Determinants of obesity: The case of Germany

Obesity now has the rank of a global epidemic, but finds its severest expression in the economically advanced parts of the world. This study offers an interdisciplinary analysis of obesity in Germany, including socio-economic factors. In comparison to related studies, it uses a continuous BMI variable as well as an improved empirical design. The coefficient of the term for sport activities is significantly negative, and the coefficient for the age terms are significantly positive. The results for the income variable are ambiguous. Cigarette consumption does not indicate negative relationships with individual BMI-levels. No evidence was found for systematic differences in BMI between the eastern and western regions in reunified Germany.     

Creating and Contesting Boundaries: Exploring the Dynamics of Conflict and Classification

While it is clear that cultural boundaries shape the ways we think and act, the processes by which some emerge as dominant while others languish is less well understood. Drawing on a case study of a conflict among climbers, I show how an innovation's evolution from heresy to orthodoxy was shaped by the relationship between borders enacted by players on different sides of the issue. I argue that because boundaries emerge in an interactional nexus, the nature of the boundaries that prevail can only be understood in the context of prior boundaries through and against which they are created.     

Wie interkulturelle Kompetenzen als Erfolgs- oder Misserfolgsfaktoren bei Internationalisierungsstrategien von Unternehmen wirken können: eine wahre Geschichte zur interkulturellen Ignoranz

The following analysis of a case study clearly shows the negative consequences of purely economical decisions of a financial management group which did not consider the intercultural differences of the seven cultures participating to the same project.     

Youth Unemployed—Observations on the Community Youth Support Scheme

Tasmanian CYSS experience reveals the centres are predominantly attended by single young males with minimal educational and employment qualifications. This group also revealed evidence of childhood adversity and current domestic problems. The CYSS project was often considered of doubtful value in procuring a job but nevertheless the centres seem to provide valuable social contact and emotional support. There was less evidence of psychological malaise. Whilst CYSS projects are prohibited from searching for employment, counselling and the selling of goods produced by the centre, in fact, the centres often evade these prohibitions.     

The Visible Church: Historiography of African American Religion since Raboteau

“The Visible Church” is a broad survey of the field of African American religion in the Atlantic world that has emerged in the quarter century since Albert Raboteau's seminal text, Slave Religion, first appeared. It focuses on a relatively small number of works that have fundamentally changed or conceptually displaced the three major categories of analysis—survivals, creolisation and revisionism—that have dominated the historiographical landscape since 1978.     

Access to Health Care: Social Determinants of Preventive Cancer Screening Use in Northern British Columbia

The purpose of this study was to examine theextent to which social factors are influentialin determining women's access to cancerscreening services in Prince George, BritishColumbia. Specifically, this study evaluatedthe association of age, income, education, workstatus, disability, marital status, andimmigrant status with previous use of screeningmammography and Pap tests. Data was obtainedfrom the 1994 National Population HealthSurvey, which contains a sample of 416 womenfrom the Prince George area. A series oflogistic regression analyses were used todistinguish ever versus never beenscreened as well as recency of previousscreening. Participation rates in screeningmammography in Prince George are comparativelyhigh; however, no association was found betweensocial factors and previous mammography use.This suggests women in Prince George areparticipating in mammography servicesregardless of social background. Participationrates in Pap test screening in Prince Georgeare high and are similar to provincialaverages; however, while a large percentage ofwomen have been screened, this percentagevaries across social groups. Immigrant women,single women, and women with less education areover represented among women who have never hada Pap test. In addition, older women are lesslikely to obtain a recent Pap test whencompared to younger women. This study suggeststhat certain groups of women in northernBritish Columbia experience low participationin health services, resulting in a higher riskfor poor health and a poor quality of life.     

Why is Housing Always Satisfactory? A Study into the Impact of Preference and Experience on Housing Appreciation

This study focuses on residents’ perceptions of residential quality concerning 23 different dwelling aspects. Respondents were asked to indicate their appreciation of these dwelling aspects on a scale ranging from 0 (“extremely unattractive”) to 100 (“extremely attractive”). The influence of two potential factors on the appreciation of dwelling aspects is examined: (1) preference and (2) experience. It was hypothesized that residents who live according to their preferences give higher appreciation scores than residents who do not. This should even apply to low-quality housing. Furthermore, it was argued that residents appreciate their current housing situation more than residents who do not live in that particular housing situation. This effect should be independent of preference. The impact of both preference and of experience could be confirmed. The results also showed an interaction effect between preference and experience: the positive effect of experience on appreciation is larger in residents who live in a housing situation that they do not prefer. This result would be expected if the impact of experience works to decrease the ‘gap’ in residential satisfaction due to the discrepancy between what residents have and what they want. In conclusion, why is housing always satisfactory? In this paper, housing is satisfactory because the ‘gap’ between what residents want and what they have is small; residents seem to have realistic aspirations. Furthermore, residents appreciate what they already have, even if this is not what they prefer.     

Putting technology to work: Users' perspective on integrating assistive technology into the workplace

This qualitative study examined the experiences of people with disabilities who use assistive technology in open employment. This study aims to describe and understand the factors the participants perceived as important in integrating technology into the workplace, as well as the barriers encountered in the process. Fifteen people with a range of acquired and congenital disabilities as well as their employers (8) or co-workers (4) were interviewed. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed. Nud*ist Version 4(R) was used for data management. Emergent themes related to the integration of assistive technology were software compatibility, Information Technology (IT) and product support, and the interaction between technology and the work environment. Participants also reported on the impact of technology on their performance and comfort at work, as well as dealing with people and processes in the workplace. By identifying the issues and support strategies for technology users in the workplace, appropriate measures can be implemented to ensure that the spirit of disability discrimination legislation is realized.     

Mood,arousal and cognitions in persistent gambling: Preliminary investigation of a theoretical model

A theoretical model of persistent gambling is described together with the results of two preliminary investigations focusing on poker machine play under ecologically valid conditions. The subjects (N=80), the majority of whom already had experience of playing, gambled with their own money (either with or without a small priming fee), 1) in a laboratory setting on a commercially available machine (Golden Goose) with a genuine opportunity to win and lose (heart rate and subjective measures of arousal were recorded) and 2) in a second study, played under direct observation in a real club setting (subjective arousal, illusion of control and persistence were recorded). The results provided some support for the components of the model, particularly the hypothesized relationship between arousal and persistence.     

High-dimensional regression in practice: an empirical study of finite-sample prediction,variable selection and ranking

Penalized likelihood approaches are widely used for high-dimensional regression. Although many methods have been proposed and the associated theory is now well developed, the relative efficacy of different approaches in finite-sample settings, as encountered in practice, remains incompletely understood. There is therefore a need for empirical investigations in this area that can offer practical insight and guidance to users. In this paper, we present a large-scale comparison of penalized regression methods. We distinguish between three related goals: prediction, variable selection and variable ranking. Our results span more than 2300 data-generating scenarios, including both synthetic and semisynthetic data (real covariates and simulated responses), allowing us to systematically consider the influence of various factors (sample size, dimensionality, sparsity, signal strength and multicollinearity). We consider several widely used approaches (Lasso, Adaptive Lasso, Elastic Net, Ridge Regression, SCAD, the Dantzig Selector and Stability Selection). We find considerable variation in performance between methods. Our results support a “no panacea” view, with no unambiguous winner across all scenarios or goals, even in this restricted setting where all data align well with the assumptions underlying the methods. The study allows us to make some recommendations as to which approaches may be most (or least) suitable given the goal and some data characteristics. Our empirical results complement existing theory and provide a resource to compare methods across a range of scenarios and metrics.