LGBTQ+ Young Adults on the Street and on Campus: Identity as a Product of Social Context

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) young adults face unique identity-related experiences based on their immersion in distinctive social contexts. The predominant framework of performing separate analyses on samples of LGBTQ+ young people by their primary social status obfuscates more holistic understandings of the role of social context. Using 46 in-depth interviews with LGBTQ+ college students and LGBTQ+ homeless young adults, we ask: How are LGBTQ+ young adults’ capacities for “doing” their gender and sexual identities shaped by their distinctive social contexts? In developing their identities, both groups of LGBTQ+ young adults navigated their social environments to seek out resources and support. Most college students described their educational contexts as conducive to helping them develop their identities, or “undo” rigid norms of gender and sexuality. Homeless young adults’ social environments, meanwhile, imposed complex barriers to self-expression that reinforced more normative expectations of “doing” gender and sexual identities.     

Relationship between a three-month physical conditioning “posture-balance-motricity and health education” (PBM-HE) program on postural and balance capacities of sedentary older adults: influence of initial motor profile

Background

The aims of this study were (i) to define the relationship between a physical reconditioning cycle using balance exercises and muscular-articular stress and the balance capabilities of sedentary older adults and (ii) to assess whether older adults with weaker equilibrium abilities have a significantly limited progression. Our sample consisted of 338 people (263 women, 75 men) with an age, weight and height of 74.4 years (+/??8.6), 67 kg (+/??13.6) and 161.4 cm (+/??8) and with a body mass index of 25.6 (+/??4.3). The functional evaluations consisted of individual motor profile tests, monopodal eyes open and eyes closed for 30 s, a Timed Up and Go test (TUG) and stabilometric measurements on hard ground with eyes open for a duration of 25.6 s. The physical repackaging protocol was based on the 12-week Posture-Balance-Motricity and Health Education (PBM-ES) method with two 90-min weekly group sessions.

Results

The evolution of the “posture” and “balance” variables was significantly associated with the equilibration capacities (p?<?0.001). For unipedal stance with open eyes on the dominant and non-dominant sides, respectively, the progressions were significant for the profiles of middle (OR: 4.78 and 2.42) and low levels (OR: 4.34 and 1.66). Eyes-closed progressions were non-significant for the low-level balance profiles. For the COP Surface and Length variables, compared to those with high levels of balance, respectively, the progressions were significant for the middle- (OR: 1.41 and 2.98) and low-level (OR: 2.91 and 3.28) profiles.

Conclusions

After a 3-month bi-weekly PBM-HE program, we observed that sedentary older adults with the lowest initial level of balance progressed significantly more than high-level individuals, but only for basic motor abilities. It turns out that even among the most deconditioned people and older adults, very significant progress can be made. This increase requires an individualized training content focused on initial mobilizable capacities.

     

Functional Elements in Infants' Speech Processing: The Role of Determiners in the Syntactic Categorization of Lexical Elements

How do children determine the syntactic category of novel words? In this article we present the results of 2 experiments that investigated whether German children between 12 and 16 months of age can use distributional knowledge that determiners precede nouns and subject pronouns precede verbs to syntactically categorize adjacent novel words. Evidence from the head‐turn preference paradigm shows that, although 12‐ to 13‐month‐olds cannot do this, 14‐ to 16‐month‐olds are able to use a determiner to categorize a following novel word as a noun. In contrast, no categorization effect was found for a novel word following a subject pronoun. To understand this difference we analyzed adult child‐directed speech. This analysis showed that there are in fact stronger co‐occurrence relations between determiners and nouns than between subject pronouns and verbs. Thus, in German determiners may be more reliable cues to the syntactic category of an adjacent novel word than are subject pronouns. We propose that the capacity to syntactically categorize novel words, demonstrated here for the first time in children this young, mediates between the recognition of the specific morphosyntactic frame in which a novel word appears and the word‐to‐world mapping that is needed to build up a semantic representation for the novel word.     

Influences of Race and Family Environment on Child Hyperactivity and Antisocial Behavior

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, latent growth curve modeling was used to examine relationships between trajectories of child hyperactivity and antisocial behavior symptoms for African Americans (n= 680), European Americans (n= 1195), and Hispanics (n= 432). A systematic examination of predictors of, and interrelationships between, these trajectories was tested based on two distinct models of family influences in the development of child behavior problems. Overall, child hyperactivity mediated the effects of family environment on child antisocial behavior, but with key racial differences. The results indicate the importance of conceptualizing patterns of family interaction as adaptive responses to the environment, rather than individual developmental interactions.     

Zwischen Ausbalancierung und Asymmetrie. Arbeit und Partizipation in kleine(re)n Softwareunternehmen ohne Betriebsrat

While works councils (and unions) are rare in small firms in the software sector, a high amount of direct participation of employees is yet to be found. On the basis of qualitative interview techniques and from a comparison of case studies in the Austrian software sector, it is shown that working conditions and the quality of work vary clearly. In the paper it is argued that this variety cannot be explained through the presence or absence of works councils only. It is rather to be explained by differences in the organisational cultures of firms.     

On selecting a subset which contains all populations better than a control

Let π₁…, π_k denote k(≥ 2) populations with unknown means μ₁ , …, μ_k and variances σ₁ ² , …, σ_k ² , respectively and let π_o denote the control population having mean μ_o and variance σ_o ² . It is assumed that these populations are normally distributed with correlation matrix {ρ_ij}. The goal is to select a subset, of populations of π₁ , …, π_k which contains all the populations with means larger than or equal to the mean of the control one. Procedures are given for selecting such a subset so that the probability that all the populations with means larger than or equal to the mean of the control one are included in the selected subset is at least equal to a predetermined value P?(l/k < P? < 1). The goal treated here is a first step screening procedure that allows the experimenter to choose a subset and withhold judgement about which one has the largest mean. Then, if the one with the largest mean is desired it can be chosen from the selected subset on the basis of cost and other considerations. Percentage points are also included.     

Channel Structure Design for Complementary Products under a Co‐Opetitive Environment

In the high‐tech industry, firms can be partners in one respect (e.g., resellers) and competitors in another. In this article, we investigate the channel structure problem for two firms‐each selling competing products in two complementary markets—who are deciding whether to sell their products to customers directly or distribute one of them through a competitor. The customers are heterogeneous and both firms have products that are horizontally differentiated. When selling products directly, the firm can coordinate the prices of the two complementary products and avoid the inefficiency of double marginalization. However, selling (indirectly) through the competing manufacturer can mitigate competition because the competitor shares the profit of both competing products and therefore does not price its own products aggressively. One might expect that when the externality across the markets is strong, firms would prefer to sell both products directly (rather than through the competitor) in order to take advantage of the complementarity between markets and eliminate the inefficiency of double marginalization. Interestingly, we find that even though the first mover chooses to sell both products directly, the second mover forsakes the opportunity to coordinate the prices of its products and instead opts to distribute one of the products through the first mover.