Multisystemic Therapy for Disruptive Behavior Problems in Youths With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Progress Report

Youths with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often engage in serious disruptive behaviors that interfere with their ability to successfully manage day‐to‐day responsibilities and contribute to relationship problems with caregivers, peers, and teachers. Effective treatments are needed to address the factors linked with disruptive behavior problems in this population of youths. Multisystemic therapy (MST) is a comprehensive family‐ and community‐based treatment approach that has been effective with other difficult‐to‐treat populations of youths and holds promise for youths with ASD. In this article, we review the broad range of factors associated with disruptive behaviors among youths with ASD and discuss how MST interventions can be adapted to address those factors. We also present a framework for our adaptation of the MST model for youths with ASD. This framework includes a recently completed pilot study as well as an ongoing efficacy trial that together have served to identify key interventions for our adaptation of the MST model.     

The Family Context of Relational Aggression in “Difficult to Treat” Female Juvenile Offenders

Female juvenile offenders often engage in socially aggressive behaviors that make them more difficult to treat than male juvenile offenders. This social (i.e., relational) aggression may be developed or maintained through transactions with family members. To investigate this issue, we measured relational aggression in the family interactions of 140 adolescents divided by gender and offender status into four equal‐sized groups (female juvenile offenders, male juvenile offenders, female nonoffenders, and male nonoffenders). Adolescents and caregivers completed a family discussion task, and raters coded relationally aggressive behaviors at the dyadic level. Results showed that female juvenile offenders and their mothers directed more relational aggression toward each other than did mother–adolescent dyads in the other groups. Implications of these results for treatment and research are discussed.     

Austerity and the Demise of Social Europe: The Baltic Model versus the European Social Model

This article draws on the experience of the imposition of radical austerity measures in the Baltic states. It challenges the myth that austerity can be achieved in a socially and economically ‘costless’ manner. Baltic-style austerity has now become a template of ‘successful adjustment’ and a recipe for recovery of the Eurozone. The authors argue contra such ‘myth-making’ that austerity is compromising the longer run sustainability of societies that follow this path, while simultaneously ending prospects of the adhesion of a European ‘Social Model’ in the post-communist periphery. The article is a contribution to an emerging debate in academic and policy circles concerning the viability and future of Europe's ‘Social Model’ in an age of austerity.     

The Associations of Financial Stress and Parenting Support Factors with Alcohol Behaviors During Young Adulthood

This study examined concurrent and prospective associations of financial stress (financial strain, lack of financial access, public assistance) and parenting support factors (relationship quality, living at home, financial support) with young adults’ alcohol behaviors (alcohol use, heavy drinking, and problematic drinking) over a 5-year period. Analyses of National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data (N = 7,159) showed that, over the study period, alcohol use and heavy drinking declined while problematic drinking increased. In addition, living at home and parental relationship quality were associated with fewer concurrent and prospective alcohol behaviors whereas financial strain and parents’ financial support were associated with more alcohol behaviors. The implications for minimizing alcohol misuse in young adults amid uncertain economic conditions are discussed.     

Similar effects of residential and non-residential vegetation on bird diversity in suburban neighbourhoods

Estimating the relative importance of vegetation on residential land (gardens, yards, and street-trees) and vegetation on non-residential land (parks and other large green spaces) is important so that competing options for urban conservation planning can be prioritized. We used data from an urban breeding-bird monitoring program to compare the relative effects vegetation on residential land and vegetation on non-residential land (both the amount and type of vegetation at local and landscape scales) on bird species richness and an index of conservation value for the bird community. We then estimated the realised relative benefit of managing the amount of vegetation on these two types of land (i.e., as alternative management options for promoting biodiversity), which might be achieved within the practical limits imposed by human population density. The local effects of increasing residential and non-residential vegetation amount were similar and positive on all measures of bird species richness and conservation value. Non-residential vegetation had an additional landscape-scale influence on bird diversity that residential vegetation did not. Options for managing the amount of non-residential vegetation appear to be more limited by high human population density than for managing the amount of residential vegetation. This suggests that there may be greater realised benefits to bird diversity from managing the amount of vegetation on residential land than from the more common focus of urban planning of managing vegetation on non-residential land.     

东亚国际移民:趋势与政策

回顾了东亚的国际劳工移民的动向和原因,并将注意力转移到东亚的国际劳工流动引起的一些政策变化:提高劳动力输出纯收益,重新整合回国劳工,劳力出口的再构建,推进和控制劳动力招募和保护劳工移民.最后做出了一些结论性的预测:越来越多的人到其他国家追寻赚钱的机会及更高质量的生活.导致这一现象的原因有:亚太地区经济整合性的增长、交流与传媒系统的扩大和交互联系、教育与培训的国际化、交通的日益简易和方便、收入差异、就业机会以及变化的环境等.     

The loss-averse newsvendor problem

Newsvendor models are widely used in the literature, and usually based upon the assumption of risk neutrality. This paper uses loss aversion to model manager's decision-making behavior in the single-period newsvendor problem. We find that if shortage cost is not negligible, then a loss-averse newsvendor may order more than a risk-neutral newsvendor. We also find that the loss-averse newsvendor's optimal order quantity may increase in wholesale price and decrease in retail price, which can never occur in the risk-neutral newsvendor model.     

OPTIMAL DESIGN OF MULTI-PRODUCT MULTI-ECHELON INVENTORY SYSTEMS*

Large scale inventory distribution systems typically comprise a hierarchy of retail stores and warehouses. This paper presents a model for finding the optimal design of such systems. Given the maximum number of facilities under consideration and their locations, the problem is to determine which facilities to include in the system and which products to stock at each in order to minimize the cost of the system. Demand for the products may be deterministic or stochastic. To use the model it is necessary to know the optimal inventory policies for the multi-echelon systems under consideration; however, an important feature of this work is that any multi-echelon model may be used in tandem with this design model. Included is an example to illustrate the model and the two points which are the basis for its formulation: first, there is generally no single design which is best for all products; second, the design which is optimal for a given product is not necessarily the best design to use for that product when trying to minimize the cost of the entire system.