Risk analysis of fast spreading species in a Kashmir Himalayan National Park (Dachigam) for better monitoring and management

Huge economic costs and ecological impacts of invasive alien species (IAS) in the protected areas (PAs) worldwide make their timely prediction and potential risk assessment of central importance for effective management. While the preborder weed risk assessment framework has been extensively evaluated and implemented, the postborder species risk assessment framework has not been subjected to the same degree of scrutiny. Here we used a rather more realistic modified version of the Australian Weed Risk framework (AWRM) for Dachigam National Park (DNP) in Kashmir Himalaya against 84 plant species, including 55 alien species and 29 fast spreading native species, for risk analysis. We found two very high-risk species, three high-risk species, 10 medium-risk species, 29 low-risk species, and 40 negligible-risk species in the DNP. The containment scores accordingly ranged from 14.4 to 293.5 comprising of 27 species that can be contained with very high feasibility, 23 species with high feasibility, 14 species with medium feasibility, and 12 species which cannot be contained easily thereby having low feasibility of containment (FOC) score. However, eight species which have a negligible FOC score are difficult to contain within their infestation sites. Our results demonstrate the merit of the AWRM with a caution that the necessary region-specific modifications may help in its better implementation. Overall, these results provide quite a promising tool in the hands of protected area managers to timely and effectively deal with the problem of plant invasions.     

Optimal trajectory to the general equilibrium state of the unstable stochastic lattice gas of prey–predator model with pair-approximation

This paper focuses on the study of the optimal control problem of the unstable stochastic lattice gas of prey–predator model with pair-approximation. The Pontryagin minimum procedure is used to derive the optimal behaviour of the proposed system that makes it trajectory closer to its general equilibrium states with respect to a selected performance measure during a specified period of time T. Wide numerical simulations and illustrations are presented in graphs and tables.     

Mean and cell-mean imputation resulting in the use of a semicontinuous distribution and a mixture of semicontinuous distributions

Zero-inflated models are commonly used for modeling count and continuous data with extra zeros. Inflations at one point or two points apart from zero for modeling continuous data have been discussed less than that of zero inflation. In this article, inflation at an arbitrary point α as a semicontinuous distribution is presented and the mean imputation for a continuous response is discussed as a cause of having semicontinuous data. Also, inflation at two points and generally at k arbitrary points and their relation to cell-mean imputation in the mixture of continuous distributions are studied. To analyze the imputed data, a mixture of semicontinuous distributions is used. The effects of covariates on the dependent variable in a mixture of k semicontinuous distributions with inflation at k points are also investigated. In order to find the parameter estimates, the method of expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm is used. In a real data of Iranian Households Income and Expenditure Survey (IHIES), it is shown how to obtain a proper estimate of the population variance when continuous missing at random responses are mean imputed.     

Rural Latino Youth Career Development: An Application of Social Cognitive Career Theory

This study used social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994 ) to investigate the career development of 9th‐grade students living in 2 rural communities with large numbers of Latino immigrants. Participants (55.3% Latino) responded to measures of vocational skills self‐efficacy, career decision outcome expectations, career aspirations, and barriers to postsecondary education. Contrary to previous findings, results indicated that Latino students in these communities reported higher self‐efficacy beliefs than did White students. Latino students also reported higher perceived barriers, but this did not seem to relate to their career aspirations. Results suggest that school and career counselors should focus on programming that attends to Latino students' self‐efficacy and outcome expectations, as well as efficacy for overcoming barriers. Doing so could prove useful for increasing career achievement among rural Latino youth.     

Optimal CUSUM and adaptive CUSUM charts with auxiliary information for process mean

The CUSUM chart is good enough to detect small-to-moderate shifts in the process parameter(s) as it can be optimally designed to detect a particular shift size. The adaptive CUSUM (ACUSUM) chart provides good detection over a range of shift sizes because of its ability to update the reference parameter using the estimated process shift. In this paper, we propose auxiliary-information-based (AIB) optimal CUSUM (OCUSUM) and ACUSUM charts, named AIB-OCUSUM and AIB-ACUSUM charts, using a difference estimator of the process mean. The performance comparisons between existing and proposed charts are made in terms of the average run length (ARL), extra quadratic loss and integral relative ARL measures. It is found that the AIB-OCUSUM and AIB-ACUSUM charts are more sensitive than the AIB-CUSUM and ACUSUM charts, respectively. Moreover, the AIB-ACUSUM chart surpasses the AIB-OCUSUM chart when detecting a range of mean shift sizes. Illustrative examples are given to support the theory.     

