Urban college student self-report of hookah use with health care providers

Objective: This study's purpose was to describe urban college students’ communication about hookah with health care providers. Participants: Participants included a random sample of undergraduate urban college students and health care providers. Methods: Students surveyed determined the epidemiology of hookah use in this population, how many health care providers asked about hookah, and how many students admitted hookah use to a physician. Results: Of 375 students surveyed, 78 (20.8%) had never tried it, 284 (75.7%) had smoked hookah at least once, and 64 students (22.6%) were classified as frequent hookah smokers. Only 15 (4.7%) reported a health care provider asking about hookah during visits, whereas 36 (12.7%) admitted their hookah use to a health care provider. Conclusion: Hookah use was found to be highly prevalent among students in one urban university. This study supports the hypothesis that few health care providers broach the topic with patients. Additional research on health consequences of hookah use, education, and improved screening is warranted.     

Assessing the abundance of freshwater turtles in an Australian urban landscape

Although interest in the ecological impacts of urbanisation has increased, very little is known about its impacts on freshwater turtles in Australia. This study investigated the abundance and diversity of turtles in lakes in an urbanised subtropical landscape, Brisbane, Australia. It was found that turtles were abundant throughout the lakes surveyed, with four native species and one introduced species being detected. A total of 371 individuals were captured, 77.7% of which were Brisbane River turtle (Emydura macquarii signata). The lakes surveyed were estimated to support a population of 63–269 individuals for all species combined with most lake populations containing less than 100. Turtle demographics may be classed into three stages of population growth: recovery or nascent; intermediate; and climax. Turtle reproductive success is a major concern for the survival of turtles in urban areas. Continued monitoring is needed to establish if population declines are occurring. This study suggests that while turtles are persisting in this urban environment of Australia the pressures of urbanisation, such as habitat loss, increased predation on both nests and juveniles and pollution of waterways may pose on-going risks to their survival.     

A Comprehensive Action Plan Information System: A Tool for Tracking and Mapping Quality of Life Action Implementation and Planning

Since its inception, the Community-University Institute for Social Research (CUISR) has been involved in a participatory process aimed at understanding the quality of life in Saskatoon. Informed by the results of Quality of Life (QoL) survey in 2001 and by a list of QoL action priorities from a community forum, the CUISR QoL module set out to survey community work on QoL action planning and implementation. In collaboration with a steering committee of community-based professionals, CUISR developed a methodology for managing and analyzing QoL initiatives related to community action implementation and planning. The Community Action Plan Information System (CAPIS) is the result of this process. CAPIS is a compendium, an analysis, and a purposive contextualization of QoL actions and recommendations from collaborative action plan documents, focused on the Saskatoon community. This paper provides a detailed examination of the concept and components of the Comprehensive Action Plan Information System (CAPIS), as well as the process and outcomes of a sampling of the QoL statement analysis and mapping project. The paper concludes by projecting how the CAPIS could evolve into a fully operational QoL strategic action plan and gap indicator, providing the foundation for a knowledge based, informed, reporting mechanism on the state and evolution of QoL action and policy.

401(k) plan asset allocation, account balances, and loan activity in 2010

THE BULK OF 401(K) ASSETS CONTINUED TO BE INVESTED IN STOCKS: On average, at year-end 2010, 62 percent of 401(k) participants' assets were invested in equity securities through equity funds, the equity portion of balanced funds, and company stock. Thirty-three percent were in fixed-income securities such as stable value investments and bond and money funds. SEVENTY PERCENT OF 401(K) PLANS INCLUDED TARGET-DATE FUNDS IN THEIR INVESTMENT LINEUP AT YEAR-END 2010: At year-end 2010, 11 percent of the assets in the EBRI/ICI 401(k) database were invested in target-date funds and 36 percent of 401(k) participants held target-date funds. Also known as lifecycle funds, they are designed to offer a diversified portfolio that automatically rebalances to be more focused on income over time. MORE NEW OR RECENT HIRES INVESTED THEIR 401(K) ASSETS IN BALANCED FUNDS, INCLUDING TARGET-DATE FUNDS: For example, at year-end 2010, 44 percent of the account balances of recently hired participants in their 20s were invested in balanced funds, compared with 42 percent in 2009, and about 7 percent in 1998. A significant subset of that balanced fund category is target-date funds. At year-end 2010, 35 percent of the account balances of recently hired participants in their 20s were invested in target-date funds, compared with 31 percent at year-end 2009. 401(K) PARTICIPANTS CONTINUED TO SEEK DIVERSIFICATION OF THEIR INVESTMENTS: The share of 401(k) accounts invested in company stock continued to shrink, falling by more than a percentage point (to 8 percent) in 2010, continuing a steady decline that started in 1999. Recently hired 401(k) participants contributed to this trend: They tended to be less likely to hold employer stock. PARTICIPANTS' 401(K) LOAN BALANCES DECLINED SLIGHTLY IN 2010: In 2010, 21 percent of all 401(k) participants who were eligible for loans had loans outstanding against their 401(k) accounts, unchanged from year-end 2009, and up from 18 percent at year-end 2008. Loans outstanding amounted to 14 percent of the remaining account balance, on average, at year-end 2010, compared with 15 percent at year-end 2009. Loan amounts outstanding declined slightly from those in the past few years. THE YEAR-END 2010 AVERAGE ACCOUNT BALANCE IN THE DATABASE WAS 3.4 PERCENT HIGHER THAN THE YEAR BEFORE, BUT MAY NOT ACCURATELY REFLECT THE EXPERIENCE OF TYPICAL 401(K) PARTICIPANTS IN 2010: To understand changes in 401(k) participants' average account balances, it is important to analyze a sample of consistent participants. As with previous EBRI/ICI updates, analysis of a sample of consistent 401(k) participants (those that have been in the same plan since 2003) is expected to be published in 2012.     

