Haptic Habituation to Temperature Is Slower in Newborns of Depressed Mothers

Forty newborns (M age = 27 hr old) of depressed and nondepressed mothers were habituated to a cold or warm temperature tube by hand. Both groups of infants habituated the temperature of the tube, as indicated by a decrease in holding, and dishabituated, as indexed by an increase in holding when the temperature of the tube changed. However, the newborns of depressed mothers (a) required twice as long to habituate; (b) showed a sensitization effect, as indexed by an increase in holding from the second to the third trial of habituation; and (c) passively handled the objects with their hand.     

Infant Neurodevelopment is Affected by Prenatal Maternal Stress: The QF2011 Queensland Flood Study

Research shows that prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) negatively affects a range of infant outcomes; yet no single study has explored the effects of stress in pregnancy from a natural disaster on multiple aspects of infant neurodevelopment. This study examined the effects of flood‐related stress in pregnancy on 6‐month‐olds' neurodevelopment and examined the moderating effects of timing of the stressor in gestation and infant sex on these outcomes. Women exposed to the 2011 Queensland (Australia) floods in pregnancy completed surveys on their flood‐related objective and subjective experiences at recruitment and reported on their infants' neurodevelopment on the problem solving, communication, and personal–social scales of the Ages and Stages‐III at 6 months postpartum (N = 115). Interaction results showed that subjective flood stress in pregnancy had significantly different effects in boys and girls, and that at high levels of stress girls had significantly lower problem solving scores than boys. Timing of the flood later in pregnancy predicted lower personal–social scores in the sample, and there was a trend (p < .10) for greater objective flood exposure to predict lower scores. PNMS had no effect on infants' communication skills. In conclusion, differential aspects of maternal flood‐related stress in pregnancy influenced aspects of 6‐month‐olds' neurodevelopment.     

Robust cointegration testing in the presence of weak trends,with an application to the human origin of global warming

Standard tests for the rank of cointegration of a vector autoregressive process present distributions that are affected by the presence of deterministic trends. We consider the recent approach of Demetrescu et al. (2009 Demetrescu, M., Lütkepohl, H., Saikkonen, P. (2009). Testing for the cointegrating rank of a vector autoregressive process with an uncertain deterministic trend term. Econometrics Journal 12:414–35.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) who recommend testing a composite null. We assess this methodology in the presence of trends (linear or broken) whose magnitude is small enough not to be always detectable at conventional significance levels. We model them using local asymptotics and derive the properties of the test statistics. We show that whether the trend is orthogonal to the cointegrating vector has a major impact on the distributions but that the test combination approach remains valid. We apply of the methodology to the study of cointegration properties between global temperatures and the radiative forcing of human gas emissions. We find new evidence of Granger Causality.     

Competing risk analysis in a large cardiovascular clinical trial: An APEX substudy

Competing risk methods are time‐to‐event analyses that account for fatal and/or nonfatal events that may potentially alter or prevent a subject from experiencing the primary endpoint. Competing risk methods may provide a more accurate and less biased estimate of the incidence of an outcome but are rarely applied in cardiology trials. APEX investigated the efficacy of extended‐duration betrixaban versus standard‐duration enoxaparin to prevent a composite of symptomatic deep‐vein thrombosis (proximal or distal), nonfatal pulmonary embolism, or venous thromboembolism (VTE)–related death in acute medically ill patients (n = 7513). The aim of the current analysis was to determine the efficacy of betrixaban vs standard‐duration enoxaparin accounting for non‐VTE–related deaths using the Fine and Gray method for competing risks. The proportion of non‐VTE–related death was similar in both the betrixaban (133, 3.6%) and enoxaparin (136, 3.7%) arms, P = .85. Both the traditional Kaplan‐Meier method and the Fine and Gray method accounting for non‐VTE–related death as a competing risk showed equal reduction of VTE events when comparing betrixaban to enoxaparin (HR/SHR = 0.65, 95% 0.42‐0.99, P = 0.046). Due to the similar proportion of non‐VTE–related deaths in both treatment arms and the use of a univariate model, the Fine and Gray method provided identical results to the traditional Cox model. Using the Fine and Gray method in addition to the traditional Cox proportional hazards method can indicate whether the presence of a competing risk, which is dependent of the outcome, altered the risk estimate.     

Preparative study regarding the implementation of a muscular fatigue model in a virtual task simulator

Muscle fatigue is considered as one of the major risk factors for developing musculoskeletal disorders. The aim of this project was to select an adequate fatigue assessment model for an implementation in Dassault Systemes digital human modeling software. A review of existing MET models has been done resulting in a decision to use the extended Ma's model (2010). In this project, only shoulder and elbow joints have been tested and more subjects will be necessary for further validation. The model has been compared to several endurance time (ET) static studies. Two dynamic experiments were also performed by two different subjects. The results showed that because of the inter-individual variability, a simple prediction curve or value, can't well predict individual measured ET (or task failure). There is a need for a chart representation which also shows standard deviation (SD) range. Considering the SD range, the results were included in the prediction. Thus, this range may help the human factors expert to nuance the prediction results while considering environment factors and some realities specific to the industry.     

À l'école de la détention : quelques aspects de la socialisation professionnelle des surveillants de prison

Their first period of training in penitentiaries provided an opportunity for studying the occupational socialization of French prison wardens. Although the latter soon learn certain aspects of life behind the bars, their talk manifests a mistrust of both the training situation and prison in general. By combining class work outside the detention center and experiences with handling inmates inside, this training presents new recruits with the contradictory admonitions of trainers and corrections officers. A double bind thus complicates learning this trade: whether to follow suggestions about imposing order or to negotiate; whether to accept the penitentiary method or, like the others, consider it to be inefficient or even dangerous. This occupational socialization spawns dilemmas and contradictions; it does not peacefully transmit a predefined occupational role.     

The metabolism of change

A flood of new technologies is engulfing health care. Adopting them can be magical, or horrifically problematic. Yet few institutions have any real, routine process for thinking about them. There are four essential actions an organization must take to explore this fascinating, confusing world of high technology.     

Relationships of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse to emotional and behavioral problems among incarcerated adolescents

This study examined the relationships of sexual, physical and emotional abuse to emotional (internalizing) and behavioral (externalizing) problems among incarcerated girls and boys. Participants were youth who were remanded to the correctional facilities within a statewide juvenile correctional system in a southern state in the United States of America. Each participant completed a structured interview regarding abuse history, emotional and behavioral difficulties, and demographic characteristics. Multiple regression analyses indicated that girls were more likely than boys to internalize their problems. The only abuse variable that was positively and significantly associated with emotional problems was emotional abuse. Greater behavioral problems were significantly related to youths being younger in age, white ethnicity, history of sexual abuse, and history of physical abuse. There were overall gender differences for internalizing problems, but not for externalizing problems among incarcerated adolescents. Furthermore, physical and sexual abuses were related to externalizing problems but not to internalizing problems. Thus, different types of abuse appear to have different effects on adolescent behavior. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Changes in the Relationship Between Child Support Payments and Educational Attainment of Offspring, 1979–1988

We examine changes over the 1980s in the effect of child support payments on the educational attainment of children age 16 to 19 in the United States, and why child support has a stronger impact than other sources of income. We use 1979 and 1988 Current Population Survey data, covering a period when improvements in enforcement should have increased the proportion of reluctant fathers paying support. We hypothesize and find that the positive effect of child support on education diminished somewhat over this period, both absolutely and in relation to other income.