Characterising persistence of performance amongst South African general equity unit trusts

This study analyses the relative performance of general equity unit trusts from 1980 to 1999 using a database that has been verified for accuracy and is free of survivorship bias. It characterises the behaviour of performance persistence in order to explain the conflicting results of previous persistence studies.A positive but weak relationship was found between past and future performance rankings. As the holding period lengthens, the persistence results became more sensitive to the beginning date and ending date of the period under examination.Regardless of the ending date chosen, persistence of winning funds and losing funds was evident when holding periods of 6 months were used. Persistence was particularly evident during the 1995–1999 period. However, even in this period, there were situations where rankings from one holding period to the next appeared random and situations where rankings reversed.Although individual unit trusts did not perform consistently over multiple holding periods, when using a trading strategy of buying the top performing fund over the last 6 months and holding it for 6 months, it was shown that, in most cases, an investor would have earned a return over 5 years that beat the average return of all general equity unit trusts after taking switching costs into account.     

A Community Treatment Intervention AdVancing Active Treatment in the Elderly (ACTIVATE): A Pilot Study

A growing population of older adults receive treatment for depression but remain symptomatic. We report on a feasibility pilot study of an intervention (ACTIVATE) to improve depression care by encouraging the older person to take a step to intensify the existing treatment. Older adults (N = 43) receiving home-meal service and in depression treatment, but still symptomatic, participated in the ACTIVATE intervention. Assessments were conducted to evaluate change in treatment. Many (66.6%) participants took a step to change their treatment; the rate (88.2%) was higher among individuals with major depression. ACTIVATE may be a useful social work intervention to improve depression care.     

Informal mentoring and young adult employment

This study explores the role of informal mentoring (i.e., developing an important relationship with a non-parental adult) in the transition to full time employment among young adults (age 23–28). Multivariate analysis of the Add Health data reveals that mentoring is positively related to the likelihood of full time employment, and the relationship involves both selection and causation processes. Entrance into the world of work facilitates the development of mentoring relationships, especially among youth who identify work-related mentors after adolescence. These relationships have the potential for promoting attachment to the labor force. Mentoring relationships that develop outside of work settings and during adolescence have a positive impact on the odds of full time employment. The receipt of guidance and advice from mentors, as well as access to weak-tied mentoring relationships, teacher mentors, and friend mentors all contribute to the increased odds of employment in young adulthood. However, adolescent mentoring may be less effective among young women than it is among young men.     

A community treatment intervention advancing active treatment in the elderly (ACTIVATE): a pilot study

A growing population of older adults receive treatment for depression but remain symptomatic. We report on a feasibility pilot study of an intervention (ACTIVATE) to improve depression care by encouraging the older person to take a step to intensify the existing treatment. Older adults (N = 43) receiving home-meal service and in depression treatment, but still symptomatic, participated in the ACTIVATE intervention. Assessments were conducted to evaluate change in treatment. Many (66.6%) participants took a step to change their treatment; the rate (88.2%) was higher among individuals with major depression. ACTIVATE may be a useful social work intervention to improve depression care.     

A Collaborative Approach to Infant Research: Promoting Reproducibility,Best Practices,and Theory‐Building

The ideal of scientific progress is that we accumulate measurements and integrate these into theory, but recent discussion of replicability issues has cast doubt on whether psychological research conforms to this model. Developmental research—especially with infant participants—also has discipline‐specific replicability challenges, including small samples and limited measurement methods. Inspired by collaborative replication efforts in cognitive and social psychology, we describe a proposal for assessing and promoting replicability in infancy research: large‐scale, multi‐laboratory replication efforts aiming for a more precise understanding of key developmental phenomena. The ManyBabies project, our instantiation of this proposal, will not only help us estimate how robust and replicable these phenomena are, but also gain new theoretical insights into how they vary across ages, linguistic communities, and measurement methods. This project has the potential for a variety of positive outcomes, including less‐biased estimates of theoretically important effects, estimates of variability that can be used for later study planning, and a series of best‐practices blueprints for future infancy research.     

The Cognitive Domain of the Quality of Life of University Students: A Re-Analyses of an Instrument

This paper presents the re-analysis of a previouslypublished instrument, based on Bloom's taxonomy,developed to measure the cognitive domain of thequality of life of university students. The items inthis instrument were assessed using Guttman's SmallestSpace Analysis. The findings generally supportBloom's conceptualization, identifying 5 of 6dimensions in the taxonomy: Knowledge, Comprehension,Application, Analysis, and Evaluation. The findingsprovide support for the enduring utility of Bloom'staxonomy, and reinforce the ongoing need to testtheoretically informed instruments using sophisticatedstatistical techniques.     

Poverty,Delinquency, and Educational Attainment: Cumulative Disadvantage or Disadvantage Saturation?

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) were analyzed to test two competing hypotheses regarding how poverty affects the relationship between delinquency and educational attainment. The cumulative-disadvantage perspective argues that poor youth suffer greater consequences for their involvement in delinquency than middle- and upper-class youth in terms of their educational attainment. Contrary to this perspective, the disadvantage-saturation thesis predicts that delinquency is less con-sequential for the educational attainment of poor youth than it is for nonpoor youth. Results from ordinary least squares and logistic regression analyses support the latter hypothesis. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

Secular changes in the height of fijians and indo-fijians

Quantitative evidence is presented on secular changes in the height of adult Fijians and Indo-Fijians during the past century. Consideration is also given to changes in the tempo of maturation and in the sexual dimorphism of height of these two groups.     

CRIMINAL OPPORTUNITY THEORY AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POVERTY AND PROPERTY CRIME

Criminal opportunity theory suggests that community economic deprivation has two countervailing effects on property crime: it causes strain and disorganization which may encourage some individuals to offend, but it also simultaneously lessens opportunities to engage in property crime by reducing the supply of worthwhile targets in an area. The present study examines the relationship between economic deprivation and rates of burglary and motor vehicle theft for census tracts in two large American cities (Austin and Seattle). Regression analyses support the opportunity saturation hypothesis derived from criminal opportunity theory. This hypothesis suggests that the relationship between levels of deprivation and property crime is curvilinear where the positive effect of deprivation on property crime is stronger at low levels of neighborhood poverty than it is at high levels. Research and policy implications are discussed.