The influence of neighborhood socioeconomic status and walkability on TV viewing time.

Science.gov (United States)

Coogan, Patricia F; White, Laura F; Evans, Stephen R; Palmer, Julie R; Rosenberg, Lynn

2012-11-01

Influences on TV viewing time, which is associated with adverse health outcomes such as obesity and diabetes, need clarification. We assessed the relation of neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) and walkability with TV viewing time in the Black Women's Health Study, a prospective study of African American women. We created neighborhood SES and walkability scores using data from the U.S. census and other sources. We estimated odds ratios for TV viewing 5+ hours/day compared with 0-1 hours/day for quintiles of neighborhood SES and walkability scores. Neighborhood SES was inversely associated with TV viewing time. The odds ratio for watching 5+ hours/day in the highest compared with the lowest quintile of neighborhood SES was 0.66 (95% CI 0.54-0.81). Neighborhood walkability was not associated with TV viewing time. Neighborhood SES should be considered in devising strategies to combat the high levels of sedentariness prevalent in African American women.

The Influence of Neighborhood Aesthetics, Safety, and Social Cohesion on Perceived Stress in Disadvantaged Communities.

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Henderson, Heather; Child, Stephanie; Moore, Spencer; Moore, Justin B; Kaczynski, Andrew T

2016-09-01

Limited research has explored how specific elements of physical and social environments influence mental health indicators such as perceived stress, or whether such associations are moderated by gender. This study examined the relationship between selected neighborhood characteristics and perceived stress levels within a primarily low-income, older, African-American population in a mid-sized city in the Southeastern U.S. Residents (n = 394; mean age=55.3 years, 70.9% female, 89.3% African American) from eight historically disadvantaged neighborhoods completed surveys measuring perceptions of neighborhood safety, social cohesion, aesthetics, and stress. Multivariate linear regression models examined the association between each of the three neighborhood characteristics and perceived stress. Greater perceived safety, improved neighborhood aesthetics, and social cohesion were significantly associated with lower perceived stress. These associations were not moderated by gender. These findings suggest that improving social attributes of neighborhoods may have positive impacts on stress and related benefits for population health. Future research should examine how neighborhood characteristics influence stress over time. © Society for Community Research and Action 2016.

Neighborhood choices, neighborhood effects and housing vouchers

OpenAIRE

Davis, Morris A.; Gregory, Jesse; Hartley, Daniel A.; Tan, Kegon T. K.

2017-01-01

We study how households choose neighborhoods, how neighborhoods affect child ability, and how housing vouchers influence neighborhood choices and child outcomes. We use two new panel data sets with tract-level detail for Los Angeles county to estimate a dynamic model of optimal tract-level location choice for renting households and, separately, the impact of living in a given tract on child test scores (which we call "child ability" throughout). We simulate optimal location choices and change...

The Influence of Topic Status on Written and Spoken Sentence Production

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Cowles, H. Wind; Ferreira, Victor S.

2012-01-01

Four experiments investigate the influence of topic status and givenness on how speakers and writers structure sentences. The results of these experiments show that when a referent is previously given, it is more likely to be produced early in both sentences and word lists, confirming prior work showing that givenness increases the accessibility of given referents. When a referent is previously given and assigned topic status, it is even more likely to be produced early in a sentence, but not in a word list. Thus, there appears to be an early mention advantage for topics that is present in both written and spoken modalities, but is specific to sentence production. These results suggest that information-structure constructs like topic exert an influence that is not based only on increased accessibility, but also reflects mapping to syntactic structure during sentence production. PMID:22408281

Orthographic Facilitation in Chinese Spoken Word Recognition: An ERP Study

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Zou, Lijuan; Desroches, Amy S.; Liu, Youyi; Xia, Zhichao; Shu, Hua

2012-01-01

Orthographic influences in spoken word recognition have been previously examined in alphabetic languages. However, it is unknown whether orthographic information affects spoken word recognition in Chinese, which has a clean dissociation between orthography (O) and phonology (P). The present study investigated orthographic effects using event…

Does Discourse Congruence Influence Spoken Language Comprehension before Lexical Association? Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

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Boudewyn, Megan A.; Gordon, Peter C.; Long, Debra; Polse, Lara; Swaab, Tamara Y.

2011-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine how lexical association and discourse congruence affect the time course of processing incoming words in spoken discourse. In an ERP norming study, we presented prime-target pairs in the absence of a sentence context to obtain a baseline measure of lexical priming. We observed a typical N400 effect when participants heard critical associated and unassociated target words in word pairs. In a subsequent experiment, we presented the same word pairs in spoken discourse contexts. Target words were always consistent with the local sentence context, but were congruent or not with the global discourse (e.g., “Luckily Ben had picked up some salt and pepper/basil”, preceded by a context in which Ben was preparing marinara sauce (congruent) or dealing with an icy walkway (incongruent). ERP effects of global discourse congruence preceded those of local lexical association, suggesting an early influence of the global discourse representation on lexical processing, even in locally congruent contexts. Furthermore, effects of lexical association occurred earlier in the congruent than incongruent condition. These results differ from those that have been obtained in studies of reading, suggesting that the effects may be unique to spoken word recognition. PMID:23002319

Influences of Neighborhood Context, Individual History and Parenting Behavior on Recidivism among Juvenile Offenders

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Grunwald, Heidi E.; Lockwood, Brian; Harris, Philip W.; Mennis, Jeremy

2010-01-01

This study examined the effects of neighborhood context on juvenile recidivism to determine if neighborhoods influence the likelihood of reoffending. Although a large body of literature exists regarding the impact of environmental factors on delinquency, very little is known about the effects of these factors on juvenile recidivism. The sample…

Rethinking spoken fluency

OpenAIRE

McCarthy, Michael

2009-01-01

This article re-examines the notion of spoken fluency. Fluent and fluency are terms commonly used in everyday, lay language, and fluency, or lack of it, has social consequences. The article reviews the main approaches to understanding and measuring spoken fluency and suggest that spoken fluency is best understood as an interactive achievement, and offers the metaphor of ‘confluence’ to replace the term fluency. Many measures of spoken fluency are internal and monologue-based, whereas evidence...

Rapid modulation of spoken word recognition by visual primes.

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Okano, Kana; Grainger, Jonathan; Holcomb, Phillip J

2016-02-01

In a masked cross-modal priming experiment with ERP recordings, spoken Japanese words were primed with words written in one of the two syllabary scripts of Japanese. An early priming effect, peaking at around 200ms after onset of the spoken word target, was seen in left lateral electrode sites for Katakana primes, and later effects were seen for both Hiragana and Katakana primes on the N400 ERP component. The early effect is thought to reflect the efficiency with which words in Katakana script make contact with sublexical phonological representations involved in spoken language comprehension, due to the particular way this script is used by Japanese readers. This demonstrates fast-acting influences of visual primes on the processing of auditory target words, and suggests that briefly presented visual primes can influence sublexical processing of auditory target words. The later N400 priming effects, on the other hand, most likely reflect cross-modal influences on activity at the level of whole-word phonology and semantics.

How Neighborhoods Influence Health: Lessons to be learned from the application of political ecology

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Chitewere, Tendai; Shim, Janet K.; Barker, Judith C.; Yen, Irene H.

2017-01-01

AIM This paper articulates how political ecology can be a useful tool for asking fundamental questions and applying relevant methods to investigate structures that impact relationship between neighborhood and health. Through a narrative analysis, we identify how political ecology can develop our future agendas for neighborhood-health research as it relates to social, political, environmental, and economic structures. Political ecology makes clear the connection between political economy and neighborhood by highlighting the historical and structural processes that produce and maintain social inequality, which affect health and well-being. These concepts encourage researchers to examine how people construct neighborhood and health in different ways that, in turn, can influence different health outcomes and, thus, efforts to address solutions. PMID:28342425

Neighborhood influences on recreational physical activity and survival after breast cancer.

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Keegan, Theresa H M; Shariff-Marco, Salma; Sangaramoorthy, Meera; Koo, Jocelyn; Hertz, Andrew; Schupp, Clayton W; Yang, Juan; John, Esther M; Gomez, Scarlett L

2014-10-01

Higher levels of physical activity have been associated with improved survival after breast cancer diagnosis. However, no previous studies have considered the influence of the social and built environment on physical activity and survival among breast cancer patients. Our study included 4,345 women diagnosed with breast cancer (1995-2008) from two population-based studies conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area. We examined questionnaire-based moderate/strenuous recreational physical activity during the 3 years before diagnosis. Neighborhood characteristics were based on data from the 2000 US Census, business listings, parks, farmers' markets, and Department of Transportation. Survival was evaluated using multivariable Cox proportional hazards models, with follow-up through 2009. Women residing in neighborhoods with no fast-food restaurants (vs. fewer fast-food restaurants) to other restaurants, high traffic density, and a high percentage of foreign-born residents were less likely to meet physical activity recommendations set by the American Cancer Society. Women who were not recreationally physically active had a 22% higher risk of death from any cause than women that were the most active. Poorer overall survival was associated with lower neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) (p(trend) = 0.02), whereas better breast cancer-specific survival was associated with a lack of parks, especially among women in high-SES neighborhoods. Certain aspects of the neighborhood have independent associations with recreational physical activity among breast cancer patients and their survival. Considering neighborhood factors may aide in the design of more effective, tailored physical activity programs for breast cancer survivors.

How Neighborhoods Influence Health: Lessons to be learned from the application of political ecology.

Science.gov (United States)

Chitewere, Tendai; Shim, Janet K; Barker, Judith C; Yen, Irene H

2017-05-01

This paper articulates how political ecology can be a useful tool for asking fundamental questions and applying relevant methods to investigate structures that impact relationship between neighborhood and health. Through a narrative analysis, we identify how political ecology can develop our future agendas for neighborhood-health research as it relates to social, political, environmental, and economic structures. Political ecology makes clear the connection between political economy and neighborhood by highlighting the historical and structural processes that produce and maintain social inequality, which affect health and well-being. These concepts encourage researchers to examine how people construct neighborhood and health in different ways that, in turn, can influence different health outcomes and, thus, efforts to address solutions. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Neighborhood solutions for neighborhood problems: an empirically based violence prevention collaboration.

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Randall, J; Swenson, C C; Henggeler, S W

1999-12-01

Youth antisocial behavior is influenced, in part, by neighborhood context. Yet, rather than attempting to ameliorate factors contributing to youth antisocial behavior, service dollars are primarily devoted to expensive and often ineffective out-of-home placements. This article describes the development and implementation of a collaborative partnership designed to empower an economically disadvantaged neighborhood to address violent criminal behavior, substance abuse, and other serious antisocial problems of its youth while maintaining youth in the neighborhood. Through a collaboration between a university research center and neighborhood stakeholders, services are being provided to address the key priorities identified by neighborhood residents, and extensive efforts are being made to develop family and neighborhood contexts that are conducive to prosocial youth behavior.

Spoken Grammar for Chinese Learners

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

徐晓敏

2013-01-01

Currently, the concept of spoken grammar has been mentioned among Chinese teachers. However, teach-ers in China still have a vague idea of spoken grammar. Therefore this dissertation examines what spoken grammar is and argues that native speakers’ model of spoken grammar needs to be highlighted in the classroom teaching.

Examining How Neighborhood Disadvantage Influences Trajectories of Adolescent Violence: A Look at Social Bonding and Psychological Distress

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Karriker-Jaffe, Katherine J.; Foshee, Vangie A.; Ennett, Susan T.

2011-01-01

Background: To understand how neighborhoods influence the development of youth violence, we investigated intrapersonal mediators of the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and youth violence trajectories between ages 11 and 18. The hypothesized mediators included indicators of social bonding (belief in conventional values, involvement…

The influence of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on children's production of newly learned words.

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Heisler, Lori; Goffman, Lisa

A word learning paradigm was used to teach children novel words that varied in phonotactic probability and neighborhood density. The effects of frequency and density on speech production were examined when phonetic forms were non-referential (i.e., when no referent was attached) and when phonetic forms were referential (i.e., when a referent was attached through fast mapping). Two methods of analysis were included: (1) kinematic variability of speech movement patterning; and (2) measures of segmental accuracy. Results showed that phonotactic frequency influenced the stability of movement patterning whereas neighborhood density influenced phoneme accuracy. Motor learning was observed in both non-referential and referential novel words. Forms with low phonotactic probability and low neighborhood density showed a word learning effect when a referent was assigned during fast mapping. These results elaborate on and specify the nature of interactivity observed across lexical, phonological, and articulatory domains.

Spoken Dialogue Systems

CERN Document Server

Jokinen, Kristiina

2009-01-01

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in the development of dialogue systems that support robust and efficient human-machine interaction using spoken language. Spoken dialogue technology allows various interactive applications to be built and used for practical purposes, and research focuses on issues that aim to increase the system's communicative competence by including aspects of error correction, cooperation, multimodality, and adaptation in context. This book gives a comprehensive view of state-of-the-art techniques that are used to build spoken dialogue systems. It provides

Exploring the Influence of Neighborhood Characteristics on Burglary Risks: A Bayesian Random Effects Modeling Approach

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Hongqiang Liu

2016-06-01

Full Text Available A Bayesian random effects modeling approach was used to examine the influence of neighborhood characteristics on burglary risks in Jianghan District, Wuhan, China. This random effects model is essentially spatial; a spatially structured random effects term and an unstructured random effects term are added to the traditional non-spatial Poisson regression model. Based on social disorganization and routine activity theories, five covariates extracted from the available data at the neighborhood level were used in the modeling. Three regression models were fitted and compared by the deviance information criterion to identify which model best fit our data. A comparison of the results from the three models indicates that the Bayesian random effects model is superior to the non-spatial models in fitting the data and estimating regression coefficients. Our results also show that neighborhoods with above average bar density and department store density have higher burglary risks. Neighborhood-specific burglary risks and posterior probabilities of neighborhoods having a burglary risk greater than 1.0 were mapped, indicating the neighborhoods that should warrant more attention and be prioritized for crime intervention and reduction. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed in our concluding section.

Cognitive Predictors of Spoken Word Recognition in Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorders.

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Evans, Julia L; Gillam, Ronald B; Montgomery, James W

2018-05-10

This study examined the influence of cognitive factors on spoken word recognition in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and typically developing (TD) children. Participants included 234 children (aged 7;0-11;11 years;months), 117 with DLD and 117 TD children, propensity matched for age, gender, socioeconomic status, and maternal education. Children completed a series of standardized assessment measures, a forward gating task, a rapid automatic naming task, and a series of tasks designed to examine cognitive factors hypothesized to influence spoken word recognition including phonological working memory, updating, attention shifting, and interference inhibition. Spoken word recognition for both initial and final accept gate points did not differ for children with DLD and TD controls after controlling target word knowledge in both groups. The 2 groups also did not differ on measures of updating, attention switching, and interference inhibition. Despite the lack of difference on these measures, for children with DLD, attention shifting and interference inhibition were significant predictors of spoken word recognition, whereas updating and receptive vocabulary were significant predictors of speed of spoken word recognition for the children in the TD group. Contrary to expectations, after controlling for target word knowledge, spoken word recognition did not differ for children with DLD and TD controls; however, the cognitive processing factors that influenced children's ability to recognize the target word in a stream of speech differed qualitatively for children with and without DLDs.

The determinants of spoken and written picture naming latencies.

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Bonin, Patrick; Chalard, Marylène; Méot, Alain; Fayol, Michel

2002-02-01

The influence of nine variables on the latencies to write down or to speak aloud the names of pictures taken from Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) was investigated in French adults. The major determinants of both written and spoken picture naming latencies were image variability, image agreement and age of acquisition. To a lesser extent, name agreement was also found to have an impact in both production modes. The implications of the findings for theoretical views of both spoken and written picture naming are discussed.

Assessment of spatial and physical neighborhood characteristics that influence sound quality and herewith well-being and health

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Jeroen Devilee

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Environmental noise and health studies seldom address the positive effect of environments with high acoustic quality. Sound quality, in turn, is influenced by a large number of factors, including the spatial–physical characteristics of a neighborhood. In general, these characteristics cannot be retrieved from existing databases. In this article, we describe the design of an audit instrument and demonstrate its value for gathering information about these characteristics of neighborhoods. The audit instrument used was derived from research in other fields than environmental health. The instrument was tested in 33 neighborhoods in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Arnhem. In these neighborhoods, more or less homogeneous subareas were identified that were subject of the audit. The results show that the audit approach is suitable to gather neighborhood data that are relevant for the sound quality of neighborhoods. Together with survey data, they provide information that could further the field of soundscape and health. Several suggestions for improvement of the audit instrument were made.

Mapping child maltreatment risk: a 12-year spatio-temporal analysis of neighborhood influences.

Science.gov (United States)

Gracia, Enrique; López-Quílez, Antonio; Marco, Miriam; Lila, Marisol

2017-10-18

'Place' matters in understanding prevalence variations and inequalities in child maltreatment risk. However, most studies examining ecological variations in child maltreatment risk fail to take into account the implications of the spatial and temporal dimensions of neighborhoods. In this study, we conduct a high-resolution small-area study to analyze the influence of neighborhood characteristics on the spatio-temporal epidemiology of child maltreatment risk. We conducted a 12-year (2004-2015) small-area Bayesian spatio-temporal epidemiological study with all families with child maltreatment protection measures in the city of Valencia, Spain. As neighborhood units, we used 552 census block groups. Cases were geocoded using the family address. Neighborhood-level characteristics analyzed included three indicators of neighborhood disadvantage-neighborhood economic status, neighborhood education level, and levels of policing activity-, immigrant concentration, and residential instability. Bayesian spatio-temporal modelling and disease mapping methods were used to provide area-specific risk estimations. Results from a spatio-temporal autoregressive model showed that neighborhoods with low levels of economic and educational status, with high levels of policing activity, and high immigrant concentration had higher levels of substantiated child maltreatment risk. Disease mapping methods were used to analyze areas of excess risk. Results showed chronic spatial patterns of high child maltreatment risk during the years analyzed, as well as stability over time in areas of low risk. Areas with increased or decreased child maltreatment risk over the years were also observed. A spatio-temporal epidemiological approach to study the geographical patterns, trends over time, and the contextual determinants of child maltreatment risk can provide a useful method to inform policy and action. This method can offer a more accurate description of the problem, and help to inform more

Phonological Analysis of University Students’ Spoken Discourse

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Clara Herlina

2011-04-01

Full Text Available The study of discourse is the study of using language in actual use. In this article, the writer is trying to investigate the phonological features, either segmental or supra-segmental, in the spoken discourse of Indonesian university students. The data were taken from the recordings of 15 conversations by 30 students of Bina Nusantara University who are taking English Entrant subject (TOEFL –IBT. Finally, the writer is in opinion that the students are still influenced by their first language in their spoken discourse. This results in English with Indonesian accent. Even though it does not cause misunderstanding at the moment, this may become problematic if they have to communicate in the real world.  

Neighborhood Influences on Late Life Cognition in the ACTIVE Study

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Shannon M. Sisco

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Low neighborhood-level socioeconomic status has been associated with poorer health, reduced physical activity, increased psychological stress, and less neighborhood-based social support. These outcomes are correlates of late life cognition, but few studies have specifically investigated the neighborhood as a unique source of explanatory variance in cognitive aging. This study supplemented baseline cognitive data from the ACTIVE (Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly study with neighborhood-level data to investigate (1 whether neighborhood socioeconomic position (SEP predicts cognitive level, and if so, whether it differentially predicts performance in general and specific domains of cognition and (2 whether neighborhood SEP predicts differences in response to short-term cognitive intervention for memory, reasoning, or processing speed. Neighborhood SEP positively predicted vocabulary, but did not predict other general or specific measures of cognitive level, and did not predict individual differences in response to cognitive intervention.

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

McQueen, J.M.; Hüttig, F.

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase

How Neighborhood Disadvantage Reduces Birth Weight

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Emily Moiduddin

2008-06-01

Full Text Available In this analysis we connect structural neighborhood conditions to birth outcomes through their intermediate effects on mothers’ perceptions of neighborhood danger and their tendency to abuse substances during pregnancy. We hypothesize that neighborhood poverty and racial/ethnic concentration combine to produce environments that mothers perceive as unsafe, thereby increasing the likelihood of negative coping behaviors (substance abuse. We expect these behaviors, in turn, to produce lower birth weights. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a survey of a cohort of children born between 1998 and 2000 and their mothers in large cities in the United States, we find little evidence to suggest that neighborhood circumstances have strong, direct effects on birth weight. Living in a neighborhood with more foreigners had a positive effect on birth weight. To the extent that neighborhood conditions influence birth weight, the effect mainly occurs through an association with perceived neighborhood danger and subsequent negative coping behaviors. Poverty and racial/ethnic concentration increase a mother’s sense that her neighborhood is unsafe. The perception of an unsafe neighborhood, in turn, associates with a greater likelihood of smoking cigarettes and using illegal drugs, and these behaviors have strong and significant effects in reducing birth weight. However, demographic characteristics, rather than perceived danger or substance abuse, mediate the influence of neighborhood characteristics on birth weight.

Schools, Neighborhood Risk Factors, and Crime

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Willits, Dale; Broidy, Lisa; Denman, Kristine

2013-01-01

Prior research has identified a link between schools (particularly high schools) and neighborhood crime rates. However, it remains unclear whether the relationship between schools and crime is a reflection of other criminogenic dynamics at the neighborhood level or whether schools influence neighborhood crime patterns independently of other…

How and When Accentuation Influences Temporally Selective Attention and Subsequent Semantic Processing during On-Line Spoken Language Comprehension: An ERP Study

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Li, Xiao-qing; Ren, Gui-qin

2012-01-01

An event-related brain potentials (ERP) experiment was carried out to investigate how and when accentuation influences temporally selective attention and subsequent semantic processing during on-line spoken language comprehension, and how the effect of accentuation on attention allocation and semantic processing changed with the degree of…

The influence of neighborhood unemployment on mortality after stroke.

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Unrath, Michael; Wellmann, Jürgen; Diederichs, Claudia; Binse, Lisa; Kalic, Marianne; Heuschmann, Peter Ulrich; Berger, Klaus

2014-07-01

Few studies have investigated the impact of neighborhood characteristics on mortality after stroke. Aim of our study was to analyze the influence of district unemployment as indicator of neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES-NH) on poststroke mortality, and to compare these results with the mortality in the underlying general population. Our analyses involve 2 prospective cohort studies from the city of Dortmund, Germany. In the Dortmund Stroke Register (DOST), consecutive stroke patients (N=1883) were recruited from acute care hospitals. In the Dortmund Health Study (DHS), a random general population sample was drawn (n=2291; response rate 66.9%). Vital status was ascertained in the city's registration office and information on district unemployment was obtained from the city's statistical office. We performed multilevel survival analyses to examine the association between district unemployment and mortality. The association between neighborhood unemployment and mortality was weak and not statistically significant in the stroke cohort. Only stroke patients exposed to the highest district unemployment (fourth quartile) had slightly higher mortality risks. In the general population sample, higher district unemployment was significantly associated with higher mortality following a social gradient. After adjustment for education, health-related behavior and morbidity was made the strength of this association decreased. The impact of SES-NH on mortality was different for stroke patients and the general population. Differences in the association between SES-NH and mortality may be partly explained by disease-related characteristics of the stroke cohort such as homogeneous lifestyles, similar morbidity profiles, medical factors, and old age. Copyright © 2014 National Stroke Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Disadvantaged Neighborhood Influences on Depression and Anxiety in Youth with Perinatally Acquired Human Immunodeficiency Virus: How Life Stressors Matter

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Kang, Ezer; Mellins, Claude A.; Dolezal, Curtis; Elkington, Katherine S.; Abrams, Elaine J.

2011-01-01

Children living with perinatal HIV illness (PHIV+) disproportionately reside in disadvantaged neighborhoods and contend with persistent mental health challenges. This study examined the influences of disadvantaged residential neighborhood on anxiety and depression, and potential resources that buffer against internalizing problems when youths were…

Factors Influencing Verbal Intelligence and Spoken Language in Children with Phenylketonuria.

Science.gov (United States)

Soleymani, Zahra; Keramati, Nasrin; Rohani, Farzaneh; Jalaei, Shohre

2015-05-01

To determine verbal intelligence and spoken language of children with phenylketonuria and to study the effect of age at diagnosis and phenylalanine plasma level on these abilities. Cross-sectional. Children with phenylketonuria were recruited from pediatric hospitals in 2012. Normal control subjects were recruited from kindergartens in Tehran. 30 phenylketonuria and 42 control subjects aged 4-6.5 years. Skills were compared between 3 phenylketonuria groups categorized by age at diagnosis/treatment, and between the phenylketonuria and control groups. Scores on Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence for verbal and total intelligence, and Test of Language Development-Primary, third edition for spoken language, listening, speaking, semantics, syntax, and organization. The performance of control subjects was significantly better than that of early-treated subjects for all composite quotients from Test of Language Development and verbal intelligence (Pphenylketonuria subjects.

Is spoken Danish less intelligible than Swedish?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gooskens, Charlotte; van Heuven, Vincent J.; van Bezooijen, Renee; Pacilly, Jos J. A.

2010-01-01

The most straightforward way to explain why Danes understand spoken Swedish relatively better than Swedes understand spoken Danish would be that spoken Danish is intrinsically a more difficult language to understand than spoken Swedish. We discuss circumstantial evidence suggesting that Danish is

A cross-sectional study of the influence of neighborhood environment on childhood overweight and obesity: Variation by age, gender, and environment characteristics.

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Yang, Yong; Jiang, Yu; Xu, Yanqing; Mzayek, Fawaz; Levy, Marian

2018-03-01

To examine the influence of neighborhood environment on childhood overweight and obesity in Shelby County Schools, Tennessee, and whether and to what extent that influence varies by age, gender, and the specific environment characteristics. 41,283 students were surveyed covering both individual-level covariates and several objective measures of neighborhood environment. Multilevel logistic regressions were used to examine the influence of neighborhood-level variables on overweight+obesity and obesity with adjustment of individual-level covariates. Further, a stratified analysis for each of the six groups by school level and gender. For both overweight+obesity and obesity, younger children were less sensitive to neighborhood characteristics than older children, and boys are less sensitive than girls. For girls in middle and high schools, the risk of overweight+obesity and obesity were positively associated with population density, and negatively associated with percent of poverty and percent of unhealthy food. Boys' risk of overweight+obesity and obesity were positively associated with distance to park. Neighborhood environment plays an important role in childhood overweight and obesity, and the effects vary by age, gender, and the specific neighborhood characteristic. Intervention programs tailored to specific groups may be more effective than ones targeted to children as a whole. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The influence of orthographic experience on the development of phonological preparation in spoken word production.

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Li, Chuchu; Wang, Min

2017-08-01

Three sets of experiments using the picture naming tasks with the form preparation paradigm investigated the influence of orthographic experience on the development of phonological preparation unit in spoken word production in native Mandarin-speaking children. Participants included kindergarten children who have not received formal literacy instruction, Grade 1 children who are comparatively more exposed to the alphabetic pinyin system and have very limited Chinese character knowledge, Grades 2 and 4 children who have better character knowledge and more exposure to characters, and skilled adult readers who have the most advanced character knowledge and most exposure to characters. Only Grade 1 children showed the form preparation effect in the same initial consonant condition (i.e., when a list of target words shared the initial consonant). Both Grade 4 children and adults showed the preparation effect when the initial syllable (but not tone) among target words was shared. Kindergartners and Grade 2 children only showed the preparation effect when the initial syllable including tonal information was shared. These developmental changes in phonological preparation could be interpreted as a joint function of the modification of phonological representation and attentional shift. Extensive pinyin experience encourages speakers to attend to and select onset phoneme in phonological preparation, whereas extensive character experience encourages speakers to prepare spoken words in syllables.

Family, peer, and neighborhood influences on academic achievement among African-American adolescents: one-year prospective effects.

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Gonzales, N A; Cauce, A M; Friedman, R J; Mason, C A

1996-06-01

Using a 1-year prospective design, this study examined the influence of family status variables (family income, parental education, family structure), parenting variables (maternal support and restrictive control), peer support, and neighborhood risk on the school performance of 120 African American junior high school students. In addition to main effects of these variables, neighborhood risk was examined as a moderator of the effects of parenting and peer support. Family status variables were not predictive of adolescent school performance as indexed by self-reported grade point average. Maternal support at Time 1 was prospectively related to adolescent grades at Time 2. Neighborhood risk was related to lower grades, while peer support predicted better grades in the prospective analyses. Neighborhood risk also moderated the effects of maternal restrictive control and peer support on adolescent grades in prospective analyses. These findings highlight the importance of an ecological approach to the problem of academic underachievement within the African American Community.

Neighborhood crime and transit station access mode choice - phase III of neighborhood crime and travel behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

2015-08-01

This report provides the findings from the third phase of a three-part study about the influences of neighborhood crimes on travel : mode choice. While previous phases found evidence that high levels of neighborhood crime discourage people from choos...

Semantic and phonological schema influence spoken word learning and overnight consolidation.

Science.gov (United States)

Havas, Viktória; Taylor, Jsh; Vaquero, Lucía; de Diego-Balaguer, Ruth; Rodríguez-Fornells, Antoni; Davis, Matthew H

2018-06-01

We studied the initial acquisition and overnight consolidation of new spoken words that resemble words in the native language (L1) or in an unfamiliar, non-native language (L2). Spanish-speaking participants learned the spoken forms of novel words in their native language (Spanish) or in a different language (Hungarian), which were paired with pictures of familiar or unfamiliar objects, or no picture. We thereby assessed, in a factorial way, the impact of existing knowledge (schema) on word learning by manipulating both semantic (familiar vs unfamiliar objects) and phonological (L1- vs L2-like novel words) familiarity. Participants were trained and tested with a 12-hr intervening period that included overnight sleep or daytime awake. Our results showed (1) benefits of sleep to recognition memory that were greater for words with L2-like phonology and (2) that learned associations with familiar but not unfamiliar pictures enhanced recognition memory for novel words. Implications for complementary systems accounts of word learning are discussed.

Neighborhood Risk, Parental Socialization Styles, and Adolescent Conduct Problems

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Enrique Gracia

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This article aims to analyze the influence of parental socialization styles (authoritarian, authoritative, indulgent and neglectful, and perceived neighborhood risk on three indicators of conduct problems in adolescence (school misconduct, delinquency, and drug use. The sample consists of 1,017 adolescents, aged between 12 and 17. Results from four multivariate factorial designs yielded only main effects of parenting styles and neighborhood risk. Adolescents from authoritative and indulgent families showed lower conduct problems than those with authoritarian and neglectful parents. Also, higher levels of perceived neighborhood risk were significantly associated with more conduct problems. There were no significant interaction effects between parenting styles and perceived neighborhood risk, but results yielded a significant interaction effect between neighborhood risk and sex. Overall, results do not support the idea that parenting styles are more effective under certain neighborhood risk conditions, and suggest that neighbourhood risk influences adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment beyond the influence of parental socialization styles.

Rapid Development, Build-Out Ratio and Subsequent Neighborhood Turnover

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George O. Rogers

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Neighborhood development is primarily comprised of structural elements that include design elements, nearby amenities and ecological attributes. This paper assumes that the process of development itself also influences the character of the neighborhood—specifically, that the rate of development and build-out ratio influences neighborhood turnover. While the structural components clearly set a framework for development, the process of development expresses the character of the neighborhood in subtle messages conveyed through the market. Neighborhoods in the rapidly growing university town of College Station, Texas are analyzed in terms of neighborhood design, nearby amenities and landscape ecology components. Residential property records are used to characterize each neighborhood in terms of the rate of development and current build-out ratio. The multivariate analysis indicates that the development rate increases subsequent neighborhood turnover rates while the build-out ratio decreases it.

Conducting spoken word recognition research online: Validation and a new timing method.

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Slote, Joseph; Strand, Julia F

2016-06-01

Models of spoken word recognition typically make predictions that are then tested in the laboratory against the word recognition scores of human subjects (e.g., Luce & Pisoni Ear and Hearing, 19, 1-36, 1998). Unfortunately, laboratory collection of large sets of word recognition data can be costly and time-consuming. Due to the numerous advantages of online research in speed, cost, and participant diversity, some labs have begun to explore the use of online platforms such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk (AMT) to source participation and collect data (Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 3-5, 2011). Many classic findings in cognitive psychology have been successfully replicated online, including the Stroop effect, task-switching costs, and Simon and flanker interference (Crump, McDonnell, & Gureckis PLoS ONE, 8, e57410, 2013). However, tasks requiring auditory stimulus delivery have not typically made use of AMT. In the present study, we evaluated the use of AMT for collecting spoken word identification and auditory lexical decision data. Although online users were faster and less accurate than participants in the lab, the results revealed strong correlations between the online and laboratory measures for both word identification accuracy and lexical decision speed. In addition, the scores obtained in the lab and online were equivalently correlated with factors that have been well established to predict word recognition, including word frequency and phonological neighborhood density. We also present and analyze a method for precise auditory reaction timing that is novel to behavioral research. Taken together, these findings suggest that AMT can be a viable alternative to the traditional laboratory setting as a source of participation for some spoken word recognition research.

The predictive influence of family and neighborhood assets on fighting and weapon carrying from mid- to late adolescence.

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Haegerich, Tamara M; Oman, Roy F; Vesely, Sara K; Aspy, Cheryl B; Tolma, Eleni L

2014-08-01

Using a developmental, social-ecological approach to understand the etiology of health-risk behavior and inform primary prevention efforts, we assess the predictive effects of family and neighborhood social processes on youth physical fighting and weapon carrying. Specifically, we focus on relationships among youth and their parents, family communication, parental monitoring, as well as sense of community and neighborhood informal social control, support, concerns, and disorder. This study advances knowledge through its investigation of family and neighborhood structural factors and social processes together, employment of longitudinal models that estimate effects over adolescent development, and use of self-report and observational measures. Data from 1,093 youth/parent pairs were analyzed from the Youth Assets Study using a Generalized Estimating Equation approach; family and neighborhood assets and risks were analyzed as time varying and lagged. Similar family assets affected physical fighting and weapon carrying, whereas different neighborhood social processes influenced the two forms of youth violence. Study findings have implications for the primary prevention of youth violence, including the use of family-based approaches that build relationships and parental monitoring skills and community-level change approaches that promote informal social control and reduce neighborhood concerns about safety.

Ethnicity at the individual and neighborhood level as an explanation for moving out of the neighborhood

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schaake, K.; Burgers, J.; Mulder, C.H.

2010-01-01

We address the influence of both the ethnic composition of the neighborhood and the ethnicity of individual residents on moving out of neighborhoods in the Netherlands. Using the Housing Research Netherlands survey and multinomial logistic regression analyses of moving out versus not moving or

The neighborhoods they live in: the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes.

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Leventhal, T; Brooks-Gunn, J

2000-03-01

This article provides a comprehensive review of research on the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent well-being. The first section reviews key methodological issues. The following section considers links between neighborhood characteristics and child outcomes and suggests the importance of high socioeconomic status (SES) for achievement and low SES and residential instability for behavioral/emotional outcomes. The third section identifies 3 pathways (institutional resources, relationships, and norms/collective efficacy) through which neighborhoods might influence development, and which represent an extension of models identified by C. Jencks and S. Mayer (1990) and R. J. Sampson (1992). The models provide a theoretical base for studying neighborhood mechanisms and specify different levels (individual, family, school, peer, community) at which processes may operate. Implications for an emerging developmental framework for research on neighborhoods are discussed.

Delayed Anticipatory Spoken Language Processing in Adults with Dyslexia—Evidence from Eye-tracking.

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Huettig, Falk; Brouwer, Susanne

2015-05-01

It is now well established that anticipation of upcoming input is a key characteristic of spoken language comprehension. It has also frequently been observed that literacy influences spoken language processing. Here, we investigated whether anticipatory spoken language processing is related to individuals' word reading abilities. Dutch adults with dyslexia and a control group participated in two eye-tracking experiments. Experiment 1 was conducted to assess whether adults with dyslexia show the typical language-mediated eye gaze patterns. Eye movements of both adults with and without dyslexia closely replicated earlier research: spoken language is used to direct attention to relevant objects in the environment in a closely time-locked manner. In Experiment 2, participants received instructions (e.g., 'Kijk naar de(COM) afgebeelde piano(COM)', look at the displayed piano) while viewing four objects. Articles (Dutch 'het' or 'de') were gender marked such that the article agreed in gender only with the target, and thus, participants could use gender information from the article to predict the target object. The adults with dyslexia anticipated the target objects but much later than the controls. Moreover, participants' word reading scores correlated positively with their anticipatory eye movements. We conclude by discussing the mechanisms by which reading abilities may influence predictive language processing. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Neighborhood social capital and individual health.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mohnen, S.M.; Groenewegen, P.P.; Völker, B.; Flap, H.

2011-01-01

Neighborhood social capital is increasingly considered to be an important determinant of an individual's health. Using data from the Netherlands we investigate the influence of neighborhood social capital on an individual's self-reported health, while accounting for other conditions of health on

Neighborhood alcohol outlet density and genetic influences on alcohol use: evidence for gene-environment interaction.

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Slutske, Wendy S; Deutsch, Arielle R; Piasecki, Thomas M

2018-05-07

Genetic influences on alcohol involvement are likely to vary as a function of the 'alcohol environment,' given that exposure to alcohol is a necessary precondition for genetic risk to be expressed. However, few gene-environment interaction studies of alcohol involvement have focused on characteristics of the community-level alcohol environment. The goal of this study was to examine whether living in a community with more alcohol outlets would facilitate the expression of the genetic propensity to drink in a genetically-informed national survey of United States young adults. The participants were 2434 18-26-year-old twin, full-, and half-sibling pairs from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Participants completed in-home interviews in which alcohol use was assessed. Alcohol outlet densities were extracted from state-level liquor license databases aggregated at the census tract level to derive the density of outlets. There was evidence that the estimates of genetic and environmental influences on alcohol use varied as a function of the density of alcohol outlets in the community. For example, the heritability of the frequency of alcohol use for those residing in a neighborhood with ten or more outlets was 74% (95% confidence limits = 55-94%), compared with 16% (95% confidence limits = 0-34%) for those in a neighborhood with zero outlets. This moderating effect of alcohol outlet density was not explained by the state of residence, population density, or neighborhood sociodemographic characteristics. The results suggest that living in a neighborhood with many alcohol outlets may be especially high-risk for those individuals who are genetically predisposed to frequently drink.

Neighborhood social capital and individual health

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mohnen, S.M.; Groenewegen, P.P.; Völker, B.G.M.; Flap, H.D.

2010-01-01

Neighborhood social capital is increasingly considered to be an important determinant of an individual’s health. Using data from the Netherlands we investigate the influence of neighborhood social capital on an individual’s self-reported health, while accounting for other conditions of health on

Ragnar Rommetveit's Approach to Everyday Spoken Dialogue from Within.

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Kowal, Sabine; O'Connell, Daniel C

2016-04-01

The following article presents basic concepts and methods of Ragnar Rommetveit's (born 1924) hermeneutic-dialogical approach to everyday spoken dialogue with a focus on both shared consciousness and linguistically mediated meaning. He developed this approach originally in his engagement of mainstream linguistic and psycholinguistic research of the 1960s and 1970s. He criticized this research tradition for its individualistic orientation and its adherence to experimental methodology which did not allow the engagement of interactively established meaning and understanding in everyday spoken dialogue. As a social psychologist influenced by phenomenological philosophy, Rommetveit opted for an alternative conceptualization of such dialogue as a contextualized, partially private world, temporarily co-established by interlocutors on the basis of shared consciousness. He argued that everyday spoken dialogue should be investigated from within, i.e., from the perspectives of the interlocutors and from a psychology of the second person. Hence, he developed his approach with an emphasis on intersubjectivity, perspectivity and perspectival relativity, meaning potential of utterances, and epistemic responsibility of interlocutors. In his methods, he limited himself for the most part to casuistic analyses, i.e., logical analyses of fictitious examples to argue for the plausibility of his approach. After many years of experimental research on language, he pursued his phenomenologically oriented research on dialogue in English-language publications from the late 1980s up to 2003. During that period, he engaged psycholinguistic research on spoken dialogue carried out by Anglo-American colleagues only occasionally. Although his work remained unfinished and open to development, it provides both a challenging alternative and supplement to current Anglo-American research on spoken dialogue and some overlap therewith.

A Longitudinal Analysis of the Influence of the Neighborhood Environment on Recreational Walking within the Neighborhood: Results from RESIDE

OpenAIRE

Christian, Hayley; Knuiman, Matthew; Divitini, Mark; Foster, Sarah; Hooper, Paula; Boruff, Bryan; Bull, Fiona; Giles-Corti, Billie

2017-01-01

Background: There is limited longitudinal evidence confirming the role of neighborhood environment attributes in encouraging people to walk more or if active people simply choose to live in activity-friendly neighborhoods. Natural experiments of policy changes to create more walkable communities provide stronger evidence for a causal effect of neighborhood environments on residents’ walking. Objectives: We aimed to investigate longitudinal associations between objective and perceived neighbor...

Neighborhood walkability and walking behavior: the moderating role of action orientation.

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Friederichs, Stijn A H; Kremers, Stef P J; Lechner, Lilian; de Vries, Nanne K

2013-05-01

In promoting physical activity, it is important to gain insight into environmental factors that facilitate or hinder physical activity and factors that may influence this environment-behavior relationship. As the personality factor of action orientation reflects an individual's capacity to regulate behavior it may act as a moderator in the environment-behavior relationship. The current study addressed the relationship between neighborhood walkability and walking behavior and the influence of action orientation on this relationship. Three hundred and forty-seven Dutch inhabitants [mean age 43.1 (SD 17.1)] completed a web based questionnaire assessing demographic variables, neighborhood walkability (Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale), variables of the Theory of Planned Behavior, action orientation, and walking behavior. The results show that high levels of neighborhood walkability are positively associated with walking behavior and that this influence is largely unmediated by cognitive processes. A positive influence of neighborhood walkability on walking behavior was identified in the action-oriented subpopulation, whereas in the state-oriented part of the population, this influence was absent. The findings suggest that the influence of neighborhood environment on walking behavior has a relatively large unconscious, automatic component. In addition, the results suggest that the walkability-walking relationship is moderated by action orientation.

The Influence of Traffic Noise on Appreciation of the Living Quality of a Neighborhood

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Dominique Gillis

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Traffic influences the quality of life in a neighborhood in many different ways. Today, in many patsy of the world the benefits of accessibility are taken for granted and traffic is perceived as having a negative impact on satisfaction with the neighborhood. Negative health effects are observed in a number of studies and these stimulate the negative feelings in the exposed population. The noise produced by traffic is one of the most important contributors to the appreciation of the quality of life. Thus, it is useful to define a number of indicators that allow monitoring the current impact of noise on the quality of life and predicting the effect of future developments. This work investigates and compares a set of indicators related to exposure at home and exposure during trips around the house. The latter require detailed modeling of the population’s trip behavior. The validity of the indicators is checked by their ability to predict the outcome of a social survey and by outlining potential causal paths between them and the outcome variables considered: general satisfaction with the quality of life in the neighborhood, noise annoyance at home, and reported traffic density in the area.

The Influence of Traffic Noise on Appreciation of the Living Quality of a Neighborhood

Science.gov (United States)

Botteldooren, Dick; Dekoninck, Luc; Gillis, Dominique

2011-01-01

Traffic influences the quality of life in a neighborhood in many different ways. Today, in many patsy of the world the benefits of accessibility are taken for granted and traffic is perceived as having a negative impact on satisfaction with the neighborhood. Negative health effects are observed in a number of studies and these stimulate the negative feelings in the exposed population. The noise produced by traffic is one of the most important contributors to the appreciation of the quality of life. Thus, it is useful to define a number of indicators that allow monitoring the current impact of noise on the quality of life and predicting the effect of future developments. This work investigates and compares a set of indicators related to exposure at home and exposure during trips around the house. The latter require detailed modeling of the population’s trip behavior. The validity of the indicators is checked by their ability to predict the outcome of a social survey and by outlining potential causal paths between them and the outcome variables considered: general satisfaction with the quality of life in the neighborhood, noise annoyance at home, and reported traffic density in the area. PMID:21556178

Conduct Disorder and Neighborhood Effects.

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Jennings, Wesley G; Perez, Nicholas M; Reingle Gonzalez, Jennifer M

2018-05-07

There has been a considerable amount of scholarly attention to the relationship between neighborhood effects and conduct disorder, particularly in recent years. Having said this, it has been nearly two decades since a comprehensive synthesis of this literature has been conducted. Relying on a detailed and comprehensive search strategy and inclusion criteria, this article offers a systematic and interdisciplinary review of 47 empirical studies that have examined neighborhood effects and conduct disorder. Described results suggest that there are generally robust linkages between adverse neighborhood factors and conduct disorder and externalizing behavior problems, as 67 of the 93 (72.04%) effect sizes derived from these studies yielded statistically significant neighborhood effects. The review also identifies salient mediating and moderating influences. It discusses study limitations and directions for future research as well.

Spatial dimensions of the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on delinquency

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vogel, M.S.; South, S.J.

2016-01-01

esearch examining the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and adolescent offending typically examines only the influence of residential neighborhoods. This strategy may be problematic as 1) neighborhoods are rarely spatially independent of each other and 2) adolescents spend

Does Race Matter in Neighborhood Preferences? Results from a Video Experiment

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Krysan, Maria; Couper, Mick P.; Farley, Reynolds; Forman, Tyrone

2013-01-01

Persistent racial residential segregation is often seen as the result of the preferences of whites and blacks: whites prefer to live with whites while blacks wish to live near many other blacks. The origin of these preferences and their social psychological underpinnings are hotly debated. Are neighborhood preferences colorblind or race-conscious? Does neighborhood racial composition have a net influence upon preferences or is race a proxy for social class? If preferences are race-conscious, is this more a matter of a desire to be in a neighborhood with one’s “own kind” or to avoid being in a neighborhood with another racial group? We tested the racial proxy hypothesis using an innovative experiment that isolated the net effects of race and social class and followed it with an analysis of the social psychological factors associated with residential preferences. Face-to-face surveys using computer assisted interviewing were conducted with random samples of Detroit and Chicago residents. Respondents were asked how desirable they would rate neighborhoods shown in videos in which racial composition and social class characteristics were manipulated and they also completed—via computer assisted self-interviews—questions tapping into perceptions of discrimination, racial and neighborhood stereotypes, and in-group identity. We find that net of social class, the race of a neighborhood's residents significantly influenced how it was rated. Whites said the all-white neighborhoods were most desirable. The independent effect of racial composition was smaller among blacks and blacks identified the racially mixed neighborhood as most desirable. Hypotheses about how racial group identity, stereotypes, and experiences of discrimination influenced the effect of race of residents upon neighborhood preferences were tested and show that for whites, those who hold negative stereotypes about African Americans and the neighborhoods where they live are significantly influenced by

Spoken Narrative Assessment: A Supplementary Measure of Children's Creativity

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Wong, Miranda Kit-Yi; So, Wing Chee

2016-01-01

This study developed a spoken narrative (i.e., storytelling) assessment as a supplementary measure of children's creativity. Both spoken and gestural contents of children's spoken narratives were coded to assess their verbal and nonverbal creativity. The psychometric properties of the coding system for the spoken narrative assessment were…

Impulsivity moderates promotive environmental influences on adolescent delinquency: A comparison across family, school, and neighborhood contexts

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Chen, Pan; Jacobson, Kristen C.

