Can digital signals from the keyboard capture force exposures during typing?

An exposure-response relationship has been shown between muscle fatigue and its effects on keystroke durations. Since keystroke durations can readily be measured by software programs, the method has the potential as a non-invasive exposure assessment tool. However, the software based keystroke durations may be affected by keyswitch force-displacement characteristics. Thus, this study used a force platform to measure the keystroke durations and compared them to software measured keystroke durations in order to determine whether the software based keystroke durations can be used as a surrogate force exposure measures. A total of 13 subjects (6 males and 7 females) typed for 15 minutes each on three keyboards with different force-displacement characteristics. The results showed that the software based keystroke durations were more sensitive to the keyboard force-displacement differences than the force based measures. Although the digital signal based keystroke durations depend on the force-displacement characteristics, the high correlation between the two measures indicated that the keystroke durations derived from the digital signal approximated the true force derived keystroke durations, regardless of the keyboard force-displacement characteristics. Therefore, the software based keystroke durations could be used as a non-invasive, surrogate force exposure measure in lieu of the more invasive actual force measurements.     

Causal relationships between background characteristics, service utilization, satisfaction, and service outcomes (school performance): A path analysis

This study develops a causal model to examine the relationships between service outcome (school performance) and consumer satisfaction, service utilization, and demographic characteristics of the youth receiving mental health services. Data for 281 children, aged 12–18, served from April 2003 to December 2004 were used for the analyses. Causal relationships among variables of the proposed model were tested by using AMOS, and the respecified model was accepted as the final model with good fit to the data (2 = 5.099, df = 8, NFI = .951, CFI = .998, RMSEA = .001). Results of the model test point to the importance of the children's age, service intensity, and consumer satisfaction as determinants of school performance outcome. In particular, increased worker satisfaction and overall satisfaction lead to increases in the perceived success satisfaction and this satisfaction, in turn, leads improvement in grades. Efforts to improve service satisfaction are emphasized and studies based on a more dynamic perspective are needed.     

Self-representations in Early Adolescence: Variations in Sibling Similarity by Sex Composition and Sibling Relationship Qualities

Self-representations play an important role in adolescent development. This study compared self-representations for siblings and explored whether sibling relationship characteristics are associated with similarities or differences in sibling self-concepts. We examined self-representations of 438 adolescent sibling dyads ( M age younger sibling  =  11.6 years, M age older  =  14.3 years), finding that siblings are, on average, similar in their self-representations. This similarity varied, however, depending on sex composition and sibling relationship qualities. Results indicated that sibling modeling, warmth, and conflict were especially influential in predicting sibling resemblance vs. dissimilarity.     

Effects of Homelessness and Child Maltreatment on the Likelihood of Engaging in Property and Violent Crime During Adulthood

The current study employs data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 10,818; 56% female; 21% African American) to test how experiencing homelessness through emerging adulthood and child maltreatment predict adult property crime and violent crime. Unlike many published studies on homelessness, we used propensity score matching to correct for selection bias between homeless and nonhomeless individuals. Logistic regression models were run to predict violent and property crime in adulthood, controlling for child maltreatment. Participants who experienced homelessness by age 26 were 1.6 times more likely to commit violent crime in adulthood and almost 30% more likely to commit property crime. Those who were victims of child maltreatment were 15 times more likely to commit property crime, but no more likely to commit violent crime. Findings show that comparing statistically equivalent groups, homelessness through emerging adulthood significantly predicted adult criminality while child maltreatment showed more variable results. Greater prevention efforts aimed at children and adolescents at high risk of experiencing homelessness, as well as more intensive outreach services to homeless youth, may moderate exposure and reduce reliance on criminal survival behaviors.     

