Sources of drug information among adolescent students

A sample of 1023 eighth and tenth grade students in small to medium-sized central Texas school districts was assessed to determine the amount of information they receive from ten sources about six categories of drugs. The amount of information males reported receiving about each drug category was significantly greater than what females reported, and the amount of information that eighth graders reported receiving about each drug category was significantly greater than what tenth graders reported. Television was the primary source of drug information for all categories of drugs except inhalants, for which friends and television were equally important sources. Parents and printed media (magazines or newspapers) were of secondary importance, followed by friends and teachers. Adolescents were less likely to receive drug-related information from experience, siblings, church, doctors, and police. The reliance on the mass media for drug information in smaller school districts is a pattern which has been previously observed in larger urban districts. This consistency suggests that mass media approaches to drug education are likely to be as effective in rural areas and smaller towns as they are among urban adolescents. Implications for television programming are discussed.     

Surname analysis for estimating local concentration of Hispanics and Asians

Surname analysis is a potentially useful technique for identifying members of particular racial, ethnic, or language communities within a population. We review the existing state of the art for identifying persons of Hispanic or Asian origin, based on surnames distinctive of each group. We describe the logic of surname analysis, profile several available surname dictionaries, and illustrate their applications in local redistricting. Results of our ongoing validation studies suggest promising future directions for improving accuracy and broadening applications.This article is based on a paper presented at the annual Population Association of America meetings at Cincinnati, 1 April 1993.     

Race and prevailing wage laws in the construction industry: Comment on Thieblot

Using the 1990 Census of Population, Thieblot (1999) argued that black employment and the strength of the prevailing wage laws are correlated and that repeal of these laws would lead to higher black employment in construction. Analysis of the 1970 Census of Population reveals that the relative abundance of black construction workers in the group of states that eventually would repeal their laws preceded those repeals and that this is mainly due to the characteristics of Southern labor markets. This and other research cast doubt on both the strength and the existence of such a correlation.     

盆景风格因子初探

盆景艺术风格是盆景艺术家的创作个性在作品中的外在表现 ,它对盆景艺术的发展起着很重要的作用 ,人们对盆景的感性认识直接来源于盆景的风格。大部分盆景方面的书和文章都会涉及到盆景艺术风格的问题 ,但是 ,迄今为止对盆景艺术风格的形成和发展进行过系统研究的人还不是很多。基于对艺术发展规律和中国各种艺术风格盆景发展历史的研究 ,该文详细论述了影响盆景艺术风格形成和发展的内在、外在因素及它们之间的关系 ,并对怎样给我国盆景艺术注入新的活力提出了一些建议 ,对我国盆景艺术的发展和创新起到一定的指导作用     

Optimal sampling for repeated binary measurements

The authors consider the optimal design of sampling schedules for binary sequence data. They propose an approach which allows a variety of goals to be reflected in the utility function by including deterministic sampling cost, a term related to prediction, and if relevant, a term related to learning about a treatment effect To this end, they use a nonparametric probability model relying on a minimal number of assumptions. They show how their assumption of partial exchangeability for the binary sequence of data allows the sampling distribution to be written as a mixture of homogeneous Markov chains of order k. The implementation follows the approach of Quintana & Müller (2004), which uses a Dirichlet process prior for the mixture.     

D-efficient window experimental designs

In the paper we present a new method of calculating sampling intervals, so-called windows, allowing an experimenter some flexibility in timing the sample collection, while a minimum required design efficiency for parameter estimation is assured. The method is based on the Equivalence Theorem for D-optimality what makes the length of each window related to the parameter sensitivities. An example of calculating the windows in a pharmacokinetic study is presented. Some other methods of calculating efficient sampling windows are briefly discussed.     

Model Diagnostics for Remote Access Regression Servers

To protect public-use microdata, one approach is not to allow users access to the microdata. Instead, users submit analyses to a remote computer that reports back basic output from the fitted model, such as coefficients and standard errors. To be most useful, this remote server also should provide some way for users to check the fit of their models, without disclosing actual data values. This paper discusses regression diagnostics for remote servers. The proposal is to release synthetic diagnostics—i.e. simulated values of residuals and dependent and independent variables–constructed to mimic the relationships among the real-data residuals and independent variables. Using simulations, it is shown that the proposed synthetic diagnostics can reveal model inadequacies without substantial increase in the risk of disclosures. This approach also can be used to develop remote server diagnostics for generalized linear models.