collaboration as a means for identifying children and adolescents at risk

The study describes collaborative involvement of child welfare agencies in Sweden with mandated reporters and analyses the association between socioeconomic and demographic factors as well as collaborative involvement on referral rates. The empirical material consists of data collected on location in 100 Swedish child welfare agencies, augmented with register data. The study shows that: (i) collaboration is common in the child welfare field, (ii) structural factors moderately predict municipal variations in child welfare referrals and (iii) most importantly, that collaboration on the aggregate level seems to serve as a marginal, or even counter-productive, measure in identifying children and adolescents at risk. The results are particularly discussed in the context of policy principles in Swedish child welfare, i.e. collaboration as a statutory requirement for child welfare agencies and the official notion of collaboration as an important means to facilitate early interventions.