College students' definitions of social and problem drinking

College students (N = 276) completed surveys describing two common drinking situations. One scenario described a student alone in an apartment after a weekday class; the other, the same student at a weekend party. Sex of the drinker in the scenario was systematically varied. Students estimated the number of drinks a social drinker and a problem drinker would have in each situation. Results indicated that: 1) definitions of social and problem drinking are strongly influenced by drinking context, and 2) male and female subjects estimated that problem drinkers of the opposite sex drank more than problem drinkers of their own sex. Problem drinkers were regularly estimated to consume three to four more drinks than the subject would in the same situation. Implications for education and prevention are discussed.     

Democrats and republicans in anthropology and sociology: How do they differ on public policy issues?

The American Sociologist - Within the fields of anthropology and sociology, how do Democrats and Republicans compare in their opinions on issues of economic regulation, personal choice, and the...     

Assessing the cost of behaviorally oriented residential treatment: predictive program factors

The authors identify program characteristics most predictive of cost in 13 residential treatment facilities for emotionally disturbed children and discuss how easily obtainable quantitative information can be used to decide resource allocation.     

Premium will continue to be on performance. Interview by Wesley Curry.

With a new name for its professional organization (the American College of Physician Executives) and a new certifying organization (the American Board of Medical Management), the profession of medical management is in the throes of significant and far-reaching change. At the College's National Conference in Washington, D.C. in May, we talked to two leaders of the profession, Michael B. Guthrie, MD, MBA, FACPE, and Robert H. Hodge, Jr., MD, FACPE about what the future holds for physician executives and what physician executives can do to position themselves for success. Dr. Guthrie, the Immediate Past President of the College is Vice President for Business Development, Penrose/St. Francis Healthcare System, Colorado Springs, Colo. Dr. Hodge, the new President of the College, is a Program Director, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Battle Creek, Mich.     

Young Children's Prosocial and Aggressive Behaviors and Their Experiences of Being Targeted for Similar Behaviors by Peers

Children's target experiences (as recipients of prosocial peer acts and victims of peer aggression) were investigated for their concurrent and longitudinal associations with prosocial and aggressive behavior. Forty‐four children (initially 22–40 months) were observed in naturalistic interactions with peers during a two‐month period for each of three consecutive years. Results revealed no consistency over time in children's experiences as targets for aggressive or prosocial peer acts, although there was some indication that altruistic target experiences may be stable from the end of the preschool period. Early behavior appeared to affect the way children were later treated by peers, but no support was found for the idea that early target experiences influence later behavior. Prosocial behavior was concurrently and longitudinally associated with prosocial target experiences. Aggressive behavior reduced the likelihood of children being targets of prosocial peer behavior and, over time, also of their being targets of peers’ aggression.     

Pooling multivariate data under W, LR and LM tests

Two independent random samples are drawn from two multivariate normal populations with mean vectors μ1 and μ2 and a common variance-covariance matrix Σ. Ahmed and Saleh (1990) considered preliminary test maximum likelihood estimator (PMLTE) for estimating μ1 based on the Hotelling's T _N ², when it is suspected that μ1=μ2. In this paper, the PTMLE based on the Wald (W), Likelihood Ratio (LR) and Lagrangian Multiplier (LM) tests are considered. Using the quadratic risk function, the conditions of superiority of the proposed estimator for departure parameter are derived. A max-min rule for the size of the preliminary test of significance is presented. It is demonstrated that the PTMLE based on W test produces the highest minimum guaranteed efficiencies compared to UMLE among the three test procedures.     

Renyi's entropy for residual lifetime distribution

In the present paper, we introduce and study Renyi's information measure (entropy) for residual lifetime distributions. It is shown that the proposed measure uniquely determines the distribution. We present characterizations for some lifetime models. Further, we define two new classes of life distributions based on this measure. Various properties of these classes are also given.