2013-01-01

The present study examined moderating effects of impulsivity on the relationships between promotive factors from family (family warmth, parental knowledge), school (school connectedness), and neighborhood (neighborhood cohesion) contexts with delinquency using data collected from N = 2,978 sixth to eighth graders from 16 schools surrounding a major city in the Midwestern United States. More than half of the respondents were non-Caucasian (Mage = 12.48; 41.0% male). Multilevel modeling analyses were conducted to take into account the clustering of the participants within schools. Impulsivity was positively associated with adolescent delinquency. Additionally, family warmth, parental knowledge, and school connectedness, but not neighborhood cohesion, were independently and inversely related to adolescent delinquency. Finally, impulsivity moderated relationships between family warmth and parental knowledge with delinquency but not relationships between school attachment and neighborhood cohesion with delinquency. Specifically, the negative relationship between family warmth and delinquency was significant for adolescents with high levels of, but not for those with below-average levels of, impulsivity. In addition, parental knowledge had a stronger association with decreased levels of delinquency for adolescents reporting higher levels of impulsivity. The moderating effects of impulsivity did not differ for males and females or for minority and non-minority participants. Findings indicate that impulsivity may have greater impact on adolescents’ susceptibility to positive family influences than on their susceptibility to promotive factors from school or neighborhood contexts. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. PMID:23673971

Negative life events vary by neighborhood and mediate the relation between neighborhood context and psychological well-being.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katherine King

Full Text Available Researchers have speculated that negative life events are more common in troubled neighborhoods, amplifying adverse effects on health. Using a clustered representative sample of Chicago residents (2001-03; n = 3,105 from the Chicago Community Adult Health Survey, we provide the first documentation that negative life events are highly geographically clustered compared to health outcomes. Associations between neighborhood context and negative life events were also found to vary by event type. We then demonstrate the power of a contextualized approach by testing path models in which life events mediate the relation between neighborhood characteristics and health outcomes, including self-rated health, anxiety, and depression. The indirect paths between neighborhood conditions and health through negative life event exposure are highly significant and large compared to the direct paths from neighborhood conditions to health. Our results indicate that neighborhood conditions can have acute as well as chronic effects on health, and that negative life events are a powerful mechanism by which context may influence health.

Negative life events vary by neighborhood and mediate the relation between neighborhood context and psychological well-being.

Science.gov (United States)

King, Katherine; Ogle, Christin

2014-01-01

Researchers have speculated that negative life events are more common in troubled neighborhoods, amplifying adverse effects on health. Using a clustered representative sample of Chicago residents (2001-03; n = 3,105) from the Chicago Community Adult Health Survey, we provide the first documentation that negative life events are highly geographically clustered compared to health outcomes. Associations between neighborhood context and negative life events were also found to vary by event type. We then demonstrate the power of a contextualized approach by testing path models in which life events mediate the relation between neighborhood characteristics and health outcomes, including self-rated health, anxiety, and depression. The indirect paths between neighborhood conditions and health through negative life event exposure are highly significant and large compared to the direct paths from neighborhood conditions to health. Our results indicate that neighborhood conditions can have acute as well as chronic effects on health, and that negative life events are a powerful mechanism by which context may influence health.

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words

OpenAIRE

McQueen, J.; Huettig, F.

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of pre-exposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures’ printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onsetrelated (e.g...

Locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Still at the orthographic level!

Science.gov (United States)

Bonin, Patrick; Laroche, Betty; Perret, Cyril

2016-11-01

The present study was aimed at testing the locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Are they located at the level of spoken word recognition (Chua & Rickard Liow, 2014) or at the level of the orthographic output lexicon (Delattre, Bonin, & Barry, 2006)? Words that varied on objective word frequency and on phonological neighborhood density were orally presented to adults who had to write them down. Following the additive factors logic (Sternberg, 1969, 2001), if word frequency in spelling to dictation influences a processing level, that is, the orthographic output level, different from that influenced by phonological neighborhood density, that is, spoken word recognition, the impact of the 2 factors should be additive. In contrast, their influence should be overadditive if they act at the same processing level in spelling to dictation, namely the spoken word recognition level. We found that both factors had a reliable influence on the spelling latencies but did not interact. This finding is in line with an orthographic output locus hypothesis of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Interference of spoken word recognition through phonological priming from visual objects and printed words.

Science.gov (United States)

McQueen, James M; Huettig, Falk

2014-01-01

Three cross-modal priming experiments examined the influence of preexposure to pictures and printed words on the speed of spoken word recognition. Targets for auditory lexical decision were spoken Dutch words and nonwords, presented in isolation (Experiments 1 and 2) or after a short phrase (Experiment 3). Auditory stimuli were preceded by primes, which were pictures (Experiments 1 and 3) or those pictures' printed names (Experiment 2). Prime-target pairs were phonologically onset related (e.g., pijl-pijn, arrow-pain), were from the same semantic category (e.g., pijl-zwaard, arrow-sword), or were unrelated on both dimensions. Phonological interference and semantic facilitation were observed in all experiments. Priming magnitude was similar for pictures and printed words and did not vary with picture viewing time or number of pictures in the display (either one or four). These effects arose even though participants were not explicitly instructed to name the pictures and where strategic naming would interfere with lexical decision making. This suggests that, by default, processing of related pictures and printed words influences how quickly we recognize spoken words.

Assessment of spatial and physical neighborhood characteristics that influence sound quality and herewith well-being and health.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Devilee, Jeroen; Kempen, Elise van; Swart, Wim; Kamp, Irene van; Ameling, Caroline

2018-01-01

Environmental noise and health studies seldom address the positive effect of environments with high acoustic quality. Sound quality, in turn, is influenced by a large number of factors, including the spatial-physical characteristics of a neighborhood. In general, these characteristics cannot be

Neighborhood Disadvantage and Physical Function: The Contributions of Neighborhood-Level Perceptions of Safety From Crime and Walking for Recreation.

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Loh, Venurs H Y; Rachele, Jerome N; Brown, Wendy J; Ghani, Fatima; Turrell, Gavin

2018-04-20

Residents of more socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely to report poorer physical function, although the reasons for this remain unknown. It is possible that neighborhood-level perceptions of safety from crime contribute to this relationship through its association with walking for recreation. Data were obtained from the fourth wave (collected in 2013) of the HABITAT (How Areas in Brisbane Influence HealTh and AcTivity) multilevel longitudinal study of middle- to older-aged adults (46-74 y) residing in 200 neighborhoods in Brisbane, Australia. The data were analyzed separately for men (n = 2190) and women (n = 2977) using multilevel models. Residents of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods had poorer physical function, perceived their neighborhoods to be less safe from crime, and do less walking for recreation. These factors accounted for differences in physical function between disadvantaged and advantaged neighborhoods (24% for men and 25% for women). This study highlights the importance of contextual characteristics, through their associations with behaviors, that can have in explaining the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and physical function. Interventions aimed at improving neighborhood safety integrated with supportive environments for physical activity may have positive impact on physical function among all socioeconomic groups.

Building Community: The Neighborhood Context of Social Organization

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Swaroop, Sapna; Morenoff, Jeffrey D.

2006-01-01

This study explores how neighborhood context influences participation in local social organization through a multilevel-spatial analysis of residents in Chicago neighborhoods. We construct a typology of community participation based on two dimensions: instrumental vs. expressive motivations for participation and formal vs. informal modes of…

Cultural mechanisms and the persistence of neighborhood violence.

Science.gov (United States)

Kirk, David S; Papachristos, Andrew V

2011-01-01

Sociologists have given considerable attention to identifying the neighborhood-level social-interactional mechanisms that influence outcomes such as crime, educational attainment, and health. Yet, cultural mechanisms are often overlooked in quantitative studies of neighborhood effects. This paper adds a cultural dimension to neighborhood effects research by exploring the consequences of legal cynicism. Legal cynicism refers to a cultural frame in which people perceive the law as illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill equipped to ensure public safety. The authors find that legal cynicism explains why homicide persisted in certain Chicago neighborhoods during the 1990s despite declines in poverty and declines in violence city-wide.

NEIGHBORHOOD CHOICE AND NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE

OpenAIRE

Bruch, Elizabeth; Mare, Robert D.

2006-01-01

This paper examines the relationships between the residential choices of individuals and aggregate patterns of neighborhood change. We investigate the conditions under which individuals’ preferences for the race-ethnic composition of their neighborhoods produce high levels of segregation. Using computational models, we find that high levels of segregation occur only when individuals’ preferences follow a threshold function. If individuals make finer-grained distinctions among neighborhoods th...

Towards Adaptive Spoken Dialog Systems

CERN Document Server

Schmitt, Alexander

2013-01-01

In Monitoring Adaptive Spoken Dialog Systems, authors Alexander Schmitt and Wolfgang Minker investigate statistical approaches that allow for recognition of negative dialog patterns in Spoken Dialog Systems (SDS). The presented stochastic methods allow a flexible, portable and  accurate use.  Beginning with the foundations of machine learning and pattern recognition, this monograph examines how frequently users show negative emotions in spoken dialog systems and develop novel approaches to speech-based emotion recognition using hybrid approach to model emotions. The authors make use of statistical methods based on acoustic, linguistic and contextual features to examine the relationship between the interaction flow and the occurrence of emotions using non-acted  recordings several thousand real users from commercial and non-commercial SDS. Additionally, the authors present novel statistical methods that spot problems within a dialog based on interaction patterns. The approaches enable future SDS to offer m...

Comprehensive Neighborhood Portraits and Child Asthma Disparities.

Science.gov (United States)

Kranjac, Ashley W; Kimbro, Rachel T; Denney, Justin T; Osiecki, Kristin M; Moffett, Brady S; Lopez, Keila N

2017-07-01

Objectives Previous research has established links between child, family, and neighborhood disadvantages and child asthma. We add to this literature by first characterizing neighborhoods in Houston, TX by demographic, economic, and air quality characteristics to establish differences in pediatric asthma diagnoses across neighborhoods. Second, we identify the relative risk of social, economic, and environmental risk factors for child asthma diagnoses. Methods We geocoded and linked electronic pediatric medical records to neighborhood-level social and economic indicators. Using latent profile modeling techniques, we identified Advantaged, Middle-class, and Disadvantaged neighborhoods. We then used a modified version of the Blinder-Oaxaca regression decomposition method to examine differences in asthma diagnoses across children in these different neighborhoods. Results Both compositional (the characteristics of the children and the ambient air quality in the neighborhood) and associational (the relationship between child and air quality characteristics and asthma) differences within the distinctive neighborhood contexts influence asthma outcomes. For example, unequal exposure to PM 2.5 and O 3 among children in Disadvantaged and Middle-class neighborhoods contribute to asthma diagnosis disparities within these contexts. For children in Disadvantaged and Advantaged neighborhoods, associational differences between racial/ethnic and socioeconomic characteristics and asthma diagnoses explain a significant proportion of the gap. Conclusions for Practice Our results provide evidence that differential exposure to pollution and protective factors associated with non-Hispanic White children and children from affluent families contribute to asthma disparities between neighborhoods. Future researchers should consider social and racial inequalities as more proximate drivers, not merely as associated, with asthma disparities in children.

Neighborhood-level social processes and substantiated cases of child maltreatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Molnar, Beth E; Goerge, Robert M; Gilsanz, Paola; Hill, Andrea; Subramanian, S V; Holton, John K; Duncan, Dustin T; Beatriz, Elizabeth D; Beardslee, William R

2016-01-01

Child maltreatment is a preventable public health problem. Research has demonstrated that neighborhood structural factors (e.g. poverty, crime) can influence the proportion of a neighborhood's children who are victims of maltreatment. A newer strategy is the identification of potentially modifiable social processes at the neighborhood level that can also influence maltreatment. Toward this end, this study examines neighborhood-level data (maltreatment cases substantiated by Illinois' child protection agency, 1995-2005, social processes measured by the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, U.S. Census data, proportions of neighborhoods on public assistance, and crime data) that were linked across clusters of contiguous, relatively homogenous Chicago, IL census tracts with respect to racial/ethnic and socioeconomic composition. Our analysis-an ecological-level, repeated cross-sectional design utilizing random-intercept logit models-with a sensitivity analysis using spatial models to control for spatial autocorrelation-revealed consistent associations between neighborhood social processes and maltreatment. Neighborhoods higher in collective efficacy, intergenerational closure, and social networks, and lower in disorder had lower proportions of neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse substantiated cases, controlling for differences in structural factors. Higher collective efficacy and social network size also predicted a lower proportion of substance-exposed infants. This research indicates that strategies to mobilize neighborhood-level protective factors may decrease child maltreatment more effectively than individual and family-focused efforts alone. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Business Spoken English Learning Strategies for Chinese Enterprise Staff

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Han Li

2013-01-01

This study addresses the issue of promoting effective Business Spoken English of Enterprise Staff in China.It aims to assess the assessment of spoken English learning methods and identify the difficulties of learning English oral expression concerned business area.It also provides strategies for enhancing Enterprise Staff’s level of Business Spoken English.

Neighborhood characteristics influence DNA methylation of genes involved in stress response and inflammation: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Jennifer A; Zhao, Wei; Wang, Xu; Ratliff, Scott M; Mukherjee, Bhramar; Kardia, Sharon L R; Liu, Yongmei; Roux, Ava V Diez; Needham, Belinda L

2017-08-01

Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with poor health outcomes even after accounting for individual-level socioeconomic factors. The chronic stress of unfavorable neighborhood conditions may lead to dysregulation of the stress reactivity and inflammatory pathways, potentially mediated through epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation. We used multi-level models to examine the relationship between 2 neighborhood conditions and methylation levels of 18 genes related to stress reactivity and inflammation in purified monocytes from 1,226 participants of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a population-based sample of US adults. Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, a summary of 16 census-based metrics, was associated with DNA methylation [False discovery rate (FDR) q-value ≤ 0.1] in 2 out of 7 stress-related genes evaluated (CRF, SLC6A4) and 2 out of 11 inflammation-related genes (F8, TLR1). Neighborhood social environment, a summary measure of aesthetic quality, safety, and social cohesion, was associated with methylation in 4 of the 7 stress-related genes (AVP, BDNF, FKBP5, SLC6A4) and 7 of the 11 inflammation-related genes (CCL1, CD1D, F8, KLRG1, NLRP12, SLAMF7, TLR1). High socioeconomic disadvantage and worse social environment were primarily associated with increased methylation. In 5 genes with significant associations between neighborhood and methylation (FKBP5, CD1D, F8, KLRG1, NLRP12), methylation was associated with gene expression of at least one transcript. These results demonstrate that multiple dimensions of neighborhood context may influence methylation levels and subsequent gene expression of stress- and inflammation-related genes, even after accounting for individual socioeconomic factors. Further elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying these relationships will be important for understanding the etiology of health disparities.

Succession, climate, and neighborhood dynamics influence tree growth over time: an 87-year record of change in a Pinus resinosa (Aiton)-dominated forest, Minnesota, USA

Science.gov (United States)

Miranda T. Curzon; Anthony W. D' Amato; Shawn Fraver; Emily S. Huff; Brian J. Palik

2016-01-01

Resource availability and its influence on tree-to-tree interactions are expected to change over the course of forest stand development, but the rarity of long-term datasets has limited examinations of neighborhood crowding over extended time periods. How do a history of neighborhood interactions and population-level dynamics, including demographic transition, impact...

Race, Neighborhood Economic Status, Income Inequality and Mortality.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicolle A Mode

Full Text Available Mortality rates in the United States vary based on race, individual economic status and neighborhood. Correlations among these variables in most urban areas have limited what conclusions can be drawn from existing research. Our study employs a unique factorial design of race, sex, age and individual poverty status, measuring time to death as an objective measure of health, and including both neighborhood economic status and income inequality for a sample of middle-aged urban-dwelling adults (N = 3675. At enrollment, African American and White participants lived in 46 unique census tracts in Baltimore, Maryland, which varied in neighborhood economic status and degree of income inequality. A Cox regression model for 9-year mortality identified a three-way interaction among sex, race and individual poverty status (p = 0.03, with African American men living below poverty having the highest mortality. Neighborhood economic status, whether measured by a composite index or simply median household income, was negatively associated with overall mortality (p<0.001. Neighborhood income inequality was associated with mortality through an interaction with individual poverty status (p = 0.04. While racial and economic disparities in mortality are well known, this study suggests that several social conditions associated with health may unequally affect African American men in poverty in the United States. Beyond these individual factors are the influences of neighborhood economic status and income inequality, which may be affected by a history of residential segregation. The significant association of neighborhood economic status and income inequality with mortality beyond the synergistic combination of sex, race and individual poverty status suggests the long-term importance of small area influence on overall mortality.

Gender Equality and Violent Behavior: How Neighborhood Gender Equality Influences the Gender Gap in Violence

Science.gov (United States)

Lei, Man-Kit; Simons, Ronald L.; Simons, Leslie Gordon; Edmond, Mary Bond

2014-01-01

Using a sample of 703 African American adolescents from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) along with census data from the year 2000, we examine the association between neighborhood-level gender equality and violence. We find that boys’ and girls’ violent behavior is unevenly distributed across neighborhood contexts. In particular, gender differences in violent behavior are less pronounced in gender-equalitarian neighborhoods compared to those characterized by gender inequality. We also find that the gender gap narrows in gender-equalitarian neighborhoods because boys’ rates of violence decrease whereas girls’ rates remain relatively low across neighborhoods. This is in stark contrast to the pessimistic predictions of theorists who argue that the narrowing of the gender gap in equalitarian settings is the result of an increase in girls’ violence. In addition, the relationship between neighborhood gender equality and violence is mediated by a specific articulation of masculinity characterized by toughness. Our results provide evidence for the use of gender-specific neighborhood prevention programs. PMID:24672996

Subjective neighborhood assessment and physical inactivity: An examination of neighborhood-level variance.

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Prochaska, John D; Buschmann, Robert N; Jupiter, Daniel; Mutambudzi, Miriam; Peek, M Kristen

2018-06-01

Research suggests a linkage between perceptions of neighborhood quality and the likelihood of engaging in leisure-time physical activity. Often in these studies, intra-neighborhood variance is viewed as something to be controlled for statistically. However, we hypothesized that intra-neighborhood variance in perceptions of neighborhood quality may be contextually relevant. We examined the relationship between intra-neighborhood variance of subjective neighborhood quality and neighborhood-level reported physical inactivity across 48 neighborhoods within a medium-sized city, Texas City, Texas using survey data from 2706 residents collected between 2004 and 2006. Neighborhoods where the aggregated perception of neighborhood quality was poor also had a larger proportion of residents reporting being physically inactive. However, higher degrees of disagreement among residents within neighborhoods about their neighborhood quality was significantly associated with a lower proportion of residents reporting being physically inactive (p=0.001). Our results suggest that intra-neighborhood variability may be contextually relevant in studies seeking to better understand the relationship between neighborhood quality and behaviors sensitive to neighborhood environments, like physical activity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Large Neighborhood Search

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pisinger, David; Røpke, Stefan

2010-01-01

Heuristics based on large neighborhood search have recently shown outstanding results in solving various transportation and scheduling problems. Large neighborhood search methods explore a complex neighborhood by use of heuristics. Using large neighborhoods makes it possible to find better...... candidate solutions in each iteration and hence traverse a more promising search path. Starting from the large neighborhood search method,we give an overview of very large scale neighborhood search methods and discuss recent variants and extensions like variable depth search and adaptive large neighborhood...

Spoken Grammar and Its Role in the English Language Classroom

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Hilliard, Amanda

2014-01-01

This article addresses key issues and considerations for teachers wanting to incorporate spoken grammar activities into their own teaching and also focuses on six common features of spoken grammar, with practical activities and suggestions for teaching them in the language classroom. The hope is that this discussion of spoken grammar and its place…

Incorporating Neighborhood Choice in a Model of Neighborhood Effects on Income.

Science.gov (United States)

van Ham, Maarten; Boschman, Sanne; Vogel, Matt

2018-05-09

Studies of neighborhood effects often attempt to identify causal effects of neighborhood characteristics on individual outcomes, such as income, education, employment, and health. However, selection looms large in this line of research, and it has been argued that estimates of neighborhood effects are biased because people nonrandomly select into neighborhoods based on their preferences, income, and the availability of alternative housing. We propose a two-step framework to disentangle selection processes in the relationship between neighborhood deprivation and earnings. We model neighborhood selection using a conditional logit model, from which we derive correction terms. Driven by the recognition that most households prefer certain types of neighborhoods rather than specific areas, we employ a principle components analysis to reduce these terms into eight correction components. We use these to adjust parameter estimates from a model of subsequent neighborhood effects on individual income for the unequal probability that a household chooses to live in a particular type of neighborhood. We apply this technique to administrative data from the Netherlands. After we adjust for the differential sorting of households into certain types of neighborhoods, the effect of neighborhood income on individual income diminishes but remains significant. These results further emphasize that researchers need to be attuned to the role of selection bias when assessing the role of neighborhood effects on individual outcomes. Perhaps more importantly, the persistent effect of neighborhood deprivation on subsequent earnings suggests that neighborhood effects reflect more than the shared characteristics of neighborhood residents: place of residence partially determines economic well-being.

Unpacking Neighborhood Influences on Education Outcomes: Setting the Stage for Future Research. NBER Working Paper No. 16055

Science.gov (United States)

Harding, David J.; Gennetian, Lisa; Winship, Christopher; Sanbonmatsu, Lisa; Kling, Jeffrey R.

2010-01-01

We motivate future neighborhood research through a simple model that considers youth educational outcomes as a function of neighborhood context, neighborhood exposure, individual vulnerability to neighborhood effects, and non-neighborhood educational inputs--with a focus on effect heterogeneity. Research using this approach would require three…

SPOKEN BAHASA INDONESIA BY GERMAN STUDENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I Nengah Sudipa

2014-11-01

Full Text Available This article investigates the spoken ability for German students using Bahasa Indonesia (BI. They have studied it for six weeks in IBSN Program at Udayana University, Bali-Indonesia. The data was collected at the time the students sat for the mid-term oral test and was further analyzed with reference to the standard usage of BI. The result suggests that most students managed to express several concepts related to (1 LOCATION; (2 TIME; (3 TRANSPORT; (4 PURPOSE; (5 TRANSACTION; (6 IMPRESSION; (7 REASON; (8 FOOD AND BEVERAGE, and (9 NUMBER AND PERSON. The only problem few students might encounter is due to the influence from their own language system called interference, especially in word order.

NEIGHBORHOOD IMMIGRANT CONCENTRATION, ACCULTURATION, AND CULTURAL ALIENATION IN FORMER SOVIET IMMIGRANT WOMEN.

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Miller, Arlene Michaels; Birman, Dina; Zenk, Shannon; Wang, Edward; Sorokin, Olga; Connor, Jorgia

2009-01-01

Several acculturation theories note the importance of surrounding context, but few studies describe neighborhood influences on immigrant adaptation. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among neighborhood immigrant concentration, acculturation, and alienation for 151 women aged 44-80 from the former Soviet Union who lived in the US fewer than 13 years. Participants resided in 65 census tracts in the Chicago area with varying concentrations of Russian-speaking and diverse immigrants. Results from self-report questionnaires suggest that the effect of acculturation on alienation varies depending on neighborhood characteristics. The study also demonstrates the complexity of individual and contextual influences on immigrant adoption. Understanding these relationships is important for developing community-based and neighborhood-level interventions to enhance the mental health of immigrants.

Evaluating the spoken English proficiency of graduates of foreign medical schools.

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Boulet, J R; van Zanten, M; McKinley, D W; Gary, N E

2001-08-01

The purpose of this study was to gather additional evidence for the validity and reliability of spoken English proficiency ratings provided by trained standardized patients (SPs) in high-stakes clinical skills examination. Over 2500 candidates who took the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates' (ECFMG) Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) were studied. The CSA consists of 10 or 11 timed clinical encounters. Standardized patients evaluate spoken English proficiency and interpersonal skills in every encounter. Generalizability theory was used to estimate the consistency of spoken English ratings. Validity coefficients were calculated by correlating summary English ratings with CSA scores and other external criterion measures. Mean spoken English ratings were also compared by various candidate background variables. The reliability of the spoken English ratings, based on 10 independent evaluations, was high. The magnitudes of the associated variance components indicated that the evaluation of a candidate's spoken English proficiency is unlikely to be affected by the choice of cases or SPs used in a given assessment. Proficiency in spoken English was related to native language (English versus other) and scores from the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The pattern of the relationships, both within assessment components and with external criterion measures, suggests that valid measures of spoken English proficiency are obtained. This result, combined with the high reproducibility of the ratings over encounters and SPs, supports the use of trained SPs to measure spoken English skills in a simulated medical environment.

Neighborhood Effects in a Behavioral Randomized Controlled Trial

OpenAIRE

Pruitt, Sandi L.; Leonard, Tammy; Murdoch, James; Hughes, Amy; McQueen, Amy; Gupta, Samir

2014-01-01

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of interventions intended to modify health behaviors may be influenced by neighborhood effects which can impede unbiased estimation of intervention effects. Examining a RCT designed to increase colorectal cancer (CRC) screening (N=5,628), we found statistically significant neighborhood effects: average CRC test use among neighboring study participants was significantly and positively associated with individual patient’s CRC test use. This potentially import...

Influence of Neighborhood-level Factors on Social Support in Early-stage Breast Cancer Patients and Controls

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Thompson, Tess; Rodebaugh, Thomas L.; Pérez, Maria; Struthers, Jim; Sefko, Julianne A.; Lian, Min; Schootman, Mario; Jeffe, Donna B.

2016-01-01

Rationale Low social support has been linked to negative health outcomes in breast cancer patients. Objective We examined associations between perceived social support, neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation, and neighborhood-level social support in early-stage breast cancer patients and controls. Methods This two-year longitudinal study in the United States included information collected from telephone interviews and clinical records of 541 early-stage patients and 542 controls recruited from 2003 to 2007. Social support was assessed using the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS-SS). Residential addresses were geocoded and used to develop measures including neighborhood social support (based on MOS-SS scores from nearby controls) and neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation (a composite index of census tract characteristics). Latent trajectory models were used to determine effects of neighborhood conditions on the stable (intercept) and changing (slope) aspects of social support. Results In a model with only neighborhood variables, greater socioeconomic deprivation was associated with patients’ lower stable social support (standardized estimate = −0.12, p = .027); neighborhood-level social support was associated with social support change (standardized estimate = 0.17, p = .046). After adding individual-level covariates, there were no direct neighborhood effects on social support. In patients, neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation was associated with support indirectly through marriage, insurance status, negative affect, and general health. In controls, neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation was associated with support indirectly through marriage (p social support differed in patients and controls. Psychosocial and neighborhood interventions may help patients with low social support, particularly patients without partnered relationships in deprived areas. PMID:27017091

Neighborhood effects on birthweight: an exploration of psychosocial and behavioral pathways in Baltimore, 1995--1996.

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Schempf, Ashley; Strobino, Donna; O'Campo, Patricia

2009-01-01

Neighborhood characteristics have been proposed to influence birth outcomes through psychosocial and behavioral pathways, yet empirical evidence is lacking. Using data from an urban, low-income sample, this study examined the impact of the neighborhood environment on birthweight and evaluated mediation by psychosocial and behavioral factors. The sample included 726 women who delivered a live birth at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, USA between 1995 and 1996. Census-tract data were used to create a principal component index of neighborhood risk based on racial and economic stratification (% Black, % poverty), social disorder (violent crime rate), and physical deterioration (% boarded-up housing) (alpha=0.82). Information on sociodemographic, psychosocial, and behavioral factors was gathered from a postpartum interview and medical records. Random intercept multilevel models were used to estimate neighborhood effects and assess potential mediation. Controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, a standard deviation increase in neighborhood risk conferred a 76g birthweight decrement. This represents an approximate 300g difference between the best and worst neighborhoods. Although stress (daily hassles), perceived locus-of-control, and social support were related to birthweight, their adjustment reduced the neighborhood coefficient by only 12%. In contrast, the neighborhood effect was reduced by an additional 30% and was no longer statistically significant after adjustment for the behavioral factors of smoking, drug use, and delayed prenatal care. These findings suggest that neighborhood factors may influence birthweight by shaping maternal behavioral risks. Thus, neighborhood level interventions should be considered to address multiple maternal and infant health risks. Future studies should examine more direct measures of neighborhood stress, such as perceived neighborhood disorder, and evaluate alternative mechanisms by which neighborhood factors

Active living neighborhoods: is neighborhood walkability a key element for Belgian adolescents?

Science.gov (United States)

De Meester, Femke; Van Dyck, Delfien; De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse; Deforche, Benedicte; Sallis, James F; Cardon, Greet

2012-01-04

In adult research, neighborhood walkability has been acknowledged as an important construct among the built environmental correlates of physical activity. Research into this association has only recently been extended to adolescents and the current empirical evidence is not consistent. This study investigated whether neighborhood walkability and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) are associated with physical activity among Belgian adolescents and whether the association between neighborhood walkability and physical activity is moderated by neighborhood SES and gender. In Ghent (Belgium), 32 neighborhoods were selected based on GIS-based walkability and SES derived from census data. In total, 637 adolescents (aged 13-15 year, 49.6% male) participated in the study. Physical activity was assessed using accelerometers and the Flemish Physical Activity Questionnaire. To analyze the associations between neighborhood walkability, neighborhood SES and individual physical activity, multivariate multi-level regression analyses were conducted. Only in low-SES neighborhoods, neighborhood walkability was positively associated with accelerometer-based moderate to vigorous physical activity and the average activity level expressed in counts/minute. For active transport to and from school, cycling for transport during leisure time and sport during leisure time no association with neighborhood walkability nor, with neighborhood SES was found. For walking for transport during leisure time a negative association with neighborhood SES was found. Gender did not moderate the associations of neighborhood walkability and SES with adolescent physical activity. Neighborhood walkability was related to accelerometer-based physical activity only among adolescent boys and girls living in low-SES neighborhoods. The relation of built environment to adolescent physical activity may depend on the context.

Race, Neighborhood Economic Status, Income Inequality and Mortality.

Science.gov (United States)

Mode, Nicolle A; Evans, Michele K; Zonderman, Alan B

2016-01-01

Mortality rates in the United States vary based on race, individual economic status and neighborhood. Correlations among these variables in most urban areas have limited what conclusions can be drawn from existing research. Our study employs a unique factorial design of race, sex, age and individual poverty status, measuring time to death as an objective measure of health, and including both neighborhood economic status and income inequality for a sample of middle-aged urban-dwelling adults (N = 3675). At enrollment, African American and White participants lived in 46 unique census tracts in Baltimore, Maryland, which varied in neighborhood economic status and degree of income inequality. A Cox regression model for 9-year mortality identified a three-way interaction among sex, race and individual poverty status (p = 0.03), with African American men living below poverty having the highest mortality. Neighborhood economic status, whether measured by a composite index or simply median household income, was negatively associated with overall mortality (pinequality was associated with mortality through an interaction with individual poverty status (p = 0.04). While racial and economic disparities in mortality are well known, this study suggests that several social conditions associated with health may unequally affect African American men in poverty in the United States. Beyond these individual factors are the influences of neighborhood economic status and income inequality, which may be affected by a history of residential segregation. The significant association of neighborhood economic status and income inequality with mortality beyond the synergistic combination of sex, race and individual poverty status suggests the long-term importance of small area influence on overall mortality.

Active living neighborhoods: is neighborhood walkability a key element for Belgian adolescents?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

De Meester Femke

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In adult research, neighborhood walkability has been acknowledged as an important construct among the built environmental correlates of physical activity. Research into this association has only recently been extended to adolescents and the current empirical evidence is not consistent. This study investigated whether neighborhood walkability and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES are associated with physical activity among Belgian adolescents and whether the association between neighborhood walkability and physical activity is moderated by neighborhood SES and gender. Methods In Ghent (Belgium, 32 neighborhoods were selected based on GIS-based walkability and SES derived from census data. In total, 637 adolescents (aged 13-15 year, 49.6% male participated in the study. Physical activity was assessed using accelerometers and the Flemish Physical Activity Questionnaire. To analyze the associations between neighborhood walkability, neighborhood SES and individual physical activity, multivariate multi-level regression analyses were conducted. Results Only in low-SES neighborhoods, neighborhood walkability was positively associated with accelerometer-based moderate to vigorous physical activity and the average activity level expressed in counts/minute. For active transport to and from school, cycling for transport during leisure time and sport during leisure time no association with neighborhood walkability nor, with neighborhood SES was found. For walking for transport during leisure time a negative association with neighborhood SES was found. Gender did not moderate the associations of neighborhood walkability and SES with adolescent physical activity. Conclusions Neighborhood walkability was related to accelerometer-based physical activity only among adolescent boys and girls living in low-SES neighborhoods. The relation of built environment to adolescent physical activity may depend on the context.

Positive Neighborhood Norms Buffer Ethnic Diversity Effects on Neighborhood Dissatisfaction, Perceived Neighborhood Disadvantage, and Moving Intentions.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Assche, Jasper; Asbrock, Frank; Roets, Arne; Kauff, Mathias

2018-05-01

Positive neighborhood norms, such as strong local networks, are critical to people's satisfaction with, perceived disadvantage of, and intentions to stay in their neighborhood. At the same time, local ethnic diversity is said to be detrimental for these community outcomes. Integrating both frameworks, we tested whether the negative consequences of diversity occur even when perceived social norms are positive. Study 1 ( N = 1,760 German adults) showed that perceptions of positive neighborhood norms buffered against the effects of perceived diversity on moving intentions via neighborhood satisfaction and perceived neighborhood disadvantage. Study 2 ( N = 993 Dutch adults) replicated and extended this moderated mediation model using other characteristics of diversity (i.e., objective and estimated minority proportions). Multilevel analyses again revealed consistent buffering effects of positive neighborhood norms. Our findings are discussed in light of the ongoing public and political debate concerning diversity and social and communal life.

Instructional Benefits of Spoken Words: A Review of Cognitive Load Factors

Science.gov (United States)

Kalyuga, Slava

2012-01-01

Spoken words have always been an important component of traditional instruction. With the development of modern educational technology tools, spoken text more often replaces or supplements written or on-screen textual representations. However, there could be a cognitive load cost involved in this trend, as spoken words can have both benefits and…

Racial Differences in Neighborhood Perceptions and their Influences on Physical Activity among Urban Older Women

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Wenjun Li

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Background: Proper levels of physical activity (PA are important to healthy aging. Little is known about racial differences in influences of neighborhood perceptions (NP on PA and use of neighborhood resources among community-dwelling older women. Materials and methods: In 2014 and 2015, 49 white and 44 black women of age 65 and older living in Washington, DC were queried about their PA, NP, use of neighborhood resources and sociodemographic characteristics. They wore an accelerometer and a Global Positioning System device concurrently for 7 consecutive days. Data were analyzed by race. Results: Compared to Whites, Blacks had lower NP scores (71% positive vs. 77%, p = 0.01, lower mean daily step counts (mean (SD: 3256 (1918 vs. 5457 (2989, p < 0.001, and lower frequencies of all exercise activities combined (19.7 (8.7 vs. 25.2 (11.8 per week, p = 0.01. For both Whites and Blacks, better NPs were associated with more frequent PA both at (p = 0.05 and away from home (p = 0.01. However, better NPs were associated with higher frequencies of exercise activities, moderate-to-high intensity activities, and utilitarian walking for Whites but not Blacks (p < 0.05 for race-perception interaction terms. Conclusions: In an urban setting, older Black women were more likely than older White women to have poor NPs, less PA, and weaker or no association of positive NPs with higher levels of certain PAs. Such substantial racial differences warrant further investigation and consideration in health promotion programs.

Choice Neighborhood Grantees

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Housing and Urban Development — Choice Neighborhoods grants transform distressed neighborhoods, public and assisted projects into viable and sustainable mixed-income neighborhoods by linking...

Using GPS Data to Study Neighborhood Walkability and Physical Activity.

Science.gov (United States)

Rundle, Andrew G; Sheehan, Daniel M; Quinn, James W; Bartley, Katherine; Eisenhower, Donna; Bader, Michael M D; Lovasi, Gina S; Neckerman, Kathryn M

2016-03-01

Urban form characteristics intended to support pedestrian activity, collectively referred to as neighborhood walkability, are thought to increase total physical activity. However, little is known about how neighborhood walkability influences utilization of neighborhood space by residents and their overall physical activity. Sociodemographic information and data on mobility and physical activity over 1-week periods measured by GPS loggers and accelerometers were collected from 803 residents of New York City between November 2010 and November 2011. Potentially accessible neighborhood areas were defined as land area within a 1-kilometer distance of the subject's home (radial buffer) and within a 1-kilometer journey on the street network from the home (network buffer). To define actual areas utilized by subjects, a minimum convex polygon was plotted around GPS waypoints falling within 1 kilometer of the home. A neighborhood walkability scale was calculated for each neighborhood area. Data were analyzed in 2014. Total residential neighborhood space utilized by subjects was significantly associated with street intersection density and was significantly negatively associated with residential density and subway stop density within 1 kilometer of the home. Walkability scale scores were significantly higher within utilized as compared with non-utilized neighborhood areas. Neighborhood walkability in the utilized neighborhood area was positively associated with total weekly physical activity (32% [95% CI=17%, 49%] more minutes of moderate-equivalent physical activity across the interquartile range of walkability). Neighborhood walkability is associated with neighborhood spaces utilized by residents and total weekly physical activity. Copyright © 2016 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Attention to spoken word planning: Chronometric and neuroimaging evidence

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Roelofs, A.P.A.

2008-01-01

This article reviews chronometric and neuroimaging evidence on attention to spoken word planning, using the WEAVER++ model as theoretical framework. First, chronometric studies on the time to initiate vocal responding and gaze shifting suggest that spoken word planning may require some attention,

Orthographic effects in spoken word recognition: Evidence from Chinese.

Science.gov (United States)

Qu, Qingqing; Damian, Markus F

2017-06-01

Extensive evidence from alphabetic languages demonstrates a role of orthography in the processing of spoken words. Because alphabetic systems explicitly code speech sounds, such effects are perhaps not surprising. However, it is less clear whether orthographic codes are involuntarily accessed from spoken words in languages with non-alphabetic systems, in which the sound-spelling correspondence is largely arbitrary. We investigated the role of orthography via a semantic relatedness judgment task: native Mandarin speakers judged whether or not spoken word pairs were related in meaning. Word pairs were either semantically related, orthographically related, or unrelated. Results showed that relatedness judgments were made faster for word pairs that were semantically related than for unrelated word pairs. Critically, orthographic overlap on semantically unrelated word pairs induced a significant increase in response latencies. These findings indicate that orthographic information is involuntarily accessed in spoken-word recognition, even in a non-alphabetic language such as Chinese.

Neighborhood Risk, Parental Socialization Styles, and Adolescent Conduct Problems

OpenAIRE

Enrique Gracia; Mª Castillo Fuentes; Fernando García

2010-01-01

This article aims to analyze the influence of parental socialization styles (authoritarian, authoritative, indulgent and neglectful), and perceived neighborhood risk on three indicators of conduct problems in adolescence (school misconduct, delinquency, and drug use). The sample consists of 1,017 adolescents, aged between 12 and 17. Results from four multivariate factorial designs yielded only main effects of parenting styles and neighborhood risk. Adolescents from authoritative and indulgent...

Perceptions as the crucial link? The mediating role of neighborhood perceptions in the relationship between the neighborhood context and neighborhood cohesion.

Science.gov (United States)

Laméris, Joran; Hipp, John R; Tolsma, Jochem

2018-05-01

This study examines the effects of neighborhood racial in-group size, economic deprivation and the prevalence of crime on neighborhood cohesion among U.S. whites. We explore to what extent residents' perceptions of their neighborhood mediate these macro-micro relationships. We use a recent individual-level data set, the American Social Fabric Study (2012/2013), enriched with contextual-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau (2010) and employ multi-level structural equation models. We show that the racial in-group size is positively related to neighborhood cohesion and that neighborhood cohesion is lower in communities with a high crime rate. Individuals' perceptions of the racial in-group size partly mediate the relationship between the objective racial in-group size and neighborhood cohesion. Residents' perceptions of unsafety from crime also appear to be a mediating factor, not only for the objective crime rate but also for the objective racial in-group size. This is in line with our idea that racial stereotypes link racial minorities to crime whereby neighborhoods with a large non-white population are perceived to be more unsafe. Residents of the same neighborhood differ in how they perceive the degree of economic decay of the neighborhood and this causes them to evaluate neighborhood cohesion differently, however perceptions of neighborhood economic decay do not explain the link between the objective neighborhood context and neighborhood cohesion. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

CROATIAN ADULT SPOKEN LANGUAGE CORPUS (HrAL

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Jelena Kuvač Kraljević

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Interest in spoken-language corpora has increased over the past two decades leading to the development of new corpora and the discovery of new facets of spoken language. These types of corpora represent the most comprehensive data source about the language of ordinary speakers. Such corpora are based on spontaneous, unscripted speech defined by a variety of styles, registers and dialects. The aim of this paper is to present the Croatian Adult Spoken Language Corpus (HrAL, its structure and its possible applications in different linguistic subfields. HrAL was built by sampling spontaneous conversations among 617 speakers from all Croatian counties, and it comprises more than 250,000 tokens and more than 100,000 types. Data were collected during three time slots: from 2010 to 2012, from 2014 to 2015 and during 2016. HrAL is today available within TalkBank, a large database of spoken-language corpora covering different languages (https://talkbank.org, in the Conversational Analyses corpora within the subsection titled Conversational Banks. Data were transcribed, coded and segmented using the transcription format Codes for Human Analysis of Transcripts (CHAT and the Computerised Language Analysis (CLAN suite of programmes within the TalkBank toolkit. Speech streams were segmented into communication units (C-units based on syntactic criteria. Most transcripts were linked to their source audios. The TalkBank is public free, i.e. all data stored in it can be shared by the wider community in accordance with the basic rules of the TalkBank. HrAL provides information about spoken grammar and lexicon, discourse skills, error production and productivity in general. It may be useful for sociolinguistic research and studies of synchronic language changes in Croatian.

An fMRI study of concreteness effects during spoken word recognition in aging. Preservation or attenuation?

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Tracy eRoxbury

2016-01-01

Full Text Available It is unclear whether healthy aging influences concreteness effects (ie. the processing advantage seen for concrete over abstract words and its associated neural mechanisms. We conducted an fMRI study on young and older healthy adults performing auditory lexical decisions on concrete versus abstract words. We found that spoken comprehension of concrete and abstract words appears relatively preserved for healthy older individuals, including the concreteness effect. This preserved performance was supported by altered activity in left hemisphere regions including the inferior and middle frontal gyri, angular gyrus, and fusiform gyrus. This pattern is consistent with age-related compensatory mechanisms supporting spoken word processing.

Neighborhood differences in social capital in Ghent (Belgium): a multilevel approach.

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Neutens, Tijs; Vyncke, Veerle; De Winter, Dieter; Willems, Sara

2013-11-13

Little research has focused on the spatial distribution of social capital, despite social capital's rising popularity in health research and policy. This study examines the neighborhood differences in social capital and the determinants that explain these differences. Five components of neighborhood social capital are identified by means of factor and reliability analyses using data collected in the cross-sectional SWING study from 762 inhabitants in 42 neighbourhoods in the city of Ghent (Belgium). Neighborhood differences in social capital are explored using hierarchical linear models with cross-level interactions. Significant neighborhood differences are found for social cohesion, informal social control and social support, but not for social leverage and generalized trust. Our findings suggest that neighborhood social capital depends on both characteristics of individuals living in the neighborhood (attachment to neighborhood) and characteristics of the neighborhood itself (deprivation and residential turnover). Our analysis further shows that neighborhood deprivation reinforces the negative effect of declining neighborhood attachment on social cohesion and informal social control. This study foregrounds the importance of contextual effects in encouraging neighborhood social capital. Given the importance of neighborhood-level characteristics, it can be anticipated social capital promoting initiatives are likely to be more effective when tailored to specific areas. Second, our analyses show that not all forms of social capital are influenced by contextual factors to the same extent, implying that changes in neighborhood characteristics are conducive to, say, trust while leaving social support unaffected. Finally, our analysis has demonstrated that complex interrelationships between individual- and neighborhood-level variables exist, which are often overlooked in current work.

Do Inequalities in Neighborhood Walkability Drive Disparities in Older Adults’ Outdoor Walking?

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Razieh Zandieh

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Older residents of high-deprivation areas walk less than those of low-deprivation areas. Previous research has shown that neighborhood built environment may support and encourage outdoor walking. The extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking is called “walkability”. This study examines inequalities in neighborhood walkability in high- versus low-deprivation areas and their possible influences on disparities in older adults’ outdoor walking levels. For this purpose, it focuses on specific neighborhood built environment attributes (residential density, land-use mix and intensity, street connectivity, and retail density relevant to neighborhood walkability. It applied a mixed-method approach, included 173 participants (≥65 years, and used a Geographic Information System (GIS and walking interviews (with a sub-sample to objectively and subjectively measure neighborhood built environment attributes. Outdoor walking levels were measured by using the Geographic Positioning System (GPS technology. Data on personal characteristics was collected by completing a questionnaire. The results show that inequalities in certain land-use intensity (i.e., green spaces, recreation centers, schools and industries in high- versus low-deprivation areas may influence disparities in older adults’ outdoor walking levels. Modifying neighborhood land use intensity may help to encourage outdoor walking in high-deprivation areas.

Do Inequalities in Neighborhood Walkability Drive Disparities in Older Adults' Outdoor Walking?

Science.gov (United States)

Zandieh, Razieh; Flacke, Johannes; Martinez, Javier; Jones, Phil; van Maarseveen, Martin

2017-07-07

Older residents of high-deprivation areas walk less than those of low-deprivation areas. Previous research has shown that neighborhood built environment may support and encourage outdoor walking. The extent to which the built environment supports and encourages walking is called "walkability". This study examines inequalities in neighborhood walkability in high- versus low-deprivation areas and their possible influences on disparities in older adults' outdoor walking levels. For this purpose, it focuses on specific neighborhood built environment attributes (residential density, land-use mix and intensity, street connectivity, and retail density) relevant to neighborhood walkability. It applied a mixed-method approach, included 173 participants (≥65 years), and used a Geographic Information System (GIS) and walking interviews (with a sub-sample) to objectively and subjectively measure neighborhood built environment attributes. Outdoor walking levels were measured by using the Geographic Positioning System (GPS) technology. Data on personal characteristics was collected by completing a questionnaire. The results show that inequalities in certain land-use intensity (i.e., green spaces, recreation centers, schools and industries) in high- versus low-deprivation areas may influence disparities in older adults' outdoor walking levels. Modifying neighborhood land use intensity may help to encourage outdoor walking in high-deprivation areas.

Gender Equality and Violent Behavior: How Neighborhood Gender Equality Influences the Gender Gap in Violence

OpenAIRE

Lei, Man-Kit; Simons, Ronald L.; Simons, Leslie Gordon; Edmond, Mary Bond

2014-01-01

Using a sample of 703 African American adolescents from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) along with census data from the year 2000, we examine the association between neighborhood-level gender equality and violence. We find that boys’ and girls’ violent behavior is unevenly distributed across neighborhood contexts. In particular, gender differences in violent behavior are less pronounced in gender-equalitarian neighborhoods compared to those characterized by gender inequality. We...

Prosodic Parallelism – comparing spoken and written language

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Richard Wiese

2016-10-01

Full Text Available The Prosodic Parallelism hypothesis claims adjacent prosodic categories to prefer identical branching of internal adjacent constituents. According to Wiese and Speyer (2015, this preference implies feet contained in the same phonological phrase to display either binary or unary branching, but not different types of branching. The seemingly free schwa-zero alternations at the end of some words in German make it possible to test this hypothesis. The hypothesis was successfully tested by conducting a corpus study which used large-scale bodies of written German. As some open questions remain, and as it is unclear whether Prosodic Parallelism is valid for the spoken modality as well, the present study extends this inquiry to spoken German. As in the previous study, the results of a corpus analysis recruiting a variety of linguistic constructions are presented. The Prosodic Parallelism hypothesis can be demonstrated to be valid for spoken German as well as for written German. The paper thus contributes to the question whether prosodic preferences are similar between the spoken and written modes of a language. Some consequences of the results for the production of language are discussed.

Syllable frequency and word frequency effects in spoken and written word production in a non-alphabetic script

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Qingfang eZhang

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The effects of word frequency and syllable frequency are well-established phenomena in domain such as spoken production in alphabetic languages. Chinese, as a non-alphabetic language, presents unique lexical and phonological properties in speech production. For example, the proximate unit of phonological encoding is syllable in Chinese but segments in Dutch, French or English. The present study investigated the effects of word frequency and syllable frequency, and their interaction in Chinese written and spoken production. Significant facilitatory word frequency and syllable frequency effects were observed in spoken as well as in written production. The syllable frequency effect in writing indicated that phonological properties (i.e., syllabic frequency constrain orthographic output via a lexical route, at least, in Chinese written production. However, the syllable frequency effect over repetitions was divergent in both modalities: it was significant in the former two repetitions in spoken whereas it was significant in the second repetition only in written. Due to the fragility of the syllable frequency effect in writing, we suggest that the phonological influence in handwritten production is not mandatory and universal, and it is modulated by experimental manipulations. This provides evidence for the orthographic autonomy hypothesis, rather than the phonological mediation hypothesis. The absence of an interaction between word frequency and syllable frequency showed that the syllable frequency effect is independent of the word frequency effect in spoken and written output modalities. The implications of these results on written production models are discussed.

