Trends in point-of-sale tobacco marketing around college campuses: Opportunities for enhanced tobacco control efforts

Objective: Colleges have implemented policies to limit tobacco use on-campus; however, the off-campus environment is often overlooked in tobacco control efforts. We assessed availability, marketing, and promotion of cigarettes, snus, and traditional smokeless tobacco (SLT) in a sample of communities surrounding 11 college campuses in North Carolina and Virginia. Participants: Between January-March of 2011, 2012 and 2013, 481 tobacco-selling retailers, including convenience stores, pharmacies and supermarkets, located near campuses were assessed. Methods: Trained observers completed annual point-of-sale assessments. Results: The percentage of stores selling (81.4% to 58.6%; p < .0001) and advertising snus (80.1% to 53.11%; p < .0001) significantly decreased over time. Convenience stores increased promotions of cigarettes (65.4% to 72.8%; p = 0.04) and SLT (3.1% to 23.3%; p = 0.02). Conclusions: Off-campus environments have abundant tobacco availability and marketing. Colleges should collaborate with state and local tobacco control advocates to address tobacco promotion near campuses to potentially decrease product appeal and access among young adults.     

Longitudinal predictors of homelessness: findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-97

Homeless youth represent a vulnerable and understudied population. Little research has prospectively identified factors that may place youth at risk for experiencing homelessness. The current study utilizes data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-97 (NLSY-97) to examine predictors of experiencing homelessness as a young adult (before age 25). The NLSY-97 includes a nationally representative sample of 8984 youth. Data were first collected from these youth when they were between the ages of 12 and 18 years. The current study examined whether individual and family risk factors reported during adolescence predict homelessness by the age of 25. The findings showed that multiple runaway episodes, nontraditional family structure, lower educational attainment, and parental work limitations due to health increased the risk of homelessness. A permissive parenting style and being Hispanic protected against homelessness. This study offers unique insight into risk and protective factors for youth homelessness and has important clinical implications.     

The Relationships of Flexible Work Schedules,Workplace Support,Supervisory Support,Work-Life Balance,and the Well-Being of Working Parents

ABSTRACT

This study, using a secondary dataset from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce, examines how working parents cope with work demands and family responsibilities. The design is a study on the relationships of flexible work schedule, workplace support, supervisory support, and work-life balance on the well-being of working parents employing the Structural Equation Model (SEM). In this study, employee well-being is an endogenous latent construct. Work-schedule flexibility, workplace support, supervisory support, and work-life balance are latent exogenous constructs. This information will assist social workers in developing more effective intervention efforts in the workplace, with the ultimate goal of increasing the quality of life.     

Bayesian variable selection with strong heredity constraints

In this paper, we propose a Bayesian variable selection method for linear regression models with high-order interactions. Our method automatically enforces the heredity constraint, that is, a higher order interaction term can exist in the model only if both of its parent terms are in the model. Based on the stochastic search variable selection George and McCulloch (1993), we propose a novel hierarchical prior that fully considers the heredity constraint and controls the degree of sparsity simultaneously. We develop a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to explore the model space efficiently while accounting for the heredity constraint by modifying the shotgun stochastic search algorithm Hans et al. (2007). The performance of the new model is demonstrated through comparisons with other methods. Numerical studies on both real data analysis and simulations show that our new method tends to find relevant variable more effectively when higher order interaction terms are considered.     

Graphical methods for evaluating ridge regression estimator in mixture experiments

When the component proportions in mixture experiments are restricted by lower and upper bounds, multicollinearity appears all too frequently. Thus, we can suggest the use of ridge regression as a mean for stabilizing the coefficient estimates in the fitted model. We propose graphical methods for evaluating the effect of ridge regression estimator with respect to the predicted response value and the prediction variance.     

Exiting and Returning to the Parental Home for Boomerang Kids

Young adults commonly exit from and return to the parental home, yet few studies have examined the motivation behind these exits and returns using a life course framework. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, the authors examined associations between mental health problems and economic characteristics and exits from (n = 8,162) and returns to (n = 6,530) the parental home during the transition to adulthood. The average age of the respondents was 24 years. The authors found evidence that mental health and economic characteristics were related to home leaving and returning. Emotional distress was associated with earlier exits from and returns to the parental home; alcohol problems were associated with earlier returns to the parental home. The findings regarding economic resources were unexpectedly mixed. Greater economic resources were linked to delayed exits from and earlier returns to the parental home. The implications of these findings for young adults are discussed.     

基于遗传算法的神经网络结构设计

神经网络具有广泛的工程应用前景,但在实际应用中还存在一些困难,如何优化网络结构目前尚无理论指导,应用遗传算法与误差反向传播算法相结合的混合学习过程研究网络结构设计,实例表明通过遗传算法优化网络结构,能够有效地提高网络性能。     

纽马克文本分类模式评析

纽马克将源文本分为三类,并针对各类文本的不同特点提出了相应的翻译策略;而中国学者也在此领域进行了有益的探索.笔者对纽马克文本分类模式进行了分析,并与其他模式进行了比较.在此基础上提出:纽马克提出的文本功能分类模式对英汉对译具有不可忽视的指导意义.     

A measure and a graphical method for evaluating slope rotatability in response surface designs

A measure for evaluating slope rotatability over all directions in response surface designs, is proposed. This measure is used to form slope variance dispersion graph evaluating the overall slope rotatability and the slope estimation capability of an experimental design throughout the region of interest. This graph allows for an easy comparison of competing designs.     

Some issues arising in the analysis of the development level of cultural and welfare service

ABSTRACT

A crucial factor in the shaping of state policy for social work and development is to satisfy various needs in people’s living. The work of satisfying people’s demand for enhanced well-being and the elimination of inequalities in their living is realised through the activity called cultural and welfare service. On the basis of theoretical research on other kinds of services, in this paper, we conceptualised cultural and welfare service that seeks to satisfy various demands in people’s living, set main indicators characterising its development level and suggest a methodology for analysing it.