Trends in Alcohol Consumption Among Undergraduate Students at a Northeastern Public University, 2002–2008

Abstract

Objective: This study examined alcohol consumption patterns and trends at a public university in the Northeast from 2002 to 2008. Participants: Stratified random sampling was used to select undergraduate students enrolled in courses during spring semesters in 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008. Methods: Data were collected during regularly scheduled classes for 4 measures of alcohol consumption and 5 demographic categories using the Core Alcohol and Drug Survey. Results: Four groups showed significant increases in both frequency and volume of alcohol consumption—students who were female, over 21 years of age or over, living off-campus, or performing well academically. There were no decreasing trends for any demographic group. These results differ from national college health surveys, which have shown alcohol use remaining steady during this period. Conclusions: Campus-specific trend data can provide unique perspectives and guide programming efforts. These trends suggest a need for new intervention strategies on this campus.     

The carver in Africa: Individually acclaimed artist or anonymous Artisan?

This paper explores a number of issues raised by William Burton's annotated photographs of professional artists (or craft specialists) taken at his mission station in Katanga province in the 1930s. It focuses, in particular, on why Burton recorded the names of two carvers, one a chief, the other a court sculptor attached to the Nkulu chieftainship. The questions raised by this decision leads me to consider the relationship between indigenous consumer attitudes to African artists, and changing perceptions of the identity and status of these artists by foreign buyers and art historians since the early 20th century. In the course of this discussion I draw attention to the fact that it is only in context‐specific studies of patronage that meaningful attempts have been made to address the ways in which artists themselves have responded to the increasingly complex marketplace in which they now work.     

Trends in Domestic and International Social Work Research: A 10-Year Review of American Research Journals

ABSTRACT

This article presents a typology of international social work research and analyzes trends over a 10-year period (1995–2004) based on reviews of 707 articles from three major American social work research journals: Social Work Research, Journal of Social Service Research, and Research on Social Work Practice. The analysis revealed there was a considerable increase (3.5%) in the total amount of research articles, particularly a higher increase in international social work research (2.8%) than national social work research (0.8%). A small decline was detected in transnational comparative research (?0.4%).     

Episodic Cessation of Gambling: A Numerically Aided Phenomenological Assessment of Why Gamblers Stop Playing in a Given Session

The topic of permanent cessation of gambling behavior has received increased attention as the rates gaming (and pathology) increase with accessibility and legalization. Despite this increased attention there is a paucity of research on why people stop gambling in a given session, i.e. episodic cessation. We propose that the study of first-person experiential accounts of why gamblers stopped engaging in play within a given session will shed light on the progression and maintenance of wagering behavior. Using numerically aided phenomenology, we systematically examined accounts of episodic cessation. In doing so, we were able to identifying recurrent themes and then clustering these accounts according to similarities in theme profiles. People reported that episodic cessation occurred because they had lost all their money or because they were forced to (Cluster I), a sufficient amount of money had been won or lost (Cluster II), and a priori limits on wins or losses had been reached (Cluster III). As predicted, gamblers with maladaptive reasons for episodic cessation (Cluster I and II) reported more illusory perceptions of control and negative attitudes toward treatment seeking than those who engage in responsible gambling behavior (Cluster III). Moreover, illusions of control mediated the effect of cluster membership on attitudes toward treatment seeking. The findings of the present research help to integrate recent studies of gambling progression and maintenance.     

Using the dependent wild bootstrap for the nonparametric goodness-of-fit test for density functions

In this paper, we consider the well-known nonparametric consistent model-specification test for the stationary density function (see [Aït-Sahalia Y. Testing continuous-time models of the spot interest rate. Rev Financ Stud. 1996;9:385–426; Li Q. Nonparametric testing of closeness between two unknown distribution functions. Econ Rev. 1996;15:261–274; Fan Y, Ullah A. On goodness-of-fit tests for weakly dependent processes using kernel method. J Nonparametric Stat. 2000;11:337–360]) and reinvestigate it carefully using asymptotics and simulation. Our work reveals that the test is subject to power and size distortions, which are mainly caused by dependence or convergence rate changes under the null and alternative hypothesis. A dependent wild bootstrap is newly suggested as a feasible remedy to such distortions. Our result provides a complete explanation as well as a solution to the problem that experienced by Aït-Sahalia [Testing continuous-time models of the spot interest rate. Rev Financ Stud. 1996;9:385–426], that is, that the test rejects true models too often when independent and identically distributed asymptotic critical values are used.