Healthy neighborhoods: walkability and air pollution.

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Marshall, Julian D; Brauer, Michael; Frank, Lawrence D

2009-11-01

The built environment may influence health in part through the promotion of physical activity and exposure to pollution. To date, no studies have explored interactions between neighborhood walkability and air pollution exposure. We estimated concentrations of nitric oxide (NO), a marker for direct vehicle emissions), and ozone (O(3)) and a neighborhood walkability score, for 49,702 (89% of total) postal codes in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. NO concentrations were estimated from a land-use regression model, O(3) was estimated from ambient monitoring data; walkability was calculated based on geographic attributes such as land-use mix, street connectivity, and residential density. All three attributes exhibit an urban-rural gradient, with high walkability and NO concentrations, and low O(3) concentrations, near the city center. Lower-income areas tend to have higher NO concentrations and walkability and lower O(3) concentrations. Higher-income areas tend to have lower pollution (NO and O(3)). "Sweet-spot" neighborhoods (low pollution, high walkability) are generally located near but not at the city center and are almost exclusively higher income. Increased concentration of activities in urban settings yields both health costs and benefits. Our research identifies neighborhoods that do especially well (and especially poorly) for walkability and air pollution exposure. Work is needed to ensure that the poor do not bear an undue burden of urban air pollution and that neighborhoods designed for walking, bicycling, or mass transit do not adversely affect resident's exposure to air pollution. Analyses presented here could be replicated in other cities and tracked over time to better understand interactions among neighborhood walkability, air pollution exposure, and income level.

Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Relationship Between Neighborhood Disadvantage and Adolescent Substance Use

OpenAIRE

Fagan, Abigail A.; Wright, Emily M.; Pinchevsky, Gillian M.

2013-01-01

Although social disorganization theory hypothesizes that neighborhood characteristics influence youth delinquency, the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on adolescent substance use and racial/ethnic differences in this relationship have not been widely investigated. The present study examines these issues using longitudinal data from 1,856 African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian adolescents participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). The results ind...

A MODEL OF THE INFLUENCES OF A FOREST FIRE ON ITS NEIGHBORHOODS AND RELATED RISK MANAGEMENT ASPECTS

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Valentin POSEA

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract. The aim of the present paper is to produce a model for the propagation of a forest fire analyzing the influences that the fire zone has on its neighborhoods. The model is aMoore cellular automaton type. It depends on six parameters: the medium slope of the elementary cell, the layer type, and the burning time of the fuel, the fuel type, the wind direction and speed. In order to study the influences of various parameter configurations on the system of vicinities of a fire cell we construct some special directional correlation functions. An application is elaborated based on real data.

Measuring walking within and outside the neighborhood in Chinese elders: reliability and validity

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Cerin Ester

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Walking is a preferred, prevalent and recommended activity for aging populations and is influenced by the neighborhood built environment. To study this influence it is necessary to differentiate whether walking occurs within or outside of the neighborhood. The Neighborhood Physical Activity Questionnaire (NPAQ collects information on setting-specific physical activity, including walking, inside and outside one's neighborhood. While the NPAQ has shown to be a reliable measure in adults, its reliability in older adults is unknown. Additionally its validity and the influence of type of neighborhood on reliability and validity have yet to be explored. Methods The NPAQ walking component was adapted for Chinese speaking elders (NWQ-CS. Ninety-six Chinese elders, stratified by social economic status and neighborhood walkability, wore an accelerometer and completed a log of walks for 7 days. Following the collection of valid data the NWQ-CS was interviewer-administered. Fourteen to 20 days (average of 17 days later the NWQ-CS was re-administered. Test-retest reliability and validity of the NWQ-CS were assessed. Results Reliability and validity estimates did not differ with type of neighborhood. NWQ-CS measures of walking showed moderate to excellent reliability. Reliability was generally higher for estimates of weekly frequency than minutes of walking. Total weekly minutes of walking were moderately related to all accelerometry measures. Moderate-to-strong associations were found between the NWQ-CS and log-of-walks variables. The NWQ-CS yielded statistically significantly lower mean values of total walking, weekly minutes of walking for transportation and weekly frequency of walking for transportation outside the neighborhood than the log-of-walks. Conclusions The NWQ-CS showed measurement invariance across types of neighborhoods. It is a valid measure of walking for recreation and frequency of walking for transport. However, it may

Comparison of Word Intelligibility in Spoken and Sung Phrases

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Lauren B. Collister

2008-09-01

Full Text Available Twenty listeners were exposed to spoken and sung passages in English produced by three trained vocalists. Passages included representative words extracted from a large database of vocal lyrics, including both popular and classical repertoires. Target words were set within spoken or sung carrier phrases. Sung carrier phrases were selected from classical vocal melodies. Roughly a quarter of all words sung by an unaccompanied soloist were misheard. Sung passages showed a seven-fold decrease in intelligibility compared with their spoken counterparts. The perceptual mistakes occurring with vowels replicate previous studies showing the centralization of vowels. Significant confusions are also evident for consonants, especially voiced stops and nasals.

Neighborhood Influences on Emergency Medical Services Use for Acute Stroke: A Population-Based Cross-sectional Study.

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Meurer, William J; Levine, Deborah A; Kerber, Kevin A; Zahuranec, Darin B; Burke, James; Baek, Jonggyu; Sánchez, Brisa; Smith, Melinda A; Morgenstern, Lewis B; Lisabeth, Lynda D

2016-03-01

Delay to hospital arrival limits acute stroke treatment. Use of emergency medical services (EMS) is key in ensuring timely stroke care. We aim to identify neighborhoods with low EMS use and to evaluate whether neighborhood-level factors are associated with EMS use. We conducted a secondary analysis of data from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi project, a population-based stroke surveillance study of ischemic stroke and intracerebral hemorrhage cases presenting to emergency departments in Nueces County, TX. The primary outcome was arrival by EMS. The primary exposures were neighborhood resident age, poverty, and violent crime. We estimated the association of neighborhood-level factors with EMS use, using hierarchic logistic regression, controlling for individual factors (stroke severity, ethnicity, and age). During 2000 to 2009 there were 4,004 identified strokes, with EMS use data available for 3,474. Nearly half (49%) of stroke cases arrived by EMS. Adjusted stroke EMS use was lower in neighborhoods with higher family income (odds ratio [OR] 0.86; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.75 to 0.97) and a larger percentage of older adults (OR 0.70; 95% CI 0.56 to 0.89). Individual factors associated with stroke EMS use included white race (OR 1.41; 95% CI 1.13 to 1.76) and older age (OR 1.36 per 10-year age increment; 95% CI 1.27 to 1.46). The proportion of neighborhood stroke cases arriving by EMS ranged from 17% to 71%. The fully adjusted model explained only 0.3% (95% CI 0% to 1.1%) of neighborhood EMS stroke use variance, indicating that individual factors are more strongly associated with stroke EMS use than neighborhood factors. Although some neighborhood-level factors were associated with EMS use, patient-level factors explained nearly all variability in stroke EMS use. In this community, strategies to increase EMS use should target individuals rather than specific neighborhoods. Copyright © 2015 American College of Emergency Physicians. Published by

Do Individual and Neighborhood Characteristics Influence Perceived Air Quality?

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Deguen, Séverine; Padilla, Manon; Padilla, Cindy; Kihal-Talantikite, Wahida

2017-12-12

subjective and objective measures of air pollution in many population sub-groups with different combinations of individual characteristics. The relationship is less clear among the oldest population, which confirms previous findings. Our finding highlights that age combined with low level of education and unemployment, or women or health problems as well as the neighborhood deprivation index influence the level of air quality satisfaction.

Neighborhood income inequality, social capital and emotional distress among adolescents: A population-based study.

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Vilhjalmsdottir, Arndis; Gardarsdottir, Ragna B; Bernburg, Jon Gunnar; Sigfusdottir, Inga Dora

2016-08-01

Theory holds that income inequality may harm adolescent mental health by reducing social capital within neighborhood communities. However, research on this topic has been very limited. We use multilevel data on 102 public schools and 5958 adolescents in Iceland (15 and 16 years old) to examine whether income inequality within neighborhoods is associated with emotional distress in adolescents. Moreover, we test whether indicators of social capital, including social trust and embeddedness in neighborhood social networks, mediate this contextual effect. The findings show that neighborhood income inequality positively influences emotional distress of individual adolescents, net of their personal household situations and social relations. However, although the indicators of social capital negatively influence emotional distress, they do not mediate the contextual effect of neighborhood income inequality. The study illustrates the role of economic disparities in adolescent mental health, but calls for more research on the underlying social and social-psychological mechanisms. Copyright © 2016 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neighborhood Walkability and Body Mass Index Trajectories: Longitudinal Study of Canadians.

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Wasfi, Rania A; Dasgupta, Kaberi; Orpana, Heather; Ross, Nancy A

2016-05-01

To assess the impact of neighborhood walkability on body mass index (BMI) trajectories of urban Canadians. Data are from Canada's National Population Health Survey (n = 2935; biannual assessments 1994-2006). We measured walkability with the Walk Score. We modeled body mass index (BMI, defined as weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in meters [kg/m(2)]) trajectories as a function of Walk Score and sociodemographic and behavioral covariates with growth curve models and fixed-effects regression models. In men, BMI increased annually by an average of 0.13 kg/m(2) (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.11, 0.14) over the 12 years of follow-up. Moving to a high-walkable neighborhood (2 or more Walk Score quartiles higher) decreased BMI trajectories for men by approximately 1 kg/m(2) (95% CI = -1.16, -0.17). Moving to a low-walkable neighborhood increased BMI for men by approximately 0.45 kg/m(2) (95% CI = 0.01, 0.89). There was no detectable influence of neighborhood walkability on body weight for women. Our study of a large sample of urban Canadians followed for 12 years confirms that neighborhood walkability influences BMI trajectories for men, and may be influential in curtailing male age-related weight gain.

Novel Spoken Word Learning in Adults with Developmental Dyslexia

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Conner, Peggy S.

2013-01-01

A high percentage of individuals with dyslexia struggle to learn unfamiliar spoken words, creating a significant obstacle to foreign language learning after early childhood. The origin of spoken-word learning difficulties in this population, generally thought to be related to the underlying literacy deficit, is not well defined (e.g., Di Betta…

Code-switched English pronunciation modeling for Swahili spoken term detection

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Kleynhans, N

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Computer Science 81 ( 2016 ) 128 – 135 5th Workshop on Spoken Language Technology for Under-resourced Languages, SLTU 2016, 9-12 May 2016, Yogyakarta, Indonesia Code-switched English Pronunciation Modeling for Swahili Spoken Term Detection Neil...

Do neighborhood characteristics in Amsterdam influence adiposity at preschool age?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hrudey, E. Jessica; Kunst, Anton E.; Stronks, Karien; Vrijkotte, Tanja G. M.

2015-01-01

Neighborhood characteristics may contribute to adiposity in young children, but results in the current literature are inconsistent. This study aimed to investigate whether objective (socioeconomic status (SES)) and subjective (perceived safety, satisfaction with green spaces and perceived physical

Spoken word recognition without a TRACE

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Hannagan, Thomas; Magnuson, James S.; Grainger, Jonathan

2013-01-01

How do we map the rapid input of spoken language onto phonological and lexical representations over time? Attempts at psychologically-tractable computational models of spoken word recognition tend either to ignore time or to transform the temporal input into a spatial representation. TRACE, a connectionist model with broad and deep coverage of speech perception and spoken word recognition phenomena, takes the latter approach, using exclusively time-specific units at every level of representation. TRACE reduplicates featural, phonemic, and lexical inputs at every time step in a large memory trace, with rich interconnections (excitatory forward and backward connections between levels and inhibitory links within levels). As the length of the memory trace is increased, or as the phoneme and lexical inventory of the model is increased to a realistic size, this reduplication of time- (temporal position) specific units leads to a dramatic proliferation of units and connections, begging the question of whether a more efficient approach is possible. Our starting point is the observation that models of visual object recognition—including visual word recognition—have grappled with the problem of spatial invariance, and arrived at solutions other than a fully-reduplicative strategy like that of TRACE. This inspires a new model of spoken word recognition that combines time-specific phoneme representations similar to those in TRACE with higher-level representations based on string kernels: temporally independent (time invariant) diphone and lexical units. This reduces the number of necessary units and connections by several orders of magnitude relative to TRACE. Critically, we compare the new model to TRACE on a set of key phenomena, demonstrating that the new model inherits much of the behavior of TRACE and that the drastic computational savings do not come at the cost of explanatory power. PMID:24058349

Attentional Capture of Objects Referred to by Spoken Language

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Salverda, Anne Pier; Altmann, Gerry T. M.

2011-01-01

Participants saw a small number of objects in a visual display and performed a visual detection or visual-discrimination task in the context of task-irrelevant spoken distractors. In each experiment, a visual cue was presented 400 ms after the onset of a spoken word. In experiments 1 and 2, the cue was an isoluminant color change and participants…

Neighborhood fast food availability and fast food consumption.

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Oexle, Nathalie; Barnes, Timothy L; Blake, Christine E; Bell, Bethany A; Liese, Angela D

2015-09-01

Recent nutritional and public health research has focused on how the availability of various types of food in a person's immediate area or neighborhood influences his or her food choices and eating habits. It has been theorized that people living in areas with a wealth of unhealthy fast-food options may show higher levels of fast-food consumption, a factor that often coincides with being overweight or obese. However, measuring food availability in a particular area is difficult to achieve consistently: there may be differences in the strict physical locations of food options as compared to how individuals perceive their personal food availability, and various studies may use either one or both of these measures. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between weekly fast-food consumption and both a person's perceived availability of fast-food and an objective measure of fast-food presence - Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - within that person's neighborhood. A randomly selected population-based sample of eight counties in South Carolina was used to conduct a cross-sectional telephone survey assessing self-report fast-food consumption and perceived availability of fast food. GIS was used to determine the actual number of fast-food outlets within each participant's neighborhood. Using multinomial logistic regression analyses, we found that neither perceived availability nor GIS-based presence of fast-food was significantly associated with weekly fast-food consumption. Our findings indicate that availability might not be the dominant factor influencing fast-food consumption. We recommend using subjective availability measures and considering individual characteristics that could influence both perceived availability of fast food and its impact on fast-food consumption. If replicated, our findings suggest that interventions aimed at reducing fast-food consumption by limiting neighborhood fast-food availability might not be completely effective

Safety in numbers: does perceived safety mediate associations between the neighborhood social environment and physical activity among women living in disadvantaged neighborhoods?

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Timperio, Anna; Veitch, Jenny; Carver, Alison

2015-05-01

The aim of this study is to examine associations between the neighborhood social environment and leisure-time physical activity (LTPA)(1) and walking among women, and whether these associations are mediated by perceived personal safety. Women (n = 3784) living in disadvantaged urban and rural neighborhoods within Victoria, Australia completed a self-administered survey on five social environment variables (neighborhood crime, neighborhood violence, seeing others walking and exercising in the neighborhood, social trust/cohesion), perceived personal safety, and their physical activity in 2007/8. Linear regression analyses examined associations between social environment variables and LTPA and walking. Potential mediating pathways were assessed using the product-of-coefficients test. Moderated mediation by urban/rural residence was examined. Each social environment variable was positively associated with engaging in at least 150 min/week of LTPA (OR = 1.16 to 1.56). Only two social environment variables, seeing others walking (OR = 1.45) and exercising (OR = 1.31), were associated with ≥ 150 min/week of walking. Perceived personal safety mediated all associations. Stronger mediation was found in urban areas for crime, violence and social trust/cohesion. The neighborhood social environment is an important influence on physical activity among women living in disadvantaged areas. Feelings of personal safety should not be included in composite or aggregate scores relating to the social environment. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

"Now We Have Spoken."

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Zimmer, Patricia Moore

2001-01-01

Describes the author's experiences directing a play translated and acted in Korean. Notes that she had to get familiar with the sound of the language spoken fluently, to see how an actor's thought is discerned when the verbal language is not understood. Concludes that so much of understanding and communication unfolds in ways other than with…

Neighborhood differences in social capital: a compositional artifact or a contextual construct?

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Subramanian, S V; Lochner, Kimberly A; Kawachi, Ichiro

2003-03-01

Assessment of social capital at the neighborhood level is often based on aggregating individual perceptions of trust and reciprocity. Individual perceptions, meanwhile, are influenced through a range of individual attributes. This paper examines the socioeconomic and demographic attributes that systematically correlate with individual perception of social capital and determines the extent to which such attributes account for neighborhood differences in social capital. Using improved multilevel modeling procedures, we ascertain the extent to which differences in social capital perception can be ascribed to true neighborhood-level variations. The analysis is based on the 1994-95 Community Survey of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). The response measure is based on survey respondent's perceptions of whether people in their neighborhood can be trusted. The results suggest that even after accounting for individual demographic (age, sex, race, marital status) and socioeconomic characteristics (income, education), significant neighborhood differences remain in individual perceptions of trust, substantiating the notion of social capital as a true contextual construct.

Neighborhood context and health: How neighborhood social capital affects individual health

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mohnen, S.M.

2012-01-01

Does it matter for my health in which neighborhood I live? The fact is, health is determined not only by individual characteristics but also by the neighborhood in which someone lives. This thesis shows that health clusters in Dutch neighborhoods and that this is not only a composition effect (that

School Choice, Gentrification, and the Variable Significance of Racial Stratification in Urban Neighborhoods

Science.gov (United States)

Pearman, Francis A., III; Swain, Walker A.

2017-01-01

Racial and socioeconomic stratification have long governed patterns of residential sorting in the American metropolis. However, recent expansions of school choice policies that allow parents to select schools outside their neighborhood raise questions as to whether this weakening of the neighborhood-school connection might influence the…

Time course of Chinese monosyllabic spoken word recognition: evidence from ERP analyses.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Jingjing; Guo, Jingjing; Zhou, Fengying; Shu, Hua

2011-06-01

Evidence from event-related potential (ERP) analyses of English spoken words suggests that the time course of English word recognition in monosyllables is cumulative. Different types of phonological competitors (i.e., rhymes and cohorts) modulate the temporal grain of ERP components differentially (Desroches, Newman, & Joanisse, 2009). The time course of Chinese monosyllabic spoken word recognition could be different from that of English due to the differences in syllable structure between the two languages (e.g., lexical tones). The present study investigated the time course of Chinese monosyllabic spoken word recognition using ERPs to record brain responses online while subjects listened to spoken words. During the experiment, participants were asked to compare a target picture with a subsequent picture by judging whether or not these two pictures belonged to the same semantic category. The spoken word was presented between the two pictures, and participants were not required to respond during its presentation. We manipulated phonological competition by presenting spoken words that either matched or mismatched the target picture in one of the following four ways: onset mismatch, rime mismatch, tone mismatch, or syllable mismatch. In contrast to the English findings, our findings showed that the three partial mismatches (onset, rime, and tone mismatches) equally modulated the amplitudes and time courses of the N400 (a negative component that peaks about 400ms after the spoken word), whereas, the syllable mismatched words elicited an earlier and stronger N400 than the three partial mismatched words. The results shed light on the important role of syllable-level awareness in Chinese spoken word recognition and also imply that the recognition of Chinese monosyllabic words might rely more on global similarity of the whole syllable structure or syllable-based holistic processing rather than phonemic segment-based processing. We interpret the differences in spoken word

Neighborhood disadvantage and ischemic stroke: the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS).

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Arleen F; Liang, Li-Jung; Vassar, Stefanie D; Stein-Merkin, Sharon; Longstreth, W T; Ovbiagele, Bruce; Yan, Tingjian; Escarce, José J

2011-12-01

Neighborhood characteristics may influence the risk of stroke and contribute to socioeconomic disparities in stroke incidence. The objectives of this study were to examine the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and incident ischemic stroke and examine potential mediators of these associations. We analyzed data from 3834 whites and 785 blacks enrolled in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a multicenter, population-based, longitudinal study of adults ages≥65 years from 4 US counties. The primary outcome was adjudicated incident ischemic stroke. Neighborhood socioeconomic status was measured using a composite of 6 census tract variables. Race-stratified multilevel Cox proportional hazard models were constructed adjusted for sociodemographic, behavioral, and biological risk factors. Among whites, in models adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, stroke hazard was significantly higher among residents of neighborhoods in the lowest compared with the highest neighborhood socioeconomic status quartile (hazard ratio, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.01-1.72) with greater attenuation of the hazard ratio after adjustment for biological risk factors (hazard ratio, 1.16; 0.88-1.52) than for behavioral risk factors (hazard ratio, 1.30; 0.99-1.70). Among blacks, we found no significant associations between neighborhood socioeconomic status and ischemic stroke. Higher risk of incident ischemic stroke was observed in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods among whites, but not among blacks. The relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and stroke among whites appears to be mediated more strongly by biological than behavioral risk factors.

Troubled times, troubled relationships: how economic resources, gender beliefs, and neighborhood disadvantage influence intimate partner violence.

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Golden, Shelley D; Perreira, Krista M; Durrance, Christine Piette

2013-07-01

We evaluate race/ethnicity and nativity-based disparities in three different types of intimate partner violence (IPV) and examine how economic hardship, maternal economic dependency, maternal gender beliefs, and neighborhood disadvantage influence these disparities. Using nationally representative data from urban mothers of young children who are living with their intimate partners (N = 1,886), we estimate a series of unadjusted and adjusted logit models on mothers' reports of physical assault, emotional abuse, and coercion. When their children were age 3, more than one in five mothers were living with a partner who abused them. The prevalence of any IPV was highest among Hispanic (26%) and foreign-born (35%) mothers. Economic hardship, economic dependency on a romantic partner, and traditional gender beliefs each increased women's risk for exposure to one or more types of IPV, whereas neighborhood conditions were not significantly related to IPV in adjusted models. These factors also explained most of the racial/ethnic and nativity disparities in IPV. Policies and programs that reduce economic hardship among women with young children, promote women's economic independence, and foster gender equity in romantic partnerships can potentially reduce multiple forms of IPV.

Neighborhood crime and travel behavior : an investigation of the influence of neighborhood crime rates on mode choice - phase II.

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

There are considerable environmental and public health benefits if people choose to walk, bicycle, or ride transit, instead of drive. : However, little work has been done on the effects of neighborhood crimes on mode choice. Instinctively, we underst...

Neighborhood crime and travel behavior : an investigation of the influence of neighborhood crime rates on mode choice, phase II.

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

There are considerable environmental and public health benefits if people choose to walk, bicycle, or ride transit, instead of drive. However, little work has been done on the effects of neighborhood crimes on mode choice. Instinctively, we understan...

Does Neighborhood Social Capital Buffer the Effects of Maternal Depression on Adolescent Behavior Problems?

Science.gov (United States)

Mays, Vickie M.; Cochran, Susan D.

2014-01-01

Neighborhood characteristics have been shown to impact child well-being. However, it remains unclear how these factors combine with family characteristics to influence child development. The current study helps develop that understanding by investigating how neighborhoods directly impact child and adolescent behavior problems as well as moderate the influence of family characteristics on behavior. Using multilevel linear models, we examined the relationship among neighborhood conditions (poverty and social capital) and maternal depression on child and adolescent behavior problems. The sample included 741 children, age 5–11, and 564 adolescents, age 12–17. Outcomes were internalizing (e.g. anxious/depressed) and externalizing (e.g. aggressive/hyperactive) behavior problems. Neighborhood poverty and maternal depression were both positively associated with behavior problems for children and adolescents. However, while neighborhood social capital was not directly associated with behavior problems, the interaction of social capital and maternal depression was significantly related to behavior problems for adolescents. This interaction showed that living in neighborhoods with higher levels of social capital attenuated the relationship between maternal depression and adolescent behavior problems and confirmed the expectation that raising healthy well-adjusted children depends not only on the family, but also the context in which the family lives. PMID:24659390

Does neighborhood social capital buffer the effects of maternal depression on adolescent behavior problems?

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Delany-Brumsey, Ayesha; Mays, Vickie M; Cochran, Susan D

2014-06-01

Neighborhood characteristics have been shown to impact child well-being. However, it remains unclear how these factors combine with family characteristics to influence child development. The current study helps develop that understanding by investigating how neighborhoods directly impact child and adolescent behavior problems as well as moderate the influence of family characteristics on behavior. Using multilevel linear models, we examined the relationship among neighborhood conditions (poverty and social capital) and maternal depression on child and adolescent behavior problems. The sample included 741 children, age 5–11, and 564 adolescents, age 12–17. Outcomes were internalizing (e.g. anxious/depressed) and externalizing (e.g. aggressive/hyperactive) behavior problems. Neighborhood poverty and maternal depression were both positively associated with behavior problems for children and adolescents. However, while neighborhood social capital was not directly associated with behavior problems, the interaction of social capital and maternal depression was significantly related to behavior problems for adolescents. This interaction showed that living in neighborhoods with higher levels of social capital attenuated the relationship between maternal depression and adolescent behavior problems and confirmed the expectation that raising healthy well-adjusted children depends not only on the family, but also the context in which the family lives.

How Sustainable is Democratic Innovation? Tracking Neighborhood Councils in Montevideo

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Uwe Serdült

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Focusing on the relatively longstanding experience of neighborhood councils in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo (1993–, this research note seeks to analyze how sustainable democratic innovation is and to explain subsequent results. Sustainability is assessed through the evolution of citizens’ participation in elections and through the number of candidates who apply to become neighborhood councilors. For both indicators, a consistent decline in the levels of participation over time is found. This is deemed to be a consequence of an institutional design that seriously limits the performance of neighborhood councils in terms of their influence in the decision-making process and their acquisition of legitimacy and political capital.

Neighborhood Characteristics and Disability in Older Adults

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Blaney, Shannon; Cerda, Magda; Frye, Victoria; Lovasi, Gina S.; Ompad, Danielle; Rundle, Andrew; Vlahov, David

2009-01-01

Objective To characterize the influence of the residential neighborhood of older adults on the prevalence of disability. Methods We combined Census data on disability in older adults living in New York City with environmental information from a comprehensive geospatial database. We used factor analysis to derive dimensions of compositional and physical neighborhood characteristics and linear regression to model their association with levels of disability. Measures of neighborhood collective efficacy were added to these models to explore the impact of the social environment. Results Low neighborhood socioeconomic status, residential instability, living in areas with low proportions of foreign born and high proportions of Black residents, and negative street characteristics were associated with higher prevalence of both “physical” disability and “going outside the home” disability. High crime levels were additionally associated with physical disability, although this relationship disappeared when misdemeanor arrests were removed from the crime variable. Low levels of collective efficacy were associated with more going-outside-the-home disability, with racial/ethnic composition dropping out of this model to be replaced by an interaction term. Conclusion The urban environment may have a substantial impact on whether an older adult with a given level of functional impairment is able to age actively and remain independent. PMID:19181694

The Effects of Listener's Familiarity about a Talker on the Free Recall Task of Spoken Words

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Chikako Oda

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Several recent studies have examined an interaction between talker's acoustic characteristics and spoken word recognition in speech perception and have shown that listener's familiarity about a talker influences an easiness of spoken word processing. The present study examined the effect of listener's familiarity about talkers on the free recall task of words spoken by two talkers. Subjects participated in three conditions of the task: the listener has (1 explicit knowledge, (2 implicit knowledge, and (3 no knowledge of the talker. In condition (1, subjects were familiar with talker's voices and were initially informed whose voices they would hear. In condition (2, subjects were familiar with talkers' voices but were not informed whose voices they would hear. In condition (3, subjects were entirely unfamiliar with talker's voices and were not informed whose voices they would hear. We analyzed the percentage of correct answers and compared these results across three conditions. We will discuss the possibility of whether a listener's knowledge about the individual talker's acoustic characteristics stored in long term memory could reduce the quantity of the cognitive resources required in the verbal information processing.

Spoken grammar awareness raising: Does it affect the listening ability of Iranian EFL learners?

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Mojgan Rashtchi

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Advances in spoken corpora analysis have brought about new insights into language pedagogy and have led to an awareness of the characteristics of spoken language. Current findings have shown that grammar of spoken language is different from written language. However, most listening and speaking materials are concocted based on written grammar and lack core spoken language features. The aim of the present study was to explore the question whether awareness of spoken grammar features could affect learners’ comprehension of real-life conversations. To this end, 45 university students in two intact classes participated in a listening course employing corpus-based materials. The instruction of the spoken grammar features to the experimental group was done overtly through awareness raising tasks, whereas the control group, though exposed to the same materials, was not provided with such tasks for learning the features. The results of the independent samples t tests revealed that the learners in the experimental group comprehended everyday conversations much better than those in the control group. Additionally, the highly positive views of spoken grammar held by the learners, which was elicited by means of a retrospective questionnaire, were generally comparable to those reported in the literature.

Durham Neighborhood Compass Neighborhoods

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City and County of Durham, North Carolina — The Durham Neighborhood Compass is a quantitative indicators project with qualitative values, integrating data from local government, the Census Bureau and other...

Perceptions as the crucial link? The mediating role of neighborhood perceptions in the relationship between the neighborhood context and neighborhood cohesion

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lamé ris, J.G.; Hipp, J.R.; Tolsma, J.

2018-01-01

This study examines the effects of neighborhood racial in-group size, economic deprivation and the prevalence of crime on neighborhood cohesion among U.S. whites. We explore to what extent residents' perceptions of their neighborhood mediate these macro-micro relationships. We use a recent

Spoken Grammar: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?

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Carter, Ronald; McCarthy, Michael

2017-01-01

This article synthesises progress made in the description of spoken (especially conversational) grammar over the 20 years since the authors published a paper in this journal arguing for a re-thinking of grammatical description and pedagogy based on spoken corpus evidence. We begin with a glance back at the 16th century and the teaching of Latin…

Sports participation, perceived neighborhood safety, and individual cognitions: how do they interact?

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Mackenbach Johan P

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Little is known about the interaction between individual and environmental determinants of physical activity, although this may be important information for the development of effective interventions. The goal of this paper is to investigate whether perceived neighborhood safety modifies associations between individual cognitions and sports participation. Methods Cross-sectional data were obtained from residents (age 25-75 of 87 neighborhoods in the city of Eindhoven, who participated in the Dutch GLOBE study in 2004 (N = 2474. We used multilevel logistic regression to analyze the interactions between perceived neighborhood safety and individual cognitions (attitude, self-efficacy, social influence, and intention on sports participation (yes/no. Results In its association with sports participation, perceived neighborhood safety interacted significantly with self-efficacy and attitude (p Conclusions Associations between individual cognitions and sports participation depend on neighborhood circumstances, such as perceived neighborhood safety. Interventions to promote sports participation in adults should take the interaction between environmental and individual characteristics into account. More research is needed to find out the causal pathways in individual-environment interactions.

Basic speech recognition for spoken dialogues

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Heerden, C

2009-09-01

Full Text Available Spoken dialogue systems (SDSs) have great potential for information access in the developing world. However, the realisation of that potential requires the solution of several challenging problems, including the development of sufficiently accurate...

The Influence of the Phonological Neighborhood Clustering Coefficient on Spoken Word Recognition

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Chan, Kit Ying; Vitevitch, Michael S.

2009-01-01

Clustering coefficient--a measure derived from the new science of networks--refers to the proportion of phonological neighbors of a target word that are also neighbors of each other. Consider the words "bat", "hat", and "can", all of which are neighbors of the word "cat"; the words "bat" and…

China’s Neighborhood Environment and Options for Neighborhood Strategy

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

ZHOU FANGYIN

2016-01-01

Since the 18th CPC National Congress,especially since the Central Conference on Work Relating to Neighborhood Diplomacy held in October 2013,China’s neighborhood diplomacy has been energetic,proactive and promising,achieving important results in several aspects.At the same time,it is also in face of challenges

Neighborhood Quality and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from Quasi-Random Neighborhood Assignment of Immigrants

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Damm, Anna Piil

2012-01-01

of men living in the neighborhood, but positively affected by the employment rate of non-Western immigrant men and co-national men living in the neighborhood. This is strong evidence that immigrants find jobs in part through their employed immigrant and co-ethnic contacts in the neighborhood of residence...... successfully addresses the methodological problem of endogenous neighborhood selection. Taking account of location sorting, living in a socially deprived neighborhood does not affect labor market outcomes of refugee men. Furthermore, their labor market outcomes are not affected by the overall employment rate...

Mexican-American children's perspectives: neighborhood characteristics and physical activity in Texas-Mexico border colonias.

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Mier, Nelda; Lee, Chanam; Smith, Matthew Lee; Wang, Xiaohui; Irizarry, David; Avila-Rodriguez, Elias H; Trevino, Laura; Ory, Marcia G

2013-10-01

The qualitative study described in this article investigated perceptions about environmental factors influencing physical activity (PA) among children from underserved neighborhoods known as colonias in the U.S.-Mexico border. Ten focus groups were conducted with 67 Mexican-American colonia children ages 8 to 13 living in one of the poorest border counties in the U.S. Analyses indicated that PA among children was influenced by neighborhood characteristics, including litter, speeding cars, unleashed dogs, and dark streets. The children also underlined intrapersonal and social environmental factors. Findings may inform policy makers and public health professionals about ways to promote PA among underserved children through urban planning and programs focusing on PA-supportive infrastructure, neighborhood safety, and family- and home-based physical activities.

Neighborhood Environment and Self-Rated Health Among Urban Older Adults

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Arlesia Mathis PhD

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Objective: This study examines associations between neighborhood environment and self-rated health (SRH among urban older adults. Method: We selected 217 individuals aged 65+ living in a de-industrialized Midwestern city who answered questions on the 2009 Speak to Your Health survey. The relationship between neighborhood environment and SRH was analyzed using regression models. Neighborhood variables included social support and participation, perceived racism, and crime. Additional models included actual crime indices to compare differences between perceived and actual crime. Results: Seniors who have poor SRH are 21% more likely to report fear of crime than seniors with excellent SRH ( p = .01. Additional analyses revealed Black seniors are 7% less likely to participate in social activities ( p = .005 and 4% more likely to report experiencing racism ( p < .001. Discussion: More than 80% of older adults live in urban areas. By 2030, older adults will account for 20% of the U.S. population. Given the increasing numbers of older adults living in urban neighborhoods, studies such as this one are important. Mitigating environmental influences in the neighborhood that are associated with poor SRH may allow urban older adults to maintain health and reduce disability.

Spoken language outcomes after hemispherectomy: factoring in etiology.

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Curtiss, S; de Bode, S; Mathern, G W

2001-12-01

We analyzed postsurgery linguistic outcomes of 43 hemispherectomy patients operated on at UCLA. We rated spoken language (Spoken Language Rank, SLR) on a scale from 0 (no language) to 6 (mature grammar) and examined the effects of side of resection/damage, age at surgery/seizure onset, seizure control postsurgery, and etiology on language development. Etiology was defined as developmental (cortical dysplasia and prenatal stroke) and acquired pathology (Rasmussen's encephalitis and postnatal stroke). We found that clinical variables were predictive of language outcomes only when they were considered within distinct etiology groups. Specifically, children with developmental etiologies had lower SLRs than those with acquired pathologies (p =.0006); age factors correlated positively with higher SLRs only for children with acquired etiologies (p =.0006); right-sided resections led to higher SLRs only for the acquired group (p =.0008); and postsurgery seizure control correlated positively with SLR only for those with developmental etiologies (p =.0047). We argue that the variables considered are not independent predictors of spoken language outcome posthemispherectomy but should be viewed instead as characteristics of etiology. Copyright 2001 Elsevier Science.

Do psychosocial factors moderate the association between neighborhood walkability and adolescents' physical activity?

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De Meester, Femke; Van Dyck, Delfien; De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse; Deforche, Benedicte; Cardon, Greet

2013-03-01

Ecological models emphasize the interaction between individuals and their environment. Furthermore, they posit that environmental variables influence physical activity (PA) not only directly but also indirectly through their interaction with other factors. This study explored if the association between neighborhood walkability and adolescents' PA is moderated by psychosocial factors using data from the Belgian Environmental PA Study in Youth (BEPAS-Y). BEPAS-Y recruited adolescents from 32 neighborhoods differing in objectively determined neighborhood walkability and income. Between 2008 and 2009, 637 adolescents (13-15 years; 49.4% boys) completed a survey measuring socio-demographic and psychosocial factors and wore an accelerometer for seven days. Multilevel-regression analyses revealed that for adolescents living in low-income neighborhoods, the association between neighborhood walkability and PA is moderated by perceived barriers and perceived benefits toward PA. Neighborhood walkability was positively associated with PA among adolescents, living in low-income neighborhoods, who perceived many barriers and few benefits, while for adolescents who perceived few barriers and many benefits, the PA level was high, irrespective of neighborhood walkability. For adolescents, living in high-income neighborhoods, none of the psychosocial attributes moderated the association between neighborhood walkability and PA. These findings provide some support for the predicted interactions posited by ecological models. Improving neighborhood walkability might increase PA-levels of adolescents living in low-income neighborhoods, with less positive psychosocial profiles, or in other words; those who are most difficult to reach through PA interventions. However, in order to increase PA in large populations, interventions focusing solely on improving neighborhood walkability may not have the desired effect. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Recognizing Young Readers' Spoken Questions

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Chen, Wei; Mostow, Jack; Aist, Gregory

2013-01-01

Free-form spoken input would be the easiest and most natural way for young children to communicate to an intelligent tutoring system. However, achieving such a capability poses a challenge both to instruction design and to automatic speech recognition. To address the difficulties of accepting such input, we adopt the framework of predictable…

Neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation, perceived neighborhood factors, and cortisol responses to induced stress among healthy adults.

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Barrington, Wendy E; Stafford, Mai; Hamer, Mark; Beresford, Shirley A A; Koepsell, Thomas; Steptoe, Andrew

2014-05-01

Associations between measures of neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation and health have been identified, yet work is needed to uncover explanatory mechanisms. One hypothesized pathway is through stress, yet the few studies that have evaluated associations between characteristics of deprived neighborhoods and biomarkers of stress are mixed. This study evaluated whether objectively measured neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation and individual perceived neighborhood characteristics (i.e. social control and fear of crime) impacted cortisol responses to an induced stressor among older healthy adults. Data from Heart Scan, a sub-study of the Whitehall II cohort, were used to generate multilevel piecewise growth-curve models of cortisol trajectories after a laboratory stressor accounting for neighborhood and demographic characteristics. Neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation was significantly associated with individual perceptions of social control and fear of crime in the neighborhood while an association with blunted cortisol reactivity was only evidence among women. Social control was significantly associated with greater cortisol reactivity and mediation between neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation and cortisol reactivity was suggested among women. These findings support a gender-dependent role of neighborhood in stress process models of health. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Neighborhood size and local geographic variation of health and social determinants

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Emch Michael

2005-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Spatial filtering using a geographic information system (GIS is often used to smooth health and ecological data. Smoothing disease data can help us understand local (neighborhood geographic variation and ecological risk of diseases. Analyses that use small neighborhood sizes yield individualistic patterns and large sizes reveal the global structure of data where local variation is obscured. Therefore, choosing an optimal neighborhood size is important for understanding ecological associations with diseases. This paper uses Hartley's test of homogeneity of variance (Fmax as a methodological solution for selecting optimal neighborhood sizes. The data from a study area in Vietnam are used to test the suitability of this method. Results The Hartley's Fmax test was applied to spatial variables for two enteric diseases and two socioeconomic determinants. Various neighbourhood sizes were tested by using a two step process to implement the Fmaxtest. First the variance of each neighborhood was compared to the highest neighborhood variance (upper, Fmax1 and then they were compared with the lowest neighborhood variance (lower, Fmax2. A significant value of Fmax1 indicates that the neighborhood does not reveal the global structure of data, and in contrast, a significant value in Fmax2 implies that the neighborhood data are not individualistic. The neighborhoods that are between the lower and the upper limits are the optimal neighbourhood sizes. Conclusion The results of tests provide different neighbourhood sizes for different variables suggesting that optimal neighbourhood size is data dependent. In ecology, it is well known that observation scales may influence ecological inference. Therefore, selecting optimal neigborhood size is essential for understanding disease ecologies. The optimal neighbourhood selection method that is tested in this paper can be useful in health and ecological studies.

Neighborhood-Level Poverty at Menarche and Prepregnancy Obesity in African-American Women.

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Cassidy-Bushrow, Andrea E; Peters, Rosalind M; Burmeister, Charlotte; Bielak, Lawrence F; Johnson, Dayna A

2016-01-01

Introduction. Menarche is a critical time point in a woman's reproductive system development; exposures at menarche may influence maternal health. Living in a poorer neighborhood is associated with adult obesity; however, little is known if neighborhood factors at menarche are associated with prepregnancy obesity. Methods. We examined the association of neighborhood-level poverty at menarche with prepregnancy body mass index category in 144 pregnant African-American women. Address at menarche was geocoded to census tract (closest to year of menarche); neighborhood-level poverty was defined as the proportion of residents living under the federal poverty level. Cumulative logistic regression was used to examine the association of neighborhood-level poverty at menarche, in quartiles, with categorical prepregnancy BMI. Results. Before pregnancy, 59 (41%) women were obese. Compared to women in the lowest neighborhood-level poverty quartile, women in the highest quartile had 2.9 [1.2, 6.9] times higher odds of prepregnancy obesity; this was slightly attenuated after adjusting for age, marital status, education, and parity (odds ratio: 2.3 [0.9, 6.3]). Conclusions. Living in a higher poverty neighborhood at menarche is associated with prepregnancy obesity in African-American women. Future studies are needed to better understand the role of exposures in menarche on health in pregnancy.

The influence of sampling unit size and spatial arrangement patterns on neighborhood-based spatial structure analyses of forest stands

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Wang, H.; Zhang, G.; Hui, G.; Li, Y.; Hu, Y.; Zhao, Z.

2016-07-01

Aim of study: Neighborhood-based stand spatial structure parameters can quantify and characterize forest spatial structure effectively. How these neighborhood-based structure parameters are influenced by the selection of different numbers of nearest-neighbor trees is unclear, and there is some disagreement in the literature regarding the appropriate number of nearest-neighbor trees to sample around reference trees. Understanding how to efficiently characterize forest structure is critical for forest management. Area of study: Multi-species uneven-aged forests of Northern China. Material and methods: We simulated stands with different spatial structural characteristics and systematically compared their structure parameters when two to eight neighboring trees were selected. Main results: Results showed that values of uniform angle index calculated in the same stand were different with different sizes of structure unit. When tree species and sizes were completely randomly interspersed, different numbers of neighbors had little influence on mingling and dominance indices. Changes of mingling or dominance indices caused by different numbers of neighbors occurred when the tree species or size classes were not randomly interspersed and their changing characteristics can be detected according to the spatial arrangement patterns of tree species and sizes. Research highlights: The number of neighboring trees selected for analyzing stand spatial structure parameters should be fixed. We proposed that the four-tree structure unit is the best compromise between sampling accuracy and costs for practical forest management. (Author)

Congruence of Home, Social and Sex Neighborhoods among Men Who Have Sex with Men, NYCM2M Study.

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Koblin, Beryl A; Egan, James E; Nandi, Vijay; Sang, Jordan M; Cerdá, Magdalena; Tieu, Hong-Van; Ompad, Danielle C; Hoover, Donald R; Frye, Victoria

2017-06-01

Substantial literature demonstrates the influence of the neighborhood environment on health behaviors and outcomes. But limited research examines on how gay and bisexual men experience and exist in various geographic and virtual spaces and how this relates to their sexual behavior. New York City Men 2 Men (NYCM2M) was a cross-sectional study designed to identify neighborhood-level characteristics within the urban environment that influence sexual risk behaviors, substance use, and depression among men who have sex with men (MSM) living in NYC. The sample was recruited using a modified venue-based time-space sampling methodology and through select websites and mobile applications. Whether key neighborhoods of human activity, where a participant resided (termed home), socialized (termed social), or had sex most often (termed sex), were the same or different was evaluated. "Congruence" (or the sameness) of home, social, and most often sex neighborhood was reported by 17 % of men, while 30 % reported that none of their neighborhoods were the same. The largest group of men (39 %) reported that their home and sex neighborhoods were the same but their social neighborhood was different while 10 % reported that their home neighborhood was different than their social and sex neighborhood; 5 % men reported same home and social neighborhoods with a different sex neighborhood. Complete neighborhood incongruence was highest among men who were Black and/or Latino, had lower education and personal income levels, and had greater financial insecurity. In adjusted analysis, serodiscordant condomless anal intercourse and condomless anal intercourse with partners from the Internet or mobile applications were significantly associated with having the same social and sex (but not home) neighborhoods. Understanding the complexity of how different spaces and places relate to the health and sexual behavior of MSM is essential for focusing interventions to best reach various populations

Perceived neighborhood characteristics predict severity and emotional response to daily stressors.

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Scott, Stacey B; Munoz, Elizabeth; Mogle, Jacqueline A; Gamaldo, Alyssa A; Smyth, Joshua M; Almeida, David M; Sliwinski, Martin J

2018-03-01

Neighborhood characteristics may influence health and well-being outcomes through stressors in daily life. This study tested whether a varied set of perceived characteristics of neighborhood (i.e., social cohesion, safety, aesthetic quality, violence) predicted stressor frequency and severity as well as negative emotional responses to stressors. We predicted greater reported cohesion and safety and less violence would be associated with less frequent stressor exposure and severity and less intense negative affect following stressors; we conducted subsequent tests of neighborhood aesthetic quality as a predictor. Participants (n = 233, age 25-65 years) were residents in a socio-economically, racially, and ethnically diverse zip code in Bronx, New York, most who participated in the Effects of Stress on Cognitive Aging, Physiology and Emotion study between 2012 and 2013. They provided demographic information and neighborhood ratings, then participated in the EMA protocol in which they completed brief smartphone surveys of current negative affect and stressor exposure, severity, and recency, five times daily for 14 days. No coded neighborhood characteristic was related to the frequency of stressors. Individuals who reported greater neighborhood violence, however, rated their stressors as more severe. Individuals rating their neighborhood lower in safety or aesthetic quality, or higher in violence, had greater negative affect following stressors. Even among people living within the same zip code, individual differences in perceptions of neighborhood predict how stressful they appraised stressors in daily life to be and how much negative affect they reported following stressors. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Interaction between parenting and neighborhood quality on the risk of adolescent regular smoking.

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Wen, Xiaozhong; Shenassa, Edmond D

2012-03-01

To conduct the first study to examine potential interaction between parenting style and neighborhood quality on the risk of adolescent regular smoking. We analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents (n = 1,213 pairs of adolescents and their parents) who participated in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics during 2002-2003. Regular smoking behavior and parental monitoring level were reported by adolescents. Parenting style (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved) was defined by cross-classifying self-reported parental warmth and control. Based on parents' perceived neighborhood quality regarding raising children, neighborhoods were identified as either higher quality or lower quality. Adolescents in lower-quality neighborhoods were more likely to be regular smokers (13.7% vs. 8.5%; adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.93, 95% CI = 1.02-3.65) than those in higher-quality neighborhoods. In lower-quality neighborhoods, adolescents of authoritarian parents (16.9%; AOR = 10.97, 95% CI = 3.36-35.84) were more likely and those of uninvolved parents (20.3%; AOR = 3.47, 95% CI = 0.91-13.17) were marginally more likely to be regular smokers than those of authoritative parents (4.3%). However, among adolescents in higher-quality neighborhoods, parenting style was independent of the risk of regular smoking. There was marginally significant interaction between authoritarian parenting style and neighborhood quality. Parental monitoring was associated with reduced risk of adolescent smoking, regardless of neighborhood quality. There was no interaction between parental monitoring and neighborhood quality. Authoritative parenting is associated with reduced risk of adolescent regular smoking in lower-quality neighborhoods but not in higher-quality neighborhoods. Authoritative parenting style and parental monitoring may buffer adverse influences of low-quality neighborhood.

The association of neighborhood social capital and ethnic (minority) density with pregnancy outcomes in the Netherlands.

