A Review of Current Ambulatory Assessment Studies in Adolescent Samples and Practical Recommendations

The use of ambulatory assessment (AA) and related methods (experience sampling, ecological momentary assessment) has greatly increased within the field of adolescent psychology. In this guide, we describe important practices for conducting AA studies in adolescent samples. To better understand how researchers have been implementing AA study designs, we present a review of 23 AA studies that were conducted in adolescent samples from 2017. Results suggest that there is heterogeneity in how AA studies in youth are conducted and reported. Based on these insights, we provide recommendations with regard to participant recruitment, sampling scheme, item selection, power analysis, and software choice. Further, we provide a checklist for reporting on AA studies in adolescent samples that can be used as a guideline for future studies.     

The effects of landscape scale on greenery and traffic relationships with urban birds and butterflies

Actions and policies to enhance biodiversity in the urban landscape must match the spatial scale at which biodiversity responds to the management and target variables. To this end, we compare the importance and effect of different kinds of greenery cover and road-lane density on bird and butterfly species richness between two landscape scales: 50-m versus 126-m radii around point counts (equivalent to areas of 0.8 h and 5 ha, respectively). We also compared the results against those of an earlier study using 500-m walking transects with widths of 100 m (i.e., 5 ha). Road lane density was more important at the 126-m than 50-m radius for both birds and butterflies. For birds, natural vegetation or forest cover and cultivated shrub cover were also more important at 126-m radius whereas the cultivated tree canopy cover was more important at 50-m radius. Cultivated tree cover and natural vegetation or forest cover were positively associated with species richness while road lane density and cultivated shrub cover were negatively associated with species richness. The results from point counts generally corroborate the results from the transects-based study, except that the short-duration point counts performed poorly in sampling butterflies. Our results indicate that in designing urban greenery policy, the plot sizes of individual developments is an appropriate spatial scale for the stipulation of tree cover targets, while urban planners have more flexibility to allocate natural greenery at broader spatial scales.

     

Socioeconomic Status,Psychosocial Factors and Health in Urban Guyana

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and self-reported indicators of physical and mental health in an urban Third World context. The data come from a probability sample of 654 adult residents of Georgetown, Guyana. There is a significant inverse association between formal education and morbidity for four of the six measures of health status. In this research the extent to which self-concept, health behaviors, stress and social ties are linked to health status and SES, and can explain SES differences in health status is explored. Psychosocial factors, especially the self-concept measures (self-esteem and mastery) play a moderate role in accounting for educational differences in health status.     

GAMMA-BASED CLUSTERING VIA ORDERED MEANS WITH APPLICATION TO GENE-EXPRESSION ANALYSIS

Discrete mixture models provide a well-known basis for effective clustering algorithms, although technical challenges have limited their scope. In the context of gene-expression data analysis, a model is presented that mixes over a finite catalog of structures, each one representing equality and inequality constraints among latent expected values. Computations depend on the probability that independent gamma-distributed variables attain each of their possible orderings. Each ordering event is equivalent to an event in independent negative-binomial random variables, and this finding guides a dynamic-programming calculation. The structuring of mixture-model components according to constraints among latent means leads to strict concavity of the mixture log likelihood. In addition to its beneficial numerical properties, the clustering method shows promising results in an empirical study.     

Determinants of fertility control in Korea

The objective of this study is to examine the socioeconomic and intervening determinants of fertility control in Korea. The conceptual framework applied here is based on the synthesis framework of fertility control developed by Easterlin and Crimmins. The data came from the 1974 Korean National Family Survey, which was conducted as part of the World Fertility Survey. The study focuses on the relative importance of the socioeconomic factors and intervening variables in the determination of fertility control. The most interesting finding is that there are only small differentials in fertility control by socioeconomic factors. The analysis emphasizes the importance of examining the determinants of fertility control in terms of the intervening variables, which include the components of natural fertility, desired family size, and costs of fertility control. These intervening variables provide general support for the theoretical predictions. Moreover, most of the coefficients for these variables are statistically significant at the .05 level. The analysis also shows that motivation for fertility control is an important factor in determining use of fertility control.     

