Efficacy of Co-Parenting for Successful Kids: A Longitudinal Pilot Investigation

ABSTRACT

With a sample of 155 divorcing parents, this study examined the efficacy of a co-parenting program titled Co-Parenting for Successful Kids (CPSK). A prospective longitudinal cohort study was used to assess parental outcomes at multiple time points (i.e., pre-test, post-test, and three-month follow-up). Using validated scales, we measured parenting stress, parenting self-efficacy, and parental anger over time. The results indicated that the participants experienced reduced parenting stress and parental anger, and increased parenting self-efficacy after completion of the co-parenting program. Co-parenting interventions to help divorcing parents with stress management, and continuously work together collaboratively in raising their children should be encouraged.     

Consumer Responses to Mattel Product Recalls Posted on Online Bulletin Boards: Exploring Two Types of Emotion

Drawn from attribution theory, this article introduces two types of emotion (i.e., attribution independent and attribution dependent emotion) and explores their role in the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) model. A content analysis of consumer responses to the Mattel product recalls posted on online bulletin boards revealed that consumers experience a range of emotions from a crisis. A regression analysis suggests that crisis responsibility is a significant predictor of anger, fear, surprise, worry, contempt, and relief, and indicates that these are attribution dependent emotions. Alert and confusion were the most frequently expressed attribution independent emotions identified in this study. In testing a revised SCCT model, a significant negative relationship was found between alert, anger, and organizational reputation. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.     

Environmental energy efficiency of China's regional economies: A non-oriented slacks-based measure analysis

This paper proposes two environmental energy efficiency indices, the pure energy efficiency and scale efficiency based on the slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA). These two indices are used to measure energy efficiency by incorporating three undesirable outputs—carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and Chemical Oxygen Demand—in China's regional economies between 2001 and 2010. The empirical results show most provinces were not energy efficient, due primarily to pure energy inefficiency. There exists a regional unbalance in terms of the environmental energy efficiency. Results support the Porter hypothesis, which indicates that stricter environmental regulations can improve efficiency and encourage innovation. In addition, undesirable outputs had a significant effect on energy efficiency measurements.     

Fathers' involvement and child behavior problems in poor African American single-mother families

The present study examined the effects of nonresident fathers' involvement-measured by the frequency of fathers' contact with their children and the quality of fathers' parenting-on their children's behavior problems. Using data from a subsample of African American single and non-cohabiting mothers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, results indicate that more frequent contact between fathers and their child and fathers' more adequate parenting were associated indirectly with fewer child behavior problems transmitted through more adequate parenting by mothers. The quality of mothers' parenting was associated positively with the quality of the mother-father relationship and with both the quality and the frequency of the fathers' contacts with their child. Policy and practice implications are discussed.     

On the asymptotic distributions of mean,autocovariance, autocorrelation,crossgovariancb and impulse response estimators of a stationary multidimensional random field

Asymptotic properties of mean, autocovariance, autocorrelation, crosscovariance and impulse response estimators of a stationary M-dimensionai (M-D) random field are studied. It is shown that only unbiased-type estimators of autocovariances, autocorrelations, crosscovariances and impulse responses have the asymptotic distributions when M≧ 2. Moreover, the asymptotic distributions of mean, autocovariance, autocorrelation, crosscovariance and impulse response estimators are presented.     

A Broad Class of Partially Specified Autoregressions on Multi-Casting Data

Extending the bifurcating autoregressive (BAR) process (cf. Cowan and Staudte, 1986 Cowan , R. , Staudte , R. G. ( 1986 ). The bifurcating autoregression model in cell lineage studies . Biometrics 42 : 769 – 783 .[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to multi-casting (multi-splitting) data, Hwang and Choi (2009 Hwang , S. Y. , Choi , M. S. ( 2009 ). Modeling and large sample estimation for multi-casting autoregression . Statist. Prob. Lett. 79 : 1943 – 1950 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) introduced multi-casting autoregression (MCAR, for short) defined on multi-casting tree structured data. This article is concerned with the case when the MCAR model is partially specified only through conditional mean and variance without directly imposing autoregressive (AR) structure. The resulting class of models will be referred to as P-MCAR (partially specified MCAR). The P-MCAR considerably enlarges the class of multi-casting models including (as special cases) MCAR, random coefficient MCAR, conditionally heteroscedastic multi-casting models and binomial-thinning processes. Moment structures for this broad P-MCAR class are investigated. Least squares (LS) estimation method is discussed and asymptotic relative efficiency (ARE) of the generalized-LS over ordinary-LS is obtained in a closed form. A simulation study is conducted to illustrate results.     

The asymptotic joint distribution of the correlation determinant estimates of an arma process

The determinants of the correlation matrices of an autoregressive moving-average process have been used for determining orders of the process. In this note the asymptotic joint distribution of determinant estimates is presented. Also, two chi-squared stistics based on the asymptotic distribution are proposed for order determination.     

On the asymptotic distributions of the r and s arrays for identifying an arma process

The R and S arrays of an autoregressive moving- average process have been used for determining the orders of the process. In this paper the asymptotic distributions of the R and S arrays are presented.     

Bias Corrected Maximum Likelihood Estimator Under the Generalized Linear Model for a Binary Variable

Under the generalized linear models for a binary variable, an approximate bias of the maximum likelihood estimator of the coefficient, that is a special case of linear parameter in Cordeiro and McCullagh (1991), is derived without a calculation of the third-order derivative of the log likelihood function. Using the obtained approximate bias of the maximum likelihood estimator, a bias-corrected maximum likelihood estimator is defined. Through a simulation study, we show that the bias-corrected maximum likelihood estimator and its variance estimator have a better performance than the maximum likelihood estimator and its variance estimator.