Science.gov (United States)

Schölmerich, Vera L N; Erdem, Özcan; Borsboom, Gerard; Ghorashi, Halleh; Groenewegen, Peter; Steegers, Eric A P; Kawachi, Ichiro; Denktaş, Semiha

2014-01-01

Perinatal morbidity rates are relatively high in the Netherlands, and significant inequalities in perinatal morbidity and mortality can be found across neighborhoods. In socioeconomically deprived areas, 'Western' women are particularly at risk for adverse birth outcomes. Almost all studies to date have explained the disparities in terms of individual determinants of birth outcomes. This study examines the influence of neighborhood contextual characteristics on birth weight (adjusted for gestational age) and preterm birth. We focused on the influence of neighborhood social capital--measured as informal socializing and social connections between neighbors--as well as ethnic (minority) density. Data on birth weight and prematurity were obtained from the Perinatal Registration Netherlands 2000-2008 dataset, containing 97% of all pregnancies. Neighborhood-level measurements were obtained from three different sources, comprising both survey and registration data. We included 3.422 neighborhoods and 1.527.565 pregnancies for the birth weight analysis and 1.549.285 pregnancies for the premature birth analysis. Linear and logistic multilevel regression was performed to assess the associations of individual and neighborhood level variables with birth weight and preterm birth. We found modest but significant neighborhood effects on birth weight and preterm births. The effect of ethnic (minority) density was stronger than that of neighborhood social capital. Moreover, ethnic (minority) density was associated with higher birth weight for infants of non-Western ethnic minority women compared to Western women (15 grams; 95% CI: 12,4/17,5) as well as reduced risk for prematurity (OR 0.97; CI 0,95/0,99). Our results indicate that neighborhood contexts are associated with birth weight and preterm birth in the Netherlands. Moreover, ethnic (minority) density seems to be a protective factor for non-Western ethnic minority women, but not for Western women. This helps explain the

Examining the social porosity of environmental features on neighborhood sociability and attachment.

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John R Hipp

Full Text Available The local neighborhood forms an integral part of our lives. It provides the context through which social networks are nurtured and the foundation from which a sense of attachment and cohesion with fellow residents can be established. Whereas much of the previous research has examined the role of social and demographic characteristic in relation to the level of neighboring and cohesion, this paper explores whether particular environmental features in the neighborhood affect social porosity. We define social porosity as the degree to which social ties flow over the surface of a neighborhood. The focus of our paper is to examine the extent to which a neighborhood's environmental features impede the level of social porosity present among residents. To do this, we integrate data from the census, topographic databases and a 2010 survey of 4,351 residents from 146 neighborhoods in Australia. The study introduces the concepts of wedges and social holes. The presence of two sources of wedges is measured: rivers and highways. The presence of two sources of social holes is measured: parks and industrial areas. Borrowing from the geography literature, several measures are constructed to capture how these features collectively carve up the physical environment of neighborhoods. We then consider how this influences residents' neighboring behavior, their level of attachment to the neighborhood and their sense of neighborhood cohesion. We find that the distance of a neighborhood to one form of social hole-industrial areas-has a particularly strong negative effect on all three dependent variables. The presence of the other form of social hole-parks-has a weaker negative effect. Neighborhood wedges also impact social interaction. Both the length of a river and the number of highway fragments in a neighborhood has a consistent negative effect on neighboring, attachment and cohesion.

Connecting Schools to Neighborhood Revitalization: The Case of the Maple Heights Neighborhood Association

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Pesch, Lawrence P.

2014-01-01

This case study focuses on the way a neighborhood association connects schools to broad change in an urban neighborhood of a large Midwestern city. The first section provides a review of the literature on community involvement in school and neighborhood reform. It reviews the historical origins of the current school-community relationship, the…

Aging in Place in Gentrifying Neighborhoods: Implications for Physical and Mental Health.

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Smith, Richard J; Lehning, Amanda J; Kim, Kyeongmo

2018-01-18

In the United States, the older adult population and the proportion of neighborhoods experiencing gentrification are both growing. However, there is limited scholarship on the effects of gentrification on older adults, with most work focusing on those who leave rather than stay. This study examines the effects of remaining in a gentrifying neighborhood on older adults' self-rated health and mental health, with particular attention to outcomes for those who are economically vulnerable. Data are from 6,810 community-dwelling respondents in metropolitan areas from the first wave of the National Health & Aging Trends Study combined with the 1970-2010 National Neighborhood Change Database. We estimate the effects of gentrification on self-rated health and mental health separately using a quasi-experimental approach and comparing two methods: matching design and linear regression. Economically vulnerable older adults in gentrifying neighborhoods reported higher self-rated health than economically vulnerable older adults in low-income neighborhoods. Both economically vulnerable and higher-income older adults in gentrifying neighborhoods had more depression and anxiety symptoms than those living in more affluent areas. Higher-income older adults in gentrifying neighborhoods had poorer mental health than their counterparts in low-income neighborhoods. Findings call attention to the complexity of gentrification, and the need for more research examining how the intersection of neighborhood and individual characteristics influences older adults' health. Results reinforce the need for neighborhood-level interventions as well as relocation support to promote health in later life and caution against an overemphasis on aging in place. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The Plausibility of Tonal Evolution in the Malay Dialect Spoken in Thailand: Evidence from an Acoustic Study

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Phanintra Teeranon

2007-12-01

Full Text Available The F0 values of vowels following voiceless consonants are higher than those of vowels following voiced consonants; high vowels have a higher F0 than low vowels. It has also been found that when high vowels follow voiced consonants, the F0 values decrease. In contrast, low vowels following voiceless consonants show increasing F0 values. In other words, the voicing of initial consonants has been found to counterbalance the intrinsic F0 values of high and low vowels (House and Fairbanks 1953, Lehiste and Peterson 1961, Lehiste 1970, Laver 1994, Teeranon 2006. To test whether these three findings are applicable to a disyllabic language, the F0 values of high and low vowels following voiceless and voiced consonants were studied in a Malay dialect of the Austronesian language family spoken in Pathumthani Province, Thailand. The data was collected from three male informants, aged 30-35. The Praat program was used for acoustic analysis. The findings revealed the influence of the voicing of initial consonants on the F0 of vowels to be greater than that of the influence of vowel height. Evidence from this acoustic study shows the plausibility for the Malay dialect spoken in Pathumthani to become a tonal language by the influence of initial consonants rather by the influence of the high-low vowel dimension.

The Listening and Spoken Language Data Repository: Design and Project Overview

Science.gov (United States)

Bradham, Tamala S.; Fonnesbeck, Christopher; Toll, Alice; Hecht, Barbara F.

2018-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of the Listening and Spoken Language Data Repository (LSL-DR) was to address a critical need for a systemwide outcome data-monitoring program for the development of listening and spoken language skills in highly specialized educational programs for children with hearing loss highlighted in Goal 3b of the 2007 Joint Committee…

Talker and background noise specificity in spoken word recognition memory

OpenAIRE

Cooper, Angela; Bradlow, Ann R.

2017-01-01

Prior research has demonstrated that listeners are sensitive to changes in the indexical (talker-specific) characteristics of speech input, suggesting that these signal-intrinsic features are integrally encoded in memory for spoken words. Given that listeners frequently must contend with concurrent environmental noise, to what extent do they also encode signal-extrinsic details? Native English listeners’ explicit memory for spoken English monosyllabic and disyllabic words was assessed as a fu...

Where we used to live: validating retrospective measures of childhood neighborhood context for life course epidemiologic studies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Theresa L Osypuk

Full Text Available Early life exposures influence numerous social determinants of health, as distal causes or confounders of later health outcomes. Although a growing literature is documenting how early life socioeconomic position affects later life health, few epidemiologic studies have tested measures for operationalizing early life neighborhood context, or examined their effects on later life health. In the Life-course Influences on Fetal Environments (LIFE Study, a retrospective cohort study among Black women in Southfield, Michigan (71% response rate, we tested the validity and reliability of retrospectively-reported survey-based subjective measures of early life neighborhood context(N=693. We compared 3 subjective childhood neighborhood measures (disorder, informal social control, victimization, with 3 objective childhood neighborhood measures derived from 4 decades of historical census tract data 1970-2000, linked through geocoded residential histories (tract % poverty, tract % black, tract deprivation score derived from principal components analysis, as well as with 2 subjective neighborhood measures in adulthood. Our results documented that internal consistency reliability was high for the subjective childhood neighborhood scales (Cronbach's α =0.89, 0.93. Comparison of subjective with objective childhood neighborhood measures found moderate associations in hypothesized directions. Associations with objective variables were strongest for neighborhood disorder (rhos=.40, as opposed to with social control or victimization. Associations between subjective neighborhood context in childhood versus adulthood were moderate and stronger for residentially-stable populations. We lastly formally tested for, but found little evidence of, recall bias of the retrospective subjective reports of childhood context. These results provide evidence that retrospective reports of subjective neighborhood context may be a cost-effective, valid, and reliable method to

Where we used to live: validating retrospective measures of childhood neighborhood context for life course epidemiologic studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Osypuk, Theresa L; Kehm, Rebecca; Misra, Dawn P

2015-01-01

Early life exposures influence numerous social determinants of health, as distal causes or confounders of later health outcomes. Although a growing literature is documenting how early life socioeconomic position affects later life health, few epidemiologic studies have tested measures for operationalizing early life neighborhood context, or examined their effects on later life health. In the Life-course Influences on Fetal Environments (LIFE) Study, a retrospective cohort study among Black women in Southfield, Michigan (71% response rate), we tested the validity and reliability of retrospectively-reported survey-based subjective measures of early life neighborhood context(N=693). We compared 3 subjective childhood neighborhood measures (disorder, informal social control, victimization), with 3 objective childhood neighborhood measures derived from 4 decades of historical census tract data 1970-2000, linked through geocoded residential histories (tract % poverty, tract % black, tract deprivation score derived from principal components analysis), as well as with 2 subjective neighborhood measures in adulthood. Our results documented that internal consistency reliability was high for the subjective childhood neighborhood scales (Cronbach's α =0.89, 0.93). Comparison of subjective with objective childhood neighborhood measures found moderate associations in hypothesized directions. Associations with objective variables were strongest for neighborhood disorder (rhos=.40), as opposed to with social control or victimization. Associations between subjective neighborhood context in childhood versus adulthood were moderate and stronger for residentially-stable populations. We lastly formally tested for, but found little evidence of, recall bias of the retrospective subjective reports of childhood context. These results provide evidence that retrospective reports of subjective neighborhood context may be a cost-effective, valid, and reliable method to operationalize early

The Synergy of Family and Neighborhood on Rural Dating Violence Victimization.

Science.gov (United States)

Foshee, Vangie A; Chang, Ling-Yin; McNaughton Reyes, H Luz; Chen, May S; Ennett, Susan T

2015-09-01

Rural adolescents are at high risk for dating violence victimization (DVV), which has serious negative consequences. Understanding more about the conditions that increase DVV risk for rural adolescents is needed to inform prevention efforts. In response to calls for examining the influence of upper levels of the social ecology on adolescent dating violence, this study examined whether associations between the family context and physical DVV were conditioned by the characteristics of the neighborhoods in which the family resided. Data were from a multi-wave longitudinal study of 3,236 rural adolescents nested in 65 block groups, which defined neighborhoods. Data were collected between 2003 and 2005. Multilevel growth curve modeling was conducted in 2014 to test hypothesized synergistic effects of the family and neighborhood on trajectories of physical DVV from grade 8 to 12. Low parental closeness was a DVV risk in residentially stable (pFamily aggression was a DVV risk, regardless of neighborhood characteristics (p=0.001). Low parental monitoring and rule setting were not DVV risks and their effects were not moderated by neighborhood characteristics. Neighborhood ethnic heterogeneity was significantly (pviolence were not associated with DVV. None of the effects varied by sex of the adolescent, across time (grade), or by the combination of sex and time. Findings demonstrate the importance of considering the family and neighborhood, and particularly their synergistic effects in efforts to prevent adolescent DVV. Copyright © 2015 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Neighborhood socioeconomic context and cognitive decline among older Mexican Americans: results from the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeki Al Hazzouri, Adina; Haan, Mary N; Osypuk, Theresa; Abdou, Cleopatra; Hinton, Ladson; Aiello, Allison E

2011-08-15

In 1 previous study, it was shown that neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with cognitive decline among Latinos. No studies have explored whether and to what extent individual-level socioeconomic factors account for the relation between neighborhood disadvantage and cognitive decline. The purpose of the present study was to assess the influence of neighborhood socioeconomic position (SEP) on cognitive decline and examine how individual-level SEP factors (educational level, annual income, and occupation) influenced neighborhood associations over the course of 10 years. Participants (n = 1,789) were community-dwelling older Mexican Americans from the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging. Neighborhood SEP was derived by linking the participant's individual data to the 2000 decennial census. The authors assessed cognitive function with the Modified Mini-Mental State Examination. Analyses used 3-level hierarchical linear mixed models of time within individuals within neighborhoods. After adjustment for individual-level sociodemographic characteristics, higher neighborhood SEP was significantly associated with cognitive function (β = -0.033; P cognition but not with rates of decline. Differences in individual educational levels explained most of the intra- and interneighborhood variance. These results suggest that the effect of neighborhood SEP on cognitive decline among Latinos is primarily accounted for by education.

THE RECOGNITION OF SPOKEN MONO-MORPHEMIC COMPOUNDS IN CHINESE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu-da Lai

2012-12-01

Full Text Available This paper explores the auditory lexical access of mono-morphemic compounds in Chinese as a way of understanding the role of orthography in the recognition of spoken words. In traditional Chinese linguistics, a compound is a word written with two or more characters whether or not they are morphemic. A monomorphemic compound may either be a binding word, written with characters that only appear in this one word, or a non-binding word, written with characters that are chosen for their pronunciation but that also appear in other words. Our goal was to determine if this purely orthographic difference affects auditory lexical access by conducting a series of four experiments with materials matched by whole-word frequency, syllable frequency, cross-syllable predictability, cohort size, and acoustic duration, but differing in binding. An auditory lexical decision task (LDT found an orthographic effect: binding words were recognized more quickly than non-binding words. However, this effect disappeared in an auditory repetition and in a visual LDT with the same materials, implying that the orthographic effect during auditory lexical access was localized to the decision component and involved the influence of cross-character predictability without the activation of orthographic representations. This claim was further confirmed by overall faster recognition of spoken binding words in a cross-modal LDT with different types of visual interference. The theoretical and practical consequences of these findings are discussed.

Asian/Pacific Islander Languages Spoken by English Learners (ELs). Fast Facts

Science.gov (United States)

Office of English Language Acquisition, US Department of Education, 2015

2015-01-01

The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) has synthesized key data on English learners (ELs) into two-page PDF sheets, by topic, with graphics, plus key contacts. The topics for this report on Asian/Pacific Islander languages spoken by English Learners (ELs) include: (1) Top 10 Most Common Asian/Pacific Islander Languages Spoken Among ELs:…

The neighborhood context of racial and ethnic disparities in arrest.

Science.gov (United States)

Kirk, David S

2008-02-01

This study assesses the role of social context in explaining racial and ethnic disparities in arrest, with afocus on how distinct neighborhood contexts in which different racial and ethnic groups reside explain variations in criminal outcomes. To do so, I utilize a multilevel, longitudinal research design, combining individual-level data with contextual data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Findings reveal that black youths face multiple layers of disadvantage relative to other racial and ethnic groups, and these layers work to create differences in arrest. At the family level, results show that disadvantages in the form of unstable family structures explain much of the disparities in arrest across race and ethnicity. At the neighborhood level, black youths tend to reside in areas with both significantly higher levels of concentrated poverty than other youths as well as lower levels of collective efficacy than white youths. Variations in neighborhood tolerance of deviance across groups explain little of the arrest disparities, yet tolerance of deviance does influence the frequency with which a crime ultimately ends in an arrest. Even after accounting for relevant demographic, family, and neighborhood-level predictors, substantial residual arrest differences remain between black youths and youths of other racial and ethnic groups.

Measuring physical neighborhood quality related to health.

Science.gov (United States)

Rollings, Kimberly A; Wells, Nancy M; Evans, Gary W

2015-04-29

Although sociodemographic factors are one aspect of understanding the effects of neighborhood environments on health, equating neighborhood quality with socioeconomic status ignores the important role of physical neighborhood attributes. Prior work on neighborhood environments and health has relied primarily on level of socioeconomic disadvantage as the indicator of neighborhood quality without attention to physical neighborhood quality. A small but increasing number of studies have assessed neighborhood physical characteristics. Findings generally indicate that there is an association between living in deprived neighborhoods and poor health outcomes, but rigorous evidence linking specific physical neighborhood attributes to particular health outcomes is lacking. This paper discusses the methodological challenges and limitations of measuring physical neighborhood environments relevant to health and concludes with proposed directions for future work.

NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND THE GENDER GAP IN ADOLESCENT VIOLENT CRIME.

Science.gov (United States)

Zimmerman, Gregory M; Messner, Steven F

2010-12-01

Although researchers consistently demonstrate that females engage in less criminal behavior than males across the life course, research on the variability of the gender gap across contexts is sparse. To address this issue, we examine the gender gap in self-reported violent crime among adolescents across neighborhoods. Multilevel models using data from the Project of Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) indicate that the gender gap in violent crime decreases as levels of neighborhood disadvantage increase. Further, the narrowing of the gender gap is explained by gender differences in peer influence on violent offending. Neighborhood disadvantage increases exposure to peer violence for both sexes, but peer violence has a stronger impact on violent offending for females than for males, producing the reduction in the gender gap at higher levels of disadvantage. We also find that the gender difference in the relationship between peer violence and offending is explained, in part, by (1) the tendency for females to have more intimate friendships than males, and (2) the moderating effect of peer intimacy on the relationship between peer violence and self-reported violent behavior.

Racial/Ethnic Differences in the Relationship Between Neighborhood Disadvantage and Adolescent Substance Use.

Science.gov (United States)

Fagan, Abigail A; Wright, Emily M; Pinchevsky, Gillian M

2013-01-01

Although social disorganization theory hypothesizes that neighborhood characteristics influence youth delinquency, the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on adolescent substance use and racial/ethnic differences in this relationship have not been widely investigated. The present study examines these issues using longitudinal data from 1,856 African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian adolescents participating in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). The results indicated that neighborhood disadvantage did not significantly increase the likelihood of substance use for the full sample. When relationships were analyzed by race/ethnicity, one significant ( p ≤ .10) effect was found; disadvantage increased alcohol use among African Americans only. The size of this effect differed significantly between African American and Hispanic youth. In no other cases did race/ethnicity moderate the impact of disadvantage on substance use. These results suggest that disadvantage is not a strong predictor of adolescent substance use, although other features of the neighborhood may affect such behaviors.

Processing spoken lectures in resource-scarce environments

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Van Heerden, CJ

2011-11-01

Full Text Available and then adapting or training new models using the segmented spoken lectures. The eventual systems perform quite well, aligning more than 90% of a selected set of target words successfully....

Longitudinal Associations of Neighborhood Collective Efficacy and Maternal Corporal Punishment with Behavior Problems in Early Childhood

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Julie; Grogan-Kaylor, Andrew

2017-01-01

Neighborhood and parenting influences on early behavioral outcomes are strongly dependent upon a child's stage of development. However, little research has jointly considered the longitudinal associations of neighborhood and parenting processes with behavior problems in early childhood. To address this limitation, this study explores the…

Fast food price, diet behavior, and cardiometabolic health: differential associations by neighborhood SES and neighborhood fast food restaurants in the CARDIA Study

Science.gov (United States)

Gordon-Larsen, Penny; Rummo, Pasquale E.; Meyer, Katie A.; Howard, Annie Green; Shikany, James M.; Guilkey, David K.

2015-01-01

Little research has addressed whether neighborhood context influences associations between fast food price, diet, and cardiometabolic health. We investigated these associations using 25 years of Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study data (n=4,469, observations=21,134). We found a negative association between fast food price and consumption, with stronger inverse associations in more (vs. less) deprived neighborhoods [3rd tertile: β=−0.68 (95% CI: (−0.85, −0.51); 1st tertile: β=−0.22 (95% CI: −0.42, −0.02) ; p-interaction-0.002], and a similar association for BMI [3rd tertile: β=−1.34 (95% CI: −1.54, −1.14); 1st tertile: β=−0.45 (95% CI: −0.66, −0.25); p-interactionfast food price by fast food availability. Future research on obesity disparities should consider potential differences in the association between fast food prices and health outcomes across neighborhood socioeconomic levels. PMID:26319447

Impact of neighborhood separation on the spatial reciprocity in the prisoner’s dilemma game

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xia, Chengyi; Miao, Qin; Zhang, Juanjuan

2013-01-01

Highlights: • We present a novel game model in which interaction and learning neighborhood is not identical. • The separation between interaction and learning neighborhood can largely influence the cooperative behaviors. • Monte Carlo simulations are utilized to verify the evolution of cooperation. • When IN is fixed to be 4, medium-sized LN = 8 is the optimal size to promote the cooperation. • When LN is fixed to be 4, the cooperation can also be highly enhanced when IN > 4. -- Abstract: The evolutionary game theory is a very powerful tool to understand the collective cooperation behavior in many real-world systems. In the spatial game model, the payoff is often first obtained within a specific neighborhood (i.e., interaction neighborhood) and then the focal player imitates or learns the behavior of a randomly selected one inside another neighborhood which is named after the learning neighborhood. However, most studies often assume that the interaction neighborhood is identical with the learning neighborhood. Beyond this assumption, we present a spatial prisoner’s dilemma game model to discuss the impact of separation between interaction neighborhood and learning neighborhood on the cooperative behaviors among players on the square lattice. Extensive numerical simulations demonstrate that separating the interaction neighborhood from the learning neighborhood can dramatically affect the density of cooperators (ρ C ) in the population at the stationary state. In particular, compared to the standard case, we find that the medium-sized learning (interaction) neighborhood allows the cooperators to thrive and substantially favors the evolution of cooperation and ρ C can be greatly elevated when the interaction (learning) neighborhood is fixed, that is, too little or much information is not beneficial for players to make the contributions for the collective cooperation. Current results are conducive to further analyzing and understanding the emergence of

Neighborhood effects in a behavioral randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Pruitt, Sandi L; Leonard, Tammy; Murdoch, James; Hughes, Amy; McQueen, Amy; Gupta, Samir

2014-11-01

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of interventions intended to modify health behaviors may be influenced by neighborhood effects which can impede unbiased estimation of intervention effects. Examining a RCT designed to increase colorectal cancer (CRC) screening (N=5628), we found statistically significant neighborhood effects: average CRC test use among neighboring study participants was significantly and positively associated with individual patient's CRC test use. This potentially important spatially-varying covariate has not previously been considered in a RCT. Our results suggest that future RCTs of health behavior interventions should assess potential social interactions between participants, which may cause intervention arm contamination and may bias effect size estimation. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mapping Students' Spoken Conceptions of Equality

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Anakin, Megan

2013-01-01

This study expands contemporary theorising about students' conceptions of equality. A nationally representative sample of New Zealand students' were asked to provide a spoken numerical response and an explanation as they solved an arithmetic additive missing number problem. Students' responses were conceptualised as acts of communication and…

In a Manner of Speaking: Assessing Frequent Spoken Figurative Idioms to Assist ESL/EFL Teachers

Science.gov (United States)

Grant, Lynn E.

2007-01-01

This article outlines criteria to define a figurative idiom, and then compares the frequent figurative idioms identified in two sources of spoken American English (academic and contemporary) to their frequency in spoken British English. This is done by searching the spoken part of the British National Corpus (BNC), to see whether they are frequent…

Neighborhood spaces

OpenAIRE

D. C. Kent; Won Keun Min

2002-01-01

Neighborhood spaces, pretopological spaces, and closure spaces are topological space generalizations which can be characterized by means of their associated interior (or closure) operators. The category NBD of neighborhood spaces and continuous maps contains PRTOP as a bicoreflective subcategory and CLS as a bireflective subcategory, whereas TOP is bireflectively embedded in PRTOP and bicoreflectively embedded in CLS. Initial and final structures are described in these categories, and it is s...

Effect of cross-level interaction between individual and neighborhood socioeconomic status on adult mortality rates.

Science.gov (United States)

Winkleby, Marilyn; Cubbin, Catherine; Ahn, David

2006-12-01

We examined whether the influence of neighborhood-level socioeconomic status (SES) on mortality differed by individual-level SES. We used a population-based, mortality follow-up study of 4476 women and 3721 men, who were predominately non-HIspanic White and aged 25-74 years at baseline, from 82 neighborhoods in 4 California cities. Participants were surveyed between 1979 and 1990, and were followed until December 31, 2002 (1148 deaths; mean follow-up time 17.4 years). Neighborhood SES was defined by 5 census variables and was divided into 3 levels. Individual SES was defined by a composite of educational level and household income and was divided into tertiles. Death rates among women of low SES were highest in high-SES neighborhoods (1907/100000 person-years), lower in moderate-SES neighborhoods (1323), and lowest in low-SES neighborhoods (1128). Similar to women, rates among men of low SES were 1928, 1646, and 1590 in high-, moderate-, and low-SES neighborhoods, respectively. Differences were not explained by individual-level baseline risk factors. The disparities in mortality by neighborhood of residence among women and men of low SES demonstrate that they do not benefit from the higher quality of resources and knowledge generally associated with neighborhoods that have higher SES.

Association between neighborhood need and spatial access to food stores and fast food restaurants in neighborhoods of colonias.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharkey, Joseph R; Horel, Scott; Han, Daikwon; Huber, John C

2009-02-16

To determine the extent to which neighborhood needs (socioeconomic deprivation and vehicle availability) are associated with two criteria of food environment access: 1) distance to the nearest food store and fast food restaurant and 2) coverage (number) of food stores and fast food restaurants within a specified network distance of neighborhood areas of colonias, using ground-truthed methods. Data included locational points for 315 food stores and 204 fast food restaurants, and neighborhood characteristics from the 2000 U.S. Census for the 197 census block group (CBG) study area. Neighborhood deprivation and vehicle availability were calculated for each CBG. Minimum distance was determined by calculating network distance from the population-weighted center of each CBG to the nearest supercenter, supermarket, grocery, convenience store, dollar store, mass merchandiser, and fast food restaurant. Coverage was determined by calculating the number of each type of food store and fast food restaurant within a network distance of 1, 3, and 5 miles of each population-weighted CBG center. Neighborhood need and access were examined using Spearman ranked correlations, spatial autocorrelation, and multivariate regression models that adjusted for population density. Overall, neighborhoods had best access to convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and dollar stores. After adjusting for population density, residents in neighborhoods with increased deprivation had to travel a significantly greater distance to the nearest supercenter or supermarket, grocery store, mass merchandiser, dollar store, and pharmacy for food items. The results were quite different for association of need with the number of stores within 1 mile. Deprivation was only associated with fast food restaurants; greater deprivation was associated with fewer fast food restaurants within 1 mile. CBG with greater lack of vehicle availability had slightly better access to more supercenters or supermarkets, grocery

Association between neighborhood need and spatial access to food stores and fast food restaurants in neighborhoods of Colonias

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Han Daikwon

2009-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Objective To determine the extent to which neighborhood needs (socioeconomic deprivation and vehicle availability are associated with two criteria of food environment access: 1 distance to the nearest food store and fast food restaurant and 2 coverage (number of food stores and fast food restaurants within a specified network distance of neighborhood areas of colonias, using ground-truthed methods. Methods Data included locational points for 315 food stores and 204 fast food restaurants, and neighborhood characteristics from the 2000 U.S. Census for the 197 census block group (CBG study area. Neighborhood deprivation and vehicle availability were calculated for each CBG. Minimum distance was determined by calculating network distance from the population-weighted center of each CBG to the nearest supercenter, supermarket, grocery, convenience store, dollar store, mass merchandiser, and fast food restaurant. Coverage was determined by calculating the number of each type of food store and fast food restaurant within a network distance of 1, 3, and 5 miles of each population-weighted CBG center. Neighborhood need and access were examined using Spearman ranked correlations, spatial autocorrelation, and multivariate regression models that adjusted for population density. Results Overall, neighborhoods had best access to convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and dollar stores. After adjusting for population density, residents in neighborhoods with increased deprivation had to travel a significantly greater distance to the nearest supercenter or supermarket, grocery store, mass merchandiser, dollar store, and pharmacy for food items. The results were quite different for association of need with the number of stores within 1 mile. Deprivation was only associated with fast food restaurants; greater deprivation was associated with fewer fast food restaurants within 1 mile. CBG with greater lack of vehicle availability had slightly better

Neighborhood Qualification of the Association between Parenting and Problem Behavior Trajectories among Mexican-origin Father-Adolescent Dyads

Science.gov (United States)

White, Rebecca M. B.; Liu, Yu; Gonzales, Nancy A.; Knight, George P.; Tein, Jenn-Yun

2016-01-01

To address the combined importance of fathers and neighborhoods for adolescent adjustment, we examined whether associations between fathers' parenting and adolescents' problem behaviors were qualified by neighborhood adversity. We captured both mainstream (e.g., authoritative) and alternative (e.g., no-nonsense, reduced involvement) parenting styles and examined parenting and neighborhood effects on changes over time in problem behaviors among a sample of Mexican-origin father-adolescent dyads (N = 462). Compared to their counterparts in low-adversity neighborhoods, adolescents in high-adversity neighborhoods experienced greater initial benefits from authoritative fathering, greater long-term benefits from no-nonsense fathering, and fewer costs associated with reduced involvement fathering. The combined influences of alternative paternal parenting styles and neighborhood adversity may set ethnic and racial minority adolescents on different developmental pathways to competence. PMID:28453217

Word frequencies in written and spoken English based on the British National Corpus

CERN Document Server

Leech, Geoffrey; Wilson, Andrew (All Of Lancaster University)

2014-01-01

Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English is a landmark volume in the development of vocabulary frequency studies. Whereas previous books have in general given frequency information about the written language only, this book provides information on both speech and writing. It not only gives information about the language as a whole, but also about the differences between spoken and written English, and between different spoken and written varieties of the language. The frequencies are derived from a wide ranging and up-to-date corpus of English: the British Na

Increased consumer density reduces the strength of neighborhood effects in a model system.

Science.gov (United States)

Merwin, Andrew C; Underwood, Nora; Inouye, Brian D

2017-11-01

An individual's susceptibility to attack can be influenced by conspecific and heterospecifics neighbors. Predicting how these neighborhood effects contribute to population-level processes such as competition and evolution requires an understanding of how the strength of neighborhood effects is modified by changes in the abundances of both consumers and neighboring resource species. We show for the first time that consumer density can interact with the density and frequency of neighboring organisms to determine the magnitude of neighborhood effects. We used the bean beetle, Callosobruchus maculatus, and two of its host beans, Vigna unguiculata and V. radiata, to perform a response-surface experiment with a range of resource densities and three consumer densities. At low beetle density, damage to beans was reduced with increasing conspecific density (i.e., resource dilution) and damage to the less preferred host, V. unguiculata, was reduced with increasing V. radiata frequency (i.e., frequency-dependent associational resistance). As beetle density increased, however, neighborhood effects were reduced; at the highest beetle densities neither focal nor neighboring resource density nor frequency influenced damage. These findings illustrate the importance of consumer density in mediating indirect effects among resources, and suggest that accounting for consumer density may improve our ability to predict population-level outcomes of neighborhood effects and our use of them in applications such as mixed-crop pest management. © 2017 by the Ecological Society of America.

The Impact of African American Parents’ Racial Discrimination Experiences and Perceived Neighborhood Cohesion on their Racial Socialization Practices

Science.gov (United States)

English, Devin; Busby, Danielle R.; Lambert, Sharon F.; Harrison, Aubrey; Stock, Michelle L.; Gibbons, Frederick X.

2016-01-01

Parental racial socialization is a parenting tool used to prepare African American adolescents for managing racial stressors. While it is known that parents’ racial discrimination experiences affect the racial socialization messages they provide, little is known about the influence of factors that promote supportive and communal parenting, such as perceived neighborhood cohesion. In cohesive neighborhoods, neighbors may help parents address racial discrimination by monitoring youth and conveying racial socialization messages; additionally, the effect of neighborhood cohesion on parents’ racial socialization may differ for boys and girls because parents socialize adolescents about race differently based on expected encounters with racial discrimination. Therefore, the current study examines how parents’ perception of neighborhood cohesion and adolescents’ gender moderate associations between parents’ racial discrimination experiences and the racial socialization messages they deliver to their adolescents. Participants were a community sample of 608 African American adolescents (54 % girls; mean age = 15.5) and their primary caregivers (86 % biological mothers; mean age = 42.0). Structural equation modeling indicated that parental racial discrimination was associated with more promotion of mistrust messages for boys and girls in communities with low neighborhood cohesion. In addition, parental racial discrimination was associated with more cultural socialization messages about racial pride and history for boys in neighborhoods with low neighborhood cohesion. The findings suggest that parents’ racial socialization messages are influenced by their own racial discrimination experiences and the cohesiveness of the neighborhood; furthermore, the content of parental messages delivered varies based on adolescents’ gender. PMID:27189721

Fast food price, diet behavior, and cardiometabolic health: Differential associations by neighborhood SES and neighborhood fast food restaurant availability in the CARDIA study.

Science.gov (United States)

Rummo, Pasquale E; Meyer, Katie A; Green Howard, Annie; Shikany, James M; Guilkey, David K; Gordon-Larsen, Penny

2015-09-01

Little research has addressed whether neighborhood context influences associations between fast food price, diet, and cardiometabolic health. We investigated these associations using 25 years of Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study data (n=4,469, observations=21,134). We found a negative association between fast food price and consumption, with stronger inverse associations in more (vs. less) deprived neighborhoods [3rd tertile: β=-0.68 (95% CI: (-0.85, -0.51); 1st tertile: β=-0.22 (95% CI: -0.42, -0.02); p-interaction-0.002], and a similar association for BMI [3rd tertile: β=-1.34 (95% CI: -1.54, -1.14); 1st tertile: β=-0.45 (95% CI: -0.66, -0.25); p-interactionfast food price by fast food availability. Future research on obesity disparities should consider potential differences in the association between fast food prices and health outcomes across neighborhood socioeconomic levels. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Community, Democracy, and Neighborhood News.

Science.gov (United States)

Hindman, Elizabeth Blanks

1998-01-01

Contributes to scholarship on democracy, community, and journalism by examining the interplay between communication, democracy, and community at an inner-city neighborhood newspaper. Concludes that, through its focus on neighborhood culture, acknowledgment of conflict, and attempts to provide a forum for the neighborhood's self-definition, the…

Czech spoken in Bohemia and Moravia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Šimáčková, Š.; Podlipský, V.J.; Chládková, K.

2012-01-01

As a western Slavic language of the Indo-European family, Czech is closest to Slovak and Polish. It is spoken as a native language by nearly 10 million people in the Czech Republic (Czech Statistical Office n.d.). About two million people living abroad, mostly in the USA, Canada, Austria, Germany,

The Association of Neighborhood Social Capital and Ethnic (Minority) Density with Pregnancy Outcomes in the Netherlands

Science.gov (United States)

Schölmerich, Vera L. N.; Erdem, Özcan; Borsboom, Gerard; Ghorashi, Halleh; Groenewegen, Peter; Steegers, Eric A. P.; Kawachi, Ichiro; Denktaş, Semiha

2014-01-01

Background Perinatal morbidity rates are relatively high in the Netherlands, and significant inequalities in perinatal morbidity and mortality can be found across neighborhoods. In socioeconomically deprived areas, ‘Western’ women are particularly at risk for adverse birth outcomes. Almost all studies to date have explained the disparities in terms of individual determinants of birth outcomes. This study examines the influence of neighborhood contextual characteristics on birth weight (adjusted for gestational age) and preterm birth. We focused on the influence of neighborhood social capital – measured as informal socializing and social connections between neighbors – as well as ethnic (minority) density. Methods Data on birth weight and prematurity were obtained from the Perinatal Registration Netherlands 2000–2008 dataset, containing 97% of all pregnancies. Neighborhood-level measurements were obtained from three different sources, comprising both survey and registration data. We included 3.422 neighborhoods and 1.527.565 pregnancies for the birth weight analysis and 1.549.285 pregnancies for the premature birth analysis. Linear and logistic multilevel regression was performed to assess the associations of individual and neighborhood level variables with birth weight and preterm birth. Results We found modest but significant neighborhood effects on birth weight and preterm births. The effect of ethnic (minority) density was stronger than that of neighborhood social capital. Moreover, ethnic (minority) density was associated with higher birth weight for infants of non-Western ethnic minority women compared to Western women (15 grams; 95% CI: 12,4/17,5) as well as reduced risk for prematurity (OR 0.97; CI 0,95/0,99). Conclusions Our results indicate that neighborhood contexts are associated with birth weight and preterm birth in the Netherlands. Moreover, ethnic (minority) density seems to be a protective factor for non-Western ethnic minority women, but

The association of neighborhood social capital and ethnic (minority density with pregnancy outcomes in the Netherlands.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vera L N Schölmerich

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Perinatal morbidity rates are relatively high in the Netherlands, and significant inequalities in perinatal morbidity and mortality can be found across neighborhoods. In socioeconomically deprived areas, 'Western' women are particularly at risk for adverse birth outcomes. Almost all studies to date have explained the disparities in terms of individual determinants of birth outcomes. This study examines the influence of neighborhood contextual characteristics on birth weight (adjusted for gestational age and preterm birth. We focused on the influence of neighborhood social capital--measured as informal socializing and social connections between neighbors--as well as ethnic (minority density. METHODS: Data on birth weight and prematurity were obtained from the Perinatal Registration Netherlands 2000-2008 dataset, containing 97% of all pregnancies. Neighborhood-level measurements were obtained from three different sources, comprising both survey and registration data. We included 3.422 neighborhoods and 1.527.565 pregnancies for the birth weight analysis and 1.549.285 pregnancies for the premature birth analysis. Linear and logistic multilevel regression was performed to assess the associations of individual and neighborhood level variables with birth weight and preterm birth. RESULTS: We found modest but significant neighborhood effects on birth weight and preterm births. The effect of ethnic (minority density was stronger than that of neighborhood social capital. Moreover, ethnic (minority density was associated with higher birth weight for infants of non-Western ethnic minority women compared to Western women (15 grams; 95% CI: 12,4/17,5 as well as reduced risk for prematurity (OR 0.97; CI 0,95/0,99. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that neighborhood contexts are associated with birth weight and preterm birth in the Netherlands. Moreover, ethnic (minority density seems to be a protective factor for non-Western ethnic minority women

Neighborhood Deprivation and Childhood Asthma Outcomes, Accounting for Insurance Coverage.

Science.gov (United States)

Nkoy, Flory L; Stone, Bryan L; Knighton, Andrew J; Fassl, Bernhard A; Johnson, Joseph M; Maloney, Christopher G; Savitz, Lucy A

2018-01-09

Collecting social determinants data is challenging. We assigned patients a neighborhood-level social determinant measure, the area of deprivation index (ADI), by using census data. We then assessed the association between neighborhood deprivation and asthma hospitalization outcomes and tested the influence of insurance coverage. A retrospective cohort study of children 2 to 17 years old admitted for asthma at 8 hospitals. An administrative database was used to collect patient data, including hospitalization outcomes and neighborhood deprivation status (ADI scores), which were grouped into quintiles (ADI 1, the least deprived neighborhoods; ADI 5, the most deprived neighborhoods). We used multivariable models, adjusting for covariates, to assess the associations and added a neighborhood deprivation status and insurance coverage interaction term. A total of 2270 children (median age 5 years; 40.6% girls) were admitted for asthma. We noted that higher ADI quintiles were associated with greater length of stay, higher cost, and more asthma readmissions ( P < .05 for most quintiles). Having public insurance was independently associated with greater length of stay (β: 1.171; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.117-1.228; P < .001), higher cost (β: 1.147; 95% CI: 1.093-1.203; P < .001), and higher readmission odds (odds ratio: 1.81; 95% CI: 1.46-2.24; P < .001). There was a significant deprivation-insurance effect modification, with public insurance associated with worse outcomes and private insurance with better outcomes across ADI quintiles ( P < .05 for most combinations). Neighborhood-level ADI measure is associated with asthma hospitalization outcomes. However, insurance coverage modifies this relationship and needs to be considered when using the ADI to identify and address health care disparities. Copyright © 2018 by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Perceived School and Neighborhood Safety, Neighborhood Violence and Academic Achievement in Urban School Children

Science.gov (United States)

AJ, Milam; CDM, Furr-Holden; PJ, Leaf

2010-01-01

Community and school violence continue to be a major public health problem, especially among urban children and adolescents. Little research has focused on the effect of school safety and neighborhood violence on academic performance. This study examines the effect of the school and neighborhood climate on academic achievement among a population of 3rd-5th grade students in an urban public school system. Community and school safety were assessed using the School Climate Survey, an annual city-wide assessment of student’s perception of school and community safety. Community violence was measured using the Neighborhood Inventory for Environmental Typology, an objective observational assessment of neighborhood characteristics. Academic achievement was measured using the Maryland State Assessment (MSA), a standardized exam given to all Maryland 3rd-8th graders. School Climate Data and MSA data were aggregated by school and grade. Objective assessments of neighborhood environment and students’ self-reported school and neighborhood safety were both strongly associated with academic performance. Increasing neighborhood violence was associated with statistically significant decreases from 4.2%-8.7% in math and reading achievement; increasing perceived safety was associated with significant increases in achievement from 16%-22%. These preliminary findings highlight the adverse impact of perceived safety and community violence exposure on primary school children’s academic performance. PMID:21197388

SPOKEN CUZCO QUECHUA, UNITS 7-12.

Science.gov (United States)

SOLA, DONALD F.; AND OTHERS

THIS SECOND VOLUME OF AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN SPOKEN CUZCO QUECHUA ALSO COMPRISES ENOUGH MATERIAL FOR ONE INTENSIVE SUMMER SESSION COURSE OR ONE SEMESTER OF SEMI-INTENSIVE INSTRUCTION (120 CLASS HOURS). THE METHOD OF PRESENTATION IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME AS IN THE FIRST VOLUME WITH FURTHER CONTRASTIVE, LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH-QUECHUA…

SPOKEN COCHABAMBA QUECHUA, UNITS 13-24.

Science.gov (United States)

LASTRA, YOLANDA; SOLA, DONALD F.

UNITS 13-24 OF THE SPOKEN COCHABAMBA QUECHUA COURSE FOLLOW THE GENERAL FORMAT OF THE FIRST VOLUME (UNITS 1-12). THIS SECOND VOLUME IS INTENDED FOR USE IN AN INTERMEDIATE OR ADVANCED COURSE AND INCLUDES MORE COMPLEX DIALOGS, CONVERSATIONS, "LISTENING-INS," AND DICTATIONS, AS WELL AS GRAMMAR AND EXERCISE SECTIONS COVERING ADDITIONAL…

Neighborhood perceptions and hypertension among low-income black women: a qualitative study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maliyhah Al-Bayan

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The majority of studies examining the role of neighborhoods and hypertension-related outcomes have been quantitative in nature and very few studies have examined specific disadvantaged populations, including low-income housing residents. The objective of this study was to use qualitative interviews to explore low-income Black women’s perceptions of their neighborhoods and to understand how those perceptions may affect their health, especially as it relates to blood pressure. Methods Seventeen Black female participants, living in public housing communities in New York City, completed one semi-structured, audiotaped interview in July of 2014. All interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed for emerging themes using N’Vivo 10 software. Results Three major themes emerged: (1 social connectedness, (2 stress factors, and (3 availability of food options. For example, factors that caused stress varied throughout the study population. Sources of stress included family members, employment, and uncleanliness within the neighborhood. Many participants attributed their stress to personal issues, such as lack of employment and relationships. In addition, the general consensus among many participants was that there should be a greater density of healthy food options in their neighborhoods. Some believed that the pricing of fresh foods in the neighborhoods should better reflect the financial status of the residents in the community. Conclusions Various neighborhood influences, including neighborhood disorder and lack of healthy food options, are factors that appear to increase Black women’s risk of developing high blood pressure. Implications of this research include the need to develop interventions that promote good neighborhood infrastructure (e.g. healthy food stores to encourage good nutrition habits and well-lit walking paths to encourage daily exercise, in addition to interventions that increase hypertension awareness in

Allophones, not phonemes in spoken-word recognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mitterer, H.A.; Reinisch, E.; McQueen, J.M.

2018-01-01

What are the phonological representations that listeners use to map information about the segmental content of speech onto the mental lexicon during spoken-word recognition? Recent evidence from perceptual-learning paradigms seems to support (context-dependent) allophones as the basic

NEIGHBORHOOD CONTEXT AND THE GENDER GAP IN ADOLESCENT VIOLENT CRIME*

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Zimmerman, Gregory M.; Messner, Steven F.

2011-01-01

Although researchers consistently demonstrate that females engage in less criminal behavior than males across the life course, research on the variability of the gender gap across contexts is sparse. To address this issue, we examine the gender gap in self-reported violent crime among adolescents across neighborhoods. Multilevel models using data from the Project of Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) indicate that the gender gap in violent crime decreases as levels of neighborhood disadvantage increase. Further, the narrowing of the gender gap is explained by gender differences in peer influence on violent offending. Neighborhood disadvantage increases exposure to peer violence for both sexes, but peer violence has a stronger impact on violent offending for females than for males, producing the reduction in the gender gap at higher levels of disadvantage. We also find that the gender difference in the relationship between peer violence and offending is explained, in part, by (1) the tendency for females to have more intimate friendships than males, and (2) the moderating effect of peer intimacy on the relationship between peer violence and self-reported violent behavior. PMID:21709751

Spoken Spanish Language Development at the High School Level: A Mixed-Methods Study

Science.gov (United States)

Moeller, Aleidine J.; Theiler, Janine

2014-01-01

Communicative approaches to teaching language have emphasized the centrality of oral proficiency in the language acquisition process, but research investigating oral proficiency has been surprisingly limited, yielding an incomplete understanding of spoken language development. This study investigated the development of spoken language at the high…

Neighborhood Quality and Labor Market Outcomes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Damm, Anna Piil

of men living in the neighborhood, but positively affected by the employment rate of non-Western immigrant men and co-national men living in the neighborhood. This is strong evidence that immigrants find jobs in part through their employed immigrant and co-ethnic contacts in the neighborhood of residence...... successfully addresses the methodological problem of endogenous neighborhood selection. Taking account of location sorting, living in a socially deprived neighborhood does not affect labor market outcomes of refugee men. Furthermore, their labor market outcomes are not affected by the overall employment rate...

"Poetry Does Really Educate": An Interview with Spoken Word Poet Luka Lesson

Science.gov (United States)

Xerri, Daniel

2016-01-01

Spoken word poetry is a means of engaging young people with a genre that has often been much maligned in classrooms all over the world. This interview with the Australian spoken word poet Luka Lesson explores issues that are of pressing concern to poetry education. These include the idea that engagement with poetry in schools can be enhanced by…

Neighborhood cohesion, neighborhood disorder, and cardiometabolic risk.

Science.gov (United States)

Robinette, Jennifer W; Charles, Susan T; Gruenewald, Tara L

2018-02-01

Perceptions of neighborhood disorder (trash, vandalism) and cohesion (neighbors trust one another) are related to residents' health. Affective and behavioral factors have been identified, but often in studies using geographically select samples. We use a nationally representative sample (n = 9032) of United States older adults from the Health and Retirement Study to examine cardiometabolic risk in relation to perceptions of neighborhood cohesion and disorder. Lower cohesion is significantly related to greater cardiometabolic risk in 2006/2008 and predicts greater risk four years later (2010/2012). The longitudinal relation is partially accounted for by anxiety and physical activity. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Understanding the density of nonprofit organizations across Los Angeles neighborhoods: Does concentrated disadvantage and violent crime matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Wo, James C

2018-03-01

Although some urban sociology perspectives suggest how certain sociodeomgraphic characteristics influence nonprofit development, there is a dearth of empirical research to assess neighborhood differences in nonprofit organizations. The goal of the current study is to build upon the extant literature by examining how both concentrated disadvantage and violent crime impact nonprofit density across neighborhoods. Using data from Los Angeles census tracts from 2010 to 2012, I test for linear and nonlinear influences that these two neighborhood factors might exert on nonprofit density. Poisson regression models show that concentrated disadvantage has a nonlinear (U-shaped) effect on all forms of nonprofit density, whereas violent crime has a linear and deleterious effect on all forms of nonprofit density. These results provide important new insights for urban sociology and policy; most importantly, the extent to which neighborhoods with ongoing social problems can later respond to such problems via access to nonprofit organizations. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Systematic Social Observation of Children's Neighborhoods Using Google Street View: A Reliable and Cost-Effective Method

Science.gov (United States)

Odgers, Candice L.; Caspi, Avshalom; Bates, Christopher J.; Sampson, Robert J.; Moffitt, Terrie E.

