Age Replacement Policy with a Safety Constraint via the Bayesian Method

Consider a system that is subject to shocks that arrive according to a non homogeneous Poisson process. As the shocks occur, the system has m + 1 failure modes including the following: (i) a non repairable failure (catastrophic) mode that calls for a replacement and (ii) m repairable failure (non catastrophic) modes that are rectified by minimal repairs. In this article, we propose an age-replacement model with minimal repair based on using the natural conjugate prior of Bayesian method. In addition, a safety constraint is considered to control the risk of occurring catastrophic failures in a specified time interval. The minimum-cost replacement policy is studied in terms of its existence and safety constraint. A numerical example is also presented to illustrate the proposed model.     

Compassionate Values and Presidential Politics: Mortality Salience, Compassionate Values, and Support for Barack Obama and John McCain in the 2008 Presidential Election

In line with terror management theory, this research demonstrates that mortality salience motivated increased support for John McCain in the absence of reminders of compassionate values. However, polls had indicated that Barack Obama was generally perceived as the more compassionate of the two candidates. Thus, when compassionate values were made salient, death reminders motivated participants to uphold these values by significantly increasing their support for the more compassionate Barack Obama instead. The implications of these findings for terror management theory, the 2008 presidential election, and political endorsements are discussed .     

The Significance of Education for Mortality Compression in the United States

Recent studies of old-age mortality trends assess whether longevity improvements over time are linked to increasing compression of mortality at advanced ages. The historical backdrop of these studies is the long-term improvement in a population's socioeconomic resources that fueled longevity gains. We extend this line of inquiry by examining whether socioeconomic differences in longevity within a population are accompanied by old-age mortality compression. Specifically, we document educational differences in longevity and mortality compression for older men and women in the United States. Drawing on the fundamental cause of disease framework, we hypothesize that both longevity and compression increase with higher levels of education and that women with the highest levels of education will exhibit the greatest degree of longevity and compression. Results based on the Health and Retirement Study and the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File confirm a strong educational gradient in both longevity and mortality compression. We also find that mortality is more compressed within educational groups among women than men. The results suggest that educational attainment in the United States maximizes life chances by delaying the biological aging process.     

The Quality of Male Fertility Data in Major U.S. Surveys

Researchers continue to question fathers’ willingness to report their biological children in surveys and the ability of surveys to adequately represent fathers. To address these concerns, this study evaluates the quality of men’s fertility data in the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79 and NLSY97) and in the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG). Comparing fertility rates in each survey with population rates based on data from Vital Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, we document how the incomplete reporting of births in different surveys varies according to men’s characteristics, including their age, race, marital status, and birth cohort. In addition, we use Monte Carlo simulations based on the NSFG data to demonstrate how birth underreporting biases associations between early parenthood and its antecedents. We find that in the NSFG, roughly four out of five early births were reported; but in the NLSY79 and NLSY97, almost nine-tenths of early births were reported. In all three surveys, incomplete reporting was especially pronounced for nonmarital births. Our results suggest that the quality of male fertility data is strongly linked to survey design and that it has implications for models of early male fertility.     

Transatlantic Encounters and the Origins of James Henley Thornwell's Proslavery Ideology

The European travel experiences of antebellum Southern intellectual James Henley Thornwell and his subsequent publications in the USA shed light on the history of transatlantic ideological exchange. This case study indicates that British antislavery concepts failed to sway Thornwell; instead, his writings reveal that European travel sometimes strengthened Americans’ proslavery beliefs rather than fostering antislavery views. Condemning abolitionists as illogical fanatics and blaming capitalism for the wretched situation of London's laborers, he returned home a staunch defender of the slave system and paternalism. A leading intellectual, Thornwell profoundly influenced the South, including secessionists, through his powerful proslavery argument.     

