Consideration of future consequences and unprotected anal intercourse among men who have sex with men

This study of men who have sex with men (MSM) examined whether tendencies to consider the future consequences of one's actions were associated with sexual behaviors that place oneself at risk for HIV infection. A total of 339 HIV-negative MSM responded to the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale (CFC; Strathman et al., 1994) and to questions about their anal intercourse practices in the past year. In bivariate analyses, men with a stronger future orientation were less likely to engage in anal intercourse unprotected by a condom (p < .05). Multivariate analyses revealed that CFC accounted for significant variance in three of four measures of unprotected anal sex after statistically controlling for demographic covariates (education, income, ethnicity, age). CFC was a better predictor of sexual behavior and accounted for more unique variance than any of the demographic factors. Additional research is needed to confirm that CFC is an antecedent of behavior and to examine the feasibility and efficacy of focusing on CFC in HIV prevention interventions.     

Self-perceived health status,gender, and work status

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the relationship between gender and self-perceived health status in Spanish retirees and housewives from a sample of 1,106 community-dwelling older adults. A multivariate linear regression model was used in which self-perceived health status was measured by the EQ-5D visual analogue scale and gender according to work status (retired men and women and housewives). Retired males reported a significantly better health status than housewives. Self-perceived health status was closely associated with physical, mental, and functional health and leisure activities. Finally, being a woman with complete dedication to domestic work is associated with a worse state of self-perceived health.     

On the graphical display of the significant components in two-way contingency tables

Graphical methods have been previously proposed for studying the cell contributions to the chi-square statistics in two-way contingency tables. Clustering techniques are suggested for analyzing the differences among the frequency distributions of either the columns or the rows of the contingency cables. Modifications are proposed to the other methods: first, varying widths of bars according to the expected cell counts, then the gannria probability plot of the individual chi-square terms.     

Single machine scheduling with non-availability interval and optional job rejection

This paper studies the single machine scheduling problem with availability constraints and optional job rejection. We consider the non-resumable and resumable variants, and show that the problems remain ordinary NP-hard, even with the rejection possibility extension, by presenting pseudo-polynomial dynamic-programming (DP) solutions. We also present an enhanced running time implementation of the algorithm of Kellerer and Strusevich (Algorithmica 57(4):769–795, 2010) for the resumable scenario without job rejection. This solution is adapted to efficiently solve the machine non-availability problem with a floating interval and the problem of two competing agents on a single machine, with and without optional job rejection. Numerical experiments support the efficiency of our DP implementation.