2012-01-01

Background: Children growing up in poor versus affluent neighborhoods are more likely to spend time in prison, develop health problems and die at an early age. The question of how neighborhood conditions influence our behavior and health has attracted the attention of public health officials and scholars for generations. Online tools are now…

Sedentary behaviors of adults in relation to neighborhood walkability and income.

Science.gov (United States)

Kozo, Justine; Sallis, James F; Conway, Terry L; Kerr, Jacqueline; Cain, Kelli; Saelens, Brian E; Frank, Lawrence D; Owen, Neville

2012-11-01

Sedentary (sitting) time is a newly identified risk factor for obesity and chronic diseases, which is behaviorally and physiologically distinct from lack of physical activity. To inform public health approaches to influencing sedentary behaviors, an understanding of correlates is required. Participants were 2,199 adults aged 20-66 years living in King County/Seattle, WA, and Baltimore, MD, regions, recruited from neighborhoods high or low on a "walkability index" (derived from objective built environment indicators) and having high or low median incomes. Cross-sectional associations of walkability and income with total sedentary time (measured by accelerometers and by self-report) and with self-reported time in seven specific sitting-related behaviors were examined. Neighborhood walkability and income were unrelated to measures of total sitting time. Lower neighborhood walkability was significantly associated with more driving time (difference of 18.2 min/day, p walkability was not related to total sedentary time but was related to two specific sedentary behaviors associated with risk for obesity-driving time and TV viewing time. Future research could examine how these prevalent and often prolonged sedentary behaviors mediate relationships between neighborhood walkability and overweight/obesity. Initiatives to reduce chronic disease risk among residents of both higher-and lower-income low-walkable neighborhoods should include a focus on reducing TV viewing time and other sedentary behaviors and enacting policies that can lead to the development or redevelopment of more-walkable neighborhoods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Aging in Neighborhoods Differing in Walkability and Income: Associations with Physical Activity and Obesity in Older Adults

Science.gov (United States)

King, Abby C.; Sallis, James F.; Frank, Lawrence D.; Saelens, Brian E.; Cain, Kelli; Conway, Terry L.; Chapman, James E.; Ahn, David K.; Kerr, Jacqueline

2011-01-01

While there is a growing literature on the relations between neighborhood design and health factors such as physical activity and obesity, less focus has been placed on older adults, who may be particularly vulnerable to environmental influences. This study evaluates the relations among objectively measured neighborhood design, mobility impairment, and physical activity and body weight in two U.S. regional samples of community dwelling older adults living in neighborhoods differing in walkability and income levels. An observational design involving two time points six months apart was employed between 2005–2008. U.S. Census block groups in Seattle-King County, Washington and Baltimore. Maryland-Washington DC regions were selected via geographic information systems to maximize variability in walkability and income. Participants were 719 adults ages 66 years and older who were able to complete surveys in English and walk at least 10 feet continuously. Measurements included reported walking or bicycling for errands (i.e., transport activity) and other outdoor aerobic activities measured via the CHAMPS questionnaire: accelerometry-based moderate-to-vigorous physical activity; reported body mass index; and reported lower-extremity mobility impairment measured via the Late-Life Function and Disability Instrument. Across regions, time, and neighborhood income, older adults living in more walkable neighborhoods had more transport activity and moderate-to- vigorous physical activity and lower body mass index relative to those living in less walkable neighborhoods. The most mobility-impaired adults living in more walkable neighborhoods reported transport activity levels that were similar to less mobility-impaired adults living in less walkable neighborhoods. The results add to the small literature aimed at understanding how neighborhood design may influence physical activity and related aspects of health linked with day-to-day function and independence as people age. PMID

Who Gentrifies Low-Income Neighborhoods?

Science.gov (United States)

McKinnish, Terra; Walsh, Randall; White, T Kirk

2010-03-01

This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long Form data, to study demographic processes in neighborhoods that gentrified during the 1990's. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined census-tract level, with a narrower definition of gentrification and more closely matched comparison neighborhoods. Furthermore, our access to individual-level data with census tract identifiers allows us to separately identify recent in-migrants and long-term residents. Our results indicate that, on average, the demographic flows associated with the gentrification of urban neighborhoods during the 1990's are not consistent with displacement and harm to minority households. In fact, taken as a whole, our results suggest that gentrification of predominantly black neighborhoods creates neighborhoods that are attractive to middle-class black households.

Neighborhood-Specific and General Social Support: Which Buffers the Effect of Neighborhood Disorder on Depression?

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Joongbaeck; Ross, Catherine E.

2009-01-01

Is neighborhood-specific social support the most effective type of social support for buffering the effect of neighborhood disorder on depression? Matching theory suggests that it is. The authors extend the research on neighborhood disorder and adult depression by showing that individuals who have higher levels of both general and…

Direct and indirect effects of neighborhood characteristics on the perpetration of dating violence across adolescence.

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Ling-Yin; Foshee, Vangie A; Reyes, Heathe Luz McNaughton; Ennett, Susan T; Halpern, Carolyn T

2015-03-01

Neighborhood context plays a role in the development of adolescent health risk behaviors, but few studies have investigated the influence of neighborhoods on the perpetration of dating violence. This longitudinal study examined the direct effects of risky neighborhood structural and physical characteristics on trajectories of the perpetration of dating violence, tested whether collective efficacy mediated these relationships, and determined if the effects varied by the sex of the adolescent. Adolescent data are from a multi-wave longitudinal study from grades 8 to 12; neighborhood data were collected from parents' interviews and U.S. Census data. Multilevel growth curve models were conducted with 3,218 students; the sample was 50% male, 41% White, 50% Black, and 9% other race/ethnicity. In models examining risky neighborhood variables one at a time, and controlling for potential individual-level confounders, the sex of the adolescent interacted with economic disadvantage, residential instability, and physical disorder; these risky neighborhood characteristics increased risk for girls' but not boys' perpetrating of dating violence. In full models with all of the risky neighborhood variables, the sex of the adolescent continued to interact with neighborhood economic disadvantage; living in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods increased girls' but not boys' risk for dating violence across all ages. No other risky neighborhood effects were found for boys or girls. Collective efficacy did not mediate the relationships between other neighborhood characteristics and the outcome. These findings suggest that dating violence prevention strategies for girls should consider the contexts in which they live rather than only targeting changes in their individual characteristics.

Biomechanically Preferred Consonant-Vowel Combinations Fail to Appear in Adult Spoken Corpora

Science.gov (United States)

Whalen, D. H.; Giulivi, Sara; Nam, Hosung; Levitt, Andrea G.; Hallé, Pierre; Goldstein, Louis M.

2012-01-01

Certain consonant/vowel (CV) combinations are more frequent than would be expected from the individual C and V frequencies alone, both in babbling and, to a lesser extent, in adult language, based on dictionary counts: Labial consonants co-occur with central vowels more often than chance would dictate; coronals co-occur with front vowels, and velars with back vowels (Davis & MacNeilage, 1994). Plausible biomechanical explanations have been proposed, but it is also possible that infants are mirroring the frequency of the CVs that they hear. As noted, previous assessments of adult language were based on dictionaries; these “type” counts are incommensurate with the babbling measures, which are necessarily “token” counts. We analyzed the tokens in two spoken corpora for English, two for French and one for Mandarin. We found that the adult spoken CV preferences correlated with the type counts for Mandarin and French, not for English. Correlations between the adult spoken corpora and the babbling results had all three possible outcomes: significantly positive (French), uncorrelated (Mandarin), and significantly negative (English). There were no correlations of the dictionary data with the babbling results when we consider all nine combinations of consonants and vowels. The results indicate that spoken frequencies of CV combinations can differ from dictionary (type) counts and that the CV preferences apparent in babbling are biomechanically driven and can ignore the frequencies of CVs in the ambient spoken language. PMID:23420980

SPOKEN AYACUCHO QUECHUA, UNITS 11-20.

Science.gov (United States)

PARKER, GARY J.; SOLA, DONALD F.

THE ESSENTIALS OF AYACUCHO GRAMMAR WERE PRESENTED IN THE FIRST VOLUME OF THIS SERIES, SPOKEN AYACUCHO QUECHUA, UNITS 1-10. THE 10 UNITS IN THIS VOLUME (11-20) ARE INTENDED FOR USE IN AN INTERMEDIATE OR ADVANCED COURSE, AND PRESENT THE STUDENT WITH LENGTHIER AND MORE COMPLEX DIALOGS, CONVERSATIONS, "LISTENING-INS," AND DICTATIONS AS WELL…

Urbanism, Neighborhood Context, and Social Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Cornwell, Erin York; Behler, Rachel L

2015-09-01

Theories of urbanism suggest that the urban context erodes individuals' strong social ties with friends and family. Recent research has narrowed focus to the neighborhood context, emphasizing how localized structural disadvantage affects community-level cohesion and social capital. In this paper, we argue that neighborhood context also shapes social ties with friends and family- particularly for community-dwelling seniors. We hypothesize that neighborhood disadvantage, residential instability, and disorder restrict residents' abilities to cultivate close relationships with neighbors and non-neighbor friends and family. Using data from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), we find that older adults who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods have smaller social networks. Neighborhood disadvantage is also associated with less close network ties and less frequent interaction - but only among men. Furthermore, residents of disordered neighborhoods have smaller networks and weaker ties. We urge scholars to pay greater attention to how neighborhood context contributes to disparities in network-based access to resources.

An Alternative to Residential Neighborhoods: An Exploratory Study of How Activity Spaces and Perception of Neighborhood Social Processes Relate to Maladaptive Parenting

Science.gov (United States)

Freisthler, Bridget; Thomas, Crystal A.; Curry, Susanna R.; Wolf, Jennifer Price

2016-01-01

Background: The environments where parents spend time, such as at work, at their child's school, or with friends and family, may exert a greater influence on their parenting behaviors than the residential neighborhoods where they live. These environments, termed activity spaces, provide individualized information about the where parents go,…

Spoken Sentence Production in College Students with Dyslexia: Working Memory and Vocabulary Effects

Science.gov (United States)

Wiseheart, Rebecca; Altmann, Lori J. P.

2018-01-01

Background: Individuals with dyslexia demonstrate syntactic difficulties on tasks of language comprehension, yet little is known about spoken language production in this population. Aims: To investigate whether spoken sentence production in college students with dyslexia is less proficient than in typical readers, and to determine whether group…

From spoken narratives to domain knowledge: mining linguistic data for medical image understanding.

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Xuan; Yu, Qi; Alm, Cecilia Ovesdotter; Calvelli, Cara; Pelz, Jeff B; Shi, Pengcheng; Haake, Anne R

2014-10-01

Extracting useful visual clues from medical images allowing accurate diagnoses requires physicians' domain knowledge acquired through years of systematic study and clinical training. This is especially true in the dermatology domain, a medical specialty that requires physicians to have image inspection experience. Automating or at least aiding such efforts requires understanding physicians' reasoning processes and their use of domain knowledge. Mining physicians' references to medical concepts in narratives during image-based diagnosis of a disease is an interesting research topic that can help reveal experts' reasoning processes. It can also be a useful resource to assist with design of information technologies for image use and for image case-based medical education systems. We collected data for analyzing physicians' diagnostic reasoning processes by conducting an experiment that recorded their spoken descriptions during inspection of dermatology images. In this paper we focus on the benefit of physicians' spoken descriptions and provide a general workflow for mining medical domain knowledge based on linguistic data from these narratives. The challenge of a medical image case can influence the accuracy of the diagnosis as well as how physicians pursue the diagnostic process. Accordingly, we define two lexical metrics for physicians' narratives--lexical consensus score and top N relatedness score--and evaluate their usefulness by assessing the diagnostic challenge levels of corresponding medical images. We also report on clustering medical images based on anchor concepts obtained from physicians' medical term usage. These analyses are based on physicians' spoken narratives that have been preprocessed by incorporating the Unified Medical Language System for detecting medical concepts. The image rankings based on lexical consensus score and on top 1 relatedness score are well correlated with those based on challenge levels (Spearman correlation>0.5 and Kendall

Promoting walking in older adults: Perceived neighborhood walkability influences the effectiveness of motivational messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Notthoff, Nanna; Carstensen, Laura L

2017-06-01

Positively framed messages seem to promote walking in older adults better than negatively framed messages. This study targeted elderly people in communities unfavorable to walking. Walking was measured with pedometers during baseline (1 week) and intervention (4 weeks). Participants ( n = 74) were informed about either the benefits of walking or the negative consequences of not walking. Perceived neighborhood walkability was assessed with a modified version of the Neighborhood Walkability Scale. When perceived walkability was high, positively framed messages were more effective than negatively framed messages in promoting walking; when perceived walkability was low, negatively framed messages were comparably effective to positively framed messages.

The Impact of African American Parents' Racial Discrimination Experiences and Perceived Neighborhood Cohesion on their Racial Socialization Practices.

Science.gov (United States)

Saleem, Farzana T; English, Devin; Busby, Danielle R; Lambert, Sharon F; Harrison, Aubrey; Stock, Michelle L; Gibbons, Frederick X

2016-07-01

Parental racial socialization is a parenting tool used to prepare African American adolescents for managing racial stressors. While it is known that parents' racial discrimination experiences affect the racial socialization messages they provide, little is known about the influence of factors that promote supportive and communal parenting, such as perceived neighborhood cohesion. In cohesive neighborhoods, neighbors may help parents address racial discrimination by monitoring youth and conveying racial socialization messages; additionally, the effect of neighborhood cohesion on parents' racial socialization may differ for boys and girls because parents socialize adolescents about race differently based on expected encounters with racial discrimination. Therefore, the current study examines how parents' perception of neighborhood cohesion and adolescents' gender moderate associations between parents' racial discrimination experiences and the racial socialization messages they deliver to their adolescents. Participants were a community sample of 608 African American adolescents (54 % girls; mean age = 15.5) and their primary caregivers (86 % biological mothers; mean age = 42.0). Structural equation modeling indicated that parental racial discrimination was associated with more promotion of mistrust messages for boys and girls in communities with low neighborhood cohesion. In addition, parental racial discrimination was associated with more cultural socialization messages about racial pride and history for boys in neighborhoods with low neighborhood cohesion. The findings suggest that parents' racial socialization messages are influenced by their own racial discrimination experiences and the cohesiveness of the neighborhood; furthermore, the content of parental messages delivered varies based on adolescents' gender.

ELSIE: The Quick Reaction Spoken Language Translation (QRSLT)

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Montgomery, Christine

2000-01-01

The objective of this effort was to develop a prototype, hand-held or body-mounted spoken language translator to assist military and law enforcement personnel in interacting with non-English-speaking people...

Using Spoken Language to Facilitate Military Transportation Planning

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Bates, Madeleine; Ellard, Dan; Peterson, Pat; Shaked, Varda

1991-01-01

.... In an effort to demonstrate the relevance of SIS technology to real-world military applications, BBN has undertaken the task of providing a spoken language interface to DART, a system for military...

Insights into failed lexical retrieval from network science.

Science.gov (United States)

Vitevitch, Michael S; Chan, Kit Ying; Goldstein, Rutherford

2014-02-01

Previous network analyses of the phonological lexicon (Vitevitch, 2008) observed a web-like structure that exhibited assortative mixing by degree: words with dense phonological neighborhoods tend to have as neighbors words that also have dense phonological neighborhoods, and words with sparse phonological neighborhoods tend to have as neighbors words that also have sparse phonological neighborhoods. Given the role that assortative mixing by degree plays in network resilience, we examined instances of real and simulated lexical retrieval failures in computer simulations, analysis of a slips-of-the-ear corpus, and three psycholinguistic experiments for evidence of this network characteristic in human behavior. The results of the various analyses support the hypothesis that the structure of words in the mental lexicon influences lexical processing. The implications of network science for current models of spoken word recognition, language processing, and cognitive psychology more generally are discussed. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Associations of Neighborhood and Family Factors with Trajectories of Physical and Social Aggression During Adolescence

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Karriker-Jaffe, Katherine J.; Foshee, Vangie A.; Ennett, Susan T.; Suchindran, Chirayath

2013-01-01

Adolescents develop within multiple contexts that synergistically influence their behavior and health. To understand the simultaneous influence of neighborhood and family contexts on adolescents, this study examined relationships of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, neighborhood social disorganization, family conflict, parent-child bonding and parental control with trajectories of physical and social aggression. The sample included 5,118 adolescents between ages 11 and 18 (50% female, 52% Caucasian) living in predominantly rural areas. Multilevel growth curve models showed an interaction between neighborhood disadvantage, family conflict and gender on the physical aggression trajectories. The interaction suggested more rapid processes of both increase in and desistance from physical aggression over time for boys with high neighborhood disadvantage and high family conflict, as well as a higher starting point, more gradual increase and slower process of desistance over time for girls in similar neighborhood and family contexts. Less parent-child bonding and less parental control also were associated with higher initial levels of physical aggression. For social aggression, an interaction between family conflict and gender showed girls with high family conflict had the highest initial levels of social aggression, with a more gradual increase over time for these girls compared to their male counterparts in high-conflict families or their female counterparts in low-conflict families. Less parent-child bonding was associated with higher initial levels and a faster increase over time of social aggression, and less parental control was associated with higher initial levels of social aggression. The findings suggest early family-based interventions may help prevent perpetration of both physical and social aggression during adolescence. PMID:23054352

Who Gentrifies Low-Income Neighborhoods?*

Science.gov (United States)

McKinnish, Terra; Walsh, Randall; White, T. Kirk

2009-01-01

This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long Form data, to study demographic processes in neighborhoods that gentrified during the 1990’s. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined census-tract level, with a narrower definition of gentrification and more closely matched comparison neighborhoods. Furthermore, our access to individual-level data with census tract identifiers allows us to separately identify recent in-migrants and long-term residents. Our results indicate that, on average, the demographic flows associated with the gentrification of urban neighborhoods during the 1990’s are not consistent with displacement and harm to minority households. In fact, taken as a whole, our results suggest that gentrification of predominantly black neighborhoods creates neighborhoods that are attractive to middle-class black households. PMID:20161532

Neighborhood Qualification of the Association Between Parenting and Problem Behavior Trajectories Among Mexican-Origin Father-Adolescent Dyads.

Science.gov (United States)

White, Rebecca M B; Liu, Yu; Gonzales, Nancy A; Knight, George P; Tein, Jenn-Yun

2016-12-01

To address the combined importance of fathers and neighborhoods for adolescent adjustment, we examined whether associations between fathers' parenting and adolescents' problem behaviors were qualified by neighborhood adversity. We captured both mainstream (e.g., authoritative) and alternative (e.g., no-nonsense, reduced involvement) parenting styles and examined parenting and neighborhood effects on changes over time in problem behaviors among a sample of Mexican-origin father-adolescent dyads (N = 462). Compared to their counterparts in low-adversity neighborhoods, adolescents in high-adversity neighborhoods experienced greater initial benefits from authoritative fathering, greater long-term benefits from no-nonsense fathering, and fewer costs associated with reduced involvement fathering. The combined influences of alternative paternal parenting styles and neighborhood adversity may set ethnic and racial minority adolescents on different developmental pathways to competence. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Research on Adolescence © 2016 Society for Research on Adolescence.

A Grammar of Spoken Brazilian Portuguese.

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, Earl W.

This is a first-year text of Portuguese grammar based on the Portuguese of moderately educated Brazilians from the area around Rio de Janeiro. Spoken idiomatic usage is emphasized. An important innovation is found in the presentation of verb tenses; they are presented in the order in which the native speaker learns them. The text is intended to…

Neighborhood characteristics and lifestyle intervention outcomes: Results from the Special Diabetes Program for Indians.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Luohua; Chang, Jenny; Beals, Janette; Bullock, Ann; Manson, Spero M

2018-06-01

Growing evidence reveals various neighborhood conditions are associated with the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. It is unknown, however, whether the effectiveness of diabetes prevention interventions is also influenced by neighborhood characteristics. The purpose of the current study is to examine the impact of neighborhood characteristics on the outcomes of a lifestyle intervention to prevent diabetes in American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs). Year 2000 US Census Tract data were linked with those from the Special Diabetes Program for Indians Diabetes Prevention Program (SDPI-DP), an evidence-based lifestyle intervention implemented in 36 AI/AN grantee sites across the US. A total of 3394 participants started the intervention between 01/01/2006 and 07/31/2009 and were followed by 07/31/2016. In 2016-2017, data analyses were conducted to evaluate the relationships of neighborhood characteristics with intervention outcomes, controlling for individual level socioeconomic status. AI/ANs from sites located in neighborhoods with higher median household income had 38% lower risk of developing diabetes than those from sites with lower neighborhood income (adjusted hazard ratio = 0.65, 95% CI: 0.47-0.90). Further, those from sites with higher neighborhood concentrations of AI/ANs achieved less BMI reduction and physical activity increase. Meanwhile, participants from sites with higher neighborhood level of vehicle occupancy made more improvement in BMI and diet. Lifestyle intervention effectiveness was not optimal when the intervention was implemented at sites with disadvantaged neighborhood characteristics. Meaningful improvements in socioeconomic and other neighborhood disadvantages of vulnerable populations could be important in stemming the global epidemic of diabetes. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The neighborhood energy balance equation: does neighborhood food retail environment + physical activity environment = obesity? The CARDIA study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Janne Boone-Heinonen

Full Text Available Recent obesity prevention initiatives focus on healthy neighborhood design, but most research examines neighborhood food retail and physical activity (PA environments in isolation. We estimated joint, interactive, and cumulative impacts of neighborhood food retail and PA environment characteristics on body mass index (BMI throughout early adulthood.We used cohort data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA Study [n=4,092; Year 7 (24-42 years, 1992-1993 followed over 5 exams through Year 25 (2010-2011; 12,921 person-exam observations], with linked time-varying geographic information system-derived neighborhood environment measures. Using regression with fixed effects for individuals, we modeled time-lagged BMI as a function of food and PA resource density (counts per population and neighborhood development intensity (a composite density score. We controlled for neighborhood poverty, individual-level sociodemographics, and BMI in the prior exam; and included significant interactions between neighborhood measures and by sex. Using model coefficients, we simulated BMI reductions in response to single and combined neighborhood improvements. Simulated increase in supermarket density (from 25(th to 75(th percentile predicted inter-exam reduction in BMI of 0.09 kg/m(2 [estimate (95% CI: -0.09 (-0.16, -0.02]. Increasing commercial PA facility density predicted BMI reductions up to 0.22 kg/m(2 in men, with variation across other neighborhood features [estimate (95% CI range: -0.14 (-0.29, 0.01 to -0.22 (-0.37, -0.08]. Simultaneous increases in supermarket and commercial PA facility density predicted inter-exam BMI reductions up to 0.31 kg/m(2 in men [estimate (95% CI range: -0.23 (-0.39, -0.06 to -0.31 (-0.47, -0.15] but not women. Reduced fast food restaurant and convenience store density and increased public PA facility density and neighborhood development intensity did not predict reductions in BMI.Findings suggest that

Word reading skill predicts anticipation of upcoming spoken language input: a study of children developing proficiency in reading.

Science.gov (United States)

Mani, Nivedita; Huettig, Falk

2014-10-01

Despite the efficiency with which language users typically process spoken language, a growing body of research finds substantial individual differences in both the speed and accuracy of spoken language processing potentially attributable to participants' literacy skills. Against this background, the current study took a look at the role of word reading skill in listeners' anticipation of upcoming spoken language input in children at the cusp of learning to read; if reading skills affect predictive language processing, then children at this stage of literacy acquisition should be most susceptible to the effects of reading skills on spoken language processing. We tested 8-year-olds on their prediction of upcoming spoken language input in an eye-tracking task. Although children, like in previous studies to date, were successfully able to anticipate upcoming spoken language input, there was a strong positive correlation between children's word reading skills (but not their pseudo-word reading and meta-phonological awareness or their spoken word recognition skills) and their prediction skills. We suggest that these findings are most compatible with the notion that the process of learning orthographic representations during reading acquisition sharpens pre-existing lexical representations, which in turn also supports anticipation of upcoming spoken words. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Rural Neighborhood Walkability: Implications for Assessment.

Science.gov (United States)

Kegler, Michelle C; Alcantara, Iris; Haardörfer, Regine; Gemma, Alexandra; Ballard, Denise; Gazmararian, Julie

2015-06-16

Physical activity levels, including walking, are lower in the southern U.S., particularly in rural areas. This study investigated the concept of rural neighborhood walkability to aid in developing tools for assessing walkability and to identify intervention targets in rural communities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with physically active adults (n = 29) in rural Georgia. Mean age of participants was 55.9 years; 66% were male, 76% were white, and 24% were African American. Participants drew maps of their neighborhoods and discussed the relevance of typical domains of walkability to their decisions to exercise. Comparative analyses were conducted to identify major themes. The majority felt the concept of neighborhood was applicable and viewed their neighborhood as small geographically (less than 0.5 square miles). Sidewalks were not viewed as essential for neighborhood-based physical activity and typical destinations for walking were largely absent. Destinations within walking distance included neighbors' homes and bodies of water. Views were mixed on whether shade, safety, dogs, and aesthetics affected decisions to exercise in their neighborhoods. Measures of neighborhood walkability in rural areas should acknowledge the small size of self-defined neighborhoods, that walking in rural areas is likely for leisure time exercise, and that some domains may not be relevant.

Nearest neighbors by neighborhood counting.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hui

2006-06-01

Finding nearest neighbors is a general idea that underlies many artificial intelligence tasks, including machine learning, data mining, natural language understanding, and information retrieval. This idea is explicitly used in the k-nearest neighbors algorithm (kNN), a popular classification method. In this paper, this idea is adopted in the development of a general methodology, neighborhood counting, for devising similarity functions. We turn our focus from neighbors to neighborhoods, a region in the data space covering the data point in question. To measure the similarity between two data points, we consider all neighborhoods that cover both data points. We propose to use the number of such neighborhoods as a measure of similarity. Neighborhood can be defined for different types of data in different ways. Here, we consider one definition of neighborhood for multivariate data and derive a formula for such similarity, called neighborhood counting measure or NCM. NCM was tested experimentally in the framework of kNN. Experiments show that NCM is generally comparable to VDM and its variants, the state-of-the-art distance functions for multivariate data, and, at the same time, is consistently better for relatively large k values. Additionally, NCM consistently outperforms HEOM (a mixture of Euclidean and Hamming distances), the "standard" and most widely used distance function for multivariate data. NCM has a computational complexity in the same order as the standard Euclidean distance function and NCM is task independent and works for numerical and categorical data in a conceptually uniform way. The neighborhood counting methodology is proven sound for multivariate data experimentally. We hope it will work for other types of data.

Neighborhood Context and Immigrant Young Children's Development

Science.gov (United States)

Leventhal, Tama; Shuey, Elizabeth A.

2014-01-01

This study explored how neighborhood social processes and resources, relevant to immigrant families and immigrant neighborhoods, contribute to young children's behavioral functioning and achievement across diverse racial/ethnic groups. Data were drawn from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, a neighborhood-based,…

SPOKEN-LANGUAGE FEATURES IN CASUAL CONVERSATION A Case of EFL Learners‘ Casual Conversation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aris Novi

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Spoken text differs from written one in its features of context dependency, turn-taking organization, and dynamic structure. EFL learners; however, sometime find it difficult to produce typical characteristics of spoken language, particularly in casual talk. When they are asked to conduct a conversation, some of them tend to be script-based which is considered unnatural. Using the theory of Thornburry (2005, this paper aims to analyze characteristics of spoken language in casual conversation which cover spontaneity, interactivity, interpersonality, and coherence. This study used discourse analysis to reveal four features in turns and moves of three casual conversations. The findings indicate that not all sub-features used in the conversation. In this case, the spontaneity features were used 132 times; the interactivity features were used 1081 times; the interpersonality features were used 257 times; while the coherence features (negotiation features were used 526 times. Besides, the results also present that some participants seem to dominantly produce some sub-features naturally and vice versa. Therefore, this finding is expected to be beneficial to provide a model of how spoken interaction should be carried out. More importantly, it could raise English teachers or lecturers‘ awareness in teaching features of spoken language, so that, the students could develop their communicative competence as the native speakers of English do.

Neighborhood Effects on Youth Crime

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rotger, Gabriel Pons; Galster, George Charles

We investigate the degree to which youth (ages 14-29) criminal offenses are influenced by neighbors, identifying causal effects with a natural experimental allocation of social housing in Copenhagen. We find that youth exposed to a one percentage point higher concentration of neighbors with drug...... criminal records are 6% more likely to be charged for criminal offenses (both drug and property crimes), and this impact manifests itself after six months of exposure. This neighborhood effect is stronger for previous offenders, and does not lead to criminal partnerships. Our exploration of alternative...

NeighborHood

OpenAIRE

Corominola Ocaña, Víctor

2015-01-01

NeighborHood és una aplicació basada en el núvol, adaptable a qualsevol dispositiu (mòbil, tablet, desktop). L'objectiu d'aquesta aplicació és poder permetre als usuaris introduir a les persones del seu entorn més immediat i que aquestes persones siguin visibles per a la resta d'usuaris. NeighborHood es una aplicación basada en la nube, adaptable a cualquier dispositivo (móvil, tablet, desktop). El objetivo de esta aplicación es poder permitir a los usuarios introducir a las personas de su...

Towards Affordable Disclosure of Spoken Word Archives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; Heeren, W.F.L.; Huijbregts, M.A.H.; Hiemstra, Djoerd; de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Larson, M; Fernie, K; Oomen, J; Cigarran, J.

2008-01-01

This paper presents and discusses ongoing work aiming at affordable disclosure of real-world spoken word archives in general, and in particular of a collection of recorded interviews with Dutch survivors of World War II concentration camp Buchenwald. Given such collections, the least we want to be

Towards Affordable Disclosure of Spoken Heritage Archives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Larson, M; Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; Heeren, W.F.L.; Fernie, K; de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Huijbregts, M.A.H.; Oomen, J; Hiemstra, Djoerd

2009-01-01

This paper presents and discusses ongoing work aiming at affordable disclosure of real-world spoken heritage archives in general, and in particular of a collection of recorded interviews with Dutch survivors of World War II concentration camp Buchenwald. Given such collections, we at least want to

Family Socioeconomic Status, Cortisol, and Physical Health in Early Childhood: The Role of Advantageous Neighborhood Characteristics.

Science.gov (United States)

Roubinov, Danielle S; Hagan, Melissa J; Boyce, W Thomas; Adler, Nancy E; Bush, Nicole R

2018-06-01

Children from families with lower socioeconomic status (SES) evidence greater physiological dysregulation and poorer health. Despite recognition of environmental contributors, little is known about the influence of neighborhood characteristics. The present study examined the moderating role of community-level risks and resources on the relation of family SES to children's daily cortisol output and physical health during the kindergarten year. In fall and spring of kindergarten, children's (N = 338) daily total cortisol was measured and parents and teachers rated children's global physical health. Parents reported family SES. Neighborhood characteristics were assessed using the Child Opportunity Index, a population-level tool that evaluates the quality of multiple domains of neighborhood attributes. In fall, children reared in lower SES family environments had higher cortisol when residing in lower quality (lower opportunity) neighborhoods (b = -.097, p family SES and children's cortisol in more advantaged (higher opportunity) neighborhoods (b = -.023, p = .36). Lower family SES was prospectively associated with poorer physical health in spring (controlling for fall health) only among children living in lower opportunity neighborhoods (b = -.250, p = .018) and was unrelated to physical health among children residing in higher opportunity neighborhoods (b = .042, p = .70). Higher opportunity neighborhoods may protect against the negative consequences of low family SES on children's stress physiology and physical health. Public health interventions that bolster neighborhood opportunities may benefit young children reared in socioeconomically disadvantaged family environments.

Autosegmental Representation of Epenthesis in the Spoken French ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nneka Umera-Okeke

... spoken French of IUFLs. Key words: IUFLs, Epenthensis, Ijebu dialect, Autosegmental phonology .... Ambiguities may result: salmi "strait" vs. salami. (An exception is that in .... tiers of segments. In the picture given us by classical generative.

Improving Spoken Language Outcomes for Children With Hearing Loss: Data-driven Instruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Douglas, Michael

2016-02-01

To assess the effects of data-driven instruction (DDI) on spoken language outcomes of children with cochlear implants and hearing aids. Retrospective, matched-pairs comparison of post-treatment speech/language data of children who did and did not receive DDI. Private, spoken-language preschool for children with hearing loss. Eleven matched pairs of children with cochlear implants who attended the same spoken language preschool. Groups were matched for age of hearing device fitting, time in the program, degree of predevice fitting hearing loss, sex, and age at testing. Daily informal language samples were collected and analyzed over a 2-year period, per preschool protocol. Annual informal and formal spoken language assessments in articulation, vocabulary, and omnibus language were administered at the end of three time intervals: baseline, end of year one, and end of year two. The primary outcome measures were total raw score performance of spontaneous utterance sentence types and syntax element use as measured by the Teacher Assessment of Spoken Language (TASL). In addition, standardized assessments (the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals--Preschool Version 2 (CELF-P2), the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT), the Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (ROWPVT), and the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation 2 (GFTA2)) were also administered and compared with the control group. The DDI group demonstrated significantly higher raw scores on the TASL each year of the study. The DDI group also achieved statistically significant higher scores for total language on the CELF-P and expressive vocabulary on the EOWPVT, but not for articulation nor receptive vocabulary. Post-hoc assessment revealed that 78% of the students in the DDI group achieved scores in the average range compared with 59% in the control group. The preliminary results of this study support further investigation regarding DDI to investigate whether this method can consistently

Neighborhoods and mortality in Sweden: Is deprivation best assessed nationally or regionally?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Oudin Åström

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Background: The association between neighborhood deprivation and mortality is well established, but knowledge about whether deprivation is best assessed regionally or nationally is scarce. Objective: The present study aims to examine whether there is a difference in results when using national and county-specific neighborhood deprivation indices and whether the level of urbanization modifies the association between neighborhood deprivation and mortality. Methods: We collected data on the entire population aged above 50 residing in the 21 Swedish counties on January 1, 1990, and followed them for mortality due to all causes and for coronary heart disease. The association between neighborhood deprivation and mortality was assessed using Cox regression, assuming proportional hazards with attained age as an underlying variable, comparing the 25Š most deprived neighborhoods with the 25Š most affluent ones within each region, and using both the national and the county-specific indices. The potential interactions were also assessed. Results: The choice of a national or a county-specific index did not affect the estimates to a large extent. The effect of neighborhood deprivation on mortality in metropolitan regions (hazard ratio: 1.21 [1.20-1.22] was somewhat higher than that in the more rural southern (HR: 1.16 [1.15-1.17] and northern regions (HR: 1.11 [1.09-1.12]. Conclusions: Our data indicates that the choice of a national or a county-specific deprivation index does not influence the results to a significant extent, but may be of importance in large metropolitan regions. Furthermore, the strength of the association between neighborhood deprivation and mortality is somewhat greater in metropolitan areas than in more rural southern and northern areas. Contribution: The study contributes to a better understanding of the complex association between neighborhood and mortality.

Military Families’ Perceptions of Neighborhood Characteristics Affecting Reintegration: Development of an Aggregate Measure

Science.gov (United States)

Beehler, Sarah; Ahern, Jennifer; Balmer, Brandi; Kuhlman, Jennifer

2017-01-01

This pilot study evaluated the validity and reliability of an Experience of Neighborhood (EON) measure developed to assess neighborhood characteristics that shape reintegration opportunities for returning service members and their families. A total of 91 post-9/11 veterans and spouses completed a survey administered at the Minnesota State Fair. Participants self-reported on their reintegration status (veterans), social functioning (spouses), social support, and mental health. EON factor structure, internal consistency reliability, and validity (discriminant, content, criterion) were analyzed. The EON measure showed adequate reliability, discriminant validity, and content validity. More work is needed to assess criterion validity because EON scores were not correlated with scores on a Census-based index used to measure quality of military neighborhoods. The EON may be useful in assessing broad local factors influencing health among returning veterans and spouses. More research is needed to understand geographic variation in neighborhood conditions and how those affect reintegration and mental health for military families. PMID:28936370

Auditory and verbal memory predictors of spoken language skills in children with cochlear implants

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoog, B.E. de; Langereis, M.C.; Weerdenburg, M. van; Keuning, J.; Knoors, H.; Verhoeven, L.

2016-01-01

BACKGROUND: Large variability in individual spoken language outcomes remains a persistent finding in the group of children with cochlear implants (CIs), particularly in their grammatical development. AIMS: In the present study, we examined the extent of delay in lexical and morphosyntactic spoken

Auditory and verbal memory predictors of spoken language skills in children with cochlear implants

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoog, B.E. de; Langereis, M.C.; Weerdenburg, M.W.C. van; Keuning, J.; Knoors, H.E.T.; Verhoeven, L.T.W.

2016-01-01

Background: Large variability in individual spoken language outcomes remains a persistent finding in the group of children with cochlear implants (CIs), particularly in their grammatical development. Aims: In the present study, we examined the extent of delay in lexical and morphosyntactic spoken

Independent and Interactive Effects of Neighborhood Disadvantage and Social Network Characteristics on Problem Drinking after Treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Mericle, Amy A; Kaskutas, Lee A; Polcin, Doug L; Karriker-Jaffe, Katherine J

2018-01-01

Socioecological approaches to public health problems like addiction emphasize the importance of person-environment interactions. Neighborhood and social network characteristics may influence the likelihood of relapse among individuals in recovery, but these factors have been understudied, particularly with respect to conceptualizing social network characteristics as moderators of neighborhood disadvantage. Drawing from a larger prospective study of individuals recruited from outpatient treatment (N=451) and interviewed 1, 3, 5, and 7 years later, the aim of this study was to examine the independent and interactive effects of neighborhood and social network characteristics on continued problem drinking after treatment. Models using generalized estimating equations controlling for demographic and other risk factors found the number of heavy drinkers in one's network increases risk of relapse, with the effects being significantly stronger among those living in disadvantaged neighborhoods than among those in non-disadvantaged neighborhoods. No independent effects were found for neighborhood disadvantage or for the number of network members supporting reduced drinking. Future research is needed to examine potential protective factors in neighborhoods which may offset socioeconomic disadvantage as well as to investigate the functions that network members serve in helping to improve long-term treatment outcomes.

SPOKEN AYACUCHO QUECHUA. UNITS 1-10.

Science.gov (United States)

PARKER, GARY J.; SOLA, DONALD F.

THIS BEGINNING COURSE IN AYACUCHO QUECHUA, SPOKEN BY ABOUT A MILLION PEOPLE IN SOUTH-CENTRAL PERU, WAS PREPARED TO INTRODUCE THE PHONOLOGY AND GRAMMAR OF THIS DIALECT TO SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH. THE FIRST OF TWO VOLUMES, IT SERVES AS A TEXT FOR A 6-WEEK INTENSIVE COURSE OF 20 CLASS HOURS A WEEK. THE AUTHORS COMPARE AND CONTRAST SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF…

The effect of incremental changes in phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on word learning by preschool children

Science.gov (United States)

Storkel, Holly L.; Bontempo, Daniel E.; Aschenbrenner, Andrew J.; Maekawa, Junko; Lee, Su-Yeon

2013-01-01

Purpose Phonotactic probability or neighborhood density have predominately been defined using gross distinctions (i.e., low vs. high). The current studies examined the influence of finer changes in probability (Experiment 1) and density (Experiment 2) on word learning. Method The full range of probability or density was examined by sampling five nonwords from each of four quartiles. Three- and 5-year-old children received training on nonword-nonobject pairs. Learning was measured in a picture-naming task immediately following training and 1-week after training. Results were analyzed using multi-level modeling. Results A linear spline model best captured nonlinearities in phonotactic probability. Specifically word learning improved as probability increased in the lowest quartile, worsened as probability increased in the midlow quartile, and then remained stable and poor in the two highest quartiles. An ordinary linear model sufficiently described neighborhood density. Here, word learning improved as density increased across all quartiles. Conclusion Given these different patterns, phonotactic probability and neighborhood density appear to influence different word learning processes. Specifically, phonotactic probability may affect recognition that a sound sequence is an acceptable word in the language and is a novel word for the child, whereas neighborhood density may influence creation of a new representation in long-term memory. PMID:23882005

Work and Home Neighborhood Design and Physical Activity.

Science.gov (United States)

Carlson, Jordan A; Frank, Lawrence D; Ulmer, Jared; Conway, Terry L; Saelens, Brian E; Cain, Kelli L; Sallis, James F

2018-01-01

To investigate relations of perceived worksite neighborhood environments to total physical activity and active transportation, over and above home neighborhood built environments. Observational epidemiologic study. Baltimore, Maryland-Washington, DC, and Seattle-King County, Washington metropolitan areas. One thousand eighty-five adults (mean age = 45.0 [10.2]; 46% women) recruited from 32 neighborhoods stratified by high/low neighborhood income and walkability. The Neighborhood Environment Walkability Survey assessed perceptions of worksite and home neighborhood environments. Accelerometers assessed total moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). The International Physical Activity Questionnaire assessed total active transportation and active transportation to and around work. Mixed-effects regression tested relations of home and worksite neighborhood environments to each physical activity outcome, adjusted for demographics. Home and worksite mixed land use and street connectivity had the most consistent positive associations with physical activity outcomes. Worksite traffic and pedestrian safety were also associated with multiple physical activity outcomes. The worksite neighborhood explained additional variance in physical activity outcomes than explained by the home neighborhood. Worksite and home neighborhood environments interacted in explaining active transportation to work, with the greatest impacts occurring when both neighborhoods were activity supportive. Both worksite and home neighborhood environments were independently related to total MVPA and active transportation. Community design policies should target improving the physical activity supportiveness of worksite neighborhood environments and integrating commercial and residential development.

English Listeners Use Suprasegmental Cues to Lexical Stress Early during Spoken-Word Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Jesse, Alexandra; Poellmann, Katja; Kong, Ying-Yee

2017-01-01

Purpose: We used an eye-tracking technique to investigate whether English listeners use suprasegmental information about lexical stress to speed up the recognition of spoken words in English. Method: In a visual world paradigm, 24 young English listeners followed spoken instructions to choose 1 of 4 printed referents on a computer screen (e.g.,…

What does že jo (and že ne) mean in spoken dialogue

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Komrsková, Zuzana

2017-01-01

Roč. 68, č. 2 (2017), s. 229-237 ISSN 0021-5597 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA15-01116S Institutional support: RVO:68378092 Keywords : spoken languge * spoken corpus * tag question * responze word Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics OBOR OECD: Linguistics http://www.juls.savba.sk/ediela/jc/2017/2/jc17-02.pdf

Neighborhood Concentrated Disadvantage and Dating Violence among Urban Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Neighborhood Social Processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Garthe, Rachel C; Gorman-Smith, Deborah; Gregory, Joshua; E Schoeny, Michael

2018-03-14

The link between relationship violence and aspects of neighborhood concentrated disadvantage (e.g., percent of unemployed adults, percent of families below poverty level), has been established. However, the literature examining neighborhood social processes, including informal social control and social cohesion, in relation to adolescent dating violence has shown mixed results with a limited theoretical foundation and methodology. Using a social disorganization theoretical framework, this study examined the mediating role of these neighborhood social processes in the relation between concentrated disadvantage and adolescent dating violence within an urban context. Participants included 605 adult residents in 30 census tracts and 203 adolescents from neighborhoods on the West and South sides of Chicago. Neighborhood-level concentrated disadvantage was measured via Census data, adult residents reported on neighborhood social processes, and youth reported on dating violence. Informal social control was negatively associated with dating violence, and social cohesion was positively associated with dating violence. A multilevel mediation model showed that concentrated disadvantage was related to higher levels of dating violence via lower levels of informal social control. These results extend social disorganization theory to dating violence within an urban context, while also highlighting the important role of neighborhood processes on relationship violence. Implications for research and intervention programming are discussed. © Society for Community Research and Action 2018.

Some Ways in Which Neighborhoods, Nuclear Families, Friendship Groups, and Schools Jointly Affect Changes in Early Adolescent Development.

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, Thomas D.; Herman, Melissa R.; Phillips, Meredith; Settersten, Richard A., Jr.

2002-01-01

This study assessed how schools, neighborhoods, nuclear families, and friendship groups jointly contribute to positive change during early adolescence. Analyses showed that the four context indices modestly intercorrelated at the individual student level, but clustered more tightly at the school and neighborhood levels. Joint influence of all four…

Gender and the Residential Mobility and Neighborhood Attainment of Black-White Couples.

Science.gov (United States)

Gabriel, Ryan

2018-04-01

Including black-white couples in the study of residential stratification accentuates gendered power disparities within couples that favor men over women, which allows for the analysis of whether the race of male partners in black-white couples is associated with the racial and ethnic composition of their neighborhoods. I investigate this by combining longitudinal data between 1985 and 2015 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics linked to neighborhood- and metropolitan-level data compiled from four censuses. Using these data, I assess the mobility of black male-white female and white male-black female couples out of and into neighborhoods defined respectively by their levels of whites, blacks, and ethnoracial diversity. My results show that the race of the male partner in black-white couples tends to align with the racial and ethnic composition of the neighborhoods where these couples reside. This finding highlights that the racial hierarchy within the United States affects the residential mobility and attainment of black-white couples, but its influence is conditioned by the race and gender composition of these couples.

What Comes First, What Comes Next: Information Packaging in Written and Spoken Language

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladislav Smolka

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The paper explores similarities and differences in the strategies of structuring information at sentence level in spoken and written language, respectively. In particular, it is concerned with the position of the rheme in the sentence in the two different modalities of language, and with the application and correlation of the end-focus and the end-weight principles. The assumption is that while there is a general tendency in both written and spoken language to place the focus in or close to the final position, owing to the limitations imposed by short-term memory capacity (and possibly by other factors, for the sake of easy processibility, it may occasionally be more felicitous in spoken language to place the rhematic element in the initial position or at least close to the beginning of the sentence. The paper aims to identify differences in the function of selected grammatical structures in written and spoken language, respectively, and to point out circumstances under which initial focus is a convenient alternative to the usual end-focus principle.

Mobile Information Access with Spoken Query Answering

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Brøndsted, Tom; Larsen, Henrik Legind; Larsen, Lars Bo

2006-01-01

window focused over the part which most likely contains an answer to the query. The two systems are integrated into a full spoken query answering system. The prototype can answer queries and questions within the chosen football (soccer) test domain, but the system has the flexibility for being ported...

Error detection in spoken human-machine interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krahmer, E.J.; Swerts, M.G.J.; Theune, M.; Weegels, M.F.

2001-01-01

Given the state of the art of current language and speech technology, errors are unavoidable in present-day spoken dialogue systems. Therefore, one of the main concerns in dialogue design is how to decide whether or not the system has understood the user correctly. In human-human communication,

Error detection in spoken human-machine interaction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Krahmer, E.; Swerts, M.; Theune, Mariet; Weegels, M.

Given the state of the art of current language and speech technology, errors are unavoidable in present-day spoken dialogue systems. Therefore, one of the main concerns in dialogue design is how to decide whether or not the system has understood the user correctly. In human-human communication,

The Effect of Lexical Frequency on Spoken Word Recognition in Young and Older Listeners

Science.gov (United States)

Revill, Kathleen Pirog; Spieler, Daniel H.

2011-01-01

When identifying spoken words, older listeners may have difficulty resolving lexical competition or may place a greater weight on factors like lexical frequency. To obtain information about age differences in the time course of spoken word recognition, young and older adults’ eye movements were monitored as they followed spoken instructions to click on objects displayed on a computer screen. Older listeners were more likely than younger listeners to fixate high-frequency displayed phonological competitors. However, degradation of auditory quality in younger listeners does not reproduce this result. These data are most consistent with an increased role for lexical frequency with age. PMID:21707175

Neighborhood Contexts, Fathers, and Mexican American Young Adolescents' Internalizing Symptoms

Science.gov (United States)

White, Rebecca M. B.; Roosa, Mark W.