The pains of immigrant imprisonment

The immigrant detention system in the United States is civil, rather than criminal, and therefore nonpunitive. However, in practice, detained immigrants lacking many basic constitutional protections find themselves in facilities that are often indistinguishable from prisons and jails. In this paper, we explore the crisis of immigrant imprisonment at the affective level, focusing on the painful experiences of immigrant detainees, while also emphasizing its systemic and racialized nature. Specifically, we place a review of a growing body of research that draws connections between immigrant detention and mass imprisonment alongside the findings from numerous reports issued by human rights organizations on the conditions of confinement within immigrant detention facilities. Using a “pains of imprisonment” framework, we highlight four particularly prominent “pains”: containment, exploitation, coercion, and legal violence. We suggest the infliction of such pain, especially when contextualized within a broader history of Latina/o oppression, demonstrates that immigration prisons are in fact punitive, “lawless spaces” where penal oppression is exercised. We conclude with a call for sociologists to become more attentive to this crisis, and to appreciate the similarities between immigration detention and other forms of racialized social control—namely, mass incarceration.     

Neural Interaction Between Risk Sensitivity and Cognitive Control Predicting Health Risk Behaviors Among Late Adolescents

The developmental period of adolescence is characterized by increasing incidence of health risk behaviors (HRBs). Based on theoretical models that emphasize the moderating role of cognitive control, this study examined how neural correlates of cognitive control and risk sensitivity interact to predict HRBs among late adolescents (17–20 years). Neuroimaging data indicate that risk‐related hemodynamic activity in the anterior insula during anticipation of uncertain outcomes predicts HRBs among late adolescents exhibiting greater dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activity during a cognitive interference task but not among late adolescents requiring less dACC activity. These results present neural evidence for a significant moderating effect of cognitive control on the link between risk sensitivity and HRBs among late adolescents.     

The Integration of Artificial Neural Networks and Text Mining to Forecast Gold Futures Prices

Although a previous study found that neural network forecasts were more accurate than time series models for predicting Latin American stock indexes, the forecasting accuracy of neural network for predicting gold futures prices has never been discussed. Therefore, the first objective of this study is to compare the forecasting accuracy of a neural network model with that of ARIMA models. Furthermore, the fluctuations in gold futures are not only influenced by the quantitative variables, but also by many nonquantifiable factors, such as wars, international relations, and terrorist attacks. The second objective of this study is therefore to propose the integration of text mining and an artificial neural network to forecast gold futures prices. The historical gold futures prices from 1999 to 2008 were used as training data and testing data, and the prices of 2009 were used to examine the effectiveness of the proposed model. The results of empirical analysis showed that an artificial neural network forecasted gold futures prices better than ARIMA models did. In addition, text mining provided a reasonable explanation of the trend in gold futures prices.     

“Aging males” symptoms and general health of adult males: a cross-sectional study

A cross-sectional study was conducted to explore the prevalence and severity of health-related complaints perceived by adult males of Hong Kong by using the Hong Kong Traditional Chinese versions of the Aging males’ symptoms (AMS) scale and the 5-dimensional and 3-level European Quality of life (EQ-5D-3L) questionnaire. A total of 825 adult males aged 40 years or above were surveyed, and observed that 80% of the population was living with little-to-mild levels of aging symptoms with mean total scores ranged between 26.02?±?7.91 and 32.99?±?7.91 in different age groups. Such symptoms were correlated with age, especially for the somato-vegetative and sexual symptoms. The most severe AMS symptoms were observed in the oldest age group at 70 years or above, with 76%, 34% and 70% living with moderate-to-severe levels of somato-vegetative, psychological and sexual symptoms, respectively. The result was highly correlated with the EQ-5D-3L questionnaire. Secondly, the Hong Kong Aging males’ symptoms (AMS) scale was shown to have good reliability with test–retest coefficient at 0.79 (ranged 0.66–0.87) and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient at 0.88 (ranged 0.70–0.84). In summary, the population of Hong Kong male adults was commonly living with little-to-mild levels of aging symptoms, whereas their severity was correlated with age.