Vagal Regulation and Observed Social Behavior in Infancy

The goal of the present study was to test a recent hypothesis that the ability to suppress cardiac vagal tone during a cognitive challenge was related to social behavior. One hundred thirty-six infants participated with their parents in laboratory visits when infants were 12 (mother visit) and 13 months (father visit) of age. To measure the infants' regulation of cardiac vagal tone, heart rate responses were recorded during the administration of a test of mental development (father visit). Responses to a stranger interaction were measured during the 12 month visit. In addition, experimenters evaluated the infants' behavior across the laboratory sessions using an adaptation of the Infant Behavior Record. Results revealed that infants who were able to suppress vagal tone during the cognitive challenge were rated by the experimenters as more socially approaching at the two laboratory visits. Vagal regulation was unrelated to behavior during the stranger-infant interaction. These findings partially support the hypothesis that infants who are able to regulate their vagal tone have a greater capacity for social engagement.     

A new role for imaging in the diagnosis of physical elder abuse: results of a qualitative study with radiologists and frontline providers

Pediatric radiologists play a key role in the detection of child abuse through the identification of characteristic injury patterns. Emergency radiologists have the potential to play an equally important role in the detection of elder physical abuse; however, they currently play little to no part in this effort. We examine the reasons behind this limited role, and potential strategies to expand it, by interviewing attending faculty from Emergency Radiology, Geriatrics, Emergency Medicine, Pediatric Radiology, and Pediatrics. Our interviews revealed that radiologists’ contribution to elder abuse detection is currently limited by gaps in training, gaps in knowledge about imaging correlates, and gaps in inter-team clinical communication. Specifically, radiographic interpretation of elder trauma is severely restricted by lack of communication between frontline providers and radiologists about patients’ injury mechanism and functional status. Improving this communication and re-conceptualizing ED workflow is critical to expanding and optimizing radiologists’ role in elder abuse detection.     

Gender Socialization Practices Among Bisexual and Other Nonmonosexual Mothers: A Longitudinal Qualitative Examination

Though social scientists have researched sexual-minority parenting practices regarding the gender socialization of children, to date this research has focused exclusively on sexual-minority parents in same-gender relationships, and almost exclusively on the experiences of gay and lesbian parents. This article addresses the gender socialization parenting practices of 25 nonmonosexual sexual-minority women who are in different-gender relationships through analysis of qualitative in-depth interviews that took place over the course of 1 year. Our findings indicate that the experiences of these participants differ from both those reported in previous literature on sexual-minority parents in same-gender relationships, as well as heterosexual parents in different-gender relationships. Specifically, participants do not report sexual identity stigma as restricting the degree of cross-gender socialization in which they engage, nor do they report a gender normative influence from their male partners. Findings are discussed in the context of a socioecological framework.     

Ordered Regressions

There are often situations where two or more regression functions are ordered over a range of covariate values. In this paper, we develop efficient constrained estimation and testing procedures for such models. Specifically, necessary and sufficient conditions for ordering generalized linear regressions are given and shown to unify previous results obtained for simple linear regression, for polynomial regression and in the analysis of covariance models. We show that estimating the parameters of ordered linear regressions requires either quadratic programming or semi‐infinite programming, depending on the shape of the covariate space. A distance‐type test for order is proposed. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed methodology improves the mean square error and power compared with the usual, unconstrained, estimation and testing procedures. Improvements are often substantial. The methodology is extended to order generalized linear models where convex semi‐infinite programming plays a role. The methodology is motivated by, and applied to, a hearing loss study.