Process evaluation of an environmental walking and healthy eating pilot in small rural worksites

Small Steps are Easier Together (SS) was a pilot environmental intervention in small rural worksites in Upstate New York in collaboration with Extension educators. Worksite leaders teamed with co-workers to select and implement environmental changes to increase walking steps over individual baseline and to choose healthy eating options over 10 weeks. Participants were 226 primarily white, women employees in 5 sites. A mixed methods process evaluation, conducted to identify determinants of intervention effectiveness and to explain differences in outcomes across worksites, included surveys, self-reports of walking and eating, interviews, focus groups, and an intervention log. The evaluation assessed reach, characteristics of recruited participants, dose delivered, dose received, and context and compared sites on walking and eating outcomes. Emergent elements of participant-reported dose received included: active leadership, visible environmental changes, critical mass of participants, public display of accomplishments, accountability to co-workers, and group decision making. Participants at sites with high reach and dose were significantly more likely than sites with low reach and dose to achieve intervention goals. Although this small pilot needs replication, these findings describe how these evaluation methods can be applied and analyzed in an environmental intervention and provide information on trends in the data.     

Psychological Testing in Child Custody Evaluations With Ethnically Diverse Families: Ethical Concerns and Practice Recommendations

Given increasing ethnic diversity of divorcing families, it is more important than ever for family court evaluators to understand the ethical concerns and principles underlying the use of psychological testing with ethnic family members. Major professional organizations have promulgated the guidelines of child custody evaluation with an imperative to consider cultural factors in the evaluation. However, there is a paucity of literature that addresses ethnicity and psychological testing in child custody evaluations. This article addresses three major ethical domains: (a) competence, (b) test fairness, and (c) test interpretation when psychological tests are used. Practice recommendations provide guidelines to ensure ethical standards and competence in using psychological testing with ethnically diverse families in child custody and other family court evaluations.     

Spatio-temporal patterns of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in relation to drinking water salinity at the district level in Bangladesh from 2016 to 2018

Population and Environment - This analysis examines whether salinity in drinking water is associated with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia (PE/E), a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality....     

A note on budget constraints and outside options in common agency

Bernheim and Whinston (Q J Econ 101:1–31, 1986) show that, in a common agency problem without budget constraints, the set of Nash equilibria with truthful strategies (TNE), the set of coalition-proof Nash equilibria (CPNE), and the principal-optimal core of the underlying coalitional game are non-empty and all equivalent in payoff space. We show that, with budget constraints, none of Bernheim and Whinston’s (Q J Econ 101:1–31, 1986) results hold: (i) a CPNE may not exist, (ii) a TNE may not exist even when a CPNE exists, (iii) a TNE may not be a CPNE, and (iv) both TNE and CPNE payoffs are core allocations but are not necessarily principal-optimal. However, when principals have outside options but no budget constraints, (i), and (iii) continue to hold but not for (ii) and (iv). In particular, a TNE always exists but the core may be empty.     

Generally weighted moving average control charts with fast initial response features

The generally weighted moving average (GWMA) control chart is an extension model of exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart. Recently, some approaches have been proposed to modify EWMA charts with fast initial response (FIR) features. We introduce these approaches in GWMA-type charts. Via simulation, various control schemes are designed and then their average run lengths are computed and compared. Based on the overall performance, it is showed that the DGWMA chart is the best choice especially when the shift is moderate, and the GWMA charts provided with additional FIR feature have a good performance only in detecting large shifts during the initial stage.     

Competing Priorities: Partner-Specific Relationship Characteristics and Motives for Condom Use Among At-Risk Young Adults

Condoms protect against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancy and are essential to sexual health efforts targeting young adults, who are disproportionately affected by both outcomes. Understanding condom use motives is critical to increasing condom use. Research in this area is limited, particularly regarding the roles of partners and relationship factors. Using a longitudinal sample of 441 young adults and 684 reported partnerships we examined associations between relationship factors and condom use motives (pregnancy prevention, disease prevention, or dual protection). Simultaneous multilevel models identified variables associated with motives; level-specific models identified the levels (individual, partnership, time) variables impacted motives. Participants reported choosing condoms for pregnancy prevention, disease prevention, and dual protection in 51%, 17%, and 33% of partnerships, respectively. Partner-specific factors varied, to a differing degree, across the three levels. Seven variables (duration, condom self-efficacy, commitment, sexual decision-making, power, and vulnerability to harm [HIV/STIs] and pregnancy) distinguished condom use motives. The level of this association varied but was most pronounced at the partner and individual levels. Researchers and practitioners should consider the impact of both individual- and partner-level factors on condom use motives, in both research and sexual health programs.     

Dynamic heterogeneity: a framework to promote ecological integration and hypothesis generation in urban systems

Urban areas are understood to be extraordinarily spatially heterogeneous. Spatial heterogeneity, and its causes, consequences, and changes, are central to ecological science. The social sciences and urban design and planning professions also include spatial heterogeneity as a key concern. However, urban ecology, as a pursuit that integrates across these disciplines, lacks a theoretical framework that synthesizes the diverse and important aspects of heterogeneity. This paper presents the concept of dynamic heterogeneity as a tool to explore how social and ecological heterogeneities interact and how they together act as both an outcome of past interactions and a driver future heterogeneity and system functions. To accomplish this goal, we relate heterogeneity to the fundamental concept of the human ecosystem. The human ecosystem concept identifies key processes that require operationalized models of dynamic heterogeneity in three process realms: the flow of materials, the assembly of urban ecosystem biota, and the locational choices humans make concerning land. We exemplify a specific dynamic model of heterogeneity in each of these realms, and indicate a range of complementary statistical approaches to integrate the drivers and outcomes of dynamic heterogeneity across the three realms. We synthesize a hierarchical framework for a theory of dynamic urban heterogeneity, noting its complementarity to other major urban theories and general model approaches. We hypothesize that human actions and structures amplify the dynamics of heterogeneity in urban systems.     

Collinearity, Bias, and Effect Size: Modeling “the” Effect of Track on Achievement

The estimated effect of any factor can be highly dependent on both the model and the data used for the analyses. This article presents an example of the estimated effect of one factor in two different data sets under three different forms of the standard linear model using the effect of track placement on achievement as an example. Some relative advantages and disadvantages of each model are considered. The analyses demonstrate that, given collinearity among the predictor variables, a model with a poorer statistical fit may be useful for some interpretive purposes.     

Communication in assisted living

This study of communication in an Assisted Living Facility (ALF) focuses on staff's interpretive frameworks and situational tactics for managing elderly residents. It is based on interviews with staff and residents in an ALF together with ethnographic fieldwork. As in other quasi-total institutions, staff members engage in control as well as care, monitoring residents for compliance with rules and directives. Residents, aware of the threat of being moved to a nursing home, also monitor their own behavior and cognition in comparison to other residents. Other communication issues include the infantilization of the elderly by staff, and the race, class, and ethnic prejudices of residents.     

TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS IN THE DECISION SCIENCES: THE USE OF STUDENT EVALUATIONS

This article presents the results of an AIDS-sponsored investigation of teaching effectiveness in the decision sciences. Two national samples were employed in the study: a sample of 247 business school deans and a sample of 3,292 students from 32 different business schools. Included among the findings are that 87 percent of the deans responding indicate they require some sort of faculty teaching effectiveness evaluation, and that great care must be exercised when interpreting student ratings of an individual instructor's teaching effectiveness.