Family structure and educational attainment of children: effects of remarriage

This study explores how remarriage alters the effect of living in a female-headed family on children's educational attainment. The analysis is based upon data from a mother/child extract taken from the 1984 March/April Match file of the Current Population Survey. Ordinary least squares regression analysis and logit analysis are used. The results are mixed. While remarriage mitigates the negative effects of single-parent family living on years of school completed and the probability of high school graduation, it exacerbates these effects on the probability of entering college by ages 18–20 years, especially for boys. Thus, while remarriage increases income and reduces time pressures compared to single-parent family living, the presence of a stepfather appears to complicate the college entrance decision.This research is based upon the Ph. D. thesis of Seung Sin Chung, submitted to the School of Human Resources and Family Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We are grateful to John W. Graham for considerable effort in preparation of the data extract for this research as well as for comments, to Sara McLanahan for useful discussion, to John Boyd for excellent programming assistance, and to Se-jeong Yang and Yang-Suk Kim for able research assistance. This research was supported in part by NIH Grant # HD19350.     

Aggressive and Prosocial Peer Group Functioning: Effects on Children's Social,School, and Psychological Adjustment

This study examined the effects of aggressive and prosocial contexts of peer groups on children's socioemotional and school adjustment. Data on informal peer groups, social functioning, and different aspects of adjustment were collected from multiple sources in a sample of elementary school children (149 boys, 181 girls; M age = 10 years). Multilevel analyses indicated that group aggressive and prosocial orientations made direct contributions to children's social, school, and psychological functioning. Group contexts also moderated the individual‐level relations between social behavior and self‐perceptions; prosocial behavior was associated with social or scholastic self‐perceptions more evidently in low prosocial and high aggressive groups. The results suggest that the peer group is an important context for children's performance and adjustment in various domains.     

Risk‐Based Probabilistic Approach to Assess the Impact of False Mussel Invasions on Farmed Hard Clams

The purpose of this article is to provide a risk‐based predictive model to assess the impact of false mussel Mytilopsis sallei invasions on hard clam Meretrix lusoria farms in the southwestern region of Taiwan. The actual spread of invasive false mussel was predicted by using analytical models based on advection‐diffusion and gravity models. The proportion of hard clam colonized and infestation by false mussel were used to characterize risk estimates. A mortality model was parameterized to assess hard clam mortality risk characterized by false mussel density and infestation intensity. The published data were reanalyzed to parameterize a predictive threshold model described by a cumulative Weibull distribution function that can be used to estimate the exceeding thresholds of proportion of hard clam colonized and infestation. Results indicated that the infestation thresholds were 2–17 ind clam^?1 for adult hard clams, whereas 4 ind clam^?1 for nursery hard clams. The average colonization thresholds were estimated to be 81–89% for cultivated and nursery hard clam farms, respectively. Our results indicated that false mussel density and infestation, which caused 50% hard clam mortality, were estimated to be 2,812 ind m^?2 and 31 ind clam^?1, respectively. This study further indicated that hard clam farms that are close to the coastal area have at least 50% probability for 43% mortality caused by infestation. This study highlighted that a probabilistic risk‐based framework characterized by probability distributions and risk curves is an effective representation of scientific assessments for farmed hard clam in response to the nonnative false mussel invasion.     

Exploratory analysis of verbal aggression in romantic relationships among unmarried men and women: Predictive patterns by gender and race

This is an exploratory study that examined verbal aggression in romantic relationships among unmarried Black and White women and men as a function of gender and race. We employed an ecological approach to examine the receipt of verbal aggression separately for men and women at the levels of individual, relationship, and community. We also explored whether gender-specific correlates of verbal aggression interacted with race. Analyses were based on a sample of 212 women and 133 men in non-marital romantic relationships recruited from 21 U.S. cities for a larger study. Linear mixed-effects models revealed that factors related to experiencing verbal aggression differed substantially for unmarried women and men in romantic relationships. Interesting racial differences also emerged distinctly for women and men.