2012-01-01

The family stress model posits that contextual stressors, such as neighborhood danger, negatively influence youth adjustment, including internalizing symptoms, via disruptions in parenting and family processes. The current study examined a culturally and contextually modified family stress model in a diverse sample of Mexican-origin fathers and…

Association between Neighborhood Walkability, Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Body-Mass Index

Science.gov (United States)

Hoehner, Christine M.; Handy, Susan L.; Yan, Yan; Blair, teven N.; Berrigan, David

2011-01-01

Many studies have found cross-sectional associations between characteristics of the neighborhood built environment and physical activity (PA) behavior. However, most are based on self-reported PA, which is known to result in overestimation of PA and differential misclassification by demographic and biological characteristics. Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is an objective marker of PA because it is primarily determined by PA. Furthermore, it is causally related to long-term health outcomes. Therefore, analyses of the association between CRF and built environment could strengthen arguments for the importance of built environment influences on health. We examined the association between neighborhood walkability and CRF and body-mass index (BMI). This cross-sectional analysis included 16,543 adults (5,017 women, 11,526 men) aged 18–90 years with home addresses in Texas who had a comprehensive clinical examination between 1987 and 2005. Outcomes included CRF from total duration on a maximal exercise treadmill test and measured BMI. Three neighborhood walkability factors emerged from principal components analyses of block-group measures derived from the U.S. Census. In multilevel adjusted analyses, the neighborhood walkability factors were significantly associated with CRF and BMI among men and women in the expected direction. An interaction between one of the neighborhood factors and age was also observed. The interaction suggested that living in neighborhoods with older homes and with residents traveling shorter distances to work was more strongly positively associated with CRF among younger adults and more strongly negatively associated with BMI among older adults. In conclusion, neighborhood characteristics hypothesized to support more PA and less driving were associated with higher levels of CRF and lower BMI. Demonstration of an association between built environment characteristics and CRF is a significant advance over past studies based on self-reported PA

What constitutes a health-enabling neighborhood? A grounded theory situational analysis addressing the significance of social capital and gender.

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Eriksson, Malin; Emmelin, Maria

2013-11-01

Variations in health between neighborhoods are well known and the conceptualization of social capital has contributed to an understanding of how contextual factors influence these differences. Studies show positive health-effects from living in high social capital areas, at least for some population sub-groups. The aim of this qualitative study was to understand what constitutes a 'health-enabling' neighborhood. It follows up results from a social capital survey in northern Sweden indicating that the health effects of living in a high social capital neighborhood is gendered in favor of women. A grounded theory situational analysis of eight focus group discussions--four with men and four with women--illustrated similar and different positions on how neighborhood characteristics influence health. A neighborhood, where people say hi to each other ("hi-factor") and where support between neighbors exist, were factors perceived as positive for health by all, as was a good location, neighborhood greenness and proximity to essential arenas. Women perceived freedom from demands, feeling safe and city life as additional health enabling factors. For men freedom to do what you want, a sense of belonging, and countryside life were important. To have burdensome neighbors, physical disturbances and a densely living environment were perceived as negative for health in both groups while demands for a well styled home and feeling unsafe were perceived as negative for health among women. Neighborhood social capital, together with other elements in the living environment, has fundamental influence on people's perceived health. Our findings do not confirm that social capital is more important for women than for men but that distinctive form of social capital differ in impact. Investing in physical interventions, such as planning for meeting places, constructing attractive green areas, and making neighborhoods walking-friendly, may increase human interactions that is instrumental for

Long-term temporal tracking of speech rate affects spoken-word recognition.

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Baese-Berk, Melissa M; Heffner, Christopher C; Dilley, Laura C; Pitt, Mark A; Morrill, Tuuli H; McAuley, J Devin

2014-08-01

Humans unconsciously track a wide array of distributional characteristics in their sensory environment. Recent research in spoken-language processing has demonstrated that the speech rate surrounding a target region within an utterance influences which words, and how many words, listeners hear later in that utterance. On the basis of hypotheses that listeners track timing information in speech over long timescales, we investigated the possibility that the perception of words is sensitive to speech rate over such a timescale (e.g., an extended conversation). Results demonstrated that listeners tracked variation in the overall pace of speech over an extended duration (analogous to that of a conversation that listeners might have outside the lab) and that this global speech rate influenced which words listeners reported hearing. The effects of speech rate became stronger over time. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that neural entrainment by speech occurs on multiple timescales, some lasting more than an hour. © The Author(s) 2014.

Research on the Relationship between English Majors’ Learning Motivation and Spoken English in Chinese Context

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

陆佳佳

2014-01-01

With the increasing importance attached to spoken English, it is of great significance to find how the motivation of English majors affects their oral English learning outcomes. Based on the research results and theoretical frameworks of the previous studies on this area, this paper carries out research in Zhujiang College of South China Agricultural University trying to find out the types of motivation and the correlation between motivation factors of English majors and their spoken English, and thus to guide spoken English learning and teaching.

Internet Bad Neighborhoods Aggregation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Moreira Moura, Giovane; Sadre, R.; Sperotto, Anna; Pras, Aiko; Paschoal Gaspary, L.; De Turk, Filip

Internet Bad Neighborhoods have proven to be an innovative approach for fighting spam. They have also helped to understand how spammers are distributed on the Internet. In our previous works, the size of each bad neighborhood was fixed to a /24 subnetwork. In this paper, however, we investigate if

Effects of Auditory and Visual Priming on the Identification of Spoken Words.

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Shigeno, Sumi

2017-04-01

This study examined the effects of preceding contextual stimuli, either auditory or visual, on the identification of spoken target words. Fifty-one participants (29% males, 71% females; mean age = 24.5 years, SD = 8.5) were divided into three groups: no context, auditory context, and visual context. All target stimuli were spoken words masked with white noise. The relationships between the context and target stimuli were as follows: identical word, similar word, and unrelated word. Participants presented with context experienced a sequence of six context stimuli in the form of either spoken words or photographs. Auditory and visual context conditions produced similar results, but the auditory context aided word identification more than the visual context in the similar word relationship. We discuss these results in the light of top-down processing, motor theory, and the phonological system of language.

Spoken sentence comprehension in aphasia: Event-related potential evidence for a lexical integration deficit

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Swaab, T.Y.; Brown, C.; Hagoort, P.

1997-01-01

In this study the N400 component of the event-related potential was used to investigate spoken sentence understanding in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics. The aim of the study was to determine whether spoken sentence comprehension problems in these patients might result from a deficit in the on-line

Spectrotemporal processing drives fast access to memory traces for spoken words.

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Tavano, A; Grimm, S; Costa-Faidella, J; Slabu, L; Schröger, E; Escera, C

2012-05-01

The Mismatch Negativity (MMN) component of the event-related potentials is generated when a detectable spectrotemporal feature of the incoming sound does not match the sensory model set up by preceding repeated stimuli. MMN is enhanced at frontocentral scalp sites for deviant words when compared to acoustically similar deviant pseudowords, suggesting that automatic access to long-term memory traces for spoken words contributes to MMN generation. Does spectrotemporal feature matching also drive automatic lexical access? To test this, we recorded human auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) to disyllabic spoken words and pseudowords within a passive oddball paradigm. We first aimed at replicating the word-related MMN enhancement effect for Spanish, thereby adding to the available cross-linguistic evidence (e.g., Finnish, English). We then probed its resilience to spectrotemporal perturbation by inserting short (20 ms) and long (120 ms) silent gaps between first and second syllables of deviant and standard stimuli. A significantly enhanced, frontocentrally distributed MMN to deviant words was found for stimuli with no gap. The long gap yielded no deviant word MMN, showing that prior expectations of word form limits in a given language influence deviance detection processes. Crucially, the insertion of a short gap suppressed deviant word MMN enhancement at frontocentral sites. We propose that spectrotemporal point-wise matching constitutes a core mechanism for fast serial computations in audition and language, bridging sensory and long-term memory systems. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Neighborhood perceptions and allostatic load

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

van Deurzen, Ioana; Rod, Naja Hulvej; Christensen, Ulla

2016-01-01

An influential argument explaining why living in certain neighborhoods can become harmful to one's health maintains that individuals can perceive certain characteristics of the neighborhood as threatening and the prolonged exposure to a threatening environment could induce chronic stress. Following...... this line of argumentation, in the present study we test whether subjective perceptions of neighborhood characteristics relate to an objective measure of stress-related physiological functioning, namely allostatic load (AL). We use a large dataset of 5280 respondents living in different regions of Denmark...... and we account for two alternative mechanisms, i.e., the objective characteristics of the living environment and the socio-economic status of individuals. Our results support the chronic stress mechanisms linking neighborhood quality to health. Heightened perceptions of disorder and pollution were found...

The association between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and high-risk injection behavior among people who inject drugs.

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DeCuir, Jennifer; Lovasi, Gina S; El-Sayed, Abdulrahman; Lewis, Crystal Fuller

2018-02-01

Although much research has been conducted on the determinants of HIV risk behavior among people who inject drugs (PWID), the influence of the neighborhood context on high-risk injection behavior remains understudied. To address this gap in the literature, we measured associations between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and high-risk injection behavior, and determined whether these associations were modified by drug-related police activity and syringe exchange program (SEP) accessibility. Our sample was comprised of 484 pharmacy-recruited PWID in New York City. Measures of neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage were created using data from the 2006-2010 American Community Survey. Associations with high-risk injection behavior were estimated using multivariable Poisson regression. Effect modification by drug-related police activity and SEP accessibility was assessed by entering cross-product terms into adjusted models of high-risk injection behavior. Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with decreased receptive syringe sharing and unsterile syringe use. In neighborhoods with high drug-related police activity, associations between neighborhood disadvantage and unsterile syringe use were attenuated to the null. In neighborhoods with high SEP accessibility, neighborhood disadvantage was associated with decreased acquisition of syringes from an unsafe source. PWID in disadvantaged neighborhoods reported safer injection behaviors than their counterparts in neighborhoods that were relatively better off. The contrasting patterns of effect modification by SEP accessibility and drug-related police activity support the use of harm reduction approaches over law enforcement-based strategies for the control of blood borne virus transmission among PWID in disadvantaged urban areas. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS AMONG AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: GENETIC MODERATION AND EPIGENETIC MEDIATOIN OF EFFECTS

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Lei, Man-Kit; Beach, Steven R. H.; Simons, Ronald L.; Philibert, Robert A.

2015-01-01

Introduction Social scientists have long recognized the important role that neighborhood crime can play in stress-related disease, but very little is known about potential biosocial mechanisms that may link the experience of living in high-crime neighborhoods with depression. Objective The current study introduces an integrated model that combines neighborhood, genetic, and epigenetic factors. Methods Hypotheses were tested with a sample of 99 African American women from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS). Results Allele variants of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT) interact with neighborhood crime to predict depressive symptoms in a manner consonant with the differential susceptibility perspective. Furthermore, this association is mediated by DNA methylation of the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene. Conclusion The findings provide support for an integrated model in which changes in DNA methylation, resulting from neighborhood crime, can result in an increase or decrease in gene activity which, in turn, influences depressive symptoms. PMID:26513121

Neighborhood crime and depressive symptoms among African American women: Genetic moderation and epigenetic mediation of effects.

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Lei, Man-Kit; Beach, Steven R H; Simons, Ronald L; Philibert, Robert A

2015-12-01

Social scientists have long recognized the important role that neighborhood crime can play in stress-related disease, but very little is known about potential biosocial mechanisms that may link the experience of living in high-crime neighborhoods with depression. The current study introduces an integrated model that combines neighborhood, genetic, and epigenetic factors. Hypotheses were tested with a sample of 99 African American women from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS). Allele variants of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTT) interact with neighborhood crime to predict depressive symptoms in a manner consonant with the differential susceptibility perspective. Furthermore, this association is mediated by DNA methylation of the promoter region of the serotonin transporter gene. The findings provide support for an integrated model in which changes in DNA methylation, resulting from neighborhood crime, can result in an increase or decrease in gene activity which, in turn, influences depressive symptoms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Peculiarities of the Adverbs Functioning of the Dialect Spoken in the v. Shevchenkove, Kiliya district, Odessa Region

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Maryna Delyusto

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The article gives new evidence about the adverb as a part of the grammatical system of the Ukrainian steppe dialect spread in the area between the Danube and the Dniester rivers. The author proves that the grammatical system of the dialect spoken in the v. Shevchenkove, Kiliya district, Odessa region is determined by the historical development of the Ukrainian language rather than the influence of neighboring dialects.

Neighborhoods, US, 2017, Zillow, SEGS

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — This web service depicts nearly 17,000 neighborhood boundaries in over 650 U.S. cities. Zillow created the neighborhood boundaries and is sharing them with the...

The impact of neighborhood composition on work-family conflict and distress.

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Young, Marisa; Wheaton, Blair

2013-01-01

Theories of work-family conflict (WFC) and health remain limited because they emphasize individual-level antecedents to the exclusion of broader contexts, such as residential neighborhoods. We address this issue by focusing on the impact of neighborhood social composition on WFC. Among couples with children we assess whether socially similar neighbors relative to oneself reduce perceptions and mental health consequences of WFC, and whether these associations differ by gender. We argue that the convergence of similarities in residents' features relative to the respondent's own may affect WFC by influencing normative expectations about work and family, and assumptions of available support. We use data on intact families with at least one child between the ages of 9 and 16 from Toronto, Canada, linked to census data. Results highlight that greater similarity between respondents and residents reduces perceptions and consequences of WFC for women but not men. We discuss these findings in relation to neighborhood effects and mental health literature.

Food Melt in Consumer Food Environments in Low-income Urban Neighborhoods.

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Trapl, Erika S; Pike, Stephanie N; Borawski, Elaine; Flocke, Susan A; Freedman, Darcy A; Walsh, Colleen C; Schneider, Christine; Yoder, Laura

2017-11-01

We systematically evaluated changes in availability, price, and quality of perishable food items from the beginning to the end of the month in lowincome, urban neighborhoods. The sample included grocery stores or supermarkets in Cleveland, Ohio, within neighborhoods with >30% of population receiving food assistance. We collected data for 2 sequential months during the first and fourth weeks of each month. Two coders evaluated stores, collecting measures of availability, price, and quality for 50 items. We examined difference in number and proportion of items available at the beginning of the month (BOM) to items remaining available at the end of the month (EOM), as well as quality and price of those items. Across 48 stores, availability at EOM was lower than BOM; as store size increased, reduction in availability (ie, food melt) was significantly (p Food melt differentially affects individuals in neighborhoods without grocery stores. Findings reveal composition of food environments is dynamic rather than static, influencing food-purchasing choices among lowincome consumers.

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Cognitive Function in Women

Science.gov (United States)

Ghosh-Dastidar, Bonnie; Margolis, Karen L.; Slaughter, Mary E.; Jewell, Adria; Bird, Chloe E.; Eibner, Christine; Denburg, Natalie L.; Ockene, Judith; Messina, Catherine R.; Espeland, Mark A.

2011-01-01

Objectives. We examined whether neighborhood socioeconomic status (NSES) is associated with cognitive functioning in older US women and whether this relationship is explained by associations between NSES and vascular, health behavior, and psychosocial factors. Methods. We assessed women aged 65 to 81 years (n = 7479) who were free of dementia and took part in the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study. Linear mixed models examined the cross-sectional association between an NSES index and cognitive functioning scores. A base model adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, education, income, marital status, and hysterectomy. Three groups of potential confounders were examined in separate models: vascular, health behavior, and psychosocial factors. Results. Living in a neighborhood with a 1-unit higher NSES value was associated with a level of cognitive functioning that was 0.022 standard deviations higher (P = .02). The association was attenuated but still marginally significant (P < .1) after adjustment for confounders and, according to interaction tests, stronger among younger and non-White women. Conclusions. The socioeconomic status of a woman's neighborhood may influence her cognitive functioning. This relationship is only partially explained by vascular, health behavior, or psychosocial factors. Future research is needed on the longitudinal relationships between NSES, cognitive impairment, and cognitive decline. PMID:21778482

Working Memory Load Affects Processing Time in Spoken Word Recognition: Evidence from Eye-Movements

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Hadar, Britt; Skrzypek, Joshua E.; Wingfield, Arthur; Ben-David, Boaz M.

2016-01-01

In daily life, speech perception is usually accompanied by other tasks that tap into working memory capacity. However, the role of working memory on speech processing is not clear. The goal of this study was to examine how working memory load affects the timeline for spoken word recognition in ideal listening conditions. We used the “visual world” eye-tracking paradigm. The task consisted of spoken instructions referring to one of four objects depicted on a computer monitor (e.g., “point at the candle”). Half of the trials presented a phonological competitor to the target word that either overlapped in the initial syllable (onset) or at the last syllable (offset). Eye movements captured listeners' ability to differentiate the target noun from its depicted phonological competitor (e.g., candy or sandal). We manipulated working memory load by using a digit pre-load task, where participants had to retain either one (low-load) or four (high-load) spoken digits for the duration of a spoken word recognition trial. The data show that the high-load condition delayed real-time target discrimination. Specifically, a four-digit load was sufficient to delay the point of discrimination between the spoken target word and its phonological competitor. Our results emphasize the important role working memory plays in speech perception, even when performed by young adults in ideal listening conditions. PMID:27242424

Self-reported physical activity in perceived neighborhood in Czech adults – national study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Josef Mitáš

2013-06-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: International studies associate physical activity (PA to other factors such as the environment, culture, and policy. External influences on lifestyle and PA, such as the effect of the physical and built environment, are discussed. Neighborhood environments seem to be one of the important aspects in prevention of unhealthy lifestyle and physical inactivity research. OBJECTIVE: The main objective is to analyze the relationship between PA and neighborhood environment of the adult population of the Czech Republic. The study tries to define the basic correlates of PA in relation to environmental and other socio-demographic factors. METHODS: Nationwide data collection of adult PA was done regionally in the Czech Republic between the years 2005–2009 using the IPAQ (long and ANEWS questionnaires. RESULTS: The results show that males realize significantly more vigorous PA than females while females realize more moderate PA and walking than males. PA of residents of smaller communities is higher than those living in large cities. The level of weekly PA does not significantly affect the neighborhood walkability [H(3, 8708 = 19.60; p CONCLUSIONS: The results clearly indicate the need to connect multiple sectors that affect the lifestyle of the general population. Possible solution is an interdisciplinary approach to the evaluation of the fundamental environmental factors influencing the level of PA (walkability; SES; participation in organized and voluntary PA; neighborhood safety; type of transportation; size of the community.

A Mother Tongue Spoken Mainly by Fathers.

Science.gov (United States)

Corsetti, Renato

1996-01-01

Reviews what is known about Esperanto as a home language and first language. Recorded cases of Esperanto-speaking families are known since 1919, and in nearly all of the approximately 350 families documented, the language is spoken to the children by the father. The data suggests that this "artificial bilingualism" can be as successful…

Improving the Neighborhood Environment for Urban Older Adults: Social Context and Self-Rated Health.

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Mathis, Arlesia; Rooks, Ronica; Kruger, Daniel

2015-12-22

By 2030, older adults will account for 20% of the U.S. Over 80% of older adults live in urban areas. This study examines associations between neighborhood environment and self-rated health (SRH) among urban older adults. We selected 217 individuals aged 65+ living in a deindustrialized Midwestern city who answered questions on the 2009 Speak to Your Health survey. The relationship between neighborhood environment and self-rated health (SRH) was analyzed using regression and GIS models. Neighborhood variables included social support and participation, perceived racism and crime. Additional models included actual crime indices to compare differences between perceived and actual crime. Seniors who have poor SRH are 21% more likely to report fear of crime than seniors with excellent SRH (p = 0.01). Additional analyses revealed Black seniors are 7% less likely to participate in social activities (p = 0.005) and 4% more likely to report experiencing racism (p older adults living in urban neighborhoods, studies such as this one are important for well-being among seniors. Mitigating environmental influences in the neighborhood which are associated with poor SRH may allow urban older adults to maintain health and reduce disability.

Lower neighborhood quality in adolescence predicts higher mesolimbic sensitivity to reward anticipation in adulthood

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Gonzalez, Marlen Z.; Allen, Joseph P.; Coan, James A.

2016-01-01

Life history theory suggests that adult reward sensitivity should be best explained by childhood, but not current, socioeconomic conditions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 83 participants from a larger longitudinal sample completed the monetary incentive delay (MID) task in adulthood (~25 years old). Parent-reports of neighborhood quality and parental SES were collected when participants were 13 years of age. Current income level was collected concurrently with scanning. Lower adolescent neighborhood quality, but neither lower current income nor parental SES, was associated with heightened sensitivity to the anticipation of monetary gain in putative mesolimbic reward areas. Lower adolescent neighborhood quality was also associated with heightened sensitivity to the anticipation of monetary loss activation in visuo-motor areas. Lower current income was associated with heightened sensitivity to anticipated loss in occipital areas and the operculum. We tested whether externalizing behaviors in childhood or adulthood could better account for neighborhood quality findings, but they did not. Findings suggest that neighborhood ecology in adolescence is associated with greater neural reward sensitivity in adulthood above the influence of parental SES or current income and not mediated through impulsivity and externalizing behaviors. PMID:27838595

Lower neighborhood quality in adolescence predicts higher mesolimbic sensitivity to reward anticipation in adulthood

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marlen Z. Gonzalez

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Life history theory suggests that adult reward sensitivity should be best explained by childhood, but not current, socioeconomic conditions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI study, 83 participants from a larger longitudinal sample completed the monetary incentive delay (MID task in adulthood (∼25 years old. Parent-reports of neighborhood quality and parental SES were collected when participants were 13 years of age. Current income level was collected concurrently with scanning. Lower adolescent neighborhood quality, but neither lower current income nor parental SES, was associated with heightened sensitivity to the anticipation of monetary gain in putative mesolimbic reward areas. Lower adolescent neighborhood quality was also associated with heightened sensitivity to the anticipation of monetary loss activation in visuo-motor areas. Lower current income was associated with heightened sensitivity to anticipated loss in occipital areas and the operculum. We tested whether externalizing behaviors in childhood or adulthood could better account for neighborhood quality findings, but they did not. Findings suggest that neighborhood ecology in adolescence is associated with greater neural reward sensitivity in adulthood above the influence of parental SES or current income and not mediated through impulsivity and externalizing behaviors.

Formative research for a healthy diet intervention among inner-city adolescents: the importance of family, school and neighborhood environment.

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Dodson, Jennifer L; Hsiao, Ya-Chun; Kasat-Shors, Madhuri; Murray, Laura; Nguyen, Nga Kim; Richards, Adam K; Gittelsohn, Joel

2009-01-01

To understand influences on diet among low-income African-American adolescents in East Baltimore. Formative research was conducted for a food store-centered healthy diet intervention targeted to inner-city youth. Family, school and neighborhood influences on eating habits and health concepts were explored. Family structure, economic resources and past experiences influence what food means to adolescents. Healthy food in school and local stores is limited. Terminology to categorize foods was identified, including the term "home foods". Suggested adolescent nutritional interventions include promotion of home-based eating, improving availability of healthy foods in school and neighborhood stores, and targeted educational materials.

Neighborhood Walkability and Walking for Transport Among South Asians in the MASALA Study.

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Kelley, Elizabeth A; Kandula, Namratha R; Kanaya, Alka M; Yen, Irene H

2016-05-01

The neighborhood built environment can have a strong influence on physical activity levels, particularly walking for transport. In examining racial/ethnic differences in physical activity, one important and understudied group is South Asians. This study aims to describe the association between neighborhood walkability and walking for transport among South Asian men and women in the United States in the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America (MASALA) Study. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014 using the baseline dataset of the MASALA study (N = 906). Mean age was 55 years old and 54% of the sample was male. Weekly minutes spent walking for transport was assessed using a questionnaire adapted from the Cross-Cultural Activity Participation Study. Neighborhood walkability was measured using Walk Score, a composite index of walkability. After adjusting for covariates, with each 10-point increase in Walk Score, South Asian American men engaged in 13 additional minutes per week of walking for transport (P = .008). No association was observed between walkability and walking for transport in South Asian American women. Results provide new evidence for how the effects of environmental influences on walking for transport may vary between South Asian men and women.

Neighborhood Ethnic Density as an Explanation for the Academic Achievement of Ethnic Minority Youth Placed in Neighborhood Disadvantage

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Madyun, Na'im; Lee, Moosung

2010-01-01

The underachievement of ethnic minority youth from disadvantaged neighborhoods is a pervasive educational issue this nation is facing. Based on an ecological perspective, we examined the contextual effects of neighborhood ethnic density and neighborhood disadvantage on the academic achievement of Hmong immigrant youths. Utilizing hierarchical…

Geometrical tile design for complex neighborhoods.

Science.gov (United States)

Czeizler, Eugen; Kari, Lila

2009-01-01

Recent research has showed that tile systems are one of the most suitable theoretical frameworks for the spatial study and modeling of self-assembly processes, such as the formation of DNA and protein oligomeric structures. A Wang tile is a unit square, with glues on its edges, attaching to other tiles and forming larger and larger structures. Although quite intuitive, the idea of glues placed on the edges of a tile is not always natural for simulating the interactions occurring in some real systems. For example, when considering protein self-assembly, the shape of a protein is the main determinant of its functions and its interactions with other proteins. Our goal is to use geometric tiles, i.e., square tiles with geometrical protrusions on their edges, for simulating tiled paths (zippers) with complex neighborhoods, by ribbons of geometric tiles with simple, local neighborhoods. This paper is a step toward solving the general case of an arbitrary neighborhood, by proposing geometric tile designs that solve the case of a "tall" von Neumann neighborhood, the case of the f-shaped neighborhood, and the case of a 3 x 5 "filled" rectangular neighborhood. The techniques can be combined and generalized to solve the problem in the case of any neighborhood, centered at the tile of reference, and included in a 3 x (2k + 1) rectangle.

Extrinsic Cognitive Load Impairs Spoken Word Recognition in High- and Low-Predictability Sentences.

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Hunter, Cynthia R; Pisoni, David B

Listening effort (LE) induced by speech degradation reduces performance on concurrent cognitive tasks. However, a converse effect of extrinsic cognitive load on recognition of spoken words in sentences has not been shown. The aims of the present study were to (a) examine the impact of extrinsic cognitive load on spoken word recognition in a sentence recognition task and (b) determine whether cognitive load and/or LE needed to understand spectrally degraded speech would differentially affect word recognition in high- and low-predictability sentences. Downstream effects of speech degradation and sentence predictability on the cognitive load task were also examined. One hundred twenty young adults identified sentence-final spoken words in high- and low-predictability Speech Perception in Noise sentences. Cognitive load consisted of a preload of short (low-load) or long (high-load) sequences of digits, presented visually before each spoken sentence and reported either before or after identification of the sentence-final word. LE was varied by spectrally degrading sentences with four-, six-, or eight-channel noise vocoding. Level of spectral degradation and order of report (digits first or words first) were between-participants variables. Effects of cognitive load, sentence predictability, and speech degradation on accuracy of sentence-final word identification as well as recall of preload digit sequences were examined. In addition to anticipated main effects of sentence predictability and spectral degradation on word recognition, we found an effect of cognitive load, such that words were identified more accurately under low load than high load. However, load differentially affected word identification in high- and low-predictability sentences depending on the level of sentence degradation. Under severe spectral degradation (four-channel vocoding), the effect of cognitive load on word identification was present for high-predictability sentences but not for low

Neighborhood and Network Disadvantage among Urban Renters

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Matthew Desmond

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Drawing on novel survey data, this study maps the distribution of neighborhood and network disadvantage in a population of Milwaukee renters and evaluates the relationship between each disadvantage and multiple social and health outcomes. We find that many families live in neighborhoods with above average disadvantage but are embedded in networks with below average disadvantage, and vice versa. Neighborhood (but not network disadvantage is associated with lower levels of neighborly trust but also with higher levels of community support (e.g., providing neighbors with food. Network (but not neighborhood disadvantage is associated with lower levels of civic engagement. Asthma and diabetes are associated exclusively with neighborhood disadvantage, but depression is associated exclusively with network disadvantage. These findings imply that some social problems may be better addressed by neighborhood interventions and others by network interventions.

Functional Interpretation of Neighborhood Public Spaces in Terms of Identity

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Hamid Majedi

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The aim of this article is to evaluate the effect of neighborhood public space transformation due to rapid urbanization in Tehran since 1960s, on the formation of neighborhood identity. In order to find the role of public spaces in enhancing neighborhood identities, two middle class neighborhoods with different spatial organizations are compared with each other: Nazi Abad a planned neighborhood and Mehran a typical unplanned neighborhood which developed through rapid urbanization.   Next, the effect of neighborhood public spaces on neighborhood inhabitants is evaluated from two perspectives: Perceptual dimension and social dimension. The findings indicate that planned spatial organization and various neighborhood public spaces result in stronger neighborhood identity. It enhances both perceptual dimension of neighborhood identity(place attachment and its social dimension (sense of community. In contrast unplanned spatial organization which is the typical feature of Tehran neighborhoods leads to weak neighborhood identity.

The impact of neighborhood walkability on walking: does it differ across adult life stage and does neighborhood buffer size matter?

Science.gov (United States)

Villanueva, Karen; Knuiman, Matthew; Nathan, Andrea; Giles-Corti, Billie; Christian, Hayley; Foster, Sarah; Bull, Fiona

2014-01-01

We explored the impact of neighborhood walkability on young adults, early-middle adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults' walking across different neighborhood buffers. Participants completed the Western Australian Health and Wellbeing Surveillance System Survey (2003-2009) and were allocated a neighborhood walkability score at 200m, 400m, 800m, and 1600m around their home. We found little difference in strength of associations across neighborhood size buffers for all life stages. We conclude that neighborhood walkability supports more walking regardless of adult life stage and is relevant for small (e.g., 200m) and larger (e.g., 1600m) neighborhood buffers. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT TO TEACH SPOKEN RECOUNTS IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eri Rusnawati

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menggambarkan penerapan metode Communicative Language Teaching/CLT untuk pembelajaran spoken recount. Penelitian ini menelaah data yang kualitatif. Penelitian ini mengambarkan fenomena yang terjadi di dalam kelas. Data studi ini adalah perilaku dan respon para siswa dalam pembelajaran spoken recount dengan menggunakan metode CLT. Subjek penelitian ini adalah para siswa kelas X SMA Negeri 1 Kuaro yang terdiri dari 34 siswa. Observasi dan wawancara dilakukan dalam rangka untuk mengumpulkan data dalam mengajarkan spoken recount melalui tiga aktivitas (presentasi, bermain-peran, serta melakukan prosedur. Dalam penelitian ini ditemukan beberapa hal antara lain bahwa CLT meningkatkan kemampuan berbicara siswa dalam pembelajaran recount. Berdasarkan pada grafik peningkatan, disimpulkan bahwa tata bahasa, kosakata, pengucapan, kefasihan, serta performa siswa mengalami peningkatan. Ini berarti bahwa performa spoken recount dari para siswa meningkat. Andaikata presentasi ditempatkan di bagian akhir dari langkah-langkah aktivitas, peforma spoken recount para siswa bahkan akan lebih baik lagi. Kesimpulannya adalah bahwa implementasi metode CLT beserta tiga praktiknya berkontribusi pada peningkatan kemampuan berbicara para siswa dalam pembelajaran recount dan bahkan metode CLT mengarahkan mereka untuk memiliki keberanian dalam mengonstruksi komunikasi yang bermakna dengan percaya diri. Kata kunci: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT, recount, berbicara, respon siswa

Examination of the neighborhood activation theory in normal and hearing-impaired listeners.

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Dirks, D D; Takayanagi, S; Moshfegh, A; Noffsinger, P D; Fausti, S A

2001-02-01

Experiments were conducted to examine the effects of lexical information on word recognition among normal hearing listeners and individuals with sensorineural hearing loss. The lexical factors of interest were incorporated in the Neighborhood Activation Model (NAM). Central to this model is the concept that words are recognized relationally in the context of other phonemically similar words. NAM suggests that words in the mental lexicon are organized into similarity neighborhoods and the listener is required to select the target word from competing lexical items. Two structural characteristics of similarity neighborhoods that influence word recognition have been identified; "neighborhood density" or the number of phonemically similar words (neighbors) for a particular target item and "neighborhood frequency" or the average frequency of occurrence of all the items within a neighborhood. A third lexical factor, "word frequency" or the frequency of occurrence of a target word in the language, is assumed to optimize the word recognition process by biasing the system toward choosing a high frequency over a low frequency word. Three experiments were performed. In the initial experiments, word recognition for consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) monosyllables was assessed in young normal hearing listeners by systematically partitioning the items into the eight possible lexical conditions that could be created by two levels of the three lexical factors, word frequency (high and low), neighborhood density (high and low), and average neighborhood frequency (high and low). Neighborhood structure and word frequency were estimated computationally using a large, on-line lexicon-based Webster's Pocket Dictionary. From this program 400 highly familiar, monosyllables were selected and partitioned into eight orthogonal lexical groups (50 words/group). The 400 words were presented randomly to normal hearing listeners in speech-shaped noise (Experiment 1) and "in quiet" (Experiment 2) as

Validation of walk score for estimating neighborhood walkability: an analysis of four US metropolitan areas.

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Duncan, Dustin T; Aldstadt, Jared; Whalen, John; Melly, Steven J; Gortmaker, Steven L

2011-11-01

Neighborhood walkability can influence physical activity. We evaluated the validity of Walk Score(®) for assessing neighborhood walkability based on GIS (objective) indicators of neighborhood walkability with addresses from four US metropolitan areas with several street network buffer distances (i.e., 400-, 800-, and 1,600-meters). Address data come from the YMCA-Harvard After School Food and Fitness Project, an obesity prevention intervention involving children aged 5-11 years and their families participating in YMCA-administered, after-school programs located in four geographically diverse metropolitan areas in the US (n = 733). GIS data were used to measure multiple objective indicators of neighborhood walkability. Walk Scores were also obtained for the participant's residential addresses. Spearman correlations between Walk Scores and the GIS neighborhood walkability indicators were calculated as well as Spearman correlations accounting for spatial autocorrelation. There were many significant moderate correlations between Walk Scores and the GIS neighborhood walkability indicators such as density of retail destinations and intersection density (p walkability. Correlations generally became stronger with a larger spatial scale, and there were some geographic differences. Walk Score(®) is free and publicly available for public health researchers and practitioners. Results from our study suggest that Walk Score(®) is a valid measure of estimating certain aspects of neighborhood walkability, particularly at the 1600-meter buffer. As such, our study confirms and extends the generalizability of previous findings demonstrating that Walk Score is a valid measure of estimating neighborhood walkability in multiple geographic locations and at multiple spatial scales.

Neighborhood disadvantage and obesity across childhood and adolescence: Evidence from the NLSY children and young adults cohort (1986-2010).

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Alvarado, Steven Elías

2016-05-01

Previous research suggests that youth who grow up in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods face higher odds of becoming obese. Neighborhood effects scholars, meanwhile, have suggested that contextual influences may increase in strength as children age. This is the first study to examine whether developmental epochs moderate the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on obesity over time. I use thirteen waves of new restricted and geo-coded data on children ages 2-18 from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Children and Young Adults. Bivariate and pooled logistic regression results suggest that neighborhood disadvantage has a stronger impact on adolescents' likelihood of becoming obese. Fixed effects models reveal that after adjusting for observed and unobserved confounders, adolescents continue to face higher odds of becoming obese due to the conditions associated with living in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Moreover, as research on adults suggests, girls experience larger impacts of neighborhood disadvantage than boys. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Does it really matter whether students' contributions are spoken versus typed in an intelligent tutoring system with natural language?

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D'Mello, Sidney K; Dowell, Nia; Graesser, Arthur

2011-03-01

There is the question of whether learning differs when students speak versus type their responses when interacting with intelligent tutoring systems with natural language dialogues. Theoretical bases exist for three contrasting hypotheses. The speech facilitation hypothesis predicts that spoken input will increase learning, whereas the text facilitation hypothesis predicts typed input will be superior. The modality equivalence hypothesis claims that learning gains will be equivalent. Previous experiments that tested these hypotheses were confounded by automated speech recognition systems with substantial error rates that were detected by learners. We addressed this concern in two experiments via a Wizard of Oz procedure, where a human intercepted the learner's speech and transcribed the utterances before submitting them to the tutor. The overall pattern of the results supported the following conclusions: (1) learning gains associated with spoken and typed input were on par and quantitatively higher than a no-intervention control, (2) participants' evaluations of the session were not influenced by modality, and (3) there were no modality effects associated with differences in prior knowledge and typing proficiency. Although the results generally support the modality equivalence hypothesis, highly motivated learners reported lower cognitive load and demonstrated increased learning when typing compared with speaking. We discuss the implications of our findings for intelligent tutoring systems that can support typed and spoken input.

Are neighborhood-level characteristics associated with indoor allergens in the household?

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Rosenfeld, Lindsay; Rudd, Rima; Chew, Ginger L; Emmons, Karen; Acevedo-García, Dolores

2010-02-01

Individual home characteristics have been associated with indoor allergen exposure; however, the influence of neighborhood-level characteristics has not been well studied. We defined neighborhoods as community districts determined by the New York City Department of City Planning. We examined the relationship between neighborhood-level characteristics and the presence of dust mite (Der f 1), cat (Fel d 1), cockroach (Bla g 2), and mouse (MUP) allergens in the household. Using data from the Puerto Rican Asthma Project, a birth cohort of Puerto Rican children at risk of allergic sensitization (n = 261), we examined associations between neighborhood characteristics (percent tree canopy, asthma hospitalizations per 1,000 children, roadway length within 100 meters of buildings, serious housing code violations per 1000 rental units, poverty rates, and felony crime rates), and the presence of indoor allergens. Allergen cutpoints were used for categorical analyses and defined as follows: dust mite: >0.25 microg/g; cat: >1 microg/g; cockroach: >1 U/g; mouse: >1.6 microg/g. Serious housing code violations were statistically significantly positively associated with dust mite, cat, and mouse allergens (continuous variables), adjusting for mother's income and education, and all neighborhood-level characteristics. In multivariable logistic regression analyses, medium levels of housing code violations were associated with higher dust mite and cat allergens (1.81, 95%CI: 1.08, 3.03 and 3.10, 95%CI: 1.22, 7.92, respectively). A high level of serious housing code violations was associated with higher mouse allergen (2.04, 95%CI: 1.15, 3.62). A medium level of housing code violations was associated with higher cockroach allergen (3.30, 95%CI: 1.11, 9.78). Neighborhood-level characteristics, specifically housing code violations, appear to be related to indoor allergens, which may have implications for future research explorations and policy decisions.

Producing complex spoken numerals for time and space

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Meeuwissen, M.H.W.

2004-01-01

This thesis addressed the spoken production of complex numerals for time and space. The production of complex numerical expressions like those involved in telling time (e.g., 'quarter to four') or producing house numbers (e.g., 'two hundred forty-five') has been almost completely ignored. Yet, adult

Obesity and the built environment: does the density of neighborhood fast-food outlets matter?

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Li, Fuzhong; Harmer, Peter; Cardinal, Bradley J; Bosworth, Mark; Johnson-Shelton, Deb

2009-01-01

Examine variation in obesity among older adults relative to the joint influences of density of neighborhood fast food outlets and residents' behavioral, psychosocial, and sociodemographic characteristics. Cross-sectional and multilevel design. Census block groups, used as a proxy for neighborhoods, within the metropolitan region's Urban Growth Boundary in Portland, Oregon. A total of 1221 residents (mean age, 65 years) recruited randomly from 120 neighborhoods (48% response rate). A geographic information system-based measure of fast food restaurant density across 120 neighborhoods was created. Residents within the sampled neighborhoods were assessed with respect to their body mass indices (BMI), frequency of visits to local fast food restaurants, fried food consumption, levels of physical activity, self-efficacy of eating fruits and vegetables, household income, and race/ethnicity. Multilevel logistic regression analyses. Significant associations were found between resident-level individual characteristics and the likelihood of being obese (BMI > or = 30) for neighborhoods with a high-density of fast food restaurants in comparison with those with a low density: odds ratios for obesity, 95% confidence intervals (CI), were 1.878 (CI, 1.006-3.496) for weekly visits to local fast food restaurants; 1.792 (CI, 1.006-3.190) for not meeting physical activity recommendations; 1.212 (CI, 1.057-1.391) for low confidence in eating healthy food; and 8.057 (CI, 1.705-38.086) for non-Hispanic black residents. Increased density of neighborhood fast food outlets was associated with unhealthy lifestyles, poorer psychosocial profiles, and increased risk of obesity among older adults.

Neighborhood Disadvantage, Neighborhood Safety and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in African Americans: Biosocial Associations in the Jackson Heart Study

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Clark, Cheryl R.; Ommerborn, Mark J.; Hickson, DeMarc A.; Grooms, Kya N.; Sims, Mario; Taylor, Herman A.; Albert, Michelle A.

2013-01-01

Objective We examined associations between neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage, perceived neighborhood safety and cardiometabolic risk factors, adjusting for health behaviors and socioeconomic status (SES) among African Americans. Methods Study participants were non-diabetic African Americans (n = 3,909) in the baseline examination (2000–2004) of the Jackson Heart Study. We measured eight risk factors: the metabolic syndrome, its five components, insulin resistance and cardiovascular inflammation. We assessed neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage with US Census 2000 data. We assessed perceived neighborhood safety, health behaviors and SES via survey. We used generalized estimating equations to estimate associations with a random intercept model for neighborhood effects. Results After adjustment for health behaviors and SES, neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with the metabolic syndrome in women (PR 1.13, 95% CI 1.01, 1.27). Lack of perceived safety was associated with elevated glucose (OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.03, 1.80) and waist circumference (PR 1.06, 95% CI 1.02, 1.11) among women, and with elevated glucose (PR 1.30, 95% CI 1.02, 1.66) and insulin resistance (PR 1.25, 95% CI 1.08, 1.46) among men. Conclusions Neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and perceived safety should be considered as targets for intervention to reduce cardiometabolic risks among African Americans. PMID:23691005

Social causation and neighborhood selection underlie associations of neighborhood factors with illicit drug-using social networks and illicit drug use among adults relocated from public housing.

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Linton, Sabriya L; Haley, Danielle F; Hunter-Jones, Josalin; Ross, Zev; Cooper, Hannah L F

2017-07-01

Theories of social causation and social influence, which posit that neighborhood and social network characteristics are distal causes of substance use, are frequently used to interpret associations among neighborhood characteristics, social network characteristics and substance use. These associations are also hypothesized to result from selection processes, in which substance use determines where people live and who they interact with. The potential for these competing selection mechanisms to co-occur has been underexplored among adults. This study utilizes path analysis to determine the paths that relate census tract characteristics (e.g., economic deprivation), social network characteristics (i.e., having ≥ 1 illicit drug-using network member) and illicit drug use, among 172 African American adults relocated from public housing in Atlanta, Georgia and followed from 2009 to 2014 (7 waves). Individual and network-level characteristics were captured using surveys. Census tract characteristics were created using administrative data. Waves 1 (pre-relocation), 2 (1st wave post-relocation), and 7 were analyzed. When controlling for individual-level sociodemographic factors, residing in census tracts with prior economic disadvantage was significantly associated with illicit drug use at wave 1; illicit drug use at wave 1 was significantly associated with living in economically-disadvantaged census tracts at wave 2; and violent crime at wave 2 was associated with illicit drug-using social network members at wave 7. Findings from this study support theories that describe social causation and neighborhood selection processes as explaining relationships of neighborhood characteristics with illicit drug use and illicit drug-using social networks. Policies that improve local economic and social conditions of neighborhoods may discourage substance use. Future studies should further identify the barriers that prevent substance users from obtaining housing in less

"A Unified Poet Alliance": The Personal and Social Outcomes of Youth Spoken Word Poetry Programming

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Weinstein, Susan

2010-01-01

This article places youth spoken word (YSW) poetry programming within the larger framework of arts education. Drawing primarily on transcripts of interviews with teen poets and adult teaching artists and program administrators, the article identifies specific benefits that participants ascribe to youth spoken word, including the development of…

Talker and background noise specificity in spoken word recognition memory

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Angela Cooper

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Prior research has demonstrated that listeners are sensitive to changes in the indexical (talker-specific characteristics of speech input, suggesting that these signal-intrinsic features are integrally encoded in memory for spoken words. Given that listeners frequently must contend with concurrent environmental noise, to what extent do they also encode signal-extrinsic details? Native English listeners’ explicit memory for spoken English monosyllabic and disyllabic words was assessed as a function of consistency versus variation in the talker’s voice (talker condition and background noise (noise condition using a delayed recognition memory paradigm. The speech and noise signals were spectrally-separated, such that changes in a simultaneously presented non-speech signal (background noise from exposure to test would not be accompanied by concomitant changes in the target speech signal. The results revealed that listeners can encode both signal-intrinsic talker and signal-extrinsic noise information into integrated cognitive representations, critically even when the two auditory streams are spectrally non-overlapping. However, the extent to which extra-linguistic episodic information is encoded alongside linguistic information appears to be modulated by syllabic characteristics, with specificity effects found only for monosyllabic items. These findings suggest that encoding and retrieval of episodic information during spoken word processing may be modulated by lexical characteristics.

Acquisition of graphic communication by a young girl without comprehension of spoken language.

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von Tetzchner, S; Øvreeide, K D; Jørgensen, K K; Ormhaug, B M; Oxholm, B; Warme, R

To describe a graphic-mode communication intervention involving a girl with intellectual impairment and autism who did not develop comprehension of spoken language. The aim was to teach graphic-mode vocabulary that reflected her interests, preferences, and the activities and routines of her daily life, by providing sufficient cues to the meanings of the graphic representations so that she would not need to comprehend spoken instructions. An individual case study design was selected, including the use of written records, participant observation, and registration of the girl's graphic vocabulary and use of graphic signs and other communicative expressions. While the girl's comprehension (and hence use) of spoken language remained lacking over a 3-year period, she acquired an active use of over 80 photographs and pictograms. The girl was able to cope better with the cognitive and attentional requirements of graphic communication than those of spoken language and manual signs, which had been focused in earlier interventions. Her achievements demonstrate that it is possible for communication-impaired children to learn to use an augmentative and alternative communication system without speech comprehension, provided the intervention utilizes functional strategies and non-language cues to the meaning of the graphic representations that are taught.

Exploring the Role of the Built and Social Neighborhood Environment in Moderating Stress and Health

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Yang, Tse-Chuan

2014-01-01

Background Health researchers have explored how different aspects of neighborhood characteristics contribute to health and well-being, but current understanding of built environment factors is limited. Purpose This study explores whether the association between stress and health varies by residential neighborhood, and if yes, whether built and social neighborhood environment characteristics act as moderators. Methods This study uses multilevel modeling and variables derived from geospatial data to explore the role of neighborhood environment in moderating the association of stress with health. Individual-level data (N=4,093) were drawn from residents of 45 neighborhoods within Philadelphia County, PA, collected as part of the 2006 Philadelphia Health Management Corporation's Household Health Survey. Results We find that the negative influence of high stress varied by neighborhood, that residential stability and affluence (social characteristics) attenuated the association of high stress with health, and that the presence of hazardous waste facilities (built environment characteristics) moderated health by enhancing the association with stress. Conclusions Our findings suggest that neighborhood environment has both direct and moderating associations with health, after adjusting for individual characteristics. The use of geospatial data could broaden the scope of stress–health research and advance knowledge by untangling the intertwined relationship between built and social environments, stress, and health. In particular, future studies should integrate built environment characteristics in health-related research; these characteristics are modifiable and can facilitate health promotion policies. PMID:20300905

Air pollution in moderately polluted urban areas: How does the definition of "neighborhood" impact exposure assessment?

