Race–gender Differences in Risk and Protective Factors among Youth in Residential Group Homes

Analysis reported here examined youth in residential group home placements in order to better understand how sexual behaviors, drug use, and environmental experiences differ by race and gender subgroups. Data were collected from 336 youth aged 14–21 residing in one of 41 group homes in Maryland. Chi square and logistic regression analyses were done to determine differences on study variables among the race-gender groupings. Results demonstrate not only significant health concerns overall but notable differences were also found between race-gender subgroups. Findings suggest that found race-gender subgroup differences might be informative for tailoring programming for youth of residential group home settings.     

Pursuit of mission: The rise and fall of elite nonprofit leadership

The University Circle Development Foundation (UCDF) was created in 1957 to implement a master plan for the development of Cleveland's University Circle district. Run by the presidents of three major institutions, UCDF was successful in coordinating land use and construction projects in its early years. However, its elite authority structure proved insular and inflexible when dealing with students, faculty, and adjacent neighborhoods, and it was dissolved in 1970.     

The big story about small stories: Narratives of crime and terrorism

The ‘big story/small story’ distinction has emerged as a discrete approach to narrative analysis. Proponents of this approach are critical of the ‘big stories’ elicited by structural analysts, which they see as highly structured narratives of past experiences, typically elicited in an interview context. In contrast, they highlight the importance of studying the fragmented, contextualised ‘small stories’ that arise in everyday conversation/interaction. We question the basis of this distinction and we suggest that it unnecessarily proliferates analytic categories. Further, we suggest that the methodologies followed by ‘small stories’ analysts are often similar to those used to elicit ‘big stories’ and are hence open to similar criticisms; in particular, a failure to fully consider the issue of (contextual) naturalism. Drawing on interviews of crime/terrorism in Northern Ireland, we show how these data comprise both ‘big stories’ and ‘small stories’ within the same context and often within the same narrative.     

Engaging Intercollegiate Athletes in Preventing and Intervening in Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Objective: The object of this exploratory evaluation was to evaluate the “Bringing in the Bystander” sexual and intimate partner violence prevention program with a new sample of intercollegiate athletes. Participants and Methods: Fifty-three male and female athletes participated in the program (experimental group), and 86 were in the control group. All completed pretest, posttest, and 2-month follow-up surveys, including assessment of rape myth acceptance, intent to engage in bystander behaviors, bystander confidence, and bystander behaviors. Results: The program worked overall and for both women and men, improved bystander confidence and intent to engage in bystander behaviors, and did not create significant backlash effects (ie, worsening of attitudes as a result of program). Conclusions: The program fits with the intent of the National Collegiate Athletic Association CHAMPS/Life Skills program regarding its focus on the overall development of student-athletes and demonstrates the promising bystander approach compatible with the 2007 American College Health Association toolkit, Shifting the Paradigm: Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence.     

Bayesian hierarchical regression models for detecting QTLs in plant experiments

Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping is a growing field in statistical genetics. In plants, QTL detection experiments often feature replicates or clones within a specific genetic line. In this work, a Bayesian hierarchical regression model is applied to simulated QTL data and to a dataset from the Arabidopsis thaliana plants for locating the QTL mapping associated with cotyledon opening. A conditional model search strategy based on Bayesian model averaging is utilized to reduce the computational burden.     

A global optimisation approach to range-restricted survey calibration

Survey calibration methods modify minimally sample weights to satisfy domain-level benchmark constraints (BC), e.g. census totals. This allows exploitation of auxiliary information to improve the representativeness of sample data (addressing coverage limitations, non-response) and the quality of sample-based estimates of population parameters. Calibration methods may fail with samples presenting small/zero counts for some benchmark groups or when range restrictions (RR), such as positivity, are imposed to avoid unrealistic or extreme weights. User-defined modifications of BC/RR performed after encountering non-convergence allow little control on the solution, and penalisation approaches modelling infeasibility may not guarantee convergence. Paradoxically, this has led to underuse in calibration of highly disaggregated information, when available. We present an always-convergent flexible two-step global optimisation (GO) survey calibration approach. The feasibility of the calibration problem is assessed, and automatically controlled minimum errors in BC or changes in RR are allowed to guarantee convergence in advance, while preserving the good properties of calibration estimators. Modelling alternatives under different scenarios using various error/change and distance measures are formulated and discussed. The GO approach is validated by calibrating the weights of the 2012 Health Survey for England to a fine age–gender–region cross-tabulation (378 counts) from the 2011 Census in England and Wales.