The Emerging Problems of Alcohol and Substance Abuse in Late Life

Treatment of substance abuse among older adults will become increasingly important as the number of aged Americans increases. The abuse of psychoactive substances is a major contributor to excess morbidity, mortality, and homelessness among persons of all ages and socioeconomic strata regardless of race or ethnicity. Alcohol and tobacco account for the majority of substance abuse-related death and disability in the United States; the former through cerebrovascular and hepatic disease, accidents and violence, the latter through chronic pulmonary disease and malignancy. Patterns of substance abuse in late life are substantially different from those observed among younger adults. However, treatment may be less challenging. Effective diagnosis and treatment requires a nonpunitive, supportive, but persistent approach. This means the capacity to collect a substance intake history and the ability to formulate a treatment plan or referral strategy to an addiction specialist or residential treatment setting. It is also important for the practitioner to manage negative feelings toward patients who decline treatment or who are chronic abusers.     

Child Sexual Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization in Adulthood: Sex-Differences in the Mediating Influence of Age of Sexual Initiation

Child sexual abuse is a major public health concern in the United States with devastating sequelae. Although the relationship between child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence victimization in adulthood is known, little is known about the mediating influence of the age of sexual initiation on the association, or whether sex differences exist. Using data from waves I, III, and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 1,163), we aimed to examine the mediating influence of age of sexual initiation on the association between child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence victimization in adulthood and identify sex differences. Findings reveal that in female survivors, age of sexual initiation partially mediated the association between child sexual abuse and physical intimate partner violence victimization in adulthood. In male survivors, no mediational effect was observed. Public health practitioners should be aware of sex differences in the effect of early sexual initiation on intimate partner violence victimization in adulthood among child sexual abuse survivors.     

Project HOPE: Evaluation of Health Science Career Education Programming for Rural Latino and European American Youth

Project HOPE comprises a health science career pipeline program based in social cognitive career theory. The program aims to promote health science career exploration for rural and Latino middle school students while simultaneously emphasizing the importance of achieving in math and science subjects. The authors conducted 2 studies to evaluate Project HOPE using baseline and follow‐up evaluation data. Results of Study 1 indicated that Project HOPE was associated with increases in math/science self‐efficacy for both Latino (n = 42) and European American (n = 31) students. Results of Study 2 indicated that Project HOPE was associated with higher health science career self‐efficacy beliefs for European American students (n = 22) and higher health science career interests for Latino students (n = 28). These results suggest that domain‐specific career interventions for middle school students that focus on jobs tied to the local economy may be a useful way to engage students in career exploration.     

Do unions always decrease wage dispersion? The case of Brazilian manufacturing

The literature on the impact of unions on wages has established that unionized workers earn a wage premium when compared to their nonunion counterparts and that the dispersion of wages within the union sector is lower than in the nonunion sector. I examine the validity of these findings in the context of a developing country labor market and show that unionism does create a positive wage differential but that wage dispersion is greater in the union sector. These findings are explained by the greater variance in the characteristics of unionized workers, the vulnerability of nonunion workers to market conditions, and the structure of wage bargaining.     

College Expectations of Rural Appalachian Youth: An Exploration of Social Cognitive Career Theory Factors

An examination of social cognitive career theory (SCCT; R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, & G. Hackett, 1994, 2000) factors contributing to the college expectations of high school students (N = 87) in rural Appalachia was conducted. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed support for the role of SCCT variables in predicting expectations to attend college. Specifically, the SCCT variables of perceptions of parental support and self‐efficacy beliefs independently predicted Appalachian youth's expectations to attend college. Results are discussed in relation to SCCT, and implications for counseling and future research are presented.