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Tenailleau, Quentin M; Mauny, Frédéric; Joly, Daniel; François, Stéphane; Bernard, Nadine

2015-11-01

Environmental health studies commonly quantify subjects' pollution exposure in their neighborhood. How this neighborhood is defined can vary, however, leading to different approaches to quantification whose impacts on exposure levels remain unclear. We explore the relationship between neighborhood definition and exposure assessment. NO2, benzene, PM10 and PM2.5 exposure estimates were computed in the vicinity of 10,825 buildings using twelve exposure assessment techniques reflecting different definitions of "neighborhood". At the city scale, its definition does not significantly influence exposure estimates. It does impact levels at the building scale, however: at least a quarter of the buildings' exposure estimates for a 400 m buffer differ from the estimated 50 m buffer value (±1.0 μg/m(3) for NO2, PM10 and PM2.5; and ±0.05 μg/m(3) for benzene). This variation is significantly related to the definition of neighborhood. It is vitally important for investigators to understand the impact of chosen assessment techniques on exposure estimates. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Residential Surrounding Greenness, Self-Rated Health and Interrelations with Aspects of Neighborhood Environment and Social Relations.

Science.gov (United States)

Orban, Ester; Sutcliffe, Robynne; Dragano, Nico; Jöckel, Karl-Heinz; Moebus, Susanne

2017-04-01

Previous research suggests that green environments positively influence health. Several underlying mechanisms have been discussed; one of them is facilitation of social interaction. Further, greener neighborhoods may appear more aesthetic, contributing to satisfaction and well-being. Aim of this study was to analyze the association of residential surrounding greenness with self-rated health, using data from 4480 women and men aged 45-75 years that participated in the German population-based Heinz Nixdorf Recall study. We further aimed to explore the relationships of greenness and self-rated health with the neighborhood environment and social relations. Surrounding greenness was measured using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) within 100 m around participants' residence. As a result, we found that with higher greenness, poor self-rated health decreased (adjusted OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.82-0.98; per 0.1 increase in NDVI), while neighborhood satisfaction (1.41, 1.23-1.61) and neighborhood social capital (1.22, 1.12-1.32) increased. Further, we observed inverse associations of neighborhood satisfaction (0.70, 0.52-0.94), perceived safety (0.36, 0.22-0.60), social satisfaction (0.43, 0.31-0.58), and neighborhood social capital (0.53, 0.44-0.64) with poor self-rated health. These results underline the importance of incorporating green elements into neighborhoods for health-promoting urban development strategies.

The influence of the neighborhood physical environment on early child health and development: A review and call for research.

Science.gov (United States)

Christian, Hayley; Zubrick, Stephen R; Foster, Sarah; Giles-Corti, Billie; Bull, Fiona; Wood, Lisa; Knuiman, Matthew; Brinkman, Sally; Houghton, Stephen; Boruff, Bryan

2015-05-01

This review examines evidence of the association between the neighborhood built environment, green spaces and outdoor home area, and early (0-7 years) child health and development. There was evidence that the presence of child relevant neighborhood destinations and services were positively associated with early child development domains of physical health and wellbeing and social competence. Parents׳ perceptions of neighborhood safety were positively associated with children׳s social-emotional development and general health. Population representative studies using objective measures of the built environment and valid measures of early child development are warranted to understand the impact of the built environment on early child health and development. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of lexical competition on immediate memory span for spoken words.

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Goh, Winston D; Pisoni, David B

2003-08-01

Current theories and models of the structural organization of verbal short-term memory are primarily based on evidence obtained from manipulations of features inherent in the short-term traces of the presented stimuli, such as phonological similarity. In the present study, we investigated whether properties of the stimuli that are not inherent in the short-term traces of spoken words would affect performance in an immediate memory span task. We studied the lexical neighbourhood properties of the stimulus items, which are based on the structure and organization of words in the mental lexicon. The experiments manipulated lexical competition by varying the phonological neighbourhood structure (i.e., neighbourhood density and neighbourhood frequency) of the words on a test list while controlling for word frequency and intra-set phonological similarity (family size). Immediate memory span for spoken words was measured under repeated and nonrepeated sampling procedures. The results demonstrated that lexical competition only emerged when a nonrepeated sampling procedure was used and the participants had to access new words from their lexicons. These findings were not dependent on individual differences in short-term memory capacity. Additional results showed that the lexical competition effects did not interact with proactive interference. Analyses of error patterns indicated that item-type errors, but not positional errors, were influenced by the lexical attributes of the stimulus items. These results complement and extend previous findings that have argued for separate contributions of long-term knowledge and short-term memory rehearsal processes in immediate verbal serial recall tasks.

The associations between objectively-determined and self-reported urban form characteristics and neighborhood-based walking in adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Jack, Elizabeth; McCormack, Gavin R

2014-06-04

Self-reported and objectively-determined neighborhood built characteristics are associated with physical activity, yet little is known about their combined influence on walking. This study: 1) compared self-reported measures of the neighborhood built environment between objectively-determined low, medium, and high walkable neighborhoods; 2) estimated the relative associations between self-reported and objectively-determined neighborhood characteristics and walking and; 3) examined the extent to which the objectively-determined built environment moderates the association between self-reported measures of the neighborhood built environment and walking. A random cross-section of 1875 Canadian adults completed a telephone-interview and postal questionnaire capturing neighborhood walkability, neighborhood-based walking, socio-demographic characteristics, walking attitudes, and residential self-selection. Walkability of each respondent's neighborhood was objectively-determined (low [LW], medium [MW], and high walkable [HW]). Covariate-adjusted regression models estimated the associations between weekly participation and duration in transportation and recreational walking and self-reported and objectively-determined walkability. Compared with objectively-determined LW neighborhoods, respondents in HW neighborhoods positively perceived access to services, street connectivity, pedestrian infrastructure, and utilitarian and recreation destination mix, but negatively perceived motor vehicle traffic and crime related safety. Compared with residents of objectively-determined LW neighborhoods, residents of HW neighborhoods were more likely (p spend more time, per week (193 min/wk) transportation walking. Perceived access to services, street connectivity, motor vehicle safety, and mix of recreational destinations were also significantly associated with transportation walking. With regard to interactions, HW x utilitarian destination mix was positively associated with

Neighborhood Effects on Birthweight: An Exploration of Psychosocial and Behavioral Pathways in Baltimore, 1995–1996

OpenAIRE

Schempf, Ashley; Strobino, Donna; O’Campo, Patricia

2008-01-01

Neighborhood characteristics have been proposed to influence birth outcomes through psychosocial and behavioral pathways, yet empirical evidence is lacking. Using data from an urban, low-income sample, this study examined the impact of the neighborhood environment on birthweight and evaluated mediation by psychosocial and behavioral factors. The sample included 726 women who delivered a live birth at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland USA between 1995 and 1996. Census tract data we...

A Descriptive Study of Registers Found in Spoken and Written Communication (A Semantic Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nurul Hidayah

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This research is descriptive study of registers found in spoken and written communication. The type of this research is Descriptive Qualitative Research. In this research, the data of the study is register in spoken and written communication that are found in a book entitled "Communicating! Theory and Practice" and from internet. The data can be in the forms of words, phrases and abbreviation. In relation with method of collection data, the writer uses the library method as her instrument. The writer relates it to the study of register in spoken and written communication. The technique of analyzing the data using descriptive method. The types of register in this term will be separated into formal register and informal register, and identify the meaning of register.

Neighborhood disorder, peer network health, and substance use among young urban adolescents.

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Mason, Michael J; Light, John M; Mennis, Jeremy; Rusby, Julie C; Westling, Erika; Crewe, Stephanie; Zaharakis, Nikola; Way, Thomas; Flay, Brian R

2017-09-01

The current study investigated the moderating effect of peer networks on neighborhood disorder's association with substance use in a sample of primarily African American urban adolescents. A convenience sample of 248 adolescents was recruited from urban health care settings and followed for two years, assessing psychological, social, and geographic risk and protective characteristics. A subset of 106 substance using participants were used for the analyses. A moderation model was tested to determine if the influence of neighborhood disorder (percent vacant housing, assault index, percent single parent headed households, percent home owner occupied, percent below poverty line) on substance use was moderated by peer network health (sum of peer risk and protective behaviors). Evidence for hypothesized peer network moderation was supported. A latent growth model found that peer network health is most strongly associated with lower baseline substance use for young adolescents residing in more disordered neighborhoods. Over the course of two years (ages approximately 14-16) this protective effect declines, and the decline is stronger for more disordered neighborhoods. Understanding the longitudinal moderating effects of peer networks within high-risk urban settings is important to the development and testing of contextually sensitive peer-based interventions. suggest that targeting the potential protective qualities of peer networks may be a promising approach for interventions seeking to reduce substance use, particularly among younger urban adolescents living in high-risk neighborhoods. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A multi-level analysis of the impact of neighborhood structural and social factors on adolescent substance use.

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Fagan, Abigail A; Wright, Emily M; Pinchevsky, Gillian M

2015-08-01

This paper examined the effects of neighborhood structural (i.e., economic disadvantage, immigrant concentration, residential stability) and social (e.g., collective efficacy, social network interactions, intolerance of drug use, legal cynicism) factors on the likelihood of any adolescent tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use. Analyses drew upon information from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN). Data were obtained from a survey of adult residents of 79 Chicago neighborhoods, two waves of interviews with 1657 to 1664 care-givers and youth aged 8 to 16 years, and information from the 1990 U.S. Census Bureau. Hierarchical Bernoulli regression models estimated the impact of neighborhood factors on substance use controlling for individual-level demographic characteristics and psycho-social risk factors. Few neighborhood factors had statistically significant direct effects on adolescent tobacco, alcohol or marijuana use, although youth living in neighborhoods with greater levels of immigrant concentration were less likely to report any drinking. Additional theorizing and more empirical research are needed to better understand the ways in which contextual influences affect adolescent substance use and delinquency. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Drinking and Driving among Recent Latino Immigrants: The Impact of Neighborhoods and Social Support

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Mariana Sanchez

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Latinos are disproportionately impacted by drinking and driving arrests and alcohol-related fatal crashes. Why, and how, these disparities occur remains unclear. The neighborhood environments that recent Latino immigrants encounter in their host communities can potentially influence health behaviors over time, including the propensity to engage in drinking and driving. This cross-sectional study utilizes a sample of 467 documented and undocumented adult recent Latino immigrants in the United States to answer the following research questions: (a How do neighborhood-level factors, combined with social support, impact drinking and driving risk behaviors?; and (b Does acculturative stress moderate the effects of those associations? Results indicate neighborhood-level factors (informal social control and social capital have protective effects against drinking and driving risk behaviors via the mediating mechanism of social support. Acculturative stress moderated associations between neighborhood informal social control and social support, whereby the protective effects of informal social control on social support were not present for those immigrants with higher levels of acculturative stress. Our findings contribute to the limited knowledge of drinking and driving among Latino immigrants early in the immigration process and suggest that, in the process of developing prevention programs tailored to Latino immigrants, greater attention must be paid to neighborhood-level factors.

Drinking and Driving among Recent Latino Immigrants: The Impact of Neighborhoods and Social Support

Science.gov (United States)

Sanchez, Mariana; Romano, Eduardo; Dawson, Christyl; Huang, Hui; Sneij, Alicia; Cyrus, Elena; Rojas, Patria; Cano, Miguel Ángel; Brook, Judith; De La Rosa, Mario

2016-01-01

Latinos are disproportionately impacted by drinking and driving arrests and alcohol-related fatal crashes. Why, and how, these disparities occur remains unclear. The neighborhood environments that recent Latino immigrants encounter in their host communities can potentially influence health behaviors over time, including the propensity to engage in drinking and driving. This cross-sectional study utilizes a sample of 467 documented and undocumented adult recent Latino immigrants in the United States to answer the following research questions: (a) How do neighborhood-level factors, combined with social support, impact drinking and driving risk behaviors?; and (b) Does acculturative stress moderate the effects of those associations? Results indicate neighborhood-level factors (informal social control and social capital) have protective effects against drinking and driving risk behaviors via the mediating mechanism of social support. Acculturative stress moderated associations between neighborhood informal social control and social support, whereby the protective effects of informal social control on social support were not present for those immigrants with higher levels of acculturative stress. Our findings contribute to the limited knowledge of drinking and driving among Latino immigrants early in the immigration process and suggest that, in the process of developing prevention programs tailored to Latino immigrants, greater attention must be paid to neighborhood-level factors. PMID:27801856

Neighborhood environment and walking for transport and recreation in Central European older adults

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Jana Pelclová

2012-12-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Neighborhood environment is an aspect that influences physical activity, mainly walking. Hence, built environment research may help to use environmental and policy strategies to increase physical activity. OBJECTIVE: This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the association between perceived neighborhood environment and meeting the recommendation of at least 30 minutes of walking 5 or more days a week within active transportation and leisure-time domains in Central European older adults. METHODS: Four hundred and fifty six healthy ambulatory older adults filled out the modified and culturally adapted version of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (ANEWS for obtaining perceived environment information and the self-administrative long version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ for assessing physical activity levels. RESULTS: Respondents living in high residential density neighborhoods (OR 1.87, living in flats (OR 2.09 and in location with ≤100,000 inhabitants (OR 1.63 were more likely to meet recommendation within walking for transportation. Owning a dog was associated with meeting recommendation within walking for leisure (OR 1.69. CONCLUSIONS: This study supported the specific impact of environment on meeting PA recommendations within transportation and leisure time walking in older adults. Out of all perceived neighborhood environmental attributes received from ANEWS questionnaire, only high residential density was positively associated with meeting recommendation within total walking and walking for transport.

Early-life school, neighborhood, and family influences on adult health: a multilevel cross-classified analysis of the Aberdeen children of the 1950s study.

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Dundas, Ruth; Leyland, Alastair H; Macintyre, Sally

2014-07-15

Lifetime exposures to adverse social environments influence adult health, as do exposures in early life. It is usual to examine the influences of school on teenage health and of adult area of residence on adult health. We examined the combined long-term association of the school attended, as well as the area of residence in childhood, with adult health. A total of 6,285 children from Aberdeen, Scotland, who were aged 5-12 years in 1962, were followed up at a mean age of 47 years in 2001. Cross-classified multilevel logistic regression was used to estimate the associations of family, school, and area of residence with self-reported adult health and mental health, adjusting for childhood family-, school-, and neighborhood-level factors, as well as current adult occupational position. Low early-life social position (as determined by the father's occupational level) was associated with poor adult self-rated health but not poor mental health. There were small contextual associations between childhood school environment (median odds ratio = 1.08) and neighborhood environment (median odds ratio = 1.05) and adult self-rated health. The share of the total variance in health at the family level was 10.1% compared with 89.6% at the individual level. Both socioeconomic context and composition in early life appear to have an influence on adult health, even after adjustment for current occupational position. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The Role of Orthographic Neighborhood Size Effects in Chinese Word Recognition

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Li, Meng-Feng; Lin, Wei-Chun; Chou, Tai-Li; Yang, Fu-Ling; Wu, Jei-Tun

2015-01-01

Previous studies about the orthographic neighborhood size (NS) in Chinese have overlooked the morphological processing, and the co-variation between the character frequency and the the NS. The present study manipulated the word frequency and the NS simultaneously, with the leading character frequency controlled, to explore their influences on word…

A memory-based shallow parser for spoken Dutch

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Canisius, S.V.M.; van den Bosch, A.; Decadt, B.; Hoste, V.; De Pauw, G.

2004-01-01

We describe the development of a Dutch memory-based shallow parser. The availability of large treebanks for Dutch, such as the one provided by the Spoken Dutch Corpus, allows memory-based learners to be trained on examples of shallow parsing taken from the treebank, and act as a shallow parser after

Validation of Walk Score® for Estimating Neighborhood Walkability: An Analysis of Four US Metropolitan Areas

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Duncan, Dustin T.; Aldstadt, Jared; Whalen, John; Melly, Steven J.; Gortmaker, Steven L.

2011-01-01

Neighborhood walkability can influence physical activity. We evaluated the validity of Walk Score® for assessing neighborhood walkability based on GIS (objective) indicators of neighborhood walkability with addresses from four US metropolitan areas with several street network buffer distances (i.e., 400-, 800-, and 1,600-meters). Address data come from the YMCA-Harvard After School Food and Fitness Project, an obesity prevention intervention involving children aged 5–11 years and their families participating in YMCA-administered, after-school programs located in four geographically diverse metropolitan areas in the US (n = 733). GIS data were used to measure multiple objective indicators of neighborhood walkability. Walk Scores were also obtained for the participant’s residential addresses. Spearman correlations between Walk Scores and the GIS neighborhood walkability indicators were calculated as well as Spearman correlations accounting for spatial autocorrelation. There were many significant moderate correlations between Walk Scores and the GIS neighborhood walkability indicators such as density of retail destinations and intersection density (p walkability. Correlations generally became stronger with a larger spatial scale, and there were some geographic differences. Walk Score® is free and publicly available for public health researchers and practitioners. Results from our study suggest that Walk Score® is a valid measure of estimating certain aspects of neighborhood walkability, particularly at the 1600-meter buffer. As such, our study confirms and extends the generalizability of previous findings demonstrating that Walk Score is a valid measure of estimating neighborhood walkability in multiple geographic locations and at multiple spatial scales. PMID:22163200

Neighborhood Poverty and Adolescent Development

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McBride Murry, Velma; Berkel, Cady; Gaylord-Harden, Noni K.; Copeland-Linder, Nikeea; Nation, Maury

2011-01-01

This article provides a comprehensive review of studies conducted over the past decade on the effects of neighborhood and poverty on adolescent normative and nonnormative development. Our review includes a summary of studies examining the associations between neighborhood poverty and adolescent identity development followed by a review of studies…

Perceived and objective neighborhood support for outside of school physical activity in South African children

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Monika Uys

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The neighborhood environment has the potential to influence children’s participation in physical activity. However, children’s outdoor play is controlled by parents to a great extent. This study aimed to investigate whether parents' perceptions of the neighborhood environment and the objectively measured neighborhood environment were associated with children's moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA outside of school hours; and to determine if these perceptions and objective measures of the neighborhood environment differ between high and low socio-economic status (SES groups. Methods In total, 258 parents of 9–11 year-old children, recruited from the South African sample of the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE, completed a questionnaire concerning the family and neighborhood environment. Objective measures of the environment were also obtained using Geographic Information Systems (GIS. Children wore an Actigraph (GT3X+ accelerometer for 7 days to measure levels of MVPA. Multilevel regression models were used to determine the association between the neighborhood environment and MVPA out of school hours. Results Parents’ perceptions of the neighborhood physical activity facilities were positively associated with children’s MVPA before school (β = 1.50 ± 0.51, p = 0.003. Objective measures of neighborhood safety and traffic risk were associated with children’s after-school MVPA (β = −2.72 ± 1.35, p = 0.044 and β = −2.63 ± 1.26, p = 0.038, respectively. These associations were significant in the low SES group (β = −3.38 ± 1.65, p = 0.040 and β = −3.76 ± 1.61, p = 0.020, respectively, but unrelated to MVPA in the high SES group. Conclusions This study found that several of the objective measures of the neighborhood environment were significantly associated with children�

The Influence of Neighborhood Characteristics and Parenting Practices on Academic Problems and Aggression Outcomes among Moderately to Highly Aggressive Children

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Barry, Tammy D.; Lochman, John E.; Fite, Paula J.; Wells, Karen C.; Colder, Craig R.

2012-01-01

The current study utilized a longitudinal design to examine the effects of neighborhood and parenting on 120 at-risk children's academic and aggressive outcomes, concurrently and at two later timepoints during the transition to middle school. Random effects regression models were estimated to examine whether neighborhood characteristics and harsh…

Reconciling phonological neighborhood effects in speech production through single trial analysis.

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Sadat, Jasmin; Martin, Clara D; Costa, Albert; Alario, F-Xavier

2014-02-01

A crucial step for understanding how lexical knowledge is represented is to describe the relative similarity of lexical items, and how it influences language processing. Previous studies of the effects of form similarity on word production have reported conflicting results, notably within and across languages. The aim of the present study was to clarify this empirical issue to provide specific constraints for theoretical models of language production. We investigated the role of phonological neighborhood density in a large-scale picture naming experiment using fine-grained statistical models. The results showed that increasing phonological neighborhood density has a detrimental effect on naming latencies, and re-analyses of independently obtained data sets provide supplementary evidence for this effect. Finally, we reviewed a large body of evidence concerning phonological neighborhood density effects in word production, and discussed the occurrence of facilitatory and inhibitory effects in accuracy measures. The overall pattern shows that phonological neighborhood generates two opposite forces, one facilitatory and one inhibitory. In cases where speech production is disrupted (e.g. certain aphasic symptoms), the facilitatory component may emerge, but inhibitory processes dominate in efficient naming by healthy speakers. These findings are difficult to accommodate in terms of monitoring processes, but can be explained within interactive activation accounts combining phonological facilitation and lexical competition. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Fourth International Workshop on Spoken Dialog Systems

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Rosset, Sophie; Garnier-Rizet, Martine; Devillers, Laurence; Natural Interaction with Robots, Knowbots and Smartphones : Putting Spoken Dialog Systems into Practice

2014-01-01

These proceedings presents the state-of-the-art in spoken dialog systems with applications in robotics, knowledge access and communication. It addresses specifically: 1. Dialog for interacting with smartphones; 2. Dialog for Open Domain knowledge access; 3. Dialog for robot interaction; 4. Mediated dialog (including crosslingual dialog involving Speech Translation); and, 5. Dialog quality evaluation. These articles were presented at the IWSDS 2012 workshop.

Strategies of Building a Stronger Sense of Community for Sustainable Neighborhoods: Comparing Neighborhood Accessibility with Community Empowerment Programs

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Te-I Albert Tsai

2014-05-01

Full Text Available New Urbanist development in the U.S. aims at enhancing a sense of community and seeks to return to the design of early transitional neighborhoods which have pedestrian-oriented environments with retail shops and services within walking distances of housing. Meanwhile, 6000 of Taiwan’s community associations have been running community empowerment programs supported by the Council for Cultural Affairs that have helped many neighborhoods to rebuild so-called community cohesion. This research attempts to evaluate whether neighborhoods with facilities near housing and shorter travel distances within a neighborhood would promote stronger social interactions and form a better community attachment than neighborhoods that have various opportunities for residents to participate in either formal or informal social gatherings. After interviewing and surveying residents from 19 neighborhoods in Taipei’s Beitou District, and correlating the psychological sense of community with inner neighborhood’s daily travel distances and numbers of participatory activities held by community organizations under empowerment programs together with frequencies of regular individual visits and casual meetings, statistical evidence yielded that placing public facilities near residential locations is more effective than providing various programs for elevating a sense of community.

Latino Adolescents Perception of Parenting Behaviors and Self-Esteem: Examining the Role of Neighborhood Risk

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Bamaca, Mayra Y.; Umana-Taylor, Adriana J.; Shin, Nana; Alfaro, Edna C.

2005-01-01

We examined the relations among parenting behaviors, adolescents' self-esteem, and neighborhood risk with a Midwestern sample of 324 Latino adolescents. The findings suggest that boys' self-esteem is influenced by both mothers' and fathers' parenting behaviors, whereas girls' self-esteem is influenced by mothers' behaviors only. In addition, the…

The time course of morphological processing during spoken word recognition in Chinese.

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Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Ni, Aiping; Zhou, Junyi; Li, Xingshan

2017-12-01

We investigated the time course of morphological processing during spoken word recognition using the printed-word paradigm. Chinese participants were asked to listen to a spoken disyllabic compound word while simultaneously viewing a printed-word display. Each visual display consisted of three printed words: a semantic associate of the first constituent of the compound word (morphemic competitor), a semantic associate of the whole compound word (whole-word competitor), and an unrelated word (distractor). Participants were directed to detect whether the spoken target word was on the visual display. Results indicated that both the morphemic and whole-word competitors attracted more fixations than the distractor. More importantly, the morphemic competitor began to diverge from the distractor immediately at the acoustic offset of the first constituent, which was earlier than the whole-word competitor. These results suggest that lexical access to the auditory word is incremental and morphological processing (i.e., semantic access to the first constituent) that occurs at an early processing stage before access to the representation of the whole word in Chinese.

Defensible Spaces in Philadelphia: Exploring Neighborhood Boundaries Through Spatial Analysis

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Rory Kramer

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Few spatial scales are as important to individual outcomes as the neighborhood. However, it is nearly impossible to define neighborhoods in a generalizable way. This article proposes that by shifting the focus to measuring neighborhood boundaries rather than neighborhoods, scholars can avoid the problem of the indefinable neighborhood and better approach questions of what predicts racial segregation across areas. By quantifying an externality space theory of neighborhood boundaries, this article introduces a novel form of spatial analysis to test where potential physical markers of neighborhood boundaries (major roads, rivers, railroads, and the like are associated with persistent racial boundaries between 1990 and 2010. Using Philadelphia as a case study, the paper identifies neighborhoods with persistent racial boundaries. It theorizes that local histories of white reactions to black in-migration explain which boundaries persistently resisted racial turnover, unlike the majority of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods, and that those racial boundaries shape the location, progress, and reaction to new residential development in those neighborhoods.

Measuring the neighborhood environment: associations with young girls' energy intake and expenditure in a cross-sectional study

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Kushi Lawrence H

2010-06-01

suggest that neighborhood food and retail availability may be inversely associated with young girls' energy intakes in contrast to other studies' findings that focused on adults. There is considerable variation in neighborhoods' influences on young girls' physical activity behaviors, particularly for young girls of different racial/ethnic backgrounds.

Neighborhood Economic Enterprises: An Analysis, Survey, and Guide to Resources in Starting Up Neighborhood Enterprises.

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Kotler, Neil G.

This pamphlet provides information on the history of and current trends toward neighborhood economic enterprises and provides guidance for setting up such enterprises. A bibliography of books, articles, and newsletters that have information on how to start and sustain neighborhood businesses and cooperatives is provided. Also included is a list of…

Neighborhood Disparities in the Restaurant Food Environment.

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Martinez-Donate, Ana P; Espino, Jennifer Valdivia; Meinen, Amy; Escaron, Anne L; Roubal, Anne; Nieto, Javier; Malecki, Kristen

2016-11-01

Restaurant meals account for a significant portion of the American diet. Investigating disparities in the restaurant food environment can inform targeted interventions to increase opportunities for healthy eating among those who need them most. To examine neighborhood disparities in restaurant density and the nutrition environment within restaurants among a statewide sample of Wisconsin households. Households (N = 259) were selected from the 2009-2010 Survey of the Health of Wisconsin (SHOW), a population-based survey of Wisconsin adults. Restaurants in the household neighborhood were enumerated and audited using the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Restaurants (NEMS-R). Neighborhoods were defined as a 2- and 5-mile street-distance buffer around households in urban and non-urban areas, respectively. Adjusted linear regression models identified independent associations between sociodemographic household characteristics and neighborhood restaurant density and nutrition environment scores. On average, each neighborhood contained approximately 26 restaurants. On average, restaurants obtained 36.1% of the total nutrition environment points. After adjusting for household characteristics, higher restaurant density was associated with both younger and older household average age (P restaurant food environment in Wisconsin neighborhoods varies by age, race, and urbanicity, but offers ample room for improvement across socioeconomic groups and urbanicity levels. Future research must identify policy and environmental interventions to promote healthy eating in all restaurants, especially in young and/or rural neighborhoods in Wisconsin.

Relations of Parenting to Adolescent Externalizing and Internalizing Distress Moderated by Perception of Neighborhood Danger.

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Goldner, Jonathan S; Quimby, Dakari; Richards, Maryse H; Zakaryan, Arie; Miller, Steve; Dickson, Daniel; Chilson, Jessica

2016-01-01

Parental monitoring and warmth have traditionally been studied in the context of White, middle-class families. This article explores optimal levels of these parenting behaviors in preventing adolescent psychopathology in impoverished, urban high-crime areas while accounting for child perceptions of neighborhood danger. In this study, data were collected longitudinally at 2 time points 1 year apart from a sample of 254 African American young adolescents (T1: M age = 12.6 years, 41% male) and their parents. Parental monitoring and warmth, child perception of neighborhood danger, and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors were measured using questionnaires. Child internalizing behaviors were also measured using a time sampling technique capturing in vivo accounts of daily distress. Findings indicated associations between parental monitoring and children's externalizing behaviors along with linear and quadratic associations between parental monitoring and internalizing behaviors. Monitoring and warmth were differentially related to symptoms depending on neighborhood danger level. When children perceived less danger, more monitoring related to less externalizing. When children perceived more danger, more warmth related to less internalizing. In addition, adolescents' perceptions of neighborhood danger emerged as equally strong as monitoring and warmth in predicting symptoms. This study underscores the influence of carefully considering parenting approaches and which techniques optimally prevent adolescents' externalizing, as well as prevent internalizing difficulties. It also highlights how context affects mental health, specifically how perceptions of danger negatively influence adolescents' psychopathology, emphasizing the importance of initiatives to reduce violence in communities.

Space, race, and poverty: Spatial inequalities in walkable neighborhood amenities?

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John Whalen

2012-05-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND Multiple and varied benefits have been suggested for increased neighborhood walkability. However, spatial inequalities in neighborhood walkability likely exist and may be attributable, in part, to residential segregation. OBJECTIVE Utilizing a spatial demographic perspective, we evaluated potential spatial inequalities in walkable neighborhood amenities across census tracts in Boston, MA (US. METHODS The independent variables included minority racial/ethnic population percentages and percent of families in poverty. Walkable neighborhood amenities were assessed with a composite measure. Spatial autocorrelation in key study variables were first calculated with the Global Moran's I statistic. Then, Spearman correlations between neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics and walkable neighborhood amenities were calculated as well as Spearman correlations accounting for spatial autocorrelation. We fit ordinary least squares (OLS regression and spatial autoregressive models when appropriate as a final step. RESULTS Significant positive spatial autocorrelation was found in neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics (e.g. census tract percent Black, but not walkable neighborhood amenities or in the OLS regression residuals. Spearman correlations between neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics and walkable neighborhood amenities were not statistically significant, nor were neighborhood socio-demographic characteristics significantly associated with walkable neighborhood amenities in OLS regression models. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that there is residential segregation in Boston and that spatial inequalities do not necessarily show up using a composite measure. COMMENTS Future research in other geographic areas (including international contexts and using different definitions of neighborhoods (including small-area definitions should evaluate if spatial inequalities are found using composite measures, but also should

Early Adolescent Alcohol Use in Context: How Neighborhoods, Parents and Peers Impact Youth

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Trucco, Elisa M.; Colder, Craig R.; Wieczorek, William F.; Lengua, Liliana J.; Hawk, Larry W.

2014-01-01

Developmental-ecological models are useful for integrating risk factors across multiple contexts and conceptualizing mediational pathways for adolescent alcohol use; yet, these comprehensive models are rarely tested. This study used a developmental-ecological framework to investigate the influence of neighborhood, family, and peer contexts on alcohol use in early adolescence (N = 387). Results from a multi-informant longitudinal cross-lagged mediation path model suggested that high levels of neighborhood disadvantage were associated with high levels of alcohol use two years later via an indirect pathway that included exposure to delinquent peers and adolescent delinquency. Results also indicated that adolescent involvement with delinquent peers and alcohol use led to decrements in parenting, rather than being consequences of poor parenting. Overall, the study supported hypothesized relationships among key microsystems thought to influence adolescent alcohol use, and thus findings underscore the utility of developmental-ecological models of alcohol use. PMID:24621660

Promoting Active Urban Aging: A Measurement Approach to Neighborhood Walkability for Older Adults

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Rachael L. Weiss

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Understanding the role of the built environment on physical activity behavior among older adults is an important public health goal, but evaluating these relationships remains complicated due to the difficulty of measuring specific attributes of the environment. As a result, there is conflicting evidence regarding the association between perceived and objectively measured walkability and physical activity among urban-dwelling older adults. This suggests that both actual environmental features and perceptions of these attributes influence walking behavior. The purpose of this pilot project is to create an Objective Walkability Index (OWI by census block using a Geographic Information System (GIS and supplement the results with resident perceptions thus more accurately characterizing the context of walkability. Computerized Neighborhood Environment Tracking (ComNET was used to systematically assess environmental risks impacting activity patterns of older adults in two New York City neighborhoods. In addition, the Senior Center Evaluation of the Neighborhood Environment (SCENE survey was administered to older adults attending two senior centers located within the target neighborhoods. The results indicate that there is substantial variation in OWI score both between and within the neighborhoods suggesting that residence in some communities may increase the risk of inactivity among older adults. Also, low walkability census blocks were clustered within each neighborhood providing an opportunity for targeted investigation into localized threats to walkability. A lack of consensus regarding the association between the built environment and physical activity among older adults is a consequence of the problems inherent in measuring these determinants. Further empirical evidence evaluating the complex relationships between the built environment and physical activity is an essential step towards creating active communities.

Promoting Active Urban Aging: A Measurement Approach to Neighborhood Walkability for Older Adults.

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Weiss, Rachael L; Maantay, Juliana A; Fahs, Marianne

2010-01-01

Understanding the role of the built environment on physical activity behavior among older adults is an important public health goal, but evaluating these relationships remains complicated due to the difficulty of measuring specific attributes of the environment. As a result, there is conflicting evidence regarding the association between perceived and objectively measured walkability and physical activity among urban-dwelling older adults. This suggests that both actual environmental features and perceptions of these attributes influence walking behavior. The purpose of this pilot project is to create an Objective Walkability Index (OWI) by census block using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and supplement the results with resident perceptions thus more accurately characterizing the context of walkability. Computerized Neighborhood Environment Tracking (ComNET) was used to systematically assess environmental risks impacting activity patterns of older adults in two New York City neighborhoods. In addition, the Senior Center Evaluation of the Neighborhood Environment (SCENE) survey was administered to older adults attending two senior centers located within the target neighborhoods. The results indicate that there is substantial variation in OWI score both between and within the neighborhoods suggesting that residence in some communities may increase the risk of inactivity among older adults. Also, low walkability census blocks were clustered within each neighborhood providing an opportunity for targeted investigation into localized threats to walkability. A lack of consensus regarding the association between the built environment and physical activity among older adults is a consequence of the problems inherent in measuring these determinants. Further empirical evidence evaluating the complex relationships between the built environment and physical activity is an essential step towards creating active communities.

A review of neighborhood effects and early child development: How, where, and for whom, do neighborhoods matter?

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Minh, Anita; Muhajarine, Nazeem; Janus, Magdalena; Brownell, Marni; Guhn, Martin

2017-07-01

This paper describes a scoping review of 42 studies of neighborhood effects on developmental health for children ages 0-6, published between 2009 and 2014. It focuses on three themes: (1) theoretical mechanisms that drive early childhood development, i.e. how neighborhoods matter for early childhood development; (2) dependence of such mechanisms on place-based characteristics i.e. where neighborhood effects occur; (3) dependence of such mechanisms on child characteristics, i.e. for whom is development most affected. Given that ecological systems theories postulate diverse mechanisms via which neighborhood characteristics affect early child development, we specifically examine evidence on mediation and/or moderation effects. We conclude by discussing future challenges, and proposing recommendations for analyses that utilize ecological longitudinal population-based databases. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

IMPROVING SPOKEN COMPETENCE BY MEANS OF MULTIMODAL ENVIRONMENTS IN A DISTANCE CONTEXT

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María Jordano de la Torre

2011-10-01

Full Text Available The outline below describes the implementation of a task-based project based on the collaborative work of students and teachers in four different countries with others studying tourism in an international distance university. By means of a mainly qualitative study, we will attempt to show if occasional written and spoken encounters with people with different L1 (either English or any other and different culture can help learners to improve different aspects of their spoken competence, such as fluency, pronunciation accuracy and cultural awareness, in the context of the European Space for Higher Education (ESHE.

Agency, access, and Anopheles: neighborhood health perceptions and the implications for community health interventions in Accra, Ghana

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Marta M. Jankowska

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Background: Social and environmental factors are increasingly recognized for their ability to influence health outcomes at both individual and neighborhood scales in the developing urban world. Yet issues of spatial heterogeneity in these complex environments may obscure unique elements of neighborhood life that may be protective or harmful to human health. Resident perceptions of neighborhood effects on health may help to fill gaps in our interpretation of household survey results and better inform how to plan and execute neighborhood-level health interventions. Objective: We evaluate differences in housing and socioeconomic indicators and health, environment, and neighborhood perceptions derived from the analysis of a household survey and a series of focus groups in Accra, Ghana. We then explore how neighborhood perceptions can inform survey results and ultimately neighborhood-level health interventions. Design: Eleven focus groups were conducted across a socioeconomically stratified sample of neighborhoods in Accra, Ghana. General inductive themes from the focus groups were analyzed in tandem with data collected in a 2009 household survey of 2,814 women. In-depth vignettes expand upon the three most salient emergent themes. Results: Household and socioeconomic characteristics derived from the focus groups corroborated findings from the survey data. Focus group and survey results diverged for three complex health issues: malaria, health-care access, and sense of personal agency in promoting good health. Conclusion: Three vignettes reflecting community views about malaria, health-care access, and sense of personal agency in promoting good health highlight the challenges facing community health interventions in Accra and exemplify how qualitatively derived neighborhood-level health effects can help shape health interventions.

Intervention Effects on Spoken-Language Outcomes for Children with Autism: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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Hampton, L. H.; Kaiser, A. P.

2016-01-01

Background: Although spoken-language deficits are not core to an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis, many children with ASD do present with delays in this area. Previous meta-analyses have assessed the effects of intervention on reducing autism symptomatology, but have not determined if intervention improves spoken language. This analysis…

Neighborhood diversity of potentially pathogenic bacteria in drinking water from the city of Maroua, Cameroon.

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Healy-Profitós, Jessica; Lee, Seungjun; Mouhaman, Arabi; Garabed, Rebecca; Moritz, Mark; Piperata, Barbara; Lee, Jiyoung

2016-06-01

This study examined the spatial variation of potential gastrointestinal pathogens within drinking water sources and home storage containers in four neighborhoods in Maroua, Cameroon. Samples were collected from source (n = 28) and home containers (n = 60) in each study neighborhood. Pathogen contamination was assessed using quantitative polymerase chain reaction, targeting Campylobacter spp., Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli (virulence genes, stx1 and stx2), and Salmonella spp. Microbial source tracking (MST) targeted three different host-specific markers: HF183 (human), Rum2Bac (ruminant) and GFD (poultry) to identify contamination sources. Staphylococcus aureus and the tetracycline-resistance gene (tetQ) were assessed to measure human hand contact and presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Pathogen/MST levels were compared statistically and spatially, and neighborhood variation was compared with previously collected demographic information. All the test fecal markers and pathogens (except Arcobacter) were detected in home and source samples. Two neighborhoods tested positive for most pathogens/MST while the others only tested positive for one or two. Spatial variation of pathogens/MST existed between sources, storage containers, and neighborhoods. Differing population density and ethno-economic characteristics could potentially explain variation. Future research should explore the influence of demographic and ethno-economic factors on water quality during microbial risk assessments in urban Africa.

Neighborhood social capital and crime victimization: comparison of spatial regression analysis and hierarchical regression analysis.

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Takagi, Daisuke; Ikeda, Ken'ichi; Kawachi, Ichiro

2012-11-01

Crime is an important determinant of public health outcomes, including quality of life, mental well-being, and health behavior. A body of research has documented the association between community social capital and crime victimization. The association between social capital and crime victimization has been examined at multiple levels of spatial aggregation, ranging from entire countries, to states, metropolitan areas, counties, and neighborhoods. In multilevel analysis, the spatial boundaries at level 2 are most often drawn from administrative boundaries (e.g., Census tracts in the U.S.). One problem with adopting administrative definitions of neighborhoods is that it ignores spatial spillover. We conducted a study of social capital and crime victimization in one ward of Tokyo city, using a spatial Durbin model with an inverse-distance weighting matrix that assigned each respondent a unique level of "exposure" to social capital based on all other residents' perceptions. The study is based on a postal questionnaire sent to 20-69 years old residents of Arakawa Ward, Tokyo. The response rate was 43.7%. We examined the contextual influence of generalized trust, perceptions of reciprocity, two types of social network variables, as well as two principal components of social capital (constructed from the above four variables). Our outcome measure was self-reported crime victimization in the last five years. In the spatial Durbin model, we found that neighborhood generalized trust, reciprocity, supportive networks and two principal components of social capital were each inversely associated with crime victimization. By contrast, a multilevel regression performed with the same data (using administrative neighborhood boundaries) found generally null associations between neighborhood social capital and crime. Spatial regression methods may be more appropriate for investigating the contextual influence of social capital in homogeneous cultural settings such as Japan. Copyright

Does substance use moderate the association of neighborhood disadvantage with perceived stress and safety in the activity spaces of urban youth?

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Mennis, Jeremy; Mason, Michael; Light, John; Rusby, Julie; Westling, Erika; Way, Thomas; Zahakaris, Nikola; Flay, Brian

2016-08-01

This study investigates the association of activity space-based exposure to neighborhood disadvantage with momentary perceived stress and safety, and the moderation of substance use on those associations, among a sample of 139 urban, primarily African American, adolescents. Geospatial technologies are integrated with Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to capture exposure to neighborhood disadvantage and perceived stress and safety in the activity space. A relative neighborhood disadvantage measure for each subject is calculated by conditioning the neighborhood disadvantage observed at the EMA location on that of the home neighborhood. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) are used to model the effect of relative neighborhood disadvantage on momentary perceived stress and safety, and the extent to which substance use moderates those associations. Relative neighborhood disadvantage is significantly associated with higher perceived stress, lower perceived safety, and greater substance use involvement. The association of relative neighborhood disadvantage with stress is significantly stronger among those with greater substance use involvement. This research highlights the value of integrating geospatial technologies with EMA and developing personalized measures of environmental exposure for investigating neighborhood effects on substance use, and suggests substance use intervention strategies aimed at neighborhood conditions. Future research should seek to disentangle the causal pathways of influence and selection that relate neighborhood environment, stress, and substance use, while also accounting for the role of gender and family and peer social contexts. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The employment of a spoken language computer applied to an air traffic control task.

Science.gov (United States)

Laveson, J. I.; Silver, C. A.

1972-01-01

Assessment of the merits of a limited spoken language (56 words) computer in a simulated air traffic control (ATC) task. An airport zone approximately 60 miles in diameter with a traffic flow simulation ranging from single-engine to commercial jet aircraft provided the workload for the controllers. This research determined that, under the circumstances of the experiments carried out, the use of a spoken-language computer would not improve the controller performance.

Child, family, and neighborhood associations with parent and peer interactive play during early childhood.

Science.gov (United States)

Kenney, Mary Kay

2012-04-01

To examine national patterns of peer and parent interactive play opportunities that enhance early learning/socialization. Bivariate and multivariable analyses of cross-sectional data on 22,797 children aged 1-5 years from the National Survey of Children's Health 2007 were performed to determine the child, family, and neighborhood factors associated with four parent-initiated activities. Outcomes measures included time (days/week) children spent: participating in peer play; being read to; sung to/told stories; and taken on family outings. Covariates included race/ethnicity, poverty, TV watching, childcare, child and maternal physical and mental health, family factors (structure, size, language, stress, education), and neighborhood factors (amenities, support, physical condition, safety). According to adjusted regression models, minority children from lower income, non-English-speaking households with limited education, poorer maternal health and greater parenting stress were read to/told stories less than children without these characteristics, while neighborhood factors exerted less influence. In contrast, significant reductions in days/week of peer play were associated with unsupportive neighborhoods and those with the poorest physical conditions and limited amenities. Likewise, reductions in outings were associated with fewer neighborhood amenities. The findings of this study indicate that a variety of child, family, and neighborhood factors are associated with parent-initiated behaviors such as reading, storytelling, peer interactive play, and family outings. Appropriate evidence-based home visiting interventions targeting child health, parenting skills, early childhood education, and social services in at-risk communities would appear to be appropriate vehicles for addressing such parent-initiated play activities that have the potential to enhance development.

Association between competitive food and beverage policies in elementary schools and childhood overweight/obesity trends: differences by neighborhood socioeconomic resources.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanchez-Vaznaugh, Emma V; Sánchez, Brisa N; Crawford, Patricia B; Egerter, Susan

2015-05-01

To our knowledge, few published studies have examined the influence of competitive food and beverage (CF&B) policies on student weight outcomes; none have investigated disparities in the influence of CF&B policies on children's body weight by school neighborhood socioeconomic resources. To investigate whether the association between CF&B policies and population-level trends in childhood overweight/obesity differed by school neighborhood income and education levels. This cross-sectional study, from July 2013 to October 2014, compared overweight/obesity prevalence trends before (2001-2005) and after (2006-2010) implementation of CF&B policies in public elementary schools in California. The study included 2 700 880 fifth-grade students in 5362 public schools from 2001 to 2010. California CF&B policies (effective July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2007) and school neighborhood income and education levels. Overweight/obesity defined as a body mass index at or greater than the 85th percentile for age and sex. Overall rates of overweight/obesity ranged from 43.5% in 2001 to 45.8% in 2010. Compared with the period before the introduction of CF&B policies, overweight/obesity trends changed in a favorable direction after the policies took effect (2005-2010); these changes occurred for all children across all school neighborhood socioeconomic levels. In the postpolicy period, these trends differed by school neighborhood socioeconomic advantage. From 2005-2010, trends in overweight/obesity prevalence leveled off among students at schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods but declined in socioeconomically advantaged neighborhoods. Students in the lowest-income neighborhoods experienced zero or near zero change in the odds of overweight/obesity over time: the annual percentage change in overweight/obesity odds was 0.1% for females (95% CI, -0.7 to 0.9) and -0.3% for males (95% CI, -1.1 to 0.5). In contrast, in the highest-income neighborhoods, the annual percentage

Factors associated with low neighborhood cohesion among women living with HIV impacted by social-structural inequities in British Columbia.

Science.gov (United States)

Closson, Kalysha; Palmer, Alexis K; Collins, Alexandra B; Salters, Kate; Zhang, Wendy; Montaner, Julio S G; Hogg, Robert S; Parashar, Surita

2018-03-01

Built and social environments, including one's perception of their environment, are important determinants of health. The intersection of gender and HIV status may complicate the role of neighborhood cohesion in safety, personal well-being, and health outcomes for populations impacted by social and structural inequities. Among women in particular, social cohesion within the neighborhood they reside in may have a greater influence on health outcomes compared to their male counterparts. We sought to examine perception of neighborhood cohesion (validated scale with a range 0-100, with higher scores indicating higher perceived neighborhood cohesion) among women living with HIV, impacted by social-structural inequities, receiving combination antiretroviral therapy, and enrolled in the Longitudinal Investigations into Supportive Ancillary health services (LISA) study in British Columbia, Canada. Cross-sectional data on neighborhood cohesion and socio-demographic data were collected in an interviewer-administered survey. Of the 1,000 LISA participants interviewed, 908 (including 249 women and 659 men) had complete data for the variables of interest. At the bivariate level, women had worse perceived neighborhood cohesion scores compared to men (median: 56 [95% CI: 44-66] vs. 60 [95% CI: 47-71]). Multivariable model results indicated that for women living with HIV in our sample, greater neighborhood cohesion scores were positively associated with stable housing (β coefficient = 7.85; 95% CI: 3.61, 12.10, p perceptions of neighborhood cohesion.

Neighborhood decline and the economic crisis : an introduction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Kempen, Ronald; Bolt, Gideon; van Ham, Maarten

2016-01-01

Urban neighborhoods are still important in the lives of its residents. Therefore, it is important to find out how the recent global financial and economic crisis affects these neighborhoods. Which types of neighborhoods and which residents suffer more than others? This introduction provides an

Green-Roof Effects on Neighborhood Microclimate and Human Thermal Sensation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. Y. Jim

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Green roofs have been recognized as an effective sustainable design tool to mitigate urban heat island (UHI effects. Previous studies have identified green-roof benefits in cooling and energy-conservation at the building scale, with limited exploration of the wider influence on neighborhood microclimate and human thermal comfort (HTC. This paper investigated the impacts of community-scale green-roof installation on air temperature and HTC in five typical residential neighborhoods of subtropical Hong Kong. The microclimate models ENVI-met and RayMan permitted studies of two main green-roof scenarios, namely extensive (EGR and intensive (IGR. Microclimatic monitoring data from a local experimental green-roof site validated the modeling methods. The results verified that green-roof cooling effects were not restricted to rooftops, but extended to the ground to improve neighborhood microclimate. EGR reduced pedestrian-level air temperature by 0.4–0.7 °C, and IGR by 0.5–1.7 °C, with maximum effect in open-set low rise sites. Coverage by building footprints and building height dampened lateral and vertical advection of cool air generated by green roofs. Roof greening also improved notably the rooftop-podium level HTC. Diurnal duration of high heat stress was reduced by 6–9 h for EGR scenarios, and 9–11 h for IGR. The findings indicated that large-scale green-roof installation could bring neighborhood-wide cooling, mitigate urban heat island effect, and furnish more comfortable thermal environment for urban residents.

