Health incongruence in later life: implications for subsequent well-being and health care.

OBJECTIVE: The premise that pessimistic health appraisals compromise well-being whereas optimistic appraisals are compensatory was examined in a longitudinal study of 232 community-dwelling older adults (ages 79-98 years). DESIGN: Subjective health (SH) appraisals were contrasted with objective health (OH) to identify realists, whose ratings were congruent (SH = OH), distinguishing them from health pessimists (SH < OH) and health optimists (SH > OH), whose ratings were incongruent. Analyses of covariance were used to examine group differences 2 years later on well-being and health care. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Outcome measures were psychological well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative emotions), functional well-being (objective and perceived physical activity, activity restriction), and health care (health care management, hospital admissions, length of hospital stays). RESULTS: Compared with realists, pessimists had significantly poorer outcomes and optimists had better outcomes. Because perceived control (PC) was weaker among pessimists and stronger among optimists, supplemental analysis determined whether PC differences explained these findings. When accounting for PC, many pessimism and optimism effects became nonsignificant, yet effects on functional well-being remained unchanged. CONCLUSION: Findings have implications for older adults at risk of functional decline.     

Contralateral interference and ear advantages for identification of three-element patterns

Recent experience with attempts to test relatively simple patterns such as three-tone sequences in a traditional dichotic-listening paradigm indicates that when such sequences are used for both target and contralateral interference, performance tends to be low in both ears and not useful for measuring or comparing ear advantages in various target conditions. It is reported that tests with a variety of sounds presented contralaterally to three-element patterns show that several such sounds can (1) allow performance in at least one ear to remain above floor values, (2) result in performance in at least one ear that is below ceiling, and (3) reveal ear advantages that are similar in direction and magnitude to those seen with the traditional dichotic paradigm.     

Strategic Revenue Management under Uncertainty: A Case Study on Real Estate Projects in India

This paper proposes an approach for strategic revenue management under uncertainty for real estate projects. It integrates three modelling techniques: first, artificial neural network integrated support vector machines for forecasting the profit and loss‐making real estate residential projects; second, analytical network process approach using decision making trials and evaluation laboratory methodology for establishing interrelationships among factors; and third, multiobjective genetic algorithm approach for obtaining optimal numbers and types of apartments in a real estate project. We compare the respective revenues generated with the new number of apartments and price from the suggested revenue maximization model and that of the old practiced one through a case study of India. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Losing My Religion as a Natural Experiment: How State Pressure and Taxes Led to Church Disaffiliations between 1940 and 2010 in Germany

The sociological literature has produced a remarkably consistent picture of the quantitative patterns of religious disaffiliations in Western countries. This article argues, and demonstrates, that strong changes in a social context may lead individuals to disaffiliate rapidly, leading to very different aggregate effects from those in the “western model.” We use the unique situation of the separation of Germany from 1949 to 1989 and its subsequent reunification as a “natural experiment” to show just how much the relationships routinely found can be disrupted under changed conditions. The state socialist “treatment” affected religious disaffiliations in East Germany profoundly as it (a) made disaffiliations 10 times more probable in the East than in the West in the 1950s and 1960s, (b) shielded East German church members from factors that led to mass disaffiliations in the West in the late 1960s and early 1970s, (c) reversed the education‐disaffiliation link in the East, thus making disaffiliation more likely among the less educated, and (d) led to an especially strong increase in disaffiliations in the East right after the reunification     

Changing the Criminal Justice System Response to Sexual Assault: An Empirical Study of a Participatory Action Research Project

In jurisdictions throughout the United States, thousands of sexual assault kits (SAKs; also known as a “rape kits”) have not been submitted by the police for forensic DNA testing. DNA evidence may be helpful to sexual assault investigations and prosecutions by identifying perpetrators, revealing serial offenders through DNA matches across cases, and exonerating those who have been wrongly accused. This paper describes a longitudinal action research project conducted in Detroit, Michigan after that city discovered approximately 11,000 untested sexual assault kits in a police department storage facility. We conducted a root cause analysis to examine individual, organizational, community, and societal factors that contributed to the development of the rape kit backlog in Detroit. Based on those findings, we implemented and evaluated structural changes to increase staffing, promote kit testing, and retrain police and prosecutors so that cases could be reopened for investigation and prosecution. As we conducted this work, we also studied how this action research project impacted the Detroit criminal justice system. Participating in this project changed stakeholders’ attitudes about the utility of research to address community problems, the usefulness of DNA evidence in sexual assault cases, and the impact of trauma on survivors. The results led to new protocols for SAK testing and police investigations, and new state legislation mandating SAK forensic DNA testing.