Sex and Drugs and Starting School: Differences in Precollege Alcohol-Related Sexual Risk Taking by Gender and Recent Blackout Activity

Research has demonstrated a link between alcohol use and multiple forms of risky sexual behavior, particularly among college-age individuals. Studies have also linked heavy alcohol use to other problems, such as impaired consciousness resulting from an alcohol-induced blackout, which may impact sexual decision making. However, research has rarely examined sexual risk taking (SRT) in relation to blackouts, nor has it examined this construct during the precollege transition (i.e., the interval of time between high school graduation and college matriculation). This study examined the intersection between alcohol-involved SRT, blackouts, and gender in a sample of precollege individuals with prior alcohol use (N = 229; 54% male, 63% White). Results indicated that, despite drinking less per occasion, women reporting recent blackouts were at increased risk for experiencing unwanted, unsafe, and regretted sexual behaviors compared to men with recent blackouts and their peers with no recent blackouts. Women with recent blackouts also reported differences in alcohol expectancies that may increase their risk for experiencing negative consequences while drinking, including higher social expectancies and lower negative expectancies of danger. Future directions for research and implications for precollege interventions are discussed.     

Silent privatisation of customary land in Zambia: opportunities for a few,challenges for many

The conversion of customary land into leasehold tenure has sparked intense debates in Zambia and beyond. Growing interest in land in the last decade and half has led to a spike in demand for land across Africa, especially land adjacent to major cities, towns and developed infrastructure. This growing demand for land is gradually being directed at customary land, which well-resourced urban and local elites, as well as foreign investors, are converting from customary to private tenure, raising serious questions about the future of customary land in Africa. This paper discusses the emerging dynamics around customary land conversion drawing from a case study conducted in Chongwe and Chibombo districts in Zambia. Evidence gathered in this study suggest that while the conversion of customary land to leasehold tenure is generating opportunities for the urban elite, a few traditional leaders and international investors, it is, at the same time, creating serious challenges for the majority of the people in the local communities.     

Control mutuality,social media,and organization-public relationships: A study of local animal welfare organizations’ donors

Using an online survey and qualitative analysis, this study examined the role of control mutuality in social media engagement to provide insight for social media strategy creation for nonprofit organizations. Guided by OPR and relationship management literature, insights and implications contribute to scholarly discussions of control mutuality and relationship management.     

Classification of form under heterogeneity and non-isotropic errors

A number of areas related to learning under supervision have not been fully investigated, particularly the possibility of incorporating the method of classification into shape analysis. In this regard, practical ideas conducive to the improvement of form classification are the focus of interest. Our proposal is to employ a hybrid classifier built on Euclidean Distance Matrix Analysis (EDMA) and Procrustes distance, rather than generalised Procrustes analysis (GPA). In empirical terms, it has been demonstrated that there is notable difference between the estimated form and the true form when EDMA is used as the basis for computation. However, this does not seem to be the case when GPA is employed. With the assumption that no association exists between landmarks, EDMA and GPA are used to calculate the mean form and diagonal weighting matrix to build superimposing classifiers. As our findings indicate, with the use of EDMA estimators, the superimposing classifiers we propose work extremely well, as opposed to the use of GPA, as far as both simulated and real datasets are concerned.     

How Leaders Affect Followers’ Work Engagement and Performance: Integrating Leader−Member Exchange and Crossover Theory

Drawing on leader?member exchange and crossover theory, this study examines how leaders’ work engagement can spread to followers, highlighting the role of leader?member exchange as an underlying explanatory process. Specifically, we investigate if leaders who are highly engaged in their work have better relationships with their followers, which in turn can explain elevated employee engagement. For this purpose, we surveyed 511 employees nested in 88 teams and their team leaders in a large service organization. Employees and supervisors provided data in this multi‐source design. Furthermore, we asked the employees to report their annual performance assessment. We tested our model using multilevel path analyses in Mplus. As hypothesized, leaders’ work engagement enhanced leader?member exchange quality, which in turn boosted employee engagement (mediation model). Moreover, employee engagement was positively linked to performance and negatively linked to turnover intentions. As such, our multilevel field study connects the dots between work engagement research and the leadership literature. We identify leaders’ work engagement as a key to positive leader?follower relationships and a means for promoting employee engagement and performance. Promoting work engagement at the managerial level may be a fruitful starting point for fostering an organizational culture of engagement.     

Combining forward and backward mortality estimation

Demographers often form estimates by combining information from two data sources—a challenging problem when one or both data sources are incomplete. A classic example entails the construction of death probabilities, which requires death counts for the subpopulations under study and corresponding base population estimates. Approaches typically entail ‘back projection', as in Wrigley and Schofield's seminal analysis of historical English data, or ‘inverse’ or ‘forward projection’ as used by Lee in his important reanalysis of that work, both published in the 1980s. Our paper shows how forward and backward approaches can be optimally combined, using a generalized method of moments (GMM) framework. We apply the method to the estimation of death probabilities for relatively small subpopulations within the United States (men born 1930–39 by state of birth by birth cohort by race), combining data from vital statistics records and census samples.     

Multivariate locally stationary 2D wavelet processes with application to colour texture analysis

In this article we propose a novel framework for the modelling of non-stationary multivariate lattice processes. Our approach extends the locally stationary wavelet paradigm into the multivariate two-dimensional setting. As such the framework we develop permits the estimation of a spatially localised spectrum within a channel of interest and, more importantly, a localised cross-covariance which describes the localised coherence between channels. Associated estimation theory is also established which demonstrates that this multivariate spatial framework is properly defined and has suitable convergence properties. We also demonstrate how this model-based approach can be successfully used to classify a range of colour textures provided by an industrial collaborator, yielding superior results when compared against current state-of-the-art statistical image processing methods.     

Differences Between African Americans and Non-Hispanic Whites Utilization of Clergy for Counseling with Serious Personal Problems

There is a paradox in research on African Americans and non-Hispanic whites in the utilization of clergy. Research finds that African Americans have higher levels of religious service attendance and higher levels of contact with clergy. Research also finds that despite this, African Americans are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to seek out assistance from clergy for psychiatric disorders including depression and anxiety. The goal of this paper was to investigate race differences in the use of clergy for counseling for serious personal problems. It uses the National Survey of American Life. We find that non-Hispanic whites were more likely than African Americans to use clergy for a serious personal problem. The significant difference between African Americans and non-Hispanic whites appeared to be mediated by the fact that African Americans were more likely to have seen clergy in a religious setting and non-Hispanic whites were more likely to have seen clergy in other settings including hospitals.     

A political-economic theory of relevance: Explaining climate change inaction

Why have societies failed to effectively respond to climate change? We address the question of climate change inaction by (1) examining how an unambiguously ominous report about climate change (IPCC 2018) was made palatable by news media and (2) explaining why climate change is typically unthematized in everyday life. Drawing on Adorno and Schutz, we develop a political-economic theory of relevance. The imperative to accumulate capital is not only a social-structural reality but also shapes why particular facts are regarded as relevant in experience (topical relevance) as well as how relevant material is interpreted (interpretative relevance) and acted toward (motivational relevance). Applying this framework, we (1) argue that media popularizations of the IPCC's dire Global Warming of 1.5°C (2018) are constituted by relevance systems conditioned by a capitalist social context and (2) strengthen Ollinaho's (2016) Schutzian explanation for climate change inaction by examining how productive relations and the culture industry perpetuate climate change irrelevance in everyday life. Schutz's framework helps conceptualize the intricacies of ideology and, when revised with Adorno's sociology, shines new light on an old question: the relations between social conditions and knowledge.