Gambling,Risk-Taking,and Antisocial Behavior: A Replication Study Supporting the Generality of Deviance

Research suggests that high frequency gambling is a component of the “generality of deviance”, which describes the observation that various forms of risky and antisocial behavior tend to co-occur among individuals. Furthermore, risky and antisocial behaviors have been associated with such personality traits as low self-control, and impulsivity, and sensation-seeking. We conducted a replication (and extension) of two previous studies examining whether high frequency gambling is part of the generality of deviance using a large and diverse community sample (n = 328). This study was conducted as a response to calls for more replication studies in the behavioral and psychological sciences (recent systematic efforts suggest that a significant proportion of psychology studies do not replicate). The results of the present study largely replicate those previously found, and in many cases, we observed stronger associations among measures of gambling, risk-taking, and antisocial behavior in this diverse sample. Together, this study provides evidence for the generality of deviance inclusive of gambling (and, some evidence for the replicability of research relating to gambling and individual differences).     

Employee communication,job engagement,and organizational commitment: A study of members of the Millennial Generation

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between job engagement and two key components of employee-organization relationships (EOR). Findings from a survey of members of the Millennial Generation (N = 539) in the United States indicate that job engagement mediates the relationship between employee communication and organizational commitment. It is concluded that when employees are engaged in their work, their commitment to the organization is strengthened and the likelihood of them leaving the organization decreases. Furthermore, an argument is made in light of the study’s findings that engagement and commitment work in concert to strengthen EORs overall. To foster engagement, organizations should remove obstacles to internal information flow and provide ongoing feedback to employees about individual and organizational issues.     

Urban land cover decreases the occurrence of a wetland endemic mammal and its associated vegetation

Urbanization and other land cover changes have been particularly detrimental to wetlands throughout the planet. One wetland specialist that may be sensitive to land cover changes surrounding wetlands is the round-tailed muskrat (Neofiber alleni; hereafter RTM). The RTM is a wetland obligate rodent that appears to have declined over the last half century and is a species of concern in Florida, where it is a near endemic. To determine if urbanization or other land cover influenced the distribution of RTMs we took a multi-scaled approach to examine the occurrence of RTMs and their associated vegetation in North-Central Florida. We detected RTMs on 19 of 72 sample plots and used a Classification And Regression Tree (CART) to determine that dogfennel (Eupatorium capillifolium) was negatively associated with RTMs and maidencane (Panicum hemitomon) was positively associated with their occurrence on sampling plots. Examining the influence of landscape composition for 2 km surrounding our plots we found that RTM occurrence was negatively related to urban land cover. Further, we found that dogfennel increased and maidencane decreased as urbanization increased in the surrounding landscape. Our research suggests that conservation of RTMs and their associated vegetation should focus on limiting urban sprawl at least within 2 km of wetlands.     

Southern knowledge online? Climate change research discoverability and communication practices

The networked age promises global digital cultures with flattened power relations, given the affordances of information and communication technologies to collapse distance, enable easier cross-country collaborations and create new opportunities for knowledge production and sharing. In the academic domains, indications are that knowledge patterns continue to reflect physically based geopolitical realities – where knowledge from the South is still peripheral while knowledge from the North still dominates in terms of all the conventional metrics. This study explores the potential role of digital affordances to challenge structural Northern bias and generates questions about knowledge production and dissemination in the climate change knowledge domain. It is framed by the field of scholarly communication within an African setting and by the emergent field of climate change which is fraught with debates and contestations, particularly regarding mitigation and adaptation. It draws on Southern theory which interrogates the global dynamics of knowledge production and dissemination. It explores the intersection of the discoverability and visibility of local climate change research methodologically from the outside in, through an experiment of searches for ‘climate change/South Africa’ and from the inside out by reviewing the online presence of one climate change group in a top-ranked African university.     

Family Caregiver Communication in the ICU: Toward a Relational View of Health Literacy

We interviewed 18 family caregivers about their communication experiences in the ICUs at an urban hospital. Analysis of their narratives suggests health literacy is important in family caregiver/healthcare provider communication, especially as complicated illnesses move the caregiver deeper into decision making. Using the domains of Yuen et al.’s conceptual model of caregiver health literacy (2015), we identified three themes within the context of ICU communication: agency, coordinated communication, and caregiver’s evolving role. We saw family caregivers negotiating domains of health literacy as they built upon knowledge of the patient’s needs, their rights as family caregivers, and the hierarchy of the professional staff. We found that these narratives represent co-created, or relational communication, rather than individual health literacy skills. Conceptualized in the transaction of relationship, health literacy is enacted; it is socially constructed and is the scaffolding upon which family caregivers make decisions, care for their loved one, and care for themselves.     

Forensic Evaluation of Deaf Individuals: Challenges and Strategies

ABSTRACT

Forensic evaluation of deaf individuals presents unique challenges due to many examinees’ fund of information deficits, potential for language deprivation, and examiners’ frequent lack of creativity regarding communication methods. This article describes challenges most frequently encountered in competency to stand trial and criminal responsibility evaluations and offers strategies for overcoming them. The value of employing multiple communication methods, especially the use of illustrations, is emphasized. Suggestions also are offered regarding preparing evaluation reports and effectively communicating “key deaf fundamentals” to legal personnel. Encouragement is offered for qualified, sign-fluent professionals to engage in forensic work.     

Comparison of dichotomized and distributional approaches in rare event clinical trial design: a fixed Bayesian design

This research was motivated by our goal to design an efficient clinical trial to compare two doses of docosahexaenoic acid supplementation for reducing the rate of earliest preterm births (ePTB) and/or preterm births (PTB). Dichotomizing continuous gestational age (GA) data using a classic binomial distribution will result in a loss of information and reduced power. A distributional approach is an improved strategy to retain statistical power from the continuous distribution. However, appropriate distributions that fit the data properly, particularly in the tails, must be chosen, especially when the data are skewed. A recent study proposed a skew-normal method. We propose a three-component normal mixture model and introduce separate treatment effects at different components of GA. We evaluate operating characteristics of mixture model, beta-binomial model, and skew-normal model through simulation. We also apply these three methods to data from two completed clinical trials from the USA and Australia. Finite mixture models are shown to have favorable properties in PTB analysis but minimal benefit for ePTB analysis. Normal models on log-transformed data have the largest bias. Therefore we recommend finite mixture model for PTB study. Either finite mixture model or beta-binomial model is acceptable for ePTB study.     

Transmuted generalized exponential distribution: A generalization of the exponential distribution with applications to survival data

In this article, we investigate the potential usefulness of the three-parameter transmuted generalized exponential distribution for analyzing lifetime data. We compare it with various generalizations of the two-parameter exponential distribution using maximum likelihood estimation. Some mathematical properties of the new extended model including expressions for the quantile and moments are investigated. We propose a location-scale regression model, based on the log-transmuted generalized exponential distribution. Two applications with real data are given to illustrate the proposed family of lifetime distributions.