Does the Impact of the Tobacco Epidemic Explain Structural Changes in the Decline of Mortality?

Since 1950, most developed countries have exhibited structural changes in mortality decline. This complicates extrapolative forecasts, such as the commonly used Lee–Carter model, that require the presence of a steady long-term trend. This study tests whether the impact of the tobacco epidemic explains the structural changes in mortality decline, as it is presumed in earlier studies. For this purpose, the time index of the Lee-Carter model in males was investigated in 20 developed countries between 1950 and 2011 for possible structural changes. It was found that removing the impact of smoking from mortality trends took away more than half of the 12 detected trend breaks. For the remaining trend breaks, adjusting for smoking attenuated the degree of change in mortality decline. Taking the tobacco epidemic into account should become standard procedure in mortality forecasts to avoid a misleading extrapolation of trends. Nevertheless, more research is needed to identify additional factors, such as health-care policies and innovations in medical treatment, to explain the remaining structural changes.     

Collaboration in sociology and other scientific disciplines: A comparative trend analysis of scholarship in the social, physical, and mathematical sciences

This inquiry examines comparative trends in collaboration among scholars, both over several decades and for several scientific disciplines. Findings suggest that in sociology specifically and science generally the trend is toward greater collaborative scholarship. At the turn of the twentieth century, better than 90 percent of the articles appearing in major periodicals in physics, biochemistry, biology, and chemistry were sole authored. Today, over 95 percent of such articles are collaboratively published. Disciplines affiliated with the social and mathematical sciences have experienced similar monotonic increases in collaborative activity, albeit, at a slower rate. A discussion of plausible explanations is offered for this observed growth in scientific collaboration.     

An Animal Model of Slot Machine Gambling: The Effect of Structural Characteristics on Response Latency and Persistence

Despite the prevalence of problem gamblers and the ethical issues involved in studying gambling behavior with humans, few animal models of gambling have been developed. When designing an animal model it is necessary to determine if behavior in the paradigm is similar to human gambling. In human studies, response latencies following winning trials and near win trials are greater than those following clear losses. Weatherly and Derenne (Anal Gambl Behav 1:79–89, 2007) investigated whether this pattern was found with rats working in an animal analogue of slot machine gambling. They found a similar pattern of response latencies but the subjects’ behavior did not come under control of the visual stimuli signalling the different outcomes. The animal model of slot machine gambling we used addressed procedural issues in Weatherly and Derenne’s model and examined whether reinforcer magnitude and the presence of near win trials influenced response latency and resistance to extinction. Response latencies of the six female Norway Hooded rats varied as a function of reinforcer magnitude and the presence of near-win trials. These results are consistent with prior research and with the idea that near win trials serve as conditional reinforcers.     

Child Support,Father–Child Contact,and Preteens’ Involvement with Nonresidential Fathers: Racial/Ethnic Differences

This study examined how child support, frequency of contact with children, and the relationship between nonresidential parents influenced preteens’ reports of the involvement of fathers and mothers in their life. Data are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) that has followed the children of NLSY mothers from birth into their twenties. Results showed that increases in child support and in contact with the child over time after separation are linked to a better coparental relationship when children are age 11 or 12. This better relationship between parents is, in turn, associated with greater involvement of both mothers and nonresidential fathers with their children.     

A Quarter Century of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior: An Analysis of Impact

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) has been published since 1982, and during this time, interest in verbal behavior research appears to have increased substantially within behavior analysis. The purpose of the present analysis was to assess the influence of TAVB on the field by (a) counting citations of TAVB articles in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) from 1983 through 2007, (b) examining which other journals cite TAVB, and (c) calculating impact-factor estimates for 2003 through 2007. Citations of TAVB articles began to appear in JEAB and JABA in the late 1980s to early 1990s, and by the end of 2007, almost a third of all articles published in TAVB had been cited in either JEAB or JABA. Other journals that cite TAVB include The Behavior Analyst and The Psychological Record. The estimated impact factor ranged from 0.267 to 0.600. Strategies for increasing the impact of TAVB are discussed.     

LOCATION OF QUALITY INSPECTION STATIONS: AN EXPERIMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF FIVE NORMATIVE HEURISTICS

A number of heuristic decision rules have been proposed to aid in the location of quality inspection stations within a production line. Although these rules apparently enjoy an intuitive appeal, as yet no empirical investigation of their individual efficacies has been undertaken. This research identifies the relations between various cost and/or process characteristics and a designated “operative condition” that motivates the apparent rationale of five of these rules-of-thumb. Experimental results suggest that for several of the heuristics the operative condition was not associated with the performance of the rule. In addition, constraints in the processing environment were found to influence the effectiveness of the heuristics.     

Anticipating the citizenship premium: before and after effects of immigrant naturalisation on employment

Can citizenship improve the economic integration of immigrants, and if so, how? Scholars traditionally understand a citizenship premium in the labour market, besides access to restricted jobs, as the result of a positive signal of naturalisation towards employers. While we do not discard these mechanisms, we argue that explanations should also take into account that migrants anticipate rewards and opportunities of naturalisation by investing in their human capital development. We thus expect to observe improved employment outcomes already before the acquisition of citizenship. We use micro-level register data from Statistics Netherlands from 1999 until 2011 (N?=?94,320) to test this expectation. Results show a one-time boost in the probability of having employment after naturalisation, consistent with the prevalent notion of positive signalling. However, we find that the employment probability of naturalising migrants already develops faster during the years leading up to citizenship acquisition, even when controlling for endogeneity of naturalisation. We conclude that it is not just the positive signal of citizenship that improves employment opportunities, but also migrants’ human capital investment in anticipation of naturalisation.     

Forecasting differences in life expectancy by education

Forecasts of life expectancy (LE) have fuelled debates about the sustainability and dependability of pension and healthcare systems. Of relevance to these debates are inequalities in LE by education. In this paper, we present a method of forecasting LE for different educational groups within a population. As a basic framework we use the Li–Lee model that was developed to forecast mortality coherently for different groups. We adapted this model to distinguish between overall, sex-specific, and education-specific trends in mortality, and extrapolated these time trends in a flexible manner. We illustrate our method for the population aged 65 and over in the Netherlands, using several data sources and spanning different periods. The results suggest that LE is likely to increase for all educational groups, but that differences in LE between educational groups will widen. Sensitivity analyses illustrate the advantages of our proposed method.     

Results of a nationwide hospice and palliative care social work job analysis

The role of the hospice and palliative social worker is often ambiguous and misunderstood by colleagues and fellow team members. One reason for this is the lack of identified, clearly delineated roles, skills, and tasks employed by these specialty social workers in their daily work. This article summarizes the first nationwide job analysis of hospice and palliative social workers. A contextual, cross-sectional survey design was used to identify current and relevant job tasks from practicing hospice and palliative social workers. A sample of 482 social workers representing 46 states responded to a survey that included demographic questions and ranking of 152 tasks and importance to the position. Tasks were categorized into four broad categories: assessment and reevaluation; planning and intervention; death, grief, and bereavement; and professionalism; which includes subcategories consisting of multiple tasks and skills. Respondents identified performing a psychosocial assessment from a patient/family centered care perspective, assessment of the patient’s current and desired quality of life and of coping skills as the tasks most important to their role. This outline of the role of the hospice and palliative social worker was then used in the development of an evidence-based certification exam that may be required of those who want to receive specialty certification in the field.