DISCRIMINATION AND EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION

We study a search model with employment protection legislation. We show that if the output from the match is uncertain at the hiring stage, a discriminatory equilibrium may exist in which workers with the same productive characteristics are subject to different hiring standards. If a bad match takes place, discriminated workers will take longer to find another job, prolonging the costly period for the firm. This makes it less profitable for firms to hire discriminated workers, thus sustaining the discrimination. In contrast to Becker's model, the existence of employers with a taste for discrimination may make it more profitable to discriminate, even for firms without discriminatory preferences.     

Bridging Adaptive Learning and Desired Natural Resource Management Outcomes: Insights from Australian Planners

Natural resource management (NRM) has been increasingly guided by governance arrangements seeking less centralized and hierarchical and more integrated and adaptive approaches to achieve desired social-ecological outcomes. Successful implementation of these approaches requires adaptive learning which entails the application of individual, institutional and social learning to adaptive co-management. This paper proposes and validates a conceptual model that identifies components of adaptive learning and their relationships with desired NRM outcomes. Supported by on-ground experience of Australian NRM planners, it discusses three key insights to enable bridging between adaptive learning and NRM outcomes: changing focus away from economic-efficiency culture, supporting learning and knowledge exchange structures, and reinventing practice.     

Tacit Coordination in Choice Between Certain Outcomes in Endogenously Determined Lotteries

Tacit coordination is studied in a class of games in which each of n = 20 players is required to choose between two courses of actions. The first action offers each player a fixed outcome whereas the second presents her the opportunity of participating in a lottery with probabilities that are determined endogenously. Across multiple iterations of the game and trial-to-trial changes in the composition of the lottery, we observe a remarkably good coordination on the aggregate but not individual level. We further observe systematic deviations from the Nash equilibrium solution that are accounted for quite well by a simple adaptive learning model.     

Testing for heteroskedasticity in the tobit and probit models

Non-constant variance across observations (heteroskedasticity) results in the maximum likelihood estimators of tobit and probit model parameters being inconsistent. Some of the available tests for constant variance across observations (homoskedasticity) are discussed and examined in a small Monte Carlo experiment.     

Variation in breeding parameters of the Australian magpie Gymnorhina tibicen in suburban and rural environments

The breeding ecology of the Australian magpie Gymnorhina tibicen in suburban and rural areas was compared as part of a study into the synanthropy of the species in southeast Queensland, Australia. During the two years of the study suburban magpies were found to have significantly advanced breeding dates compared to rural magpies. Suburban magpies typically re-nested when an initial nest failed, although this did not result in greater productivity than that of the rural magpies. Suburban magpies had similar mean numbers of young per breeding pair; they also showed higher mortality between fledging and a final count in February. This study suggests that introduced predators and deaths due to motor vehicles may account for this mortality in suburban areas. Anthropogenic factors present within suburban areas such as the watering of lawns and the widespread provision of food for wildlife are likely to play an important role in the differences in the timing of breeding. In addition, temperature may also have an inhibitory effect on the onset of breeding, an influence lessened in the suburban areas due to higher temperatures.     

Improved Sampling-Importance Resampling and Reduced Bias Importance Sampling

Abstract.  The sampling-importance resampling (SIR) algorithm aims at drawing a random sample from a target distribution π. First, a sample is drawn from a proposal distribution q , and then from this a smaller sample is drawn with sample probabilities proportional to the importance ratios π/ q . We propose here a simple adjustment of the sample probabilities and show that this gives faster convergence. The results indicate that our version converges better also for small sample sizes. The SIR algorithms are compared with the Metropolis–Hastings (MH) algorithm with independent proposals. Although MH converges asymptotically faster, the results indicate that our improved SIR version is better than MH for small sample sizes. We also establish a connection between the SIR algorithms and importance sampling with normalized weights. We show that the use of adjusted SIR sample probabilities as importance weights reduces the bias of the importance sampling estimate.