Depression in adults with type 2 diabetes: the role of adherence, body mass index, and self-efficacy.

Considerable evidence links depression with the development and worsening of diabetes, but the factors contributing to this link have not been established. The authors examined the role of adherence, body mass index (BMI), and self-efficacy. Adult patients with Type 2 diabetes (N = 56) completed self-report measures of diet and exercise adherence, diet and exercise self-efficacy, and depression. BMI was obtained from medical records. Path and mediation analyses indicated that both adherence and BMI independently contributed to self-efficacy. Self-efficacy mediated both the association between adherence and depression and the association between BMI and depression. These findings are consistent with the proposal that lower self-efficacy in reaction to adherence failure and higher BMI contributes to depression in adults with diabetes.     

Interference risk and the function of dynamic shifts in calling in the gray treefrog (Hyla versicolor)

Male gray treefrogs call to attract females under challenging acoustic conditions. At higher chorus densities, there is considerable background noise and a good chance that a male's calls will often be overlapped by calls of other individuals. Call overlap may reduce the probability of mating because females prefer calls with internal pulse structure that is not obscured. With increases in acoustic stimulation, males lengthen call duration while simultaneously reducing call rate such that "pulse effort" changes little. In our study, we tested the "interference risk hypothesis." This proposes that males change call duration so that, on average, there will be a sufficient number of pulses and interpulse intervals clear of acoustic interference per call to attract a female. However, female choice experiments employing call alternatives of different durations, rates, intensity levels, and degrees of call overlap refuted this hypothesis. Our results leave open the possibilities that the dynamic shift in the two components of pulse effort are related to the problem of call detection in a noisy environment or are responses by males to the perceived threat of competition for females.     

Prejudiced attitude measurement using the Rasch Rating Scale model

There have been two basic approaches for the study of minority group prejudice against the majority: to adapt instruments from the majority group, and to use qualitative techniques by analyzing the content of the discourse of the groups involved. Neither of these procedures solves the problem of measuring intergroup attitudes of majorities and minorities in interaction. This study shows the result of a prejudice scale which was developed to measure the attitude of both the minority and majority groups. Prejudice is conceived as an attitude which requires the beliefs or opinions about the out-group, the emotions it elicits, and the behavior or intentional behavior toward it to be known for its evaluation. The innovation in this work is that the psychometric development of the scale was based on the item response theory, and more specifically, the rating scale model.     

Posture and motion variability in non-repetitive manual materials handling tasks

In developing a motion prediction model it is important to initially consider the sources of variability that a model should reproduce. This initial step is followed by model evaluation, where the variability predicted by the model can be a useful test parameter. An existing lifting-motion dataset collected under controlled laboratory conditions was employed here to evaluate quantitatively some important sources of variability for lift motion modeling. The main source of variability was the segment being analyzed, which accounted for more than 20% of the overall variability. There was substantial left-right symmetry in individual segment variability estimates, which were largest for the upper arm segment and tended to be larger for the upper limbs than the lower limbs. Task-related factors accounted for variability mainly as a function of the segment being considered. Within-participant variability contributions to the dataset were relatively small, whereas the contribution of between-participants variability was dependent on the segment (as large as 50%) and could indicate different lifting strategies across participants. Variability was found to remain relatively constant across the different stages of the lifting movements. Implications of these results for the development and evaluation of motion prediction models are presented. Specifically, while task characteristics may be important modifiers of the mean segment trajectory during a lifting movement, their influence on variability differs based on the segment that is being considered. The relevance of the findings is discussed in terms of their utility in the ergonomic design of tasks and work spaces.     

Parent Management of Organization,Time Management,and Planning Deficits among Adolescents with ADHD

Organization, Time Management, and Planning (OTP) problems are a key mechanism of academic failure for adolescents with ADHD. Parents may be well positioned to promote remediation of these deficits; yet, almost nothing is known about OTP management behaviors among parents of middle and high school students with ADHD. In a sample of 299 well-diagnosed adolescents with ADHD, a measure of parental OTP management was psychometrically validated. Latent Class Analysis was conducted to detect distinct patterns of parental OTP management and yielded four unique classes: Parental Control (18.7 %), Parent-Teen Collaboration (20.4 %), Homework Assistance (20.4 %), and Uninvolved (40.5 %). Logistic Regression analyses indicated that maladaptive parental OTP strategies were related to higher levels of parent and adolescent psychopathology. Parental OTP management did not relate to current adolescent OTP skills or GPA, indicating that parents did not select OTP management strategies in immediate response to adolescent functioning. Implications for parent-directed intervention are discussed.     

Internal,external, genetic,or cultural? Lay theories about racial health disparities predict perceived threat,adherence, and policy support

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that Black and Latinx communities experienced a disproportionate burden of illness. The goal of this study is to investigate laypeople's attribution of these disparities. We hypothesized the following four potential attributions: external causes (e.g. systemic racism), internal causes (e.g. personal choices), cultural causes (e.g., being close knit), or genetic causes (e.g., being more vulnerable for genetic reasons). Data from 447 participants revealed that lay theories involving external factors were the most endorsed, whereas theories relating to genetic causes were the least endorsed. Our analyses further revealed that external attributions predicted broader COVID-19 relevant outcomes (i.e., perceived threat of COVID-19, adherence to CDC guidelines, and support for government policies in response to COVID-19), even after controlling for political orientation, participant race, and other attributions. This research provides insight into how lay people's explanations for disparities can predict their reactions to the pandemic.