“As a Shepherd Divideth his Sheep from the Goats”: Does the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale Encapsulate Separable Theistic and Civility Components?

Numerous studies suggest spirituality and subjective well-being (SWB) are positively associated. However, critics argue that popular spirituality instruments—including the Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES)—contain items that conflate religiosity/spirituality (R/S), prosociality and SWB. Advocates of the DSES retort that, despite this concern, the available evidence confirms a single underlying factor. The current paper evaluates the DSES’s development, factor structure, reliability and convergent and predictive validity using a community sample. Despite the full DSES scale’s excellent internal reliability, two related factors—theism and civility—are identified. Both scales are reliable and converge meaningfully with related R/S measures. As expected, given previous findings, the full DSES scale predicts higher SWB yet the two subscales display divergent associations. This finding offers new insights into the DSES and raises questions about the claimed belief-as-benefit effect.     

The Rate of Return on Investment in Wine

Is wine an investment alternative to stocks and bonds? First, we review prior studies regarding the pecuniary rate of return to wine and other alternatives to financial assets. Next, we calculate the rate of return to holding red Bordeaux wine from 1986 to 1996 using a repeat‐sale regression. Finally, we contrast the financial performance of wine, both on an aggregate basis and for various portfolios, to that of other asset classes. We conclude that wine does not yield greater returns than financial assets, especially when the volatility of returns and transaction costs are taken into account.     

Evaluation of an upper extremity student-role functioning scale using item response theory

Millions of workers suffer from upper extremity (musculoskeletal) disorders. Many of these workers are predisposed to upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders because of early exposure to ergonomic risks as students. Computer usage for four or more hours remains the greatest risk for upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders for workers and students alike. Developing preventative methods to reduce student exposure, and thus protect future workers from upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders later in life, requires an appropriate measure for upper extremity musculoskeletal disorder prevalence and related limitations for student functioning. Item response theory analysis was used to evaluate and further develop a upper extremity functioning scale for the student role.     

Introduction: moving youth participation forward

Given the emerging interest among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in youth participation, it is important to examine and assess carefully the promise and challenges of youth engagement.     

Parametric Modeling for Survival with Competing Risks and Masked Failure Causes

We consider a life testing situation in which systems are subject to failure from independent competing risks. Following a failure, immediate (stage-1) procedures are used in an attempt to reach a definitive diagnosis. If these procedures fail to result in a diagnosis, this phenomenon is called masking. Stage-2 procedures, such as failure analysis or autopsy, provide definitive diagnosis for a sample of the masked cases. We show how stage-1 and stage-2 information can be combined to provide statistical inference about (a) survival functions of the individual risks, (b) the proportions of failures associated with individual risks and (c) probability, for a specified masked case, that each of the masked competing risks is responsible for the failure. Our development is based on parametric distributional assumptions and the special case for which the failure times for the competing risks have a Weibull distribution is discussed in detail.     

Federal budget helps drive health policy. A close-up look at the budget process and how it affects health care funding

Crafting the budget is an annual process that Congress and the administration use to define the national policy agenda. It is a massive undertaking to decide how more than two trillion dollars is spent by the federal government. Over 20 percent of the budget is used for health care. The budget is a political document that defines the priorities of the federal government and directly influences overall health policy. Its construction deserves to be followed and influenced by physicians to ensure the health of the public.     

Longitudinal associations among adolescents’ organized activity involvement and sociopolitical values

Organized activities represent a potentially important context for the development of adolescent sociopolitical values, but few studies have examined longitudinal associations between youths’ sociopolitical values and activity involvement. Adolescents (N = 299, Time 1 M_age = 15.49, SD = .93, 62% female) reported on their organized activity involvement (volunteering, church, sports, arts/music, school and community clubs) and sociopolitical values (materialism, social dominance, authoritarianism, patriotism, spirituality) at baseline and one year later. Greater involvement in arts/music predicted lower spirituality and patriotism one year later and greater involvement in church predicted higher levels of spirituality and lower levels of social dominance one year later. Higher levels of materialism predicted less involvement in arts/music one year later and higher social dominance values predicted less involvement in volunteering one year later. Findings support the importance of organized activities in sociopolitical development, and suggest that sociopolitical values may guide decisions concerning future organized activity involvement.     

Estimation of Error and Bias in Bayesian Monte Carlo Decision Analysis Using the Bootstrap

Bayesian Monte Carlo (BMC) decision analysis adopts a sampling procedure to estimate likelihoods and distributions of outcomes, and then uses that information to calculate the expected performance of alternative strategies, the value of information, and the value of including uncertainty. These decision analysis outputs are therefore subject to sample error. The standard error of each estimate and its bias, if any, can be estimated by the bootstrap procedure. The bootstrap operates by resampling (with replacement) from the original BMC sample, and redoing the decision analysis. Repeating this procedure yields a distribution of decision analysis outputs. The bootstrap approach to estimating the effect of sample error upon BMC analysis is illustrated with a simple value-of-information calculation along with an analysis of a proposed control structure for Lake Erie. The examples show that the outputs of BMC decision analysis can have high levels of sample error and bias.