The Victorian Gambling Screen: Reliability and Validation in a Clinical Population

There is a need to establish reliability and the various forms of validity in all measures in order to feel confident in the use of such tools across a wide diversity of settings. The aim of this study is to describe the reliability and validity of the Victorian Gambling Screen (VGS) and in particular one of the sub-scales (Harm to Self—HS) in a specialist problem gambling treatment service in Adelaide, Australia. Sixty-seven consecutive gamblers were assessed using a previously validated clinical interview and the VGS (Ben-Tovim et al., The Victorian Gambling Screen: project report. Victorian Research Panel, Melbourne, 2001). The internal consistency of the combined VGS scales had a Cronbach’s alpha of .85 with the HS scale .89. There was satisfactory evidence of convergent validity which included moderate correlations with another measure of gambling—the South Oaks Gambling Screen. There were also moderate correlations with other measures of psychopathology. Finally, how the VGS may best be used in clinical settings is discussed.     

An Empirical Analysis of Backlog,Inventory, Production,and Price Adjustments: An Application of Recursive Systems of Log-Linear Models

This article presents an empirical analysis of firms' order backlogs, inventories, production, and price adjustments to unanticipated demand shocks. The data are obtained from quarterly INSEE Business Survey Tests on firms' realizations, expectations, and appraisals of some various economic variables. The analysis is based on the formulation and the estimation of a recursive system of conditional log-linear probability models.     

Combinatoric classification of multivariate normal variates

Consider classifying an n × I observation vector as coming from one of two multivariate normal distributions which differ both in mean vectors and covariance matrices. A class of dis-crimination rules based upon n independent univariate discrim-inate functions is developed yielding exact misclassification probabilities when the population parameters are known. An efficient search of this class to select the procedure with minimum expected misclassification is made by employing an algorithm of the implicit enumeration type used in integer programming. The procedure is applied to the classification of male twins as either monozygotic or dizygotic.     

A time series model with random coefficients

There are many time series applications where an experi­menter observes the simultaneous responses of several sub­systems over time. In these instances one is often not interested in the parameters of individual subsystems, but rather in an overall characterization of the system in question. Under the assumption that subsystems are independent and first order autoregressive, the present paper presents two methods for estimating the distribution of the subsystem coefficients.     

Adolescent Socialization in Rural Appalachia: The Perspectives of Teens,Parents, and Significant Adults

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the social networks of Appalachian adolescents to understand socialization strategies and goals. A total of 46 interviews were conducted with five families (mothers, fathers, and adolescents) and 11 socialization agents the families identified as exerting significant influence in the lives of the adolescents. Interviews were transcribed and then analyzed using principles of grounded theory. Five themes developed from the interviews: the importance of community to the socialization process, adult involvement and support, adolescent monitoring, teaching respect and responsibility, and adolescent autonomy. Results suggest the need for in-depth investigation of adolescent development within a variety of cultural and social contexts to more fully understand these processes.     

Energy modeling as a tool for planning

This paper discusses the application of a general equilibrium model, developed at Stanford Research Institute, for use in long range forecasting and business planning. The value of the modeling approach is illustrated through application to a hypothetical natural gas liquefaction venture. Specific features and representative output of the SRI model are presented. The authors stress the use of a modeling approach in the planning process as a quantitative means of evaluating the importance of uncertainty in specific decision variables and the ability of such model to test explicitly the long term impact of changes in a given set of base assumptions.     

On the incidence–prevalence relation and length‐biased sampling

For many diseases, logistic constraints render large incidence studies difficult to carry out. This becomes a drawback, particularly when a new study is needed each time the incidence rate is investigated in a new population. By carrying out a prevalent cohort study with follow‐up it is possible to estimate the incidence rate if it is constant. The authors derive the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of the overall incidence rate, λ, as well as age‐specific incidence rates, by exploiting the epidemiologic relationship, (prevalence odds) = (incidence rate) × (mean duration) (P/[1 ? P] = λ × µ). The authors establish the asymptotic distributions of the MLEs and provide approximate confidence intervals for the parameters. Moreover, the MLE of λ is asymptotically most efficient and is the natural estimator obtained by substituting the marginal maximum likelihood estimators for P and µ into P/[1 ? P] = λ × µ. Following‐up the subjects allows the authors to develop these widely applicable procedures. The authors apply their methods to data collected as part of the Canadian Study of Health and Ageing to estimate the incidence rate of dementia amongst elderly Canadians. The Canadian Journal of Statistics © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

Children's Expression of Emotional Meaning in Music Through Expressive Body Movement

Recent research has demonstrated that preschool children can decode emotional meaning in expressive body movement; however, to date, no research has considered preschool children's ability to encode emotional meaning in this media. The current study investigated 4- (N = 23) and 5- (N = 24) year-old children's ability to encode the emotional meaning of an accompanying music segment by moving a teddy bear using previously modeled expressive movements to indicate one of four target emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, or fear). Adult judges visually categorized the silent videotaped expressive movement performances by children of both ages with greater than chance level accuracy. In addition, accuracy in categorizing the emotion being expressed varied as a function of age of child and emotion. A subsequent cue analysis revealed that children as young as 4 years old were systematically varying their expressive movements with respect to force, rotation, shifts in movement pattern, tempo, and upward movement in the process of emotional communication. The theoretical significance of such encoding ability is discussed with respect to children's nonverbal skills and the communication of emotion.     

Bayesian inference for dynamic social network data

We consider a continuous-time model for the evolution of social networks. A social network is here conceived as a (di-) graph on a set of vertices, representing actors, and the changes of interest are creation and disappearance over time of (arcs) edges in the graph. Hence we model a collection of random edge indicators that are not, in general, independent. We explicitly model the interdependencies between edge indicators that arise from interaction between social entities. A Markov chain is defined in terms of an embedded chain with holding times and transition probabilities. Data are observed at fixed points in time and hence we are not able to observe the embedded chain directly. Introducing a prior distribution for the parameters we may implement an MCMC algorithm for exploring the posterior distribution of the parameters by simulating the evolution of the embedded process between observations.