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As suburban poverty has become more prevalent in recent years, low-income neighbourhoods have emerged outside of many central cities. In many regions, however, there remains a stark divide between the core city and outlying areas. Measuring poverty concentrations, therefore, depends on the choice of geographic scale. Widespread urban poverty results in low measures of poverty concentration inside core cities, and whether this increases or decreases once suburbs are considered depends on specific regional characteristics. This study calculates 'isolation gradients' for the population in poverty in the 50 largest US Metropolitan areas (MSAs), extending from the core city to beyond the MSA level. A variety of patterns emerge, including sharp increases in isolation scores outside the city (as in Detroit) as well as decreases (for Atlanta). An econometric analysis of the ratio of MSA-level to core-city isolation scores finds that, controlling for land area and core-city poverty rates, much of the variance is explained by per-capita income and differences in racial segregation. A comparison of gradients in 2000 and 2015–2019 for a subset of cities shows additional patterns of suburban and urban convergence and divergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020 we published MetaBLIND, a large meta-epidemiological study on the impact of masking on effect estimates in randomized clinical trials (RCTs). While masking is an established methodological practice in RCTs it is not clear to what extent results of non-masked RCTs are biased. Surprisingly, we found no evidence of an impact of masking on effect estimates, on average. Michiel Tack commented on the MetaBLIND study, and here we respond. The issues he raised were examples of standard themes when interpreting meta-epidemiological studies, which we have discussed at some length elsewhere, and did not warrant change of our conclusion. We maintain that the MetaBLIND results do not provide a sufficient basis for recommending abandoning masking as a methodological safeguard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effects of interventions may vary among participants. We explored whether participant characteristics were moderators of the effects of two cognitive behavioral interventions on concerns about falling (CaF) in older community-dwelling people. Secondary analyses of two RCTs were performed, concerning the group intervention A Matter of Balance - Netherlands (AMB-NL, n = 540) and individual AMB - Home (n = 389) intervention. Marginal models were used to assess moderation. Analyses included single moderator and multiple moderator models containing multiple moderators at once. A total of 19 characteristics were assessed. Moderating effects were found for living situation, fall history, symptoms of depression, perceived general health, ADL disability, cognitive status, and consequences of falling—loss of independence subscale. Effects varied by intervention, time point, and type of model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid climate and socioeconomic changes are transforming Arctic human–earth systems. An integral part of these systems is mobility, which encompasses the transport of humans and goods into, out of, and between Arctic regions. Impacts of climate and socioeconomic drivers on Arctic mobility are heterogenous. Methodologies are needed to quantify these impacts in measures that can be linked with broader socioeconomic systems. This article reviews existing methods and organizes them into a conceptual framework to understand trends and gaps in the literature. We found methods quantifying impacts of a range of climate drivers on most transportation modes present in the Arctic, but few methods focused on socioeconomic drivers. In addition, underrepresented were methods explicitly considering adaptive capacity of transportation systems. We provide insight into the data and relationships relevant to understanding impacts of Arctic change on transportation systems, laying a foundation for future work that investigates how these impacts fit into broader human–arth systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about how best to support students' transition from school to university have re-emerged periodically since at least the 1970s. This paper focuses upon one aspect of this transition: how to develop the quantitative skills students acquire at school throughout the first year of their degree. We report on an attempt to inject pedagogic innovation into the teaching of quantitative methods to first-year geography undergraduates at a large Russell Group university in the UK. More specifically, we report on moving to a pedagogic approach of student-centred, inquiry-based learning, which uses quantitative methods to investigate the issue of air pollution. We explore whether "statistical anxiety" is still a common experience of undergraduate geographers and the extent to which pedagogical innovation can help to alleviate this. Although the focus is on UK Geography, the paper has wider relevance to anywhere geographical research methods are taught. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific realism debate in philosophy of science raises some intriguing methodological issues. Scientific realism posits a link between a scientific theory's observational and referential success. This opens the possibility of testing the thesis empirically, by searching for evidence of such a link in the record of theories put forward in the history of science. Many realist philosophers working today propose case study methodology as a way of carrying out such a test. This article argues that a qualitative method such as case study methodology is not adequate for this purpose, for two reasons: to test scientific realism is to pose an effects‐of‐causes question, and observational and referential success are quantities that theories possess to a greater or lesser degree. The article concludes that an empirical test of scientific realism requires a quantitative method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proportional representation (PR) electoral systems have become widespread because