Work Stressors,Depressive Symptoms,and Hazardous Drinking Among Navy Members Across Deployment

Few studies have attempted to examine how changes in work stressors from predeployment to postdeployment and reintegration may be associated with changes in mental health symptoms and hazardous drinking. The present study examined associations between work stressors, depressive symptoms, and hazardous drinking, and whether depressive symptoms mediated the association between work stressors and hazardous alcohol use or vice versa across deployment (predeployment, postdeployment, and 6-month reintegration). Participants were 101 U.S. Navy members (72 men; mean age = 28.34 years; SD = 5.99 years) assigned to an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that experienced an 8-month deployment after recent wars in the Middle East. They completed measures that assessed work stressors, depressive symptoms, and alcohol use at each time point (i.e., predeployment, postdeployment, and 6-month reintegration). Using a parallel process latent growth modeling approach, we found a significant indirect effect at postdeployment such that an increase in work stressors contributed to increases in hazardous drinking via increases in depressive symptoms. Specifically, increases in work stressors significantly predicted increases in depressive symptoms, which in turn significantly predicted increases in hazardous drinking from pre- to postdeployment. Our findings garner support for affect regulation models and indicate that work stressors and changes in work stressors and depressive symptoms may be key to hazardous alcohol use among U.S. Navy members experiencing high pace of deployment. Taken together, our results help identify targets for alcohol prevention efforts among current military members.     

The effectiveness of a joint mother–daughter sexual health program for Latina early adolescents

A culturally and cognitively adapted joint mother–daughter sexual health and HIV transmission curriculum was implemented for 96 Latina early adolescents and their mothers (48 mother–daughter dyads). Pretest and posttest surveys, interviews, and observations of participants' conversations about AIDS were used to assess program effectiveness in increasing knowledge and communication about sexuality and HIV transmission, and fostering daughters' positive attitudes toward using condoms in the future. At posttest, mothers and daughters reported an increase in the frequency of home communication about sexual topics and openness in general communication. Systematic observational analysis of videotaped mother–daughter conversations about AIDS revealed that, compared to the pretest, daughters were more engaged in posttest conversations as evidenced by an increase in their spontaneous sharing of information about HIV transmission and their offering of opinions. In addition, the posttest conversations focused on a broader discussion of HIV transmission risk behavior including condom use as a protective measure. Mothers who knew more about HIV transmission at posttest, and who reported more openness in general communication with daughters at posttest, asked their daughters more questions in the conversations about what they had learned in the program. Daughters who contributed more information and opinions to the posttest conversations, who were more knowledgeable about HIV transmission at posttest, and who reported more home communication about sexual topics in the posttest, also reported more positive attitudes toward using condoms in the future.     

The Genocidal Islamophobia of a Late Nineteenth-Century French Anti-Semite: D. Kimon and The Pathology of Islam

This article contributes to the study of the image of Islam among French anti-Semites at the end of the nineteenth century. More specifically, it analyses D. Kimon's book La pathologie de l'islam, in which the author advocates the need to destroy Islam by annihilating one-twentieth of the world's Muslim population and subjecting the rest to a regime of semi-slavery until they finally convert to Catholicism. Various issues are analysed in the course of this case study: the attitude of anti-Semites towards ethno-cultural groups other than Jews, specifically Muslims; the relationship between anti-Semitism and racism; and the relationship between Islamophobia and racism.     

When walls are no longer barriers: perception of wall height in parkour

Through training, skilled parkour athletes (traceurs) overcome everyday obstacles, such as walls, that are typically insurmountable. Traceurs and untrained novices estimated the height of walls and reported their anticipated ability to climb the wall. The traceurs perceived the walls as shorter than did novices. This result suggests that perception is scaled by the perceiver's anticipated ability to act, and is consistent with the action-specific account of perception.     

Antecedents and outcomes of organizational support for development: the critical role of career opportunities

This study examines antecedents and behavioral outcomes of employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We first propose that employees' past participation in formal developmental activities and experience with developmental relationships positively relate to their perceptions of organizational support for development. We then propose that perceived career opportunity within the organization moderates the relationship between organizational support for development and employee performance and turnover. Using a sample of 264 exempt-level employees and their supervisors, we found that participation in training classes, leader-member exchange, and career mentoring were each positively related to employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We also found support for the moderator hypotheses. Specifically, development support positively related to job performance, but only when perceived career opportunity within the organization was high. Further, development support was associated with reduced voluntary turnover when perceived career opportunity was high, but it was associated with increased turnover when perceived career opportunity was low. Our study demonstrates that social exchange and career motivation theory work together to explain when and how employees' perceptions of organizational support for development relate to turnover and job performance.     

Natural Disaster and Risk of Psychiatric Disorders in Puerto Rican Children

We examined the persistence of psychiatric disorders at approximately 18 and 30 months after a hurricane among a random sample of the child and adolescent population (4–17 years) of Puerto Rico. Data were obtained from caretaker-child dyads (N = 1,886) through in person interviews with primary caretakers (all children) and youth (11–17 years) using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children IV in Spanish. Logistic regressions, controlling for sociodemographic variables, were used to study the relation between disaster exposure and internalizing, externalizing, or any disorder. Children’s disaster-related distress manifested as internalizing disorders, rather than as externalizing disorders at 18 months post-disaster. At 30 months, there was no longer a significant difference in rates of disorder between hurricane-exposed and non-exposed youth. Results were similar across age ranges. Rates of specific internalizing disorders between exposed and unexposed children are provided. Research and clinical implications are discussed.     

Life review therapy using autobiographical retrieval practice for older adults with clinical depression

The aim of this experiment was to examine the efficacy of life review based on autobiographical retrieval practice for treating depression in older adults. Thirty-seven clinically depressed older adults aged 64-83, who were also receiving pharmacological treatment, were randomly assigned to life review therapy or to a placebo condition with supportive therapy. Results indicated decreased depression for both conditions, with no significant differences between the two therapies. There was some indication of greater gain in production of specific memories among those in life review therapy. Patients who produced higher numbers of specific memories decreased their depression scores at a faster rate.     

Evaluating Fund Performance by Compromise Programming with Linear‐Quadratic Composite Metric: An Actual Case on The CaixaBank in Spain

This paper proposes an additive measure on the basis of compromise programming to evaluate fund performance from multiple criteria, of which the most usual are profitability and risk. This proposal is motivated by the fact that compromise programming is a sound decision support model to obtain scores of alternatives by minimizing weighted distances to an ideal point, the weights reflecting the investor's preferences for the criteria. To define the distance objective function, the linear‐quadratic composite metric is used, which combines advantages of linear and non‐linear objective functions. A critical advantage of compromise programming for fund performance evaluation is that the model can be extended to more than two financial criteria while other measures currently used (either ratio‐based or leverage‐based measures) only consider two criteria, say, profitability and risk. In the application, three investor's profiles are defined, which involve different weighting systems and lead to different fund rankings. These rankings are compared with domination relationships, the latter formulating if a fund is dominated or non‐dominated by convex combinations of other funds. Numerical tables are provided with data, computational process and results, which are analysed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.