Transition secured? A follow-up study of adolescents who have left secure residential care

Many adolescents who make the transition to adulthood experience problems after their departure from secure residential care. Research suggests that these young people are often in need of support after they have left secure care. Little is known about the experiences and perceptions of adolescents during and after this transition. The aim of this article is to assess these experiences for a group of 24 adolescents in the Netherlands that have left secure residential care. The results show, in line with previous studies, that many adolescents experience problems during their transition from secure care, especially with regard to finances, school and employment, and living arrangements. In contrast to other studies, a majority of the adolescents reports to have received support in the year following their departure. Relatively few adolescents move to independence after their departure, which suggests that many adolescents are not ready for making a true transition into adulthood yet.     

Trade Credit and the Propagation of Corporate Failure: An Empirical Analysis

Using an exhaustive data set on claims held by trade creditors (suppliers) on failed trade debtors (customers), we quantify the importance of trade credit chains for the propagation of corporate bankruptcy. We show that trade creditors experience significant trade credit losses due to trade debtor failures and that creditors' bankruptcy risks increase in the size of incurred losses. By exploring the roles of financial constraints and creditor‐debtor dependences, we infer that the trade credit failure propagation mechanism is driven by both credit losses and demand shrinkage. Finally, we show that the documented propagation mechanism constitutes a significant part of the overall bankruptcy frequency, suggesting that it has measurable implications for the aggregate level.     

Poverty and experiences of insecurity. A qualitative interview study of 25 long-standing recipients of social security

The purpose of this study is to explore experiences of insecurity among people living in relative poverty in an affluent welfare society. Twenty-five long-standing recipients of social security were interviewed. The study finds that poverty and related factors give rise to a sense of insecurity to which respondents react affectively with apprehension and anxiety. Respondents, all of whom live in the same Norwegian town, report multiple causes of their emotions, and adopt numerous psychological methods to address their sense of insecurity. The study's findings are discussed in light of theories of needs and emotions and contextual and methodological factors.     

Weight matrices for social influence analysis: An investigation of measurement errors and their effect on model identification and estimation quality

Weight matrices, such as used in network autocorrelation models, are useful to investigate social influence processes. The objective of this paper is to investigate a key topic that has received relatively little attention in previous research, namely the issues that arise when observational limitations lead to measurement errors in these weight matrices. Measurement errors are investigated from two perspectives: when relevant ties are omitted, and when irrelevant ties are erroneously included as part of the matrix. The paper first shows analytically that these two situations result in biased estimates. Next, a simulation experiment provides evidence of the effect of erroneously coding the weight matrix on model performance and the ability of a network autocorrelation test to identify social influence effects. The results suggest that depending on the level of autocorrelation and the topology attributes of the underlying matrix, there is a window of opportunity to identify and model social influence processes even in situations where the ties in a matrix cannot be accurately observed.     

Delimiting perceptual cues used for the ethnic labeling of African American and European American voices

A review of speech identification studies examining the abilities of listeners to distinguish African American and European American voices shows that Americans can recognize many African American voices with a high degree of accuracy even in the absence of stereotypical morphosyntactic and lexical features. Experiments to determine what cues listeners use to distinguish ethnicity have not yielded such consistent results, perhaps suggesting that listeners may access a wide variety of cues if necessary. An experiment involving African Americans with features of a European American vernacular demonstrated that African Americans with atypical features are difficult for listeners to identify. Analysis suggested that vowel quality and intonation could have misled respondents but did not rule out timing and voice quality as factors in identification.     

Age-specific survivorship analysis ofHeliothis spp. Populations on cotton

Summary Population dynamics ofHeliothis virescens (F.) andHeliothis zea (Boddie) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) eggs and larvae were studied for two years in a small plot of cotton,Gossypium hirsutum (L.). Due to morphological and ecological similarities, the pooledHeliothis population was considered for most of the analyses. Two generations ofHeliothis eggs and larvae were completed during each year. Stage recruitment was estimated for the eggs and larval instars 2–6, and recruitment variances were estimated by a Monte Carlo method. A modified form of the Weibull distribution was developed and used as a model to characterize survivorship curves for each of the fourHeliothis generations. A Type I survivorship curve (mortality rate increasing with age) was inferred for both Generation 1 (early season) data sets, whereas a Type II survivorship curve (mortality rate constant and thus independent of age) was inferred for both Generation 2 (late season) data sets. The shapes of the survivorship curves for the individualH. virescens andH. zea populations were inferred to be the same as those for the pooled populations. Analysis of the contributions of various factors toHeliothis stage-specific mortality indicated that natural enemies (predators and parasites) and the availability of food for larvae were responsible for between-generation differences in survivorship patterns.     

Costs of reproduction in common eiders ( Somateria mollissima ): An assessment of relationships between reproductive effort and future survival and reproduction based on observational and experimental studies

The two traditional approaches to the study of costs of reproduction, correlational and experimental, have been used in parallel in a breeding colony of common eiders ( Somateria mollissima ) and were compared in this paper. The analysis of the observational data was based on a two-strata capture-recapture model, the strata being defined on the basis of the clutch size laid by individual females in a given year. The best model according to AIC C indicated substantial variation in survival, recapture and transition rates, but overall a pattern emerged: females laying large clutches have a somewhat higher survival and much higher capture rate than females laying small clutches, and transition from large to small clutch size occurs much more frequently than the reverse transition. The analysis of the experimental data (adding/removing one egg) showed that no clear effect was found on either survival or transition rates. We conclude by suggesting (1) that condition should be included in multi-strata models in addition to reproductive effort; (2) that a specific study design for estimating the proportion of non-breeding females should be implemented, and (3) that non-breeding (a non-observable state in this study) may be influenced by previous reproduction events.     

Demographic Characteristics as Predictors of Quality of Life in a Population of Psychiatric Outpatients

Studies examining relationships between demographic variables in a general population of psychiatric outpatients and quality of life (QOL), in which QOL was assessed according to current recommendations, have not been performed yet. The aim of this study was to examine one particular aspect of this relationship: the question to what extent QOL scores can be predicted by demographic variables. In a sample of adult Dutch psychiatric outpatients (n=495), demographics were recorded and the participants completed a questionnaire for measuring QOL (WHOQOL-100). The relationships of the demographic variables with the WHOQOL-100 domains Social Relationships and Environment, were stronger than those with the domains Physical Health and Psychological Health. The latter had only significant relationships with educational level and sick leave, which explain little of the variance of the concerning QOL domain. In general, the demographic characteristics used, explained only a relatively small part of the variance in QOL scores. An exception was sick leave, which, in participants with a job, explained an extensive part (27.4%) of the variance of scores on the domain Physical Health.