Neighborhood Energy/Economic Development project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1991-12-31

Energy costs impact low income communities more than anyone else. Low income residents pay a larger percentage of their incomes for energy costs. In addition, they generally have far less discretionary energy use to eliminate in response to increasing energy prices. Furthermore, with less discretionary income, home energy efficiency improvements are often too expensive. Small neighborhood businesses are in the same situation. Improved efficiency in the use of energy can improve this situation by reducing energy costs for residents and local businesses. More importantly, energy management programs can increase the demand for local goods and services and lead to the creation of new job training and employment opportunities. In this way, neighborhood based energy efficiency programs can support community economic development. The present project, undertaken with the support of the Urban Consortium Energy Task Force, was intended to serve as a demonstration of energy/economic programming at the neighborhood level. The San Francisco Neighborhood Energy/Economic Development (NEED) project was designed to be a visible demonstration of bringing the economic development benefits of energy management home to low-income community members who need it most. To begin, a Community Advisory Committee was established to guide the design of the programs to best meet needs of the community. Subsequently three neighborhood energy/economic development programs were developed: The small business energy assistance program; The youth training and weatherization program; and, The energy review of proposed housing development projects.

Bilinguals Show Weaker Lexical Access during Spoken Sentence Comprehension

Science.gov (United States)

Shook, Anthony; Goldrick, Matthew; Engstler, Caroline; Marian, Viorica

2015-01-01

When bilinguals process written language, they show delays in accessing lexical items relative to monolinguals. The present study investigated whether this effect extended to spoken language comprehension, examining the processing of sentences with either low or high semantic constraint in both first and second languages. English-German…

Neighborhood Effects on Health: Concentrated Advantage and Disadvantage

Science.gov (United States)

Finch, Brian K.; Do, D. Phuong; Heron, Melonie; Bird, Chloe; Seeman, Teresa; Lurie, Nicole

2010-01-01

We investigate an alternative conceptualization of neighborhood context and its association with health. Using an index that measures a continuum of concentrated advantage and disadvantage, we examine whether the relationship between neighborhood conditions and health varies by socio-economic status. Using NHANES III data geo-coded to census tracts, we find that while largely uneducated neighborhoods are universally deleterious, individuals with more education benefit from living in highly educated neighborhoods to a greater degree than individuals with lower levels of education. PMID:20627796

Neighborhood Integration and Connectivity Predict Cognitive Performance and Decline

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Amber Watts PhD

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Objective: Neighborhood characteristics may be important for promoting walking, but little research has focused on older adults, especially those with cognitive impairment. We evaluated the role of neighborhood characteristics on cognitive function and decline over a 2-year period adjusting for measures of walking. Method: In a study of 64 older adults with and without mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD, we evaluated neighborhood integration and connectivity using geographical information systems data and space syntax analysis. In multiple regression analyses, we used these characteristics to predict 2-year declines in factor analytically derived cognitive scores (attention, verbal memory, mental status adjusting for age, sex, education, and self-reported walking. Results : Neighborhood integration and connectivity predicted cognitive performance at baseline, and changes in cognitive performance over 2 years. The relationships between neighborhood characteristics and cognitive performance were not fully explained by self-reported walking. Discussion : Clearer definitions of specific neighborhood characteristics associated with walkability are needed to better understand the mechanisms by which neighborhoods may impact cognitive outcomes. These results have implications for measuring neighborhood characteristics, design and maintenance of living spaces, and interventions to increase walking among older adults. We offer suggestions for future research measuring neighborhood characteristics and cognitive function.

Girls' self-efficacy in the context of neighborhood gender stratification.

Science.gov (United States)

Soller, Brian; Jackson, Aubrey L

2018-05-01

Scholars have linked neighborhood characteristics to self-efficacy, but few have considered how gender factors into this association. We integrate literature on neighborhoods, gender stratification, and self-efficacy to examine the association between women's relative resources among neighborhood residents and adolescents' self-efficacy. We hypothesize that girls report more self-efficacy when they reside in neighborhoods where women have more socioeconomic resources relative to men. We test this hypothesis using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods and the 1990 Census. Results from multilevel regression models with gender-interacted effects indicate the neighborhood level of women's relative resources was not associated with boys' self-efficacy. However, girls reported higher self-efficacy when women's relative resources in their neighborhoods were greater. This association persisted after including potential individual- and neighborhood-level confounding variables. Our study underscores the importance of attending to gendered processes when understanding how neighborhoods impact youth. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

The gender congruency effect during bilingual spoken-word recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Morales, Luis; Paolieri, Daniela; Dussias, Paola E.; Valdés kroff, Jorge R.; Gerfen, Chip; Bajo, María Teresa

2016-01-01

We investigate the ‘gender-congruency’ effect during a spoken-word recognition task using the visual world paradigm. Eye movements of Italian–Spanish bilinguals and Spanish monolinguals were monitored while they viewed a pair of objects on a computer screen. Participants listened to instructions in Spanish (encuentra la bufanda / ‘find the scarf’) and clicked on the object named in the instruction. Grammatical gender of the objects’ name was manipulated so that pairs of objects had the same (congruent) or different (incongruent) gender in Italian, but gender in Spanish was always congruent. Results showed that bilinguals, but not monolinguals, looked at target objects less when they were incongruent in gender, suggesting a between-language gender competition effect. In addition, bilinguals looked at target objects more when the definite article in the spoken instructions provided a valid cue to anticipate its selection (different-gender condition). The temporal dynamics of gender processing and cross-language activation in bilinguals are discussed. PMID:28018132

Examining public open spaces by neighborhood-level walkability and deprivation.

Science.gov (United States)

Badland, Hannah M; Keam, Rosanna; Witten, Karen; Kearns, Robin

2010-11-01

Public open spaces (POS) are recognized as important to promote physical activity engagement. However, it is unclear how POS attributes, such as activities available, environmental quality, amenities present, and safety, are associated with neighborhood-level walkability and deprivation. Twelve neighborhoods were selected within 1 constituent city of Auckland, New Zealand based on higher (n = 6) or lower (n = 6) walkability characteristics. Neighborhoods were dichotomized as more (n = 7) or less (n = 5) socioeconomically deprived. POS (n = 69) were identified within these neighborhoods and audited using the New Zealand-Public Open Space Tool. Unpaired 1-way analysis of variance tests were applied to compare differences in attributes and overall score of POS by neighborhood walkability and deprivation. POS located in more walkable neighborhoods have significantly higher overall scores when compared with less walkable neighborhoods. Deprivation comparisons identified POS located in less deprived communities have better quality environments, but fewer activities and safety features present when compared with more deprived neighborhoods. A positive relationship existed between presence of POS attributes and neighborhood walkability, but the relationship between POS and neighborhood-level deprivation was less clear. Variation in neighborhood POS quality alone is unlikely to explain poorer health outcomes for residents in more deprived areas.

Social inclusion for children with hearing loss in listening and spoken Language early intervention: an exploratory study.

Science.gov (United States)

Constantinescu-Sharpe, Gabriella; Phillips, Rebecca L; Davis, Aleisha; Dornan, Dimity; Hogan, Anthony

2017-03-14

Social inclusion is a common focus of listening and spoken language (LSL) early intervention for children with hearing loss. This exploratory study compared the social inclusion of young children with hearing loss educated using a listening and spoken language approach with population data. A framework for understanding the scope of social inclusion is presented in the Background. This framework guided the use of a shortened, modified version of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to measure two of the five facets of social inclusion ('education' and 'interacting with society and fulfilling social goals'). The survey was completed by parents of children with hearing loss aged 4-5 years who were educated using a LSL approach (n = 78; 37% who responded). These responses were compared to those obtained for typical hearing children in the LSAC dataset (n = 3265). Analyses revealed that most children with hearing loss had comparable outcomes to those with typical hearing on the 'education' and 'interacting with society and fulfilling social roles' facets of social inclusion. These exploratory findings are positive and warrant further investigation across all five facets of the framework to identify which factors influence social inclusion.

Assessing spoken word recognition in children who are deaf or hard of hearing: a translational approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Kirk, Karen Iler; Prusick, Lindsay; French, Brian; Gotch, Chad; Eisenberg, Laurie S; Young, Nancy

2012-06-01

Under natural conditions, listeners use both auditory and visual speech cues to extract meaning from speech signals containing many sources of variability. However, traditional clinical tests of spoken word recognition routinely employ isolated words or sentences produced by a single talker in an auditory-only presentation format. The more central cognitive processes used during multimodal integration, perceptual normalization, and lexical discrimination that may contribute to individual variation in spoken word recognition performance are not assessed in conventional tests of this kind. In this article, we review our past and current research activities aimed at developing a series of new assessment tools designed to evaluate spoken word recognition in children who are deaf or hard of hearing. These measures are theoretically motivated by a current model of spoken word recognition and also incorporate "real-world" stimulus variability in the form of multiple talkers and presentation formats. The goal of this research is to enhance our ability to estimate real-world listening skills and to predict benefit from sensory aid use in children with varying degrees of hearing loss. American Academy of Audiology.

Better Buildings Neighborhood Program Progress Stories

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

2012-04-19

n neighborhoods across the country, stories are emerging constantly of individuals, businesses, and organizations that are benefiting from energy efficiency. Included are the stories of real people making their homes, businesses, and communities better with the help of the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program.

V2 word order in subordinate clauses in spoken Danish

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Torben Juel; Christensen, Tanya Karoli

are asymmetrically distributed, we argue that the word order difference should rather be seen as a signal of (subtle) semantic differences. In main clauses, V3 is highly marked in comparison to V2, and occurs in what may be called emotives. In subordinate clauses, V2 is marked and signals what has been called...... ”assertiveness”, but is rather a question of foregrounding (cf. Simons 2007: Main Point of Utterance). The paper presents the results of a study of word order in subordinate clauses in contemporary spoken Danish and focuses on how to include the proposed semantic difference as a factor influencing the choice...... studies of two age cohorts of speakers in Copenhagen, recorded in the 1980s and again in 2005-07, and on recent recordings with two age cohorts of speakers from the western part of Jutland. This makes it possible to study variation and change with respect to word order in subordinate clauses in both real...

Obesogenic and youth oriented restaurant marketing in public housing neighborhoods.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Rebecca E; Heinrich, Katie M; Reese-Smith, Jacqueline Y; Regan, Gail R; Adamus-Leach, Heather J

2014-03-01

To compare restaurant marketing by restaurant and neighborhood type. All restaurants (61=fast food, FF; 72=table service, TS) within an 800-meter radius of 13 public housing developments (HD) and 4 comparison neighborhoods were audited using the Restaurant Assessment Tool©2010. HD neighborhoods were lower income and higher minority than comparison neighborhoods with similar density and street connectivity. Restaurants in HD neighborhoods had fewer healthy entrées than comparison neighborhoods. FF restaurants had cheaper beverages and more children's meals, supersize drinks, free prize with purchase, super-size items, special characters, and more items geared to driving than TS restaurants. Residents of lower socioeconomic neighborhoods may be differentially exposed to unhealthy food options.

Speech-Language Pathologists: Vital Listening and Spoken Language Professionals

Science.gov (United States)

Houston, K. Todd; Perigoe, Christina B.

2010-01-01

Determining the most effective methods and techniques to facilitate the spoken language development of individuals with hearing loss has been a focus of practitioners for centuries. Due to modern advances in hearing technology, earlier identification of hearing loss, and immediate enrollment in early intervention, children with hearing loss are…

Spoken Indian language identification: a review of features and ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

BAKSHI AARTI

2018-04-12

Apr 12, 2018 ... languages and can be used for the purposes of spoken language identification. Keywords. SLID .... branch of linguistics to study the sound structure of human language. ... countries, work in the area of Indian language identification has not ...... English and speech database has been collected over tele-.

Active Transportation in Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancer and Neighborhood Controls

Science.gov (United States)

Slater, Megan E.; Kelly, Aaron S.; Sadak, Karim T.; Ross, Julie A.

2015-01-01

Purpose Childhood cancer survivors (CCS) are at high risk of treatment-related late effects, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which can be exacerbated by inadequate physical activity (PA). Previous PA interventions targeting CCS have focused on the domain of leisure-time/recreational PA. Active transportation, another domain of PA, has not been described in CCS. Therefore, this study aimed to identify active transportation behaviors, barriers, and correlates in adult CCS. Methods We recruited 158 adult CCS and 153 controls matched on age, sex, and neighborhood for a survey regarding active transportation behaviors and perceptions. Linear and logistic regression models accounting for correlation among matched participants were used. Results Adult CCS engaged in similar levels of active transportation as controls (2.72 vs. 2.32 hours/week, P=0.40) despite perceiving greater health-related barriers (1.88 vs. 1.65 (measured on four-point Likert scale), P=0.01). Marital/relationship status (odds ratio (OR)=0.30, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.11–0.81), planning/psychosocial barriers (OR=0.15, 95% CI=0.04–0.53), and perceived neighborhood walkability (OR=2.55, 95% CI=1.14–5.66) were correlates of active transportation among adult CCS, while objective neighborhood walkability (OR=1.03, 95% CI=1.01–1.05) was a correlate among controls. Conclusions Results suggest adult CCS and controls utilize active transportation at approximately equal levels. Factors other than health, including perceived neighborhood walkability, appear to influence active transportation behaviors to a greater degree in adult CCS. Implications for Cancer Survivors Interventions might consider promoting active transportation as a way to incorporate more PA into the daily lives of adult CCS. Such interventions will not be widely successful, however, without existing or improved neighborhood walkability/bikeability. PMID:25809159

Social and physical disorder : how community, business presence and entrepreneurs influence disorder in Dutch neighborhoods

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Steenbeek, W.

2011-01-01

From 2000 onwards Dutch governments have tried to improve the general 'livability' of neighborhoods, of which troublesome and potentially threatening social conditions (social disorder) and physical conditions (physical disorder) are one part. A major focus in these plans for improvement is the

Neighborhood safety and adipose tissue distribution in African Americans: the Jackson Heart Study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Do Quyen Pham

Full Text Available Patterns of fat distribution are heavily influenced by psychological stress, sex, and among women, by menopause status. Emerging evidence suggests the lack of perceived neighborhood safety due to crime may contribute to psychological stress and obesity among exposed residents. Our objective is to determine if perceived neighborhood safety is associated with abdominal adiposity among African-American men and women, and among pre- and postmenopausal women in the Jackson Heart Study.We examined associations between perceived neighborhood safety, fat distribution, and other individual-level covariates among Jackson Heart Study participants (N = 2,881. Abdominal adiposity was measured via computed tomography scans measuring the volumes of visceral, subcutaneous and total adipose tissue. We also measured body mass index (BMI, and waist circumference. Multivariable regression models estimated associations between perceived neighborhood safety, adiposity, and covariates by sex and menopause status.Adjusting for all covariates, women who strongly disagreed their neighborhood was safe from crime had a higher BMI compared to women who felt safe [Std B 0.083 95% CI (0.010, 0.156]. Premenopausal women who felt most unsafe had higher BMI, waist circumference, and volumes of visceral and total adipose tissue than those who felt safe [Std B 0.160 (0.021, 0.299, Std B 0.142 (0.003, 0.280, Std B 0.150 (0.014, 0.285, Std B 0.154 (0.019, 0.290, respectively]. We did not identify associations between neighborhood safety and adiposity among men and postmenopausal women.Our data suggest that abdominal adipose tissue distribution patterns are associated with perceived neighborhood safety in some groups, and that patterns may differ by sex and menopause status, with most associations observed among pre-menopausal women. Further research is needed to elucidate whether there are causal mechanisms underlying sex and menopause-status differences that may mediate

Neighborhood disorder and screen time among 10-16 year old Canadian youth: A cross-sectional study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carson Valerie

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Screen time activities (e.g., television, computers, video games have been linked to several negative health outcomes among young people. In order to develop evidence-based interventions to reduce screen time, the factors that influence the behavior need to be better understood. High neighborhood disorder, which may encourage young people to stay indoors where screen time activities are readily available, is one potential factor to consider. Methods Results are based on 15,917 youth in grades 6-10 (aged 10-16 years old who participated in the Canadian 2009/10 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey (HBSC. Total hours per week of television, video games, and computer use were reported by the participating students in the HBSC student questionnaire. Ten items of neighborhood disorder including safety, neighbors taking advantage, drugs/drinking in public, ethnic tensions, gangs, crime, conditions of buildings/grounds, abandoned buildings, litter, and graffiti were measured using the HBSC student questionnaire, the HBSC administrator questionnaire, and Geographic Information Systems. Based upon these 10 items, social and physical neighborhood disorder variables were derived using principal component analysis. Multivariate multilevel logistic regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between social and physical neighborhood disorder and individual screen time variables. Results High (top quartile social neighborhood disorder was associated with approximately 35-45% increased risk of high (top quartile television, computer, and video game use. Physical neighborhood disorder was not associated with screen time activities after adjusting for social neighborhood disorder. However, high social and physical neighborhood disorder combined was associated with approximately 40-60% increased likelihood of high television, computer, and video game use. Conclusion High neighborhood disorder is one environmental

Effects of semantic neighborhood density in abstract and concrete words.

Science.gov (United States)

Reilly, Megan; Desai, Rutvik H

2017-12-01

Concrete and abstract words are thought to differ along several psycholinguistic variables, such as frequency and emotional content. Here, we consider another variable, semantic neighborhood density, which has received much less attention, likely because semantic neighborhoods of abstract words are difficult to measure. Using a corpus-based method that creates representations of words that emphasize featural information, the current investigation explores the relationship between neighborhood density and concreteness in a large set of English nouns. Two important observations emerge. First, semantic neighborhood density is higher for concrete than for abstract words, even when other variables are accounted for, especially for smaller neighborhood sizes. Second, the effects of semantic neighborhood density on behavior are different for concrete and abstract words. Lexical decision reaction times are fastest for words with sparse neighborhoods; however, this effect is stronger for concrete words than for abstract words. These results suggest that semantic neighborhood density plays a role in the cognitive and psycholinguistic differences between concrete and abstract words, and should be taken into account in studies involving lexical semantics. Furthermore, the pattern of results with the current feature-based neighborhood measure is very different from that with associatively defined neighborhoods, suggesting that these two methods should be treated as separate measures rather than two interchangeable measures of semantic neighborhoods. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Network neighborhood analysis with the multi-node topological overlap measure.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ai; Horvath, Steve

2007-01-15

The goal of neighborhood analysis is to find a set of genes (the neighborhood) that is similar to an initial 'seed' set of genes. Neighborhood analysis methods for network data are important in systems biology. If individual network connections are susceptible to noise, it can be advantageous to define neighborhoods on the basis of a robust interconnectedness measure, e.g. the topological overlap measure. Since the use of multiple nodes in the seed set may lead to more informative neighborhoods, it can be advantageous to define multi-node similarity measures. The pairwise topological overlap measure is generalized to multiple network nodes and subsequently used in a recursive neighborhood construction method. A local permutation scheme is used to determine the neighborhood size. Using four network applications and a simulated example, we provide empirical evidence that the resulting neighborhoods are biologically meaningful, e.g. we use neighborhood analysis to identify brain cancer related genes. An executable Windows program and tutorial for multi-node topological overlap measure (MTOM) based analysis can be downloaded from the webpage (http://www.genetics.ucla.edu/labs/horvath/MTOM/).

Auditory and verbal memory predictors of spoken language skills in children with cochlear implants.

Science.gov (United States)

de Hoog, Brigitte E; Langereis, Margreet C; van Weerdenburg, Marjolijn; Keuning, Jos; Knoors, Harry; Verhoeven, Ludo

2016-10-01

Large variability in individual spoken language outcomes remains a persistent finding in the group of children with cochlear implants (CIs), particularly in their grammatical development. In the present study, we examined the extent of delay in lexical and morphosyntactic spoken language levels of children with CIs as compared to those of a normative sample of age-matched children with normal hearing. Furthermore, the predictive value of auditory and verbal memory factors in the spoken language performance of implanted children was analyzed. Thirty-nine profoundly deaf children with CIs were assessed using a test battery including measures of lexical, grammatical, auditory and verbal memory tests. Furthermore, child-related demographic characteristics were taken into account. The majority of the children with CIs did not reach age-equivalent lexical and morphosyntactic language skills. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that lexical spoken language performance in children with CIs was best predicted by age at testing, phoneme perception, and auditory word closure. The morphosyntactic language outcomes of the CI group were best predicted by lexicon, auditory word closure, and auditory memory for words. Qualitatively good speech perception skills appear to be crucial for lexical and grammatical development in children with CIs. Furthermore, strongly developed vocabulary skills and verbal memory abilities predict morphosyntactic language skills. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Oral and Literate Strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives.

Science.gov (United States)

Tannen, Deborah

1982-01-01

Discusses comparative analysis of spoken and written versions of a narrative to demonstrate that features which have been identified as characterizing oral discourse are also found in written discourse and that the written short story combines syntactic complexity expected in writing with features which create involvement expected in speaking.…

Neighborhood quality and labor market outcomes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Damm, Anna Piil

2014-01-01

of refugee men. Their labor market outcomes are also not affected by the overall employment rate and the overall average skill level in the neighborhood. However, an increase in the average skill level of non-Western immigrant men living in the neighborhood raises their employment probability, while...

Recognition Memory for Braille or Spoken Words: An fMRI study in Early Blind

OpenAIRE

Burton, Harold; Sinclair, Robert J.; Agato, Alvin

2011-01-01

We examined cortical activity in early blind during word recognition memory. Nine participants were blind at birth and one by 1.5 yrs. In an event-related design, we studied blood oxygen level-dependent responses to studied (“old”) compared to novel (“new”) words. Presentation mode was in Braille or spoken. Responses were larger for identified “new” words read with Braille in bilateral lower and higher tier visual areas and primary somatosensory cortex. Responses to spoken “new” words were la...

Neighborhood & Family Effects on Learning Motivation among Urban African American Middle School Youth

Science.gov (United States)

Whitaker, Damiya; Graham, Camelia; Severtson, Stevan Geoffrey; Furr-Holden, C. Debra; Latimer, William

2012-01-01

Motivational theorists in psychology have moved away from individual-based approaches to socio-cognitive and socio-ecological models to explain student engagement and motivation for learning. Such approaches consider, for example, the influence of family and neighborhood environments as important constructs in youth behavior. In this study, links…

NEIGHBORHOOD NORMS AND SUBSTANCE USE AMONG TEENS

Science.gov (United States)

Musick, Kelly; Seltzer, Judith A.; Schwartz, Christine R.

2008-01-01

This paper uses new data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A. FANS) to examine how neighborhood norms shape teenagers’ substance use. Specifically, it takes advantage of clustered data at the neighborhood level to relate adult neighbors’ attitudes and behavior with respect to smoking, drinking, and drugs, which we treat as norms, to teenagers’ own smoking, drinking, and drug use. We use hierarchical linear models to account for parents’ attitudes and behavior and other characteristics of individuals and families. We also investigate how the association between neighborhood norms and teen behavior depends on: (1) the strength of norms, as measured by consensus in neighbors’ attitudes and conformity in their behavior; (2) the willingness and ability of neighbors to enforce norms, for instance, by monitoring teens’ activities; and (3) the degree to which teens are exposed to their neighbors. We find little association between neighborhood norms and teen substance use, regardless of how we condition the relationship. We discuss possible theoretical and methodological explanations for this finding. PMID:18496598

Beyond Neighborhood Food Environments: Distance Traveled to Food Establishments in 5 US Cities, 2009-2011.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Jodi L; Han, Bing; Cohen, Deborah A

2015-08-06

Accurate conceptualizations of neighborhood environments are important in the design of policies and programs aiming to improve access to healthy food. Neighborhood environments are often defined by administrative units or buffers around points of interest. An individual may eat and shop for food within or outside these areas, which may not reflect accessibility of food establishments. This article examines the relevance of different definitions of food environments. We collected data on trips to food establishments using a 1-week food and travel diary and global positioning system devices. Spatial-temporal clustering methods were applied to identify homes and food establishments visited by study participants. We identified 513 visits to food establishments (sit-down restaurants, fast-food/convenience stores, malls or stores, groceries/supermarkets) by 135 participants in 5 US cities. The average distance between the food establishments and homes was 2.6 miles (standard deviation, 3.7 miles). Only 34% of the visited food establishments were within participants' neighborhood census tract. Buffers of 1 or 2 miles around the home covered 55% to 65% of visited food establishments. There was a significant difference in the mean distances to food establishments types (P = .008). On average, participants traveled the longest distances to restaurants and the shortest distances to groceries/supermarkets. Many definitions of the neighborhood food environment are misaligned with individual travel patterns, which may help explain the mixed findings in studies of neighborhood food environments. Neighborhood environments defined by actual travel activity may provide more insight on how the food environment influences dietary and food shopping choices.

Spoken Word Recognition of Chinese Words in Continuous Speech

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Yip, Michael C. W.

2015-01-01

The present study examined the role of positional probability of syllables played in recognition of spoken word in continuous Cantonese speech. Because some sounds occur more frequently at the beginning position or ending position of Cantonese syllables than the others, so these kinds of probabilistic information of syllables may cue the locations…

Orthographic consistency affects spoken word recognition at different grain-sizes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dich, Nadya

2014-01-01

A number of previous studies found that the consistency of sound-to-spelling mappings (feedback consistency) affects spoken word recognition. In auditory lexical decision experiments, words that can only be spelled one way are recognized faster than words with multiple potential spellings. Previo...

Self-Reported Physical Activity within and outside the Neighborhood: Criterion-Related Validity of the Neighborhood Physical Activity Questionnaire in German Older Adults

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Bödeker, Malte; Bucksch, Jens; Wallmann-Sperlich, Birgit

2018-01-01

The Neighborhood Physical Activity Questionnaire allows to assess physical activity within and outside the neighborhood. Study objectives were to examine the criterion-related validity and health/functioning associations of Neighborhood Physical Activity Questionnaire-derived physical activity in German older adults. A total of 107 adults aged…

Neighborhood and home food environment and children's diet and obesity: Evidence from military personnel's installation assignment.

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Shier, Victoria; Nicosia, Nancy; Datar, Ashlesha

2016-06-01

Research and policy initiatives are increasingly focused on the role of neighborhood food environment in children's diet and obesity. However, existing evidence relies on observational data that is limited by neighborhood selection bias. The Military Teenagers' Environments, Exercise, and Nutrition Study (M-TEENS) leverages the quasi-random variation in neighborhood environment generated by military personnel's assignment to installations to examine whether neighborhood food environments are associated with children's dietary behaviors and BMI. Our results suggest that neither the actual nor the perceived availability of particular food outlets in the neighborhood is associated with children's diet or BMI. The availability of supermarkets and convenience stores in the neighborhood was not associated with where families shop for food or children's dietary behaviors. Further, the type of store that families shop at was not associated with the healthiness of food available at home. Similarly, availability of fast food and restaurants was unrelated to children's dietary behaviors or how often children eat fast food or restaurant meals. However, the healthiness of food available at home was associated with healthy dietary behaviors while eating at fast food outlets and restaurants were associated with unhealthy dietary behaviors in children. Further, parental supervision, including limits on snack foods and meals eaten as a family, was associated with dietary behaviors. These findings suggest that focusing only on the neighborhood food environment may ignore important factors that influence children's outcomes. Future research should also consider how families make decisions about what foods to purchase, where to shop for foods and eating out, how closely to monitor their children's food intake, and, ultimately how these decisions collectively impact children's outcomes. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Neighborhood disadvantage and preterm delivery in Urban African Americans: The moderating role of religious coping

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Shawnita Sealy-Jefferson

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Evidence suggests that neighborhood disadvantage predicts preterm delivery (PTD. However, the design of most existing studies precludes within-group analyses, which would allow the identification segments of the population at highest risk, as well as preventive factors. African Americans (AA are disproportionately affected by PTD, are disproportionately concentrated in disadvantaged neighborhoods, and frequently use religious coping in response to chronic stressors. Our objective was to examine the association between neighborhood disadvantage and PTD, and whether religious coping moderated the associations, among postpartum AA women. Addresses from participants of the Life Influences on Fetal Environments Study (n=1387 were geocoded and linked to data from the American Community Survey. An index of neighborhood disadvantage was derived from a principal components analysis of the following variables: % below poverty, % unemployed, % receiving public assistance income, % college educated, % AA, % female-headed households, % owner occupied homes, median income, and median home value. Three domains of religious coping were assessed: organizational (church attendance, non-organizational (praying for self and asking others for prayer, and personal or subjective (experiences, perceptions, and sentiments about religion, and all were dichotomized as frequent/infrequent or satisfied/not satisfied. Preterm delivery was defined as birth before 37 completed weeks of gestation. Prevalence ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated with log binomial regression models. Neighborhood disadvantage did not predict PTD rates in the overall sample. However, there was evidence of moderation by asking others for prayer (P for asking for prayer X disadvantage index interaction term: 0.01. Among women who infrequently asked others for prayer, neighborhood disadvantage was positively associated with PTD rates (adjusted Prevalence ratio: 1.28, 95% Confidence

Primary phonological planning units in spoken word production are language-specific: Evidence from an ERP study.

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Wang, Jie; Wong, Andus Wing-Kuen; Wang, Suiping; Chen, Hsuan-Chih

2017-07-19

It is widely acknowledged in Germanic languages that segments are the primary planning units at the phonological encoding stage of spoken word production. Mixed results, however, have been found in Chinese, and it is still unclear what roles syllables and segments play in planning Chinese spoken word production. In the current study, participants were asked to first prepare and later produce disyllabic Mandarin words upon picture prompts and a response cue while electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were recorded. Each two consecutive pictures implicitly formed a pair of prime and target, whose names shared the same word-initial atonal syllable or the same word-initial segments, or were unrelated in the control conditions. Only syllable repetition induced significant effects on event-related brain potentials (ERPs) after target onset: a widely distributed positivity in the 200- to 400-ms interval and an anterior positivity in the 400- to 600-ms interval. We interpret these to reflect syllable-size representations at the phonological encoding and phonetic encoding stages. Our results provide the first electrophysiological evidence for the distinct role of syllables in producing Mandarin spoken words, supporting a language specificity hypothesis about the primary phonological units in spoken word production.

Lexicon Optimization for Dutch Speech Recognition in Spoken Document Retrieval

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; van Hessen, Adrianus J.; de Jong, Franciska M.G.

In this paper, ongoing work concerning the language modelling and lexicon optimization of a Dutch speech recognition system for Spoken Document Retrieval is described: the collection and normalization of a training data set and the optimization of our recognition lexicon. Effects on lexical coverage

Lexicon optimization for Dutch speech recognition in spoken document retrieval

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; van Hessen, Adrianus J.; de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Dalsgaard, P.; Lindberg, B.; Benner, H.

2001-01-01

In this paper, ongoing work concerning the language modelling and lexicon optimization of a Dutch speech recognition system for Spoken Document Retrieval is described: the collection and normalization of a training data set and the optimization of our recognition lexicon. Effects on lexical coverage

Using the Corpus of Spoken Afrikaans to generate an Afrikaans ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This paper presents two chatbot systems, ALICE and. Elizabeth, illustrating the dialogue knowledge representation and pattern matching techniques of each. We discuss the problems which arise when using the. Corpus of Spoken Afrikaans (Korpus Gesproke Afrikaans) to retrain the ALICE chatbot system with human ...

Automated Metadata Extraction for Semantic Access to Spoken Word Archives

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Jong, Franciska M.G.; Heeren, W.F.L.; van Hessen, Adrianus J.; Ordelman, Roeland J.F.; Nijholt, Antinus; Ruiz Miyares, L.; Alvarez Silva, M.R.

2011-01-01

Archival practice is shifting from the analogue to the digital world. A specific subset of heritage collections that impose interesting challenges for the field of language and speech technology are spoken word archives. Given the enormous backlog at audiovisual archives of unannotated materials and

Recording voiceover the spoken word in media

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Blakemore, Tom

2015-01-01

The only book on the market to specifically address its audience, Recording Voiceover is the comprehensive guide for engineers looking to understand the aspects of capturing the spoken word.Discussing all phases of the recording session, Recording Voiceover addresses everything from microphone recommendations for voice recording to pre-production considerations, including setting up the studio, working with and directing the voice talent, and strategies for reducing or eliminating distracting noise elements found in human speech.Recording Voiceover features in-depth, specific recommendations f

The global financial crisis and neighborhood decline

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Zwiers, Merle; Bolt, Gideon; Van Ham, Maarten; Van Kempen, Ronald

2016-01-01

Neighborhood decline is a complex and multidimensional process. National and regional variations in economic and political structures (including varieties in national welfare state arrangements), combined with differences in neighborhood history, development, and population composition, make it

Working memory affects older adults' use of context in spoken-word recognition.

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Janse, Esther; Jesse, Alexandra

2014-01-01

Many older listeners report difficulties in understanding speech in noisy situations. Working memory and other cognitive skills may modulate older listeners' ability to use context information to alleviate the effects of noise on spoken-word recognition. In the present study, we investigated whether verbal working memory predicts older adults' ability to immediately use context information in the recognition of words embedded in sentences, presented in different listening conditions. In a phoneme-monitoring task, older adults were asked to detect as fast and as accurately as possible target phonemes in sentences spoken by a target speaker. Target speech was presented without noise, with fluctuating speech-shaped noise, or with competing speech from a single distractor speaker. The gradient measure of contextual probability (derived from a separate offline rating study) affected the speed of recognition. Contextual facilitation was modulated by older listeners' verbal working memory (measured with a backward digit span task) and age across listening conditions. Working memory and age, as well as hearing loss, were also the most consistent predictors of overall listening performance. Older listeners' immediate benefit from context in spoken-word recognition thus relates to their ability to keep and update a semantic representation of the sentence content in working memory.

Evaluating Neighborhoods Livability in Nigeria: A Structural Equation Modelling (SEM Approach

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Sule Abass Iyanda

2018-01-01

Full Text Available There is a growing concern about city livability around the world and of particular concern is the aspects of the person-environment relationship which encompasses many characteristics suffice to make a place livable. Extant literature provides livability dimensions such as housing unit characteristics, neighborhood facilities, economic vitality and safety environment. These livability dimensions as well as their attributes found in the extant literature have been reported to have high reliability measurement level. Although, various methods have been applied to examine relationships among the variables however structural equation modeling (SEM has been found more holistic as a modeling technique to understand and explain the relationships that may exist among variable measurements. Structural equation modeling simultaneously performs multivariate analysis including multiple regression, path and factor analysis in the cause-effect relationships between latent constructs. Therefore, this study investigates the key factors of livability of planned residential neighborhoods in Minna, Nigeria with the research objectives of – (a to study the livability level of the selected residential neighborhoods, (b to determine the dimensions and indicators which most influence the level of livability in the selected residential neighborhoods, and (c to reliably test the efficacy of structural equation modeling (SEM in the assessment of livability. The methodology adopted in this study includes- Data collection with the aid of structured questionnaire survey administered to the residents of the study area based on stratified random sampling. The data collected was analyzed with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0 software for structural equation modeling (a second-order factor. The study revealed that livability as a second-order factor is indicated by economic vitality, safety environment, neighborhood facilities

Neighborhood Environment and Disparities in Health Care Access Among Urban Medicare Beneficiaries With Diabetes: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

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Ryvicker, Miriam; Sridharan, Sridevi

2018-01-01

Older adults' health is sensitive to variations in neighborhood environment, yet few studies have examined how neighborhood factors influence their health care access. This study examined whether neighborhood environmental factors help to explain racial and socioeconomic disparities in health care access and outcomes among urban older adults with diabetes. Data from 123 233 diabetic Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years and older in New York City were geocoded to measures of neighborhood walkability, public transit access, and primary care supply. In 2008, 6.4% had no office-based "evaluation and management" (E&M) visits. Multilevel logistic regression indicated that this group had greater odds of preventable hospitalization in 2009 (odds ratio = 1.31; 95% confidence interval: 1.22-1.40). Nonwhites and low-income individuals had greater odds of a lapse in E&M visits and of preventable hospitalization. Neighborhood factors did not help to explain these disparities. Further research is needed on the mechanisms underlying these disparities and older adults' ability to navigate health care. Even in an insured population living in a provider-dense city, targeted interventions may be needed to overcome barriers to chronic illness care for older adults in the community.

Use of spoken and written Japanese did not protect Japanese-American men from cognitive decline in late life.

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Crane, Paul K; Gruhl, Jonathan C; Erosheva, Elena A; Gibbons, Laura E; McCurry, Susan M; Rhoads, Kristoffer; Nguyen, Viet; Arani, Keerthi; Masaki, Kamal; White, Lon

2010-11-01

Spoken bilingualism may be associated with cognitive reserve. Mastering a complicated written language may be associated with additional reserve. We sought to determine if midlife use of spoken and written Japanese was associated with lower rates of late life cognitive decline. Participants were second-generation Japanese-American men from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, born 1900-1919, free of dementia in 1991, and categorized based on midlife self-reported use of spoken and written Japanese (total n included in primary analysis = 2,520). Cognitive functioning was measured with the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument scored using item response theory. We used mixed effects models, controlling for age, income, education, smoking status, apolipoprotein E e4 alleles, and number of study visits. Rates of cognitive decline were not related to use of spoken or written Japanese. This finding was consistent across numerous sensitivity analyses. We did not find evidence to support the hypothesis that multilingualism is associated with cognitive reserve.

Use of Spoken and Written Japanese Did Not Protect Japanese-American Men From Cognitive Decline in Late Life

Science.gov (United States)

Gruhl, Jonathan C.; Erosheva, Elena A.; Gibbons, Laura E.; McCurry, Susan M.; Rhoads, Kristoffer; Nguyen, Viet; Arani, Keerthi; Masaki, Kamal; White, Lon

2010-01-01

Objectives. Spoken bilingualism may be associated with cognitive reserve. Mastering a complicated written language may be associated with additional reserve. We sought to determine if midlife use of spoken and written Japanese was associated with lower rates of late life cognitive decline. Methods. Participants were second-generation Japanese-American men from the Hawaiian island of Oahu, born 1900–1919, free of dementia in 1991, and categorized based on midlife self-reported use of spoken and written Japanese (total n included in primary analysis = 2,520). Cognitive functioning was measured with the Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument scored using item response theory. We used mixed effects models, controlling for age, income, education, smoking status, apolipoprotein E e4 alleles, and number of study visits. Results. Rates of cognitive decline were not related to use of spoken or written Japanese. This finding was consistent across numerous sensitivity analyses. Discussion. We did not find evidence to support the hypothesis that multilingualism is associated with cognitive reserve. PMID:20639282

Neighborhood Mapping Tool

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Department of Housing and Urban Development — This tool assists the public and Choice Neighborhoods applicants to prepare data to submit with their grant application by allowing applicants to draw the exact...

A Comparison between Written and Spoken Narratives in Aphasia

Science.gov (United States)

Behrns, Ingrid; Wengelin, Asa; Broberg, Malin; Hartelius, Lena

2009-01-01

The aim of the present study was to explore how a personal narrative told by a group of eight persons with aphasia differed between written and spoken language, and to compare this with findings from 10 participants in a reference group. The stories were analysed through holistic assessments made by 60 participants without experience of aphasia…

Phonologic-graphemic transcodifier for Portuguese Language spoken in Brazil (PLB)

Science.gov (United States)

Fragadasilva, Francisco Jose; Saotome, Osamu; Deoliveira, Carlos Alberto

An automatic speech-to-text transformer system, suited to unlimited vocabulary, is presented. The basic acoustic unit considered are the allophones of the phonemes corresponding to the Portuguese language spoken in Brazil (PLB). The input to the system is a phonetic sequence, from a former step of isolated word recognition of slowly spoken speech. In a first stage, the system eliminates phonetic elements that don't belong to PLB. Using knowledge sources such as phonetics, phonology, orthography, and PLB specific lexicon, the output is a sequence of written words, ordered by probabilistic criterion that constitutes the set of graphemic possibilities to that input sequence. Pronunciation differences of some regions of Brazil are considered, but only those that cause differences in phonological transcription, because those of phonetic level are absorbed, during the transformation to phonological level. In the final stage, all possible written words are analyzed for orthography and grammar point of view, to eliminate the incorrect ones.

Effects of Neighborhood Walkability on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior Long-Term Post-Bariatric Surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Reid, Ryan E R; Carver, Tamara E; Reid, Tyler G R; Picard-Turcot, Marie-Aude; Andersen, Kathleen M; Christou, Nicolas V; Andersen, Ross E

2017-06-01

ᅟ: Chronic inactivity and weight regain are serious health concerns following bariatric surgery. Neighborhood walkability is associated with higher physical activity and lower obesity rates in normal weight populations. Explore the influence of neighborhood walkability on physical activity and sedentarism among long-term post-bariatric surgery patients. Fifty-eight adults aged 50.5 ± 9.1 years, with a BMI of 34.6 ± 9.7 kg/m 2 having undergone surgery 9.8 ± 3.15 years earlier participated in this study. Participants were asked to wear an ActivPAL™ tri-axial accelerometer attached to their mid-thigh for 7-consecutive days, 24 hours/day. The sample was separated into those that live in Car-Dependent (n = 23), Somewhat Walkable (n = 14), Very Walkable (n = 16), and Walker's Paradise (n = 5) neighborhoods as defined using Walk Score®. ANCOVA was performed comparing Walk Score® categories on steps and sedentary time controlling for age and sex. Neighborhood walkability did not influence either daily steps (F (3, 54) = 0.921, p = 0.437) or sedentary time (F (3, 54) = 0.465, p = 0.708), Car-Dependent (6359 ± 2712 steps, 9.54 ± 2.46 hrs), Somewhat Walkable (6563 ± 2989 steps, 9.07 ± 2.70 hrs), Very Walkable (5261 ± 2255 steps, 9.97 ± 2.06 hrs), and Walker's Paradise (6901 ± 1877 steps, 10.14 ± 0.815 hrs). Walkability does not appear to affect sedentary time or physical activity long-term post-surgery. As the built-environment does not seem to influence activity, sedentarism, or obesity as it does with a normal weight population, work needs to be done to tailor physical activity programming after bariatric surgery.

Retinoic acid signaling: a new piece in the spoken language puzzle

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jon-Ruben eVan Rhijn

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Speech requires precise motor control and rapid sequencing of highly complex vocal musculature. Despite its complexity, most people produce spoken language effortlessly. This is due to activity in distributed neuronal circuitry including cortico-striato-thalamic loops that control speech-motor output. Understanding the neuro-genetic mechanisms that encode these pathways will shed light on how humans can effortlessly and innately use spoken language and could elucidate what goes wrong in speech-language disorders.FOXP2 was the first single gene identified to cause speech and language disorder. Individuals with FOXP2 mutations display a severe speech deficit that also includes receptive and expressive language impairments. The underlying neuro-molecular mechanisms controlled by FOXP2, which will give insight into our capacity for speech-motor control, are only beginning to be unraveled. Recently FOXP2 was found to regulate genes involved in retinoic acid signaling and to modify the cellular response to retinoic acid, a key regulator of brain development. Herein we explore the evidence that FOXP2 and retinoic acid signaling function in the same pathways. We present evidence at molecular, cellular and behavioral levels that suggest an interplay between FOXP2 and retinoic acid that may be important for fine motor control and speech-motor output. We propose that retinoic acid signaling is an exciting new angle from which to investigate how neurogenetic mechanisms can contribute to the (spoken language ready brain.

Neighborhood Poverty and Nonmarital Fertility: Spatial and Temporal Dimensions

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South, Scott J.; Crowder, Kyle

2010-01-01

Data from 4,855 respondents to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics were used to examine spatial and temporal dimensions of the effect of neighborhood poverty on teenage premarital childbearing. Although high poverty in the immediate neighborhood increased the risk of becoming an unmarried parent, high poverty in surrounding neighborhoods reduced…

Banks and the Racial Patterning of Homicide: A Study of Chicago Neighborhoods

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María B. Veléz

2009-12-01

Full Text Available While bank investment is a driving force behind neighborhood viability, few studies have directly examined the effects of bank loan practices on neighborhood crime rates. This paper proposes that variation in residential bank loans helps explain the higher rates of homicide in minority neighborhoods in Chicago compared to white neighborhoods. It finds that black and Latino neighborhoods would experience fewer homicides if more financial capital were infused into these neighborhoods. These findings suggest that neighborhoods are shaped profoundly by the decisions of external economic actors.

The time course of spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese: a unimodal ERP study.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Xianjun; Yang, Jin-Chen; Zhang, Qin; Guo, Chunyan

2014-10-01

In the present study, two experiments were carried out to investigate the time course of spoken word recognition in Mandarin Chinese using both event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral measures. To address the hypothesis that there is an early phonological processing stage independent of semantics during spoken word recognition, a unimodal word-matching paradigm was employed, in which both prime and target words were presented auditorily. Experiment 1 manipulated the phonological relations between disyllabic primes and targets, and found an enhanced P2 (200-270 ms post-target onset) as well as a smaller early N400 to word-initial phonological mismatches over fronto-central scalp sites. Experiment 2 manipulated both phonological and semantic relations between monosyllabic primes and targets, and replicated the phonological mismatch-associated P2, which was not modulated by semantic relations. Overall, these results suggest that P2 is a sensitive electrophysiological index of early phonological processing independent of semantics in Mandarin Chinese spoken word recognition. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Individual Differences in Online Spoken Word Recognition: Implications for SLI

Science.gov (United States)

McMurray, Bob; Samelson, Vicki M.; Lee, Sung Hee; Tomblin, J. Bruce

2010-01-01

Thirty years of research has uncovered the broad principles that characterize spoken word processing across listeners. However, there have been few systematic investigations of individual differences. Such an investigation could help refine models of word recognition by indicating which processing parameters are likely to vary, and could also have…

Orthographic Consistency Affects Spoken Word Recognition at Different Grain-Sizes

Science.gov (United States)

Dich, Nadya

2014-01-01

A number of previous studies found that the consistency of sound-to-spelling mappings (feedback consistency) affects spoken word recognition. In auditory lexical decision experiments, words that can only be spelled one way are recognized faster than words with multiple potential spellings. Previous studies demonstrated this by manipulating…

The influence of PTSD, sleep fears, and neighborhood stress on insomnia and short sleep duration in urban, young adult, African Americans.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall Brown, Tyish; Mellman, Thomas A

2014-01-01

African Americans residing in stressful urban environments have high rates of insomnia and short sleep duration, both of which are associated with adverse health outcomes. However, limited data exist that explore factors influencing inadequate sleep in this high-risk population. This study sought to evaluate the contributions of demographics, trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, sleep fears, and neighborhood stress to both insomnia and short sleep in urban African American young adults. Data were analyzed from self-report measures completed by 378 participants 18-35 years of age. PTSD symptom severity and sleep fears were independently associated with insomnia severity, and sleep fears was associated with sleep duration. Results have implications for preventative health intervention strategies for urban African American young adults.

Exploring associations between perceived home and work neighborhood environments, diet behaviors, and obesity: Results from a survey of employed adults in Missouri

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rachel Tabak, PhD, RD

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Dietary behaviors are associated with obesity, and may be influenced by the environment. The objective of the current work was to investigate whether perceptions of built environment factors related to eating in the residential neighborhood will have different, independent associations with BMI and dietary behaviors than perceived built environment factors in the worksite neighborhood. In 2012–2013, a cross-sectional telephone-survey of Missouri adults (n = 2015 assessed perceptions of home and workplace built environment factors related to eating, dietary behaviors, and height and weight. Logistic regression models explored associations between perceived neighborhood built environment variables, diet, and obesity. The only variable associated with any of the outcomes explored in the fully adjusted models was the home neighborhood composite scale. None of the work environment variables were significantly associated with any of the health/behavior outcomes after adjustment. Few associations were found after adjustment for personal and job-related characteristics, and none were identified with the workplace neighborhood environment. While few home environment associations were found after adjustment, and none were identified with the perceived workplace neighborhood environment, the current study adds to the limited literature looking at associations between the perceived neighborhood around the workplace neighborhood and the