Campus attitudes toward alcohol and drugs in a deep southern university.

In our zeal to deal with alcohol and drug abuse, we may have a distorted picture of what the majority of college students actually think about alcohol and drug use. Students in this study done at a public university located in the Deep South report being generally intolerant of substance abuse.     

LENGTH-BIASING, CHARACTERIZATIONS OF LAWS AND THE MOMENT PROBLEM

A positive random variable X with a finite mean has an induced length-biased law represented by Y, and Y is stochastically larger than X. An independent uniform random contraction of Y, UY, has the same law as X if and only if the latter is exponential. This property is extended to non-uniform contractions and a more general notion of length-biasing. The distributional equality of X and W leads to a functional equation for the moment function of X, which has either Infinitely many solutions or none. When U is constant, X can have a log-normal law, but it can also have laws with the same moment sequence as this log-nod law. The case where U has a certain beta, or generalized beta, law give t3 characterizations of generalized gamma laws, or to products of independent copies of them. This occurs even when these laws are not determined by their moment sequences.     

Fast retraction of evidence in a probabilistic expert system

We present and justify a propagation algorithm to facilitate the simultaneous calculation, for every node in a probabilistic exper system of the distribution of the associated random quantity, conditional on all the evidence obtained about the remaining nodes.     

FINITE HORIZONS, INFINITE HORIZONS, and THE REAL INTEREST RATE

Using an overlapping-generations model in which households may have either finite or infinite horizons, I derive the implications of each horizon for the steady-state real interest rate. I then formulate an econometric model of the steady-state real interest rate and devise tests that can distinguish between finite and infinite horizons. These tests are applied to annual and quarterly U.S. data, which span the period 1875–1988. The results are inconsistent with finite horizons, and broadly consistent with infinite horizons.     

The Farm Crisis and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study of the 1980s1

Abstract This paper examines rural/urban differences and trends in mental health during the farm crisis of the 1980s in a large panel sample from a midwestern state. A community research perspective, which attributes differences to life styles, culture, and community context, is contrasted with an economic stress perspective, which focuses on individual differences in economic circumstances as determinants of rural-urban differences in mental health. Survey samples from 1981, 1986, and 1989 are used to examine differences among seven categories of community type. Multiple regression analysis of the trend and panel data provide support for both the individual economic distress and community context models.     

EDITH WHARTON'S SICK ROLE

In this article, we conduct a textual analysis of Edith Wharton's 1911 novel, Ethan Frome . We offer three readings. The first presents Wharton's account of illness through a framework developed foru decades later by Talcott Parsons. Wharton's sick role was less medico-centric than Parsons; it emphasized the importance of class, gender and community in defining and legitimizing the sick role. Our second reading explores the socially constructed nature of roles in illness. The sick role as portrayed by Wharton is not the social fact later conceived by Parsons, but a social construct with no determinate reference beyond that which the local community is willing to grant it. Our third reading examines the social context, particularly the power relations, within which this story of illness has been constructed.     

Influence of behavioural tactics on recruitment and reproductive trajectory in the kittiwake

Many studies have provided evidence that, in birds, inexperienced breeders have a lower probability of breeding successfully. This is often explained by lack of skills and knowledge, and sometimes late laying dates in the first breeding attempt. There is growing evidence that in many species with deferred reproduction, some prebreeders attend breeding places, acquire territories and form pairs. Several behavioural tactics assumed to be associated with territory acquisition have been described in different species. These tactics may influence the probability of recruiting in the breeding segment of the population, age of first breeding, and reproductive success in the first breeding attempt. Here we addressed the influence of behaviour ('squatting') during the prebreeding period on demographic parameters (survival and recruitment probability) in a long-lived colonial seabird species: the kittiwake. We also investigated the influence of behaviour on reproductive trajectory. Squatters have a higher survival and recruitment probability, and a higher probability of breeding successfully in the first breeding attempt in all age-classes where this category is represented. The influence of behaviour is mainly expressed in the first reproduction. However, there is a relationship between breeding success in the first occasion and subsequent occasions. The influence of breeding success in the first breeding attempt on the rest of the trajectory may indirectly reflect the influence of behaviour on breeding success in the first occasion. The shape of the reproductive trajectory is influenced by behaviour and age of first breeding. There is substantial individual variation from the mean reproductive trajectory, which is accounted for by heterogeneity in performance among individuals in the first attempt, but there is no evidence of individual heterogeneity in the rate of change over time in performance in subsequent breeding occasions