they are expected to ensure the representation of interests with small or geographically inefficiently distributed voter bases. Yet in reality, most PR systems consist of a large number of districts that vary substantially in size, and some have surprisingly low magnitude. Existing research shows that such differences matter greatly for political outcomes but offers no explanation for their origins. We argue that the design of electoral districts in newly adopted PR systems is systematically linked to electoral geography and partisan politics. If parties with concentrated voter bases can influence the design of the new electoral system, they will create a significant number of low-magnitude districts. In general, parties involved in designing districts benefit from electoral disproportionalities under the new PR rules. Empirically, we use newly collected district-level data for several Western European countries in the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to offer a diagnosis of exporting companies with an interest in the international market from a gender perspective. To this end, we show descriptive evidence using data from Spain gathered by ICEX. The application of advanced data analysis techniques allows us to explore the characteristics of companies with an interest in internationalization from a gender perspective, whether there are differences both in the use of ICEX support services and in the target markets for this support in the case of womanled or female-owned companies, and whether there are differences in export pathways from the year 2000 onwards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to present the potential of quantitative methods for the research of proper names (mostly personal and place names) as units operating in Czech texts. Three case studies treat particular research topics on the background of the development of Czech onomastics in the 20th century and in the first decades of the 21st century. They are aimed at 1) quantification of relational (semantic) patterns; 2) collocation analysis; 3) morphological categories of proper names. The text also provides an overview of previous attempts to apply quantitative and corpus approaches to proper name research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Positive psychology-based (PPB) activities have been under-researched in cancer caregiving. Objective: This study investigated caregiver: (1) attitudes toward using PPB activities while caregiving; and (2) characteristics associated with these attitudes. Methods: Secondary analyses of a cross-sectional survey were conducted in a national caregiver sample of hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) patients. Survey items assessed caregivers' likelihood of engaging in six PPB activities. Hierarchical regression was performed and potential predictors of PPB activity use (e.g., technology familiarity, coping style, caregiving duration) were examined. Results: Most of the N = 948 respondents were White (78.9%), female (65.5%), married (86.7%), employed (78.4%), and college-educated (79.8%). Caregivers favorably disposed to positive activities were younger and female, provided care for 6–12 months and >40 h/week, and used coping styles involving religion and social support. Conclusions: Our findings provide guidance for development and testing of PPB activities for cancer caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Social Work is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Economics & Finance (2437-0630) is the property of Association of Arab Universities and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Studia Germanica Gedanensia is the property of University of Gdansk / Uniwersytet Gdanskim and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The majority of community college entrants aspire to earn a bachelor's degree; yet fewer than a third do. States use several strategies to support community college's transfer function, including a transferrable core curriculum, a block of pre-major coursework universally accepted at public postsecondary institutions. In this study, we used statewide administrative data from Texas—a state with a transferable core—to examine pre-transfer credit accumulation and how pre-transfer core credits predict bachelor's degree attainment and time to degree for community college transfer students. Our results illuminate high variation in pre-transfer core credit accumulation among community college transfer students. Each additional pre-transfer core credit improves students' probability of earning a bachelor's degree, but only up to core completion status. Soon after students are core complete—at which point universities are no longer required to transfer in additional core credits, students experience a negative relationship between core credits and bachelor's degree attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective team behavior in high-performance environments such as in sport and the military requires individual team members to efficiently perceive the unfolding task events, predict the actions and action intents of the other team members, and plan and execute their own actions to simultaneously accomplish individual and collective goals. To enhance team performance through effective cooperation, it is crucial to measure the situation awareness and dynamics of each team member and how they collectively impact the team's functioning. Further, to be practically useful for real-life settings, such measures must be easily obtainable from existing sensors. This paper presents several methodologies that can be used on positional and movement acceleration data of team members to quantify and/or predict team performance, assess situation awareness, and to help identify task-relevant information to support individual decision-making. Given the limited reporting of these methods within military cohorts, these methodologies are described using examples from team sports and teams training in virtual environments, with discussion as to how they can be applied to real-world military teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Many studies of Black–White disparities in living donor kidney