The Effects of Culture on the Meaning of Loneliness

The present study examined the influence of culturalbackground on the experience of loneliness. Threehundred and seventy five participants from NorthAmerica and 375 from Croatia volunteered to answer an82 item questionnaire which examined the quality oftheir loneliness experiences. The factors whichcomprise the experience of loneliness are Emotionaldistress, Social inadequacy and alienation, Growth anddiscovery, Interpersonal isolation, andSelf-alienation. Results indicated that culturalbackground, indeed, affects the experience ofloneliness. North Americans scored higher on all fivefactors, and a similar trend was evident when men andwomen were compared across cultures.     

Toward Probabilistic Prediction of Flash Flood Human Impacts

This article focuses on conceptual and methodological developments allowing the integration of physical and social dynamics leading to model forecasts of circumstance‐specific human losses during a flash flood. To reach this objective, a random forest classifier is applied to assess the likelihood of fatality occurrence for a given circumstance as a function of representative indicators. Here, vehicle‐related circumstance is chosen as the literature indicates that most fatalities from flash flooding fall in this category. A database of flash flood events, with and without human losses from 2001 to 2011 in the United States, is supplemented with other variables describing the storm event, the spatial distribution of the sensitive characteristics of the exposed population, and built environment at the county level. The catastrophic flash floods of May 2015 in the states of Texas and Oklahoma are used as a case study to map the dynamics of the estimated probabilistic human risk on a daily scale. The results indicate the importance of time‐ and space‐dependent human vulnerability and risk assessment for short‐fuse flood events. The need for more systematic human impact data collection is also highlighted to advance impact‐based predictive models for flash flood casualties using machine‐learning approaches in the future.     

An Evaluation of Conditional Manding Using a Four-Component Multiple Schedule

Most verbal behavior curricula for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) focus on teaching multiple mands during the early stages of training (e.g., picture exchange communication system; Bondy & Frost, 1994). However, few, if any, of those curricula train children with ASD to differentially mand only for reinforcers that are reasonable for a caregiver to deliver in a given context (e.g., mands to cuddle at bedtime) and to refrain from manding for reinforcers that would be inappropriate to deliver in that context (e.g., mands to play outside at bedtime). In this study, we first taught a boy with ASD two initial mands. Immediately thereafter we brought those mands under the conditional discriminative control of a four-component multiple schedule with (a) S¹ correlated with one reinforcer available (i.e., edibles), (b) S² correlated with both reinforcers available (i.e., edibles or drink), (c) S³ correlated with another reinforcer available (i.e., drink), and (d) S^Δ correlated with no reinforcer available. Following treatment, the child displayed conditionally discriminated manding in accordance with each of the four components of the schedule. We discuss these findings relative to the potential benefits of bringing mands under both evocative and discriminative control.

     

Private Lives in Public Places: Loneliness of the Homeless

At the dawn of the 21st century, both loneliness and homelessness are more pervasive than we would possibly like to admit. In this study, the experience of loneliness of the homeless was compared to that of the general population. Two hundred and sixty six homeless and 595 men and women from the general population answered a 30 item yes/no questionnaire. The experience of loneliness is composed of the following five factors: emotional distress, social inadequacy and alienation, growth and discovery, interpersonal isolation, and self-alienation. The present results indicated that the experience of loneliness for the homeless is significantly different than that of the general population. Gender main effects were explored and discussed.     

Private Lives Public Places: Loneliness Of The Homeless

Abstract

At the dawn ofthe 21st century, both loneliness and homelessness are more pervasive than we would possibly like to admit. In this study, the experience of loneliness of the homeless was compared to that of the general population. Two hundred and sixty six homeless and 595 men and women from the general population answered a 30 item yes/no questionnaire. The experience of loneliness is composed ofthe following five factors: Emotional distress, Social inadequacy and alienation, Growth and discovery, Interpersonal isolation, and Self-alienation. The present results indicated that the experience of loneliness for the homeless is significantly different than that of the general population. Gender main effects were explored and discussed.     

Disentangling the exposure experience: the roles of community context and report-back of environmental exposure data

This article examines participants' responses to receiving their results in a study of household exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds and other pollutants. The authors study how the "exposure experience"-the embodied, personal experience and understanding of chronic exposure to environmental pollutants-is shaped by community context and the report-back process itself. In addition, the authors investigate an activist, collective form of exposure experience. The authors analyze themes of expectations and learning, trust, and action. The findings reveal that while participants interpret scientific results to affirm lay knowledge of urban industrial toxics, they also absorb new information regarding other pollutant sources. By linking the public understanding of science literature to the illness and exposure experience concepts, this study unravels the complex relationship between lay experience and lay understanding of science. It also shows that to support policy development and/or social change, community-based participatory research efforts must attend to participants' understanding of science.     

Older poor parents who lost an adult child to AIDS in Togo, West Africa: a qualitative study

This study analyzes the difficulties that poor parents faced when they lost an adult child to AIDS in Togo. The death of a child is believed to be more distressful to parents compared to the death of a spouse. Evidence also suggests that parental grief is more lasting and may be the most complicated form of grief. Furthermore, the roles played by the deceased child in the lives of the parents also affect the parental grieving process. For instance, in low income regions where parents tend to be socio-economically challenged and where filial obligations are culturally expected, losing an adult child who provided material and financial assistance to parents will be more disastrous. Four kinds of difficulties were identified: financial and social difficulty, psychological difficulty, caregiving difficulty, and disclosure difficulty. The socioeconomic status of the parents made these issues all the more taxing, as respondents were grieving not only the loss of their children to AIDS but also the loss of financial providers. Policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Index of Authors Volume 53, 2001

Social Indicators Research -     

Bayesian optimization design for dose-finding based on toxicity and efficacy outcomes in phase I/II clinical trials

In phase I trials, the main goal is to identify a maximum tolerated dose under an assumption of monotonicity in dose–response relationships. On the other hand, such monotonicity is no longer applied to biologic agents because a different mode of action from that of cytotoxic agents potentially draws unimodal or flat dose–efficacy curves. Therefore, biologic agents require an optimal dose that provides a sufficient efficacy rate under an acceptable toxicity rate instead of a maximum tolerated dose. Many trials incorporate both toxicity and efficacy data, and drugs with a variety of modes of actions are increasingly being developed; thus, optimal dose estimation designs have been receiving increased attention. Although numerous authors have introduced parametric model-based designs, it is not always appropriate to apply strong assumptions in dose–response relationships. We propose a new design based on a Bayesian optimization framework for identifying optimal doses for biologic agents in phase I/II trials. Our proposed design models dose–response relationships via nonparametric models utilizing a Gaussian process prior, and the uncertainty of estimates is considered in the dose selection process. We compared the operating characteristics of our proposed design against those of three other designs through simulation studies. These include an expansion of Bayesian optimal interval design, the parametric model-based EffTox design, and the isotonic design. In simulations, our proposed design performed well and provided results that were more stable than those from the other designs, in terms of the accuracy of optimal dose estimations and the percentage of correct recommendations.