The Role of Distal Minority Stress and Internalized Transnegativity in Suicidal Ideation and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury Among Transgender Adults

Transgender people are at elevated risk for nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicidal ideation compared to the general population. Transgender (trans) refers to a diverse group of people who experience incongruence between their gender identity and sex assigned at birth. The present study is guided by the minority stress model and the psychological mediation framework, which postulate that sexual minority groups experience elevated stress as a result of anti-minority prejudice, contributing to negative mental health outcomes. This study utilized these theories to investigate the role of internalized transnegativity—internalization of negative societal attitudes about one’s trans identity—in the relationships of distal trans stress to suicidal ideation and NSSI. A U.S. national sample of trans adults (N = 237) completed a battery of online measures. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to compare models with mediation and moderation effects. Results suggested that internalized transnegativity acts as both a mediator and a moderator in the relationship between distal trans stress and suicidal ideation. Log likelihood comparisons suggested moderation models had the superior fit for these data. Results suggest that clinical interventions should directly target individuals’ internalized transnegativity as well as societal-level transnegativity.     

Deconstructing bottleneck shiftiness: the impact of bottleneck position on order release control in pure flow shops

Bottleneck shiftiness is an important managerial problem that negatively affects shop floor manageability. It has therefore received much research attention. Yet research has focused on how protective capacity can be used to influence bottleneck shiftiness rather than on assessing its operational impact. The latter is complex to evaluate since changing the degree of bottleneck shiftiness influences utilization, which makes the results of different experimental settings non-comparable. To overcome this problem, we take a different approach. Bottleneck shiftiness is decomposed by investigating its underlying phenomenon: the impact of the bottleneck position. Using simulation, we demonstrate that tighter control can be exercised, and better performance achieved, the further upstream the bottleneck is positioned. It is consequently important to be aware of the direction of the bottleneck shift. If the bottleneck shifts upstream, performance is likely to improve rather than deteriorate as is implicitly assumed in the literature.     

Resolving the (Apparent) Talker Recognition Paradox in Developmental Speech Perception

The infant literature suggests that humans enter the world with impressive built‐in talker processing abilities. For example, newborns prefer the sound of their mother's voice over the sound of another woman's voice, and well before their first birthday, infants tune in to language‐specific speech cues for distinguishing between unfamiliar talkers. The early childhood literature, however, suggests that preschoolers are unable to learn to identify the voices of two unfamiliar talkers unless these voices are highly distinct from one another, and that adult‐level talker recognition does not emerge until children near adolescence. How can we reconcile these apparently paradoxical messages conveyed by the infant and early childhood literatures? Here, we address this question by testing 16.5‐month‐old infants (N = 80) in three talker recognition experiments. Our results demonstrate that infants at this age have difficulty recognizing unfamiliar talkers, suggesting that talker recognition (associating voices with people) is mastered later in life than talker discrimination (telling voices apart). We conclude that methodological differences across the infant and early childhood literatures—rather than a true developmental discontinuity—account for the performance differences in talker processing between these two age groups. Related findings in other areas of developmental psychology are discussed.     

Structural landscape changes in urban and peri-urban agricultural systems of two West African cities and their relations to ecosystem services provided by woody plant communities

Urban Ecosystems - High urbanization pressure in Sub-Saharan Africa led to changes in the composition and configuration of rural and peri-urban agricultural production systems and to the...     

Emerging from below the social radar: Incipient evaluation in the North West of England

This paper investigates the social meaning of post‐nasal [ɡ]‐presence, a dialectal variant characteristic of North Western varieties of British English that is claimed to have local prestige. Using a matched‐guise approach, this study reveals the absence of a community‐wide norm with respect to how [?ɡ] clusters are evaluated as well as diachronic change in the level of awareness speakers have of this variable. Older subjects are not sensitive to the dialectal status of [?ɡ] and as a result do not evaluate it differently from [?]; the local form is more accessible to evaluation among younger subjects, for whom the northern indexicality is stronger, but at this incipient stage of social meaning there is no agreement on what the content of this evaluation should be. The results speak to questions regarding the development of shared norms, their role in the speech community, and the granularity of social meaning more generally.     

DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR ILL-STRUCTURED PROBLEMS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Decision support systems (DSSs) are more complex than most other traditional decision-aid systems. For what types of problems are they more effective, and what design characteristics make them more effective? The laboratory experiment reported here examined the effect of three design characteristics of these systems in the context of decision makers faced with ill-structured problems. The characteristics were presence or absence of decision-aid heuristics, degree of interaction between the user and the system, and whether or not the system was computerized. The dependent variables were (1) quality of user performance, (2) user productivity of ideas, (3) user confidence in the quality of his/her performance, (4) user satisfaction with the decision aid or support system, (5) changes in user attitude toward the problem addressed, and (6) changes in user attitude toward computers. Use of heuristics and increased interaction had positive effects on decision quality, user productivity, and attitude toward computers; they had negative effects on user confidence, satisfaction, and attitude toward the problem addressed. Whether or not the system was computerized did not have a significant effect on any dependent variable. The findings concerning negative effects, in particular, suggest the need for research on the design of heuristics for addressing ill-structured problems—heuristics that will deliver the positive but not the negative effects observed in this study. The findings also suggest the need for research on how to benefit from computers in the context of solving ill-structured problems.     

Avian use of suburban greenways as stopover habitat

Greenways may provide stopover habitat for migrating birds in otherwise inhospitable suburban landscapes. We examined the effect of greenway forested corridor width, vegetation composition and structure, and adjacent land cover on the species richness and abundance of migrating songbirds during spring and fall migration in Raleigh and Cary, North Carolina, USA. Generally, migrating birds were more abundant in wider forest corridors during spring and fall migration. During the spring, migrants were detected more commonly in greenways with taller trees and a higher percentage of hardwood trees. In the fall, migrant richness and abundance was highest in greenways with lower canopy cover, possibly because of the increased vertical complexity of the vegetation at these sites. Forest-interior migrant richness was not correlated with corridor width in either season, but these species were more abundant in greenways bordered by less bare earth and pavement cover in the spring. No other bird groupings were correlated with adjacent land cover measures. Although migrants used greenways of all widths, forested corridors wider than 150 m should be conserved whenever possible to provide stopover habitat for forest-interior migrants. Shrub cover should be retained to maintain vegetative complexity. Habitat for the greatest diversity of migrants can be provided by constructing greenways in areas of lower development intensity and encouraging residents to retain shrubs and trees on properties bordering greenways.     

The BLUE's covariance matrix revisited: A review

In this paper we comment on and review some unexpected but interesting features of the BLUE (best linear unbiased estimator) of the expectation vector in the general linear model and in particular, the BLUE's covariance matrix. Most of these features appear in the literature but are rather scattered or hidden.