ECONOMIC AND OTHER SOCIETAL DETERMINANTS OF THE PREVALENCE OF HIV: A Test of Competing Hypotheses

The spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is believed to result from HIV-infected individuals who are unaware of their infection and, thus, the possible consequences of their sexual behavior for others. However, differential rates of HIV infection between countries may reflect a different set of circumstances. We obtained data from the World Bank and several other sources to test eight alternative explanations for the global differences in prevalence of HIV infection: (1) economic underdevelopment, (2) inadequate public health care, (3) insufficient media, (4) political instability, (5) overurbanization, (6) social inequity, (7) religion, and (8) region. Our regression findings showed that income inequality and political instability had statistically significant positive effects on HIV/AIDS prevalence and that gender equality had a negative effect on HIV/AIDS prevalence. Religion and region were also important predictors, as countries that were predominately Muslim and Christian Orthodox generally had lower prevalence of HIV/AIDS, whereas West Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa had a higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS. None of the public health and media indicators were statistically relevant.     

Contextual,Output and Operational Variables in Bilingual Education in Latvia

This paper evaluates the implementation and implications of the recent Education Act in Latvia for the education of language minority children in Latvia. By analysing the output, contextual and operational variables that determine language education policy, comparisons are made with two established Western European models of multilingual education, the European School model and the system of trilingual education in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. These comparisons reveal that, as elsewhere, it is the output variables, modified by contextual variables, which determine the operational strategies that need to be addressed.     

Repeated‐measures models in the analysis of QT interval

Because of the recent regulatory emphasis on issues related to drug‐induced cardiac repolarization that can potentially lead to sudden death, QT interval analysis has received much attention in the clinical trial literature. The analysis of QT data is complicated by the fact that the QT interval is correlated with heart rate and other prognostic factors. Several attempts have been made in the literature to derive an optimal method for correcting the QT interval for heart rate; however the QT correction formulae obtained are not universal because of substantial variability observed across different patient populations. It is demonstrated in this paper that the widely used fixed QT correction formulae do not provide an adequate fit to QT and RR data and bias estimates of treatment effect. It is also shown that QT correction formulae derived from baseline data in clinical trials are likely to lead to Type I error rate inflation. This paper develops a QT interval analysis framework based on repeated‐measures models accomodating the correlation between QT interval and heart rate and the correlation among QT measurements collected over time. The proposed method of QT analysis controls the Type I error rate and is at least as powerful as traditional QT correction methods with respect to detecting drug‐related QT interval prolongation. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictors of Secondary Traumatic Stress among Children's Advocacy Center Forensic Interviewers

This study examined various predictor variables that were hypothesized to impact secondary traumatic stress in forensic interviewers (n = 257) from children's advocacy centers across the United States. Data were examined to investigate the relationship between organizational satisfaction, organizational buffers, and job support with secondary traumatic stress using the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale. The most salient significant result was an inverse relationship between three indicators of job support and secondary traumatic stress. Also significant to secondary traumatic stress were the age of interviewer and whether the forensic interviewer had experienced at least one significant loss in the previous 12 months. Implications for future research, training, program practice, and policy are discussed.     

How are major gambling brands using Twitter?

ABSTRACT

This paper is the first to compare how major gambling brands are using the popular social media platform Twitter, looking at how gambling brands vary in the frequency of their messages, the content of their tweets and engagement with their Twitter activity. 63,913 tweets were collected from seven well-known British gambling brands (Bet365, Betfair, Betfred, Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, William Hill) and their associated Twitter accounts (Total Number of Accounts = 22) via the Twitter Application Program Interface (API) on the 1 August 2018. Companies varied in their approach to Twitter, some posting from a single account whereas others segmented their tweets by topic or purpose. Frequency analysis of tweets showed that on average major gambling brands tweeted anywhere between 89 and 202 tweets a day. Sentiment analysis of tweets showed a positivity bias with the language in tweets being associated with positive emotions like anticipation, trust and joy. Paddy Power, Bet365 and Coral produced the content that received the highest number of likes or shares from other twitter users. This study highlights the extent to which companies are using Twitter; followers could potentially be receiving hundreds of messages per day.     

Suicidality and depression among youth gamblers: a preliminary examination of three studies

Both suicide and problem gambling among youth are two growing areas of public health concern, though studies have yet to characterise the relationship between these issues. Youth report higher prevalence rates of problem gambling than adults, but no studies to date have investigated whether they are likewise prone to higher risks of gambling‐related suicidality. This article explores the relationship of depression, suicidality, and problem gambling in youth in three studies of middle and high‐school students (total N = 3,941; males n = 1,937, females n = 2,004) conducted in 1996, 2000, and 2001 in Quebec and Ontario. All studies reported significantly higher rates of suicidality among problem and pathological gamblers as compared to non‐gamblers and social gamblers, irrespective of gender, grade, or level of depression. The implications for future investigations are discussed.     

The ‘African Colonists’ of Montevideo: New Light on the Illegal Slave Trade to Rio de Janeiro and the Río de la Plata (1830–42)

New archival evidence from Montevideo reveals a twofold operation that brought enslaved Africans to Rio de Janeiro in the era of the illegal slave trade. This pattern emerged after the negotiation of the only – and largely unsuccessful – Anglo-Brazilian treaty against this traffic (1826) and the independence of Uruguay from Brazil (1825), which led to the foundation of the Uruguayan state in 1830. This operation also disguised the shipment of African slaves, mainly children, to Montevideo as ‘colonists’ in order to avoid both the constitutional ban on the slave trade as well as the British cruisers patrolling the Atlantic.     

Eigenvalue Ratio Test for the Number of Factors

This paper proposes two new estimators for determining the number of factors (r) in static approximate factor models. We exploit the well‐known fact that the r largest eigenvalues of the variance matrix of N response variables grow unboundedly as N increases, while the other eigenvalues remain bounded. The new estimators are obtained simply by maximizing the ratio of two adjacent eigenvalues. Our simulation results provide promising evidence for the two estimators.