Gender,Contraceptive Attitudes,and Condom Use in Adolescent Romantic Relationships: A Dyadic Approach

Although sexual risk behavior occurs in a dyadic context, most studies of adolescent sexual behavior focus on individuals. This study uses couple data (N = 488 couples) from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine how partners' contraceptive attitudes correlate over time and whether male or female partners' attitudes are better predictors of condom use. Net of their own prior attitudes, partners' prior attitudes predicted both male and female adolescents' Wave 2 attitudes. This association was stronger for female than for male adolescents, suggesting that female attitudes were influenced more by males' prior attitudes than vice versa. When entered together, only male adolescents' attitudes predicted dyadic condom use. Findings suggest that male partners may have greater influence on adolescent contraceptive decisions and that prevention programs should emphasize the relational context of sexual behavior.     

The Challenges in Developing an Online Applied Statistics Program: Lessons Learned at Penn State University

Numerous professional fields have an increasing need for individuals trained in statistics and other quantitative analysis techniques. Today there exists great potential to fulfill this need by providing opportunities through online learning. However, to provide a high-quality education for returning adult professionals seeking advanced degrees in applied statistics online, many challenges need to be overcome. Based on our experience developing Penn State University’s online program in applied statistics, we discuss the evolution of the program’s curriculum, recruitment and development of online faculty, and meeting the requirements of students as important areas that require consideration in the development of an online program. We also highlight program evaluation strategies employed to ensure innovation and improvement in online education as cornerstones to a program’s success.     

Women’s Off-Farm Work Participation and Son Preference in Rural China

Population Research and Policy Review - China is a rapidly growing country, where a considerable amount of rural female labor has shifted from agricultural to nonagricultural sectors. Meanwhile, a...     

Critical Realism and the Limits to Critical Social Science

The paper assesses the aims and arguments of critical social science and the reconstructions of it provided by critical realist philosophy. It argues that attempts to derive normative conclusions on the basis of explanatory critiques of social phenomena are flawed in several important respects. Accounts of critical social science standardly underestimate the problems of justifying critical standpoints and finding alternative social forms which generate fewer problems than those they replace, and hence lead to net improvement. By arguing that value positions can be derived from explanatory critiques, the philosophical reconstructions make light of the normative issues raised by proposals for social change. They also ignore the question of the feasibility of alternative systems and the prevalence of structures which generate both good and bad effects. While the reconstructions succeed in defending critiques centering on straightforward cases of false beliefs or the frustration of universal human needs, in others, where culturally-specific needs and issues of social responsibilities are involved, they fail to recognise the need to address prior normative questions. It is therefore argued that the aims and claims of critical social science need to be moderated and its dependence on normative discourse properly acknowledged.     

Local Authorities Unemployment Strategies

If a "co-ordinated strategy to reduce the major problem of unemployment" is needed, as Leaper claimed in previous volume, there remains the question of how to develop such a strategy. Central governmental agencies like the MSC have major programmes, but other consequences of high unemployment have to be dealt with by local authorities. Four case studies of attempts made by local authorities in this regard are then examined. The most prominent features in their strategies are: information giving, training provision, job creation and channelling funding from other agencies or internal co-ordinated funding. The new strategies have involved changes in management and liaison, in policy review and affirmation.     

Old People Living Alone—Is Organized Observation Necessary?

A survey of 192 old people was carried out to assess the need for a paid daily visitor as a means of ensuring prompt help in cases of illness or accident. The survey found evidence of a comprehensive network of care from neighbours for the elderly people living near them. Neighbour observation and support made a daily Street Visitor Scheme superfluous.     

Random effects regression mixtures for analyzing infant habituation

Random effects regression mixture models are a way to classify longitudinal data (or trajectories) having possibly varying lengths. The mixture structure of the traditional random effects regression mixture model arises through the distribution of the random regression coefficients, which is assumed to be a mixture of multivariate normals. An extension of this standard model is presented that accounts for various levels of heterogeneity among the trajectories, depending on their assumed error structure. A standard likelihood ratio test is presented for testing this error structure assumption. Full details of an expectation-conditional maximization algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation are also presented. This model is used to analyze data from an infant habituation experiment, where it is desirable to assess whether infants comprise different populations in terms of their habituation time.     

Combining forecast quantiles using quantile regression: Investigating the derived weights, estimator bias and imposing constraints

SUMMARY A novel proposal for combining forecast distributions is to use quantile regression to combine quantile estimates. We consider the usefulness of the resultant linear combining weights. If the quantile estimates are unbiased, then there is strong intuitive appeal for omitting the constant and constraining the weights to sum to unity in the quantile regression. However, we show that suppressing the constant renders one of the main attractive features of quantile regression invalid. We establish necessary and sufficient conditions for unbiasedness of a quantile estimate, and show that a combination with zero constant and weights that sum to unity is not necessarily unbiased.     

Visual Sequence Learning in Infancy: Domain-General and Domain-Specific Associations with Language

Research suggests that non-linguistic sequence learning abilities are an important contributor to language development (Conway, Bauernschmidt, Huang, & Pisoni, 2010). The current study investigated visual sequence learning as a possible predictor of vocabulary development in infants. Fifty-eight 8.5-month-old infants were presented with a three-location spatiotemporal sequence of multi-colored geometric shapes. Early language skills were assessed using the MacArthur-Bates CDI. Analyses of children's reaction times to the stimuli suggest that the extent to which infants demonstrated learning was significantly correlated with their vocabulary comprehension at the time of test and with their gestural comprehension abilities 5 months later. These findings suggest that visual sequence learning may have both domain-general and domain-specific associations with language learning.