Assessing human movement with accelerometry

The methods for measuring and evaluating human movement have advanced rapidly over the past 2 decades. The use of smaller, lighter, more powerful personal computers, digital video cameras and miniature, portable accelerometers have allowed the health professional, engineer, sports coach and scientist to very precisely record and quantify human movements on the sports field, in the business office, industrial setting and in the home. Most human motion analysis systems have evolved to meet the particular needs of the user. One such system that has developed over the past ten years in the Sport Science Laboratory at Dalhousie University is the Padlog series of accelerometer systems. This paper will discuss the development the Padlog systems at Dalhousie.     

Education,Matching, and the Allocative Value of Romance

Societies are characterized by customs governing the allocation of non‐market goods such as marital partnerships. We explore how such customs affect the educational investment decisions of young singles and the subsequent joint labor supply decisions of partnered couples. We consider two separate matching paradigms—one where partners marry for money and the other where partners marry for romantic reasons orthogonal to productivity or debt. Whereas marrying for money generates greater investment efficiency, romantic matching, by increasing the number of educated and talented women who participate in the labour market, increases aggregate productivity. (JEL: I21, J12, J16, J41)     

Cultural Citizenship

This paper seeks to give a sense of the diversity of work that falls within the boundaries of 'cultural citizenship'– a term it locates as emerging from the problematisation of traditional citizenship models by issues of identity and mediation. This paper outlines three distinct strands of cultural citizenship theory, which respectively emphasise multiculturalism, the politics of cultural texts, and dialogical communication. Subsequently, this paper conducts a brief analysis and critique of these strands, enabled by an interrogation of the ways in which they each define and deploy the term 'culture'. It is argued that for cultural citizenship to develop a more coherent terminological 'face', a balance must be struck between a commitment to specificity, and the appeal of abstracted re-imaginings of civil society.     

Parent–child joint media engagement in infancy

Early conversations are an important source in shaping children's cognitive and emotional development, and it is vital to understand how parents use media as a platform to engage in conversations with their young children and what might predict the quality of these interactions. Thus, in the current study we explored the nature of parent–child discourse while engaging in media (i.e., joint media engagement) with infants, and how parent (empathic concern and responsiveness) and child (negative emotionality and regulatory capacity) variables might be associated with the quality of engagement. The current study consisted of 269 infants (50% female, M_age = 17.09 months, SD = 3.93; 59% White) and their primary caregiver (98% mothers) who engaged in a variety of in‐home tasks and parental questionnaires. Results established three meaningful codes for both parent and child that assessed positive and negative joint media engagement. Further, results suggested that parental empathic concern was associated with positive parent and child media engagement, while child negative emotionality was associated with lower levels of distraction. Discussion focuses on the importance of studying parent–child discourse in the context of joint media engagement and recommends limiting media exposure before 18 months of age.     

Experiences of Grandparenting Disabled Children in the UK: A Qualitative Study of Intergenerational Relationships

Contemporary patterns of family, work, and welfare make the experience of grandparenting complex and diverse. This UK-based qualitative study aimed to explore grandparenting in the context of childhood disability. Nine grandparents (aged 59–79 years) with disabled and non-disabled grandchildren took part in semi-structured interviews. Grandparents provided extensive instrumental and emotional care and support and sought a balance between involvement versus interfering. Grandparents actively drew on life experiences to engage with services to maximize support. Contemplating the future, grandparents had concerns for adult children as well as grandchildren. Developing policies to support grandparents of disabled grandchildren are urgently required.     

A Robust Multivariate Procedure for the Identification of Problem Savings and Loan Institutions*

The 1980s have seen a great increase in the number of failed savings and loan institutions. In order to prevent such failures, it would be helpful if regulators have an early warning model. Such a model should be able to flag potential failed firms to prevent failure. In this paper, a robust multivariate procedure is used to successfully identify potentially failed firms well ahead of an actual failure date.     

THE ANALYSIS OF OUTLYING DATA POINTS USING ROBUST REGRESSION: A MULTIVARIATE PROBLEM-BANK IDENTIFICATION MODEL*

Because the eight largest bank failures in United States history have occurred since 1973 [24], the development of early-warning problem-bank identification models is an important undertaking. It has been shown previously [3] [5] that M-estimator robust regression provides such a model. The present paper develops a similar model for the multivariate case using both a robustified Mahalanobis distance analysis [21] and principal components analysis [10]. In addition to providing a successful presumptive problem-bank identification model, combining the use of the M-estimator robust regression procedure and the robust Mahalanobis distance procedure with principal components analysis is also demonstrated to be a general method of outlier detection. The results from using these procedures are compared to some previously suggested procedures, and general conclusions are drawn.     

Care proceedings and parents with learning difficulties: comparative prevalence and outcomes in an English and Australian court sample

This paper presents and contrasts the findings from two independent but comparable court studies in England and Australia of care proceedings involving parents with learning difficulties. Significant differences between the two jurisdictions were found in both prevalence and outcomes, with a much higher proportion of cases showing in the England sample, with many more children being returned home to live with their parents in Australia, and with far more children being placed out‐of‐home and outside the family network in England. We explore the reasons for these differences and discuss the implications of the findings.