transplantation hypothesize that they were partially due to Black–White differences in candidate social network access to healthy, willing donors. This differential access hypothesis has not been tested using directly measured social network data. Research Questions: Do black kidney transplant candidates have perceived lower social network access to health and/or willing living donors than white candidates? Design: A cross-sectional survey that measured the social network members was collected in 2015. Black–White differences in patient counts of perceived healthy and/or willing potential donors in social networks, and individual network members' probability of being perceived healthy and/or willing, were compared using logistic and negative binomial regression models. Results: The survey included 66 kidney transplant candidates reporting on 1474 social network members at a large Southeastern US transplant center in 2015. Black and White patients had similar access to perceived healthy, likely potential donors (86% vs 87% had 1 or more, P =.92; 5.91 vs 4.13 mean counts, P =.20) and perceived healthy, agreed potential donors (56% vs 48%, P =.54; 1.77 vs 1.74, P =.97). Black patients' network members were individually more likely to be perceived healthy and likely potential donors (26% vs 21%, P =.04), and White patients' network members were more likely to have agreed (13% vs 9%, P =.03), but these differences were statistically insignificant in demographically adjusted models. Conclusion: Black and White transplant candidates perceived access to similar numbers of potential donors in their social networks. This result does not support the differential access hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ageism toward older workers is prevalent in the labor market. The present study aimed to understand psychosocial mechanisms that may counteract this form of discrimination and help retain workers in the labor force. Using a sample of 500 Canadian younger and older workers, this study tested a model hypothesizing that intergenerational contacts and knowledge sharing practices can reduce ageist views about older adults and age-based discrimination against one's own group, and in turn, enhance work engagement and intentions to remain in the workplace. The final model shows that knowledge sharing practices mediate the relationship between intergroup contacts and positive views about older workers as well as age-based discrimination. It also suggests that low levels of age-based discrimination increase work engagement and intentions to remain in the organization for workers of all ages. Practice and policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loneliness, common in old age, may be partially attributed to ageism. The present study explored the short- and medium-term effect of ageism on loneliness experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic using prospective data derived from the Israeli sample of the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (N = 553). Ageism was measured before the COVID-19 outbreak and loneliness in the summer of 2020 and 2021 using a direct single question. We also tested for age differences in this association. In both the 2020 and 2021 models, ageism was related to increased loneliness. This association remained significant after adjusting for a host of demographic, health, and social variables. In the 2020 model, we also found that the positive association between ageism and loneliness was significant only in people aged 70+. We discussed the results with reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, which drew attention to two global social phenomena: loneliness and ageism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparency is often discussed as a way to increase the public's perception of journalism. While its adoption by newsrooms is relatively well studied, only a few studies have investigated its effects on news users' credibility judgments. We build on research about transparency effects and report the results of two online experiments (total N = 2262), one with a local and one with a national newspaper frame. Our results suggest that transparency does not affect the perceived message and source credibility newspaper articles and that moderating factors such as cognitive involvement and media skepticism are more important predictors of credibility assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the strong evidence linking psychological stress to disease risk, health researchers often fail to include psychological stress in models of health. One reason for this is the incorrect perception that the construct of psychological stress is too vague and broad to accurately measure. This article describes best practices in stress measurement, detailing which dimensions of stressor exposures and stress responses to capture, and how. We describe when to use psychological versus physiological indicators of stress. It is crucial that researchers across disciplines utilize the latest methods for measuring and describing psychological stress in order to build a cumulative science.

Alcohol-intoxicated suspects’ confessions are admissible in U.S. courts; however, it is unknown how jurors evaluate such confessions. Study 1 assessed potential jurors’ perceptions of intoxication in interrogative contexts. Many respondents were unaware that questioning intoxicated suspects and presenting subsequent confessions in court are legal, and respondents generally reported they would rely less on intoxicated than sober confessions. In Study 2, potential jurors read a case about a defendant who had confessed or not while sober or intoxicated. Participants who read about an intoxicated defendant perceived the interrogation as more inappropriate and the defendant as more cognitively impaired than did participants who read about a sober defendant, and as a result, they were less likely to convict. Furthermore, intoxicated confessions influenced conviction decisions to a lesser extent than did sober confessions. Findings suggest that investigators might consider abstaining from interrogating intoxicated suspects or else risk jurors finding confessions unconvincing in court.

