National Culture on the Cross-National Variation of Homicide: An Empirical Application of the Inglehart–Welzel Cultural Map

Although there has been a growing literature on the effects of culture on the cross-national variation of homicide, this literature remains limited in the operationalization of national culture as well as in the modeling of the cultural effects. Adopting a multidimensional measure of national culture developed in the World Values Survey, this study examines the effects of various aspects of national culture, as well as their interaction, on the cross-national variation of homicide. The findings of this study provide evidence for the effect of national culture on homicide variation across countries while painting a more complex picture about the potential mechanisms of these effects.     

Stepchildren's Views About Former Step‐Relationships Following Stepfamily Dissolution

Remarriages end in divorce more often than first marriages, so many stepchildren experience multiple parental divorces and the potential loss of significant family ties. Although there is substantial research on parent–child relationships after divorce, little is known about stepparent–stepchild relationships after divorce. Therefore, the authors conducted a grounded theory study of 41 adults who had undergone a stepfamily dissolution to explore their experiences with former stepparents. Postdivorce relationships with former stepparents are a function of whether stepchildren thought of their former stepparents as kin. Postdivorce step‐relationships were based on whether the stepchild had claimed the stepparent as kin, had once claimed them as kin but disclaimed them after the divorce, or had never claimed them as family members (unclaimed stepparents). Emotional reactions to parental divorce, patterns of support or resource exchanges, and parental encouragement or discouragement for continuing step‐relationships were identified. Implications for families, practitioners, and researchers are discussed.     

“Helping teenagers in care flourish: What parenting research tells us about foster care”

In this article, I review a range of theoretical and practical issues that are relevant to the foster care of teenagers. I argue that topics such as the recent research evidence from neuroscience regarding brain development in adolescence, as well as control, the promotion of autonomy, and resilience, all have major implications for the provision of appropriate care for teenagers. I outline some of the key conclusions reached by researchers on these pertinent topics and then go on to consider the implications from this evidence for the training of foster carers.     

Coming Out and the Potential for Growth in Sexual Minorities: The Role of Social Reactions and Internalized Homonegativity

Coming out is a significant and sometimes difficult process in the lives of sexual minorities, but disclosure can also affect wellbeing in positive ways, including reduced distress and greater relationship satisfaction. This study investigates the possibility of stress-related growth and depreciation following coming out. To obtain a diverse sample with varying coming-out experiences, data were collected from undergraduate students as well as from online sources, including lesbian, gay, and bisexual support groups and Pride groups. Regression analyses indicated that negative social reactions to coming out predicted both growth and depreciation, although they more strongly predicted depreciation. Positive social reactions were positively related to stress-related growth, while internalized homonegativity was inversely associated with growth. Although the two sample sources (online and campus) differed in some ways, sample source was not a significant predictor in the regressions, nor was it indicated as a moderator in exploratory ANOVA analyses.     

Attitudes Toward Inheritance Following Divorce and Remarriage

The purpose of this study is to examine attitudes regarding who should be included in wills following divorce and remarriage. Respondents were 268 men and 439 women. In mailed vignettes, they indicated whom they thought should be included in an elder's will. Three variables were examined: (a) family closeness, (b) contact after divorce, and (c) remarriage. Three factors were associated with inheritance obligations: (a) genetic ties, (b) patriarchal lineage, and (c) family ties, which were defined more broadly than genetic relationships. Few respondents mentioned factors such as family closeness and reciprocity. There was little agreement regarding who is and who is not in the family, but inheritance clearly was limited to family. Obligation to include the next of kin in the will supersedes obligations based upon closeness and frequency of contact.     

Topics in Microbial Risk Assessment: Dynamic Flow Tree Process

Microbial risk assessment is emerging as a new discipline in risk assessment. A systematic approach to microbial risk assessment is presented that employs data analysis for developing parsimonious models and accounts formally for the variability and uncertainty of model inputs using analysis of variance and Monte Carlo simulation. The purpose of the paper is to raise and examine issues in conducting microbial risk assessments. The enteric pathogen Escherichia coli O157:H7 was selected as an example for this study due to its significance to public health. The framework for our work is consistent with the risk assessment components described by the National Research Council in 1983 (hazard identification; exposure assessment; dose-response assessment; and risk characterization). Exposure assessment focuses on hamburgers, cooked a range of temperatures from rare to well done, the latter typical for fast food restaurants. Features of the model include predictive microbiology components that account for random stochastic growth and death of organisms in hamburger. For dose-response modeling, Shigella data from human feeding studies were used as a surrogate for E. coli O157:H7. Risks were calculated using a threshold model and an alternative nonthreshold model. The 95% probability intervals for risk of illness for product cooked to a given internal temperature spanned five orders of magnitude for these models. The existence of even a small threshold has a dramatic impact on the estimated risk.     

Caregiver Decision-Making: Household Response to Child Illness in Sub-Saharan Africa

We draw upon a framework outlining household recognition and response to child illness proposed by Colvin et al. (Soc Sci Med 86:66–78, 2013) to examine factors predictive of treatment sought for a recent child illness. In particular, we model whether no treatment, middle layer treatment (traditional healer, pharmacy, community health worker, etc.), or biomedical treatment was sought for recent episodes of diarrhea, fever, or cough. Based on multinomial, multi-level analyses of Demographic and Health Surveys from 19 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, we determine that if women have no say in their own healthcare, they are unlikely to seek treatment in response to child illness. We find that women in sub-Saharan Africa need healthcare knowledge, the ability to make healthcare decisions, as well as resources to negotiate cost and travel, in order to access biomedical treatment. Past experience with medical services such as prenatal care and a skilled birth attendant also increases the odds that biomedical treatment for child illness is sought. We conclude that caregiver decision-making in response to child illness within households is critical to reducing child morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan Africa.     

Statistical considerations for design and analysis of stability,comparability and formulation tests

This article considers designed experiments for stability, comparability, and formulation testing that are analyzed with regression models in which the degradation rate is a fixed effect. In this setting, we investigate how the number of lots, the number of time points and their locations affect the precision of the entities of interest, leverages of the time points, detection of non-linearity and interim analyses. This investigation shows that modifying time point locations suggested by ICH for stability studies can significantly improve these objectives. In addition, we show that estimates of precision can be biased when a regression model that assumes independent measurements is used in the presence of within-assay session correlation. This bias can lead to longer shelf life estimates in stability studies and loss of power in comparability studies. Mixed-effect models that take into account within-assay session correlation are shown to reduce this bias. The findings in this article are obtained from well known statistical theory but provide valuable practical advice to scientists and statisticians designing and interpreting these types of experiments.