An investigation of predictors of mental health in single men and women experiencing homelessness in three Canadian cities

Homelessness is related to poorer mental health, yet, there is limited understanding of the predictors of mental health of men and women experiencing homelessness. To support service providers in identifying individuals who might be at particular risk of poor mental health, this study investigated the predictors of mental health in 501 single men and women experiencing homelessness in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa, Canada. Data were obtained via in-person, structured interviews. In order to identify whether predictors differ by gender, multiple linear regressions were conducted separately for men and women. Mental health status was measured by the Mental Component Summary score of the 12-item Short-Form Health Survey. Better mental health for men and women was associated with the presence of fewer chronic health conditions and a higher level of social support. An older age, not having experienced a recent physical attack, and absence of a mental health diagnosis were related to better mental health for women. The absence of unmet mental health needs within the past 12 months was associated with better mental health for men. The study highlights differences in factors associated with mental health for men and women. Service providers should be aware of the association of these factors with mental health to guide assessment and service planning.     

Gender differences in gambling preferences and problem gambling: a network-level analysis

Most gambling studies have a gender-blind research approach, although a large body of scientific evidence suggests that gambling in females is on the rise and that males and females have different gambling behaviours and experience specific gambling-related harm. This study addressed these gender differences using a network analysis, an innovative approach considering disorders/concepts as dynamic systems of interacting symptoms/items. Data on gambling activities, problem gambling, substance use and mental health were collected in a representative sample of French adult gamblers (n = 8805). The study capitalized on the network analysis directly to compare associations of specific gambling activities with gambling disorder symptoms separately for both genders. The network analysis revealed that problem gambling was strongly associated with gambling machines among females, whereas it was related to sports betting, poker and casino games among males. The networks that included substance use and mental health showed that substance use was related to specific gambling activities. These findings confirm the links between various gender-specific gambling patterns and problem gambling and suggest a need to consider these gender differences to improve prevention efforts. More broadly, the present study further supports the importance of gender differences for gambling research and policy.     

The post-Macy paradox,information management and organising: Good intentions and a road to hell?

Between 1946 and 1953, leading scientists met in New York in the context of the so-called Macy conferences, often linked to the emergence of cybernetics. They hankered for a new vision of mind and society. The traumatism of WW2 was implicit but omnipresent, and the Cold War was beginning. Macy key tools and concepts about information, the value of information, and computer artefacts have finally produced a new world, in particular an organisational world, which is far removed from their original dreams. Organisational members are now involved in difficult situations in terms of organising, that is, new modes of performativity which are difficult to comprehend and deal with; a transformation of meaning and knowledge in collective activity; and a threat to well-being and happiness as mental activities, cognition and bodies are increasingly disconnected. We use the Macy conferences as an entry point to reflect on the ‘longue durée’ evolution of the material underpinnings of information and their relationship with organising. We first explore the new conceptualisations at the core of the Macy conferences, information, value of information, and computer artefacts. We then put the Macy conferences into a socio-historical perspective by means of two theoretical approaches, iconographical and semiotic; this involves a historical comparison between the ‘screen-images’ or our Information Age and the ‘object-images’ of medieval cathedrals. We show that there are important disruptions in organising grounded in a new semiosis, which emerged over the longue durée of collective activity, and was articulated further during the Macy conferences. We describe this long-term evolution as the post-Macy paradox.     

Non linear parametric mode regression

In this article, we propose a semi-parametric mode regression for a non linear model. We use an expectation-maximization algorithm in order to estimate the regression coefficients of modal non linear regression. We also establish asymptotic properties for the proposed estimator under assumptions of the error density. We investigate the performance through a simulation study.     

The nexus between extreme weather events,sexual violence,and early marriage: a study of vulnerable populations in Bangladesh

Population and Environment - This study aims to explore whether a relationship exists between extreme weather events, sexual violence, and early marriage. We selected two districts in Bangladesh...     

Has the HIV Epidemic Peaked?

This study reviews the highly diverse regional and country patterns of HIV epidemics and discusses possible causes of the geographic variation in epidemic sizes. Past trends and projections of the epidemics are presented and the peak years of epidemics are estimated. The potential future impact of new prevention technologies is briefly assessed. A final section summarizes the future impact of the epidemic on key demographic variables. The main finding of this analysis is that the HIV epidemic reached a major turning point over the past decade. The peak years of HIV incidence rates are past for all regions, and the peaks of prevalence rates are mostly in the past except in Eastern Europe, where they are expected to peak in 2008. But owing in part to the life‐prolonging effect of antiretroviral therapy and to sustained population growth, the absolute number of infected individuals is expected to keep growing slowly in sub‐Saharan Africa and to remain near current levels worldwide, thus posing a continuing challenge to public health programs. No country is expected to see a decline in its population size between 2005 and 2050 that is attributable to high mortality related to AIDS.     

Les effets pervers du partage de la sécurité. Polices publiques et privées dans une gare et un centre commercial

This article focuses on controlling delinquency in a train station and a shopping center in a big French city. The increasing implication of private organizations in implementing security policies in public areas has spawned a literature about the “dangers of privatization”. As this fieldwork shows, private security officers and NGOs assume duties (related, for example to public relations or social policy) left vacant by police officers. Owing to this sharing of security, the police concentrate on its purely bureaucratic assignments and this has a negative impact on its legitimacy. A historical approach helps us understand how relations between the police and other parties have soured.     

The use of fourier analysis to express the relation between time variations in fertility and the time sequence of births in a closed human population

A fundamental theorem of mathematical demography states that two closed populations sharing the same extended history of net fertility, no matter how variable, have the same age composition. In consequence, when in any population net fertility has long followed a purely repetitive cycle, age composition must also be repetitive with the same cycle length. Under these conditions annual births follow a path that is an exponential multiplied by a periodic time-function. If the time variation of fertility is a small amplitude sinusoidal oscillation, the periodic component of the birth sequence is also sinusoidal. The relative amplitude and timing of fertility oscillations and the consequent birth fluctuations are functions of the duration (or frequency) of the fertility cycle; the nature of the functions is determined by the age structure of net fertility.Any time sequence of fertility variation over an extended period of time can be treated as if part of a repetitious cycle of very long duration. By Fourier analysis the fertility sequence can be expressed as the sum of a series of sinusoidal terms; and finally the sinusoidal components of the resultant birth sequence can be derived. The calculated birth sequence closely approximates the actual.     

Passion and gambling: on the validation of the Gambling Passion Scale (GPS)

Vallerand and his colleagues (Vallerand & Blanchard, 1999; Vallerand, Blanchard, Koestner, & Gagné, 2001) have recently proposed a new concept of passion. According to these authors, passion refers to a strong inclination toward an activity that we like, find important, and in which we invest time. Vallerand et al. have identified two types of passion: obsessive and harmonious. Obsessive passion refers to an internal pressure that forces an individual to engage in the activity. Harmonious passion, on the other hand, refers to an internal force that leads an individual to choose freely to engage in an activity. While obsessive passion has been shown in some circumstances to lead to negative psychological and physical consequences, harmonious passion generally leads to positive psychological and physical consequences. The purpose of the present research was to validate a measure of passion toward gambling: the Gambling Passion Scale (GPS). The GPS consists of two subscales (obsessive passion and harmonious passion) comprising five items each. Results from two studies involving a total of 340 participants revealed satisfactory internal consistency and temporal stability indices, as well as a two-factor structure supported by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Finally, a series of partial correlational analyses between the two subscales and scales assessing behavioral measures related to gambling supported the construct validity of the GPS. The present results suggest that the GPS is a useful scale for research on gambling.