Progress in the field of technical means of information exchange, increasing the speed and accessibility of information technologies naturally led to the development of methods for analyzing the results of communication. One of the most popular methods of this kind has become content analysis — a quantitative and qualitative approach based on the calculation of key elements in the text. This method is successfully used in many industries and research areas. Religious studies did not stand aside either. On the one hand, content analysis in this area is considered a useful and promising method, but on the other hand, there is a lack of content analysis data in this area. The purpose of this study is to find out the reason for the insufficiency of content–analytical data in religious studies by identifying general methodological and specific problems of applying content analysis in the field under consideration. To achieve this goal, the practice of using content analysis in modern religious studies, as well as domestic and foreign theoretical materials devoted to possible problems of using this method, was analyzed. In the course of the research, the general methodological shortcomings of content analysis were first identified, and then the problems of using this method specific to religious studies were identified. Among the latter, the following problems were considered: the sensitivity of content analysis to the correctness and operationality of definitions; methodological requirements of the a priori approach to the preparation of the study, the unambiguity of the defined categories and the manifestation of the studied content; increased requirements for the qualifications of the researcher and coders. The article separately examines the problems of using automated content analysis tools in religious studies, among which the following are named: the need for a higher qualification of the researcher; the requirement of the suitability of the studied content for machine processing; the question of the ratio of manual and machine coding; the problem of side effects affecting the text (impersonality, reposts, bots, cheating, etc.); unsuitability of the most advanced machine methods for this type of research due to the opacity of the analysis algorithms; the principle question is about the ability of digital content to reliably represent religious phenomena. As a result of this study, specific problems of the application of content analysis in religious studies were identified, as well as ways to solve them were outlined. In the conclusion of the article, the author expresses the hope that the solutions given in this work, as well as other solutions to the listed problems, will expand the boundaries of the application of content analysis in religious studies.

Fertility-related stress can negatively impact infertile couples’ quality of life (QoL). Most previous studies have concentrated on the effects of stress and infertility on individual persons, especially women, though infertility affects the QoL of both spouses. Our research aimed to investigate the roles of infertility and stress in couples’ quality of life as a single unit. The research sample consisted of 202 spouses, i.e., 101 couples, with a mean age of 39.5 years (SD = 4.9 years) undergoing fertility treatment at Athens Naval Hospital-Assisted Reproduction Unit. Data collection was completed via self-administered questionnaires: the FertiQoL International Questionnaire for measuring the quality of life in infertility and The Demographic Information and Medical History Questionnaire. Data collection was conducted between January and November 2022. Quantitative variables are expressed as mean values (standard deviation) and as median interquartile range, and qualitative variables are expressed as absolute and relative frequencies. Pearson’s (r) and Spearman’s (rho) correlations coefficients were used to explore the association of two continuous variables. Multiple linear regression analysis was used with dependence on the Ferti-QoL’s subscales. The regression equation included terms for participants’ demographics and information from their medical history. Adjusted regression coefficients (β) with standard errors (SE) were computed from the results of the linear regression analyses. All reported p values are two-tailed. Statistical significance was set to p < 0.05, and analyses were conducted using SPSS statistical software (version 22.0). We found that greater anxiety and depression were significantly associated with worse quality of life. Additionally, quality of life, according to Ferti-QoL, was significantly worse in women, participants with a high level of education, those with greater depressive symptoms, and those with greater state scores. Findings of this study highlight the need for implementing interventions of supportive care methods, counseling, stress reduction methods, and improving the fertility-related quality of life of infertile couples.

Since the beginning of the transition, Serbia has been trying to include the public sector in that process. Although efforts have been made to restructure public companies, the situation is still unsatisfactory and this sector has remained mostly untransformed and ineffective. The public sector has a high share in the formation of the country's gross social product, has large assets and employs one third of the total number of employees. Although state-owned enterprises have huge assets and have a monopoly position on the market, they generally operate at a loss. Realized losses indicate that the very large resources of the country are poorly managed. Due to the vital importance of state enterprises for the economic development of the country, it is necessary to implement structural reforms and make these enterprises become generators of development.

Assessment of coupling between transtibial sockets and users is historically based on clinicians’ observations and experience, but can be inaccurate and unreliable. Therefore, we present a proof of concept, for five out of six possible degrees of freedom coupling metric system for a socket, using motion analysis calibrated on a 3D printed limb substitute. The method is compatible with any socket suspension method and does not require prior modifications to the socket. Calibration trials were used to locate the axis of rotation of the knee joint referenced against a marker cluster on the thigh; this allowed for the identification of the limb during test trials despite the entire residuum being obscured from view by the socket. The error in the technique was found to be within 0.7 mm in displacement and 0.7 degrees in rotation, based on the control data. Dynamic testing showed the Inter Quartile Range (IQR) of inter time step variance was

Social media platforms like Instagram are often used as venues for discussing relationships, making them ideal channels for promoting healthy relationships and preventing intimate partner violence (IPV). This is particularly relevant for IPV, which has been historically understood as a personal issue and lacked support for consideration as a significant public health issue. To explore a potential platform for IPV prevention, this study examines the ways in which IPV messages on Instagram reflect public health understandings of, and approaches to, prevention and how Instagram users engage with these posts. We analyzed 700 Instagram posts about IPV using the social ecological model as the theoretical framework for conceptualizing framing devices. Posts that mentioned individual causal attribution and individual solution responsibility were both present in the majority of posts and elicited more engagement than posts that did not. Encouragingly, the Instagram sample was more reflective of a range of different types of IPV experiences than previous analyses of traditional media content, possibly indicating that a public health approach to this issue is gaining traction.

