The Development of Object Construction From Infancy Through Toddlerhood

Early in development, children explore and combine objects in increasingly complex ways. One manual skill, object construction, represents a major shift in how objects are explored relative to other objects. Despite recent connections with cognitive functioning such as spatial skills, the development of object construction ability has rarely been studied and its trajectory has not been adequately described. The purpose of this study was to describe the development of three types of object construction (stacking, nesting, and affixing) across 5 monthly infant visits and 7 monthly toddler visits using a longitudinal design and a large sample size. Infants (10–14 months, n = 131) and toddlers drawn from the infant sample (18–24 months, n = 65) were given sets of age‐appropriate toys each of which elicited at least one type of constructive play. We described success at different construction tasks and identified trends for construction skill for infant and toddler development using multilevel modeling. We found that each of the three construction actions developed in unique ways across the 10‐ to 24‐month period. Infant construction skill predicted the development of toddler skill, but toddler construction skill diverged from infant trajectories. We discuss the role of combination strategies in the development of object construction skill and how object construction could be related to other domains of development.     

Quantifying the Establishment Likelihood of Invasive Alien Species Introductions Through Ports with Application to Honeybees in Australia

The cost of an uncontrolled incursion of invasive alien species (IAS) arising from undetected entry through ports can be substantial, and knowledge of port‐specific risks is needed to help allocate limited surveillance resources. Quantifying the establishment likelihood of such an incursion requires quantifying the ability of a species to enter, establish, and spread. Estimation of the approach rate of IAS into ports provides a measure of likelihood of entry. Data on the approach rate of IAS are typically sparse, and the combinations of risk factors relating to country of origin and port of arrival diverse. This presents challenges to making formal statistical inference on establishment likelihood. Here we demonstrate how these challenges can be overcome with judicious use of mixed‐effects models when estimating the incursion likelihood into Australia of the European (Apis mellifera) and Asian (A. cerana) honeybees, along with the invasive parasites of biosecurity concern they host (e.g., Varroa destructor). Our results demonstrate how skewed the establishment likelihood is, with one‐tenth of the ports accounting for 80% or more of the likelihood for both species. These results have been utilized by biosecurity agencies in the allocation of resources to the surveillance of maritime ports.     

Household time activities,food waste,and diet quality: the impact of non-marginal changes due to COVID-19

Review of Economics of the Household - In early 2020, a novel coronavirus quickly spread across the globe. In response to the rapidly increasing number of confirmed U.S. cases, state and local...     

Why Are Socially Anxious Adolescents Rejected by Peers? The Role of Subject‐Group Similarity Characteristics

This study addressed the role of actual and perceived similarity in peer rejection of socially anxious adolescents. Videotapes of 20 high and 20 low socially anxious adolescents (13–17 years old) giving a speech were rated by groups of unfamiliar peers with regard to perceived similarity and desire for future interaction (lower scores indicating rejection). Actual similarity between speakers and observers regarding social anxiety and gender was also taken into account. Findings showed that high socially anxious students were more rejected and that perceived but not actual similarity between peer observers and speakers (partly) mediated rejection.     

The Ethical Challenges of Socially Responsible Science

Social responsibility is an essential part of the responsible conduct of research that presents difficult ethical questions for scientists. Recognizing one’s social responsibilities as a scientist is an important first step toward exercising social responsibility, but it is only the beginning, since scientists may confront difficult value questions when deciding how to act responsibly. Ethical dilemmas related to socially responsible science fall into at least three basic categories: 1) dilemmas related to problem selection, 2) dilemmas related to publication and data sharing, and 3) dilemmas related to engaging society. In responding to these dilemmas, scientists must decide how to balance their social responsibilities against other professional commitments and how to avoid compromising their objectivity. In this article, we will examine the philosophical and ethical basis of social responsibility in science, discuss some of the ethical dilemmas related to exercising social responsibility, and make five recommendations to help scientists deal with these issues.     

The Impact of Macro- and Micro-Economic Uncertainty on Family Formation in The Netherlands

In this paper, we study the impact of macro- and micro-economic uncertainty on family formation between 1970 and 2000 in The Netherlands. Using data of the Family Survey Dutch Population, we analysed the monthly hazard rates of experiencing the transition into first union, first marriage and parenthood after the start of the relationship of 365 male and 364 female partners by applying piecewise-constant exponential models. The results show that macro-economic uncertainties, i.e. high unemployment rates, lead to postponement of the first union and marriage, but not of the first child. In addition, we found that this relationship is not interpreted by individual-level employment insecurity, i.e. temporary employment or unemployment, which does not seem to prevent people from making long-term family commitments. Although hypothesized, we did not find that the negative effects of macro- and micro-level insecurities on family formation reinforce each other or that they vary between individuals with different educational qualifications.     

Convergence rates for uniform confidence intervals based on local polynomial regression estimators

We investigate the convergence rates of uniform bias-corrected confidence intervals for a smooth curve using local polynomial regression for both the interior and boundary region. We discuss the cases when the degree of the polynomial is odd and even. The uniform confidence intervals are based on the volume-of-tube formula modified for biased estimators. We empirically show that the proposed uniform confidence intervals attain, at least approximately, nominal coverage. Finally, we investigate the performance of the volume-of-tube based confidence intervals for independent non-Gaussian errors.