Controlling the false-discovery rate by procedures adapted to the length bias of RNA-Seq

In RNA-Seq experiments, the number of mapped reads for a given gene is proportional to its expression level and length. Because longer genes contribute more sequencible fragments than do shorter ones, it is expected that even if two genes have the same expression level, the longer gene will have a greater number of total reads. This characteristic creates a length bias such that the proportion of significant genes increases with the gene length. However, genes with a long length are not more biologically meaningful than genes with a short length. Therefore, the length bias should be properly corrected to determine the accurate list of significant genes in RNA-Seq. For this purpose, we proposed two multiple-testing procedures based on a weighted-FDR and a separate-FDR approach. These two methods use prior information on differential gene length while keeping the false-discovery rate (FDR) controlled at $\alpha$. In the weighted-FDR controlling procedure, we incorporated prior weights for the length of each gene. These weights increase the power when the gene’s length is short and decrease the power when its length is long. In the separate-FDR controlling procedure, we sequentially ordered all genes according to their lengths and then split these genes into two subgroups of short and long genes. The adaptive Benjamini–Hochberg procedure was then performed separately for each subgroup. The proposed procedures were compared with existing methods and evaluated in two numerical examples and one simulation study. We concluded that the weighted $p$-value procedure properly reduced the length bias of RNA-Seq.     

The Medicine Cabinet: Korean Medicine Under Dispute

This is a historical and ethnographic account of the transformation of Korean medical institutions in the context of national identity building. Focusing on the traditional medicine cabinet, the author discusses intraprofessional and interprofessional conflicts between Korean Oriental medicine and Western medicine. During the period under study, practitioners of Korean medicine institutionalized their practice by emulating the forms and institutions of Western medicine. In the process, practitioners strategically mobilized “science” and “tradition” to secure their epistemic and political power over contending medical professionals. Invoking the colonial experience as a national disgrace and associating it with the ordeal that indigenous medicine had undergone, practitioners homogenized, expanded, and secured their jurisdictional terrain by both appropriating the techniques and knowledge of traditional healers and accommodating values embedded in Western science. For example, contending that acupuncturists and herbalists had been cut off from the current of tradition by colonialism, practitioners reduced these practices to mere technical work and forced them out from the mainstream of Oriental medicine by ensuring that they were never legally recognized as true physicians. Concurrently, when faced with the expansion of Western medicine into some traditional therapies, practitioners resorted to cultural nationalism. They insisted that the theoretical foundations, diagnostic methods, and therapeutic applications of their own tradition could not be replicated by their Western rivals.     

‘Young,Fun, and Free:’ Episodic Volunteers in Ghana,South Africa and Tanzania

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - As scholarship on episodic volunteering expands, researchers question if episodic volunteering is similar to, and/or...     

Measurement Errors and Tests for Rationality

The traditional tests for rationality, the regression and volatility tests, have often rejected the hypothesis of rationality for survey data on expectations. It has been argued that these tests are not valid in the presence of unit roots and hence cointegration tests should be applied. The cointegration tests have often failed to reject the hypothesis of rationality. The present article argues that errors in variables affect tests of rationality. We use multiple sources of expectations to correct for the errors-in-variables bias but find that the hypothesis of rationality is rejected even after this correction. The article uses survey data on interest rates, stock prices, and exchange rates.     

Infants born full term and preterm increase the height of anti-gravity leg movements during a kick-activated mobile task using a scaffolded task environment

Prior research supports that infants born very preterm (PT), compared with full term (FT), have early differences in rate of learning and motor control that may hinder their ability to learn challenging motor tasks. Four-month-old infants born FT (n = 18) and PT (n = 18) participated in an infant kick-activated mobile task that was scaffolded to motivate progressively higher kicks. We found the FT group learned the association between their leg movements and mobile activation on the second day, but the PT group learned the association on the third day. Both groups of infants increased the height of their kicks on the day they learned the task, compared with their spontaneous kicking height. These findings suggest that infants born PT have the ability to learn challenging motor tasks, such as kicking high, when participating in a task environment that uses scaffolding.