This paper presents a review of published accounting research based on quantitative methods originating in Poland between 2010 and 2021. Twenty-one international and national journals were examined, all having “accounting” in their title, as well as the leading Polish journal on accounting research – Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości (ZTR, Theoretical Journal of Accounting). The principal finding is that Polish authors – especially those using quantitative methods – rarely publish in top accounting journals outside of Poland. They most frequently publish quantitative papers in ZTR, although those papers account for just 5% of the total number of papers published there. The corresponding percentage of quantitative papers is much higher in leading international accounting journals. This paper is presented as a voice in the debate within Polish academia on the development of the accounting discipline.

The article is devoted to the methodology and features of the scientific direction of decision analysis, which make it essential for the state strategy development in order to achieve the desired image of the future. The history of decision analysis is studied, the basics of the scientific direction are considered: systems analysis, decision theory, probabilistic analysis and cognitive psychology. Organizations that actively use the methodology and most popular computer programs for the practical implementation of decision analysis methods are represented. The domestic contribution to the decision analysis is shown. A promising sub-direction which allows strategy development in conditions of conflicting objectives (multicriteria decision analysis) is presented. The modern methodology of decision analysis is considered: the system of values and objectives of the organization, decision context, identification and evaluation of the mathematical model elements, graphical representation of the model using influence diagrams and decision trees, the procedure of mathematical modeling, optimal strategy determination based on the criterion of maximizing/minimizing the objective function value and the criterion of risk profile dominance and sensitivity analysis methods: one-way and two-way sensitivity analysis, probability sensitivity analysis and strategy dominance analysis. The article concludes that the scientific direction of decision analysis has a number of advantages that make it suitable for use in the field of state strategy development.

Despite a growing reliance on quantitative methods in the study of MENA politics globally, political scientists from the region have broadly resisted such trends. While MENA scholars should not be beholden to methodological trends in other regions, there is a need to provide students with an interest in quantitative methods opportunities to receive such training in Arabic. The Summer School for Quantitative Methods was a virtual five-day program offered by the Arab Political Science Network (APSN) and the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies from May 29 to June 2, 2022. The primary aim of SSQM was to address the gap noted above and introduce political science graduate students from the Arabic-speaking world to quantitative empirical analysis. The program accomplished its immediate goals, and the application process showed a significant demand for training in quantitative methods in the region, yet future projects should take into consideration the considerable challenges we faced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research relates violent victimization early in life to a wide range of unfavorable outcomes in adulthood, among them a lack of educational attainment. A tendency to conduct separate investigations into violent victimization in different areas of life has so far hampered our understanding of both overall victimization processes and its outcomes. The present study overcomes this issue by investigating the cumulative burden of violent victimization during childhood and adolescence as well as the associations between victimization and educational attainment in young adulthood. The study uses a nationally representative sample of 18 to 19-year-old Norwegian students (n = 3,160) from the school-based UngVold 2007 survey, merged with information from official registers up to 2016 (age 27–28). Using latent class analysis (LCA), we combine retrospective accounts of experiences with parental, peer, and sexual violence during childhood and adolescence with educational attainment in young adulthood. The analyses reveal five classes of violent victimization: (1) non-victims (55.7%), (2) peer victims (16.6%), (3) victims of parental violence (14.5%), (4) victims witnessing domestic violence (5.6%), and (5) polyvictims (experiencing parental, peer, and/or sexual violence: 7.6%). They also show lower educational attainment in all groups reporting victimization through physical contact compared to non-victims, particularly among peer victims and polyvictims. Violence thus seems to impair educational attainment for a large share of the population. The identification of particularly lower education among the polyvictims also show the importance of considering the cumulative burden of violence when deciding on treatment needs and the design of help services for victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of REGEPE Entrepreneurship & Small Business Journal is the property of Revista de Empreendedorismo e Gestao de Pequenas Empresas (REGEPE) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of REGEPE Entrepreneurship & Small Business Journal is the property of Revista de Empreendedorismo e Gestao de Pequenas Empresas (REGEPE) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective: In 2009, the Kentucky General Assembly found unacceptable and costly the ongoing high numbers of high school students requiring remediation once they enter higher education. The state passed legislation to better align secondary and college education, establishing a diagnostic cycle that would become its Targeted Interventions (TI) program. Using 11 years of panel data, this study tracked college progression of seven cohorts of students in order to estimate the impacts of this program. Method: Using student-level administrative data from the state of Kentucky that tracks students from high school through college, a difference-in-regression-discontinuity design was used to compare how students just below college readiness benchmarks fared relative to those just above once TI was implemented. Results: The TI program significantly increased the likelihood that students took at least 15 credits during their first term, a key predictive measure for college completion. However, these early effects did not translate into detectable impacts on the likelihood of earning enough credits to graduate from college or likelihood of transfers from a 2-year to a 4-year college. One possible explanation for this pattern is that TI appears to have crowded out other core courses in high school, especially in math, without increasing total instructional time. Findings suggest that the standards used by high schools to judge student progress toward college readiness may be consistent with the skills needed to place out of developmental courses, but not sufficient to better prepare students for college-level instruction. Contributions: To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore how TI shapes longer term college outcomes. The transition curriculum, while helping students avoid the need for college developmental courses, did not help a measurable share of students develop necessary skills to progress through college relative to what they would have otherwise taken. A possible explanation for these findings is that high school-to-college transition interventions that do not increase total instruction time do not sufficiently move the needle on the college preparedness among high school graduates. For states concerned with the number of students entering college deemed not college ready, it appears that high school-to-college transition interventions that supplant instead of supplement regular high school curriculum have a limited scope for impact on long-run college success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black sexual minority women (SMW) are disproportionately impacted by negative health outcomes, healthcare discrimination, and provider bias. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate which sexual identity characteristics and minority stressors are associated with healthcare stereotype threat and healthcare access for Black SMW. Using secondary data from the Generations Study data, N = 142 Black and/or biracial cisgender women were analyzed using bivariate correlations and stepwise regression models. Healthcare stereotype threat was positively associated with higher perceptions of stigma, sexual identity concealment, and reports of sexual identity centrality. Healthcare access was affected by bisexual identity, masculine gender presentation, and sexual identity concealment. Improving Black SMW's healthcare utilization and experiences in healthcare settings is crucial for promoting health equity. Implications for healthcare providers and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research strives to enrich criminological and educational literature by providing a better understanding of relationships among school performance and achievement, attendance, and demographic information based upon the number of exclusionary disciplinary actions within public high schools. Using data on 409 traditional high schools from the Pennsylvania Department of Education, this quantitative study uses path analysis to examine the relationships between school factors, including demographics and achievement measures, and exclusionary discipline. The findings indicated a direct relationship between a schools' drop-out rate, AP courses, and standardized test scores and the schools' total number of exclusionary disciplinary actions. In addition, socioeconomic status and attendance rates indirectly impacted exclusionary disciplinary actions. The study also determined a correlation between the number of minority students within a school and the total number of disciplinary actions. These findings have a number of implications for school systems that hope to eliminate the school-to-prison pipeline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Concept map has positive effects in student's critical thinking and understanding. • Quantitative analysis of concept map and open-ended exam papers in nursing education. • Concept map has comparable results with traditional assessments. This study's aim is to investigate the necessity and advantages of the use of concept map as an assessment tool in nursing education. Concept maps have been used extensively aiming mainly at effective understanding, linking together concepts and evaluating new knowledge. A class of second-year nursing degree undergraduate students (N = 32) in Greece participated in this pilot study. Concept map and open-ended exam papers were used. Quantitative statistical analysis of the concept map and open-ended exam grades was conducted. Statistical tests were used to compare all pairs of both types of papers. For the concept map papers, two different grading methods were employed to evaluate their effectiveness. The obtained results indicated that the concept map exam type provided similar scores when compared to the open-ended exam, while the grading efficiency is higher. Moreover, for the concept map exam paper, both grading methods can be applied interchangeably to provide similar scores for the students. The concept map can be a trusted assessment tool for identifying the nursing students' gaps in knowledge and comprehension, in comparison to the open-ended exam type. Nursing educators are encouraged to note the tools strengths and use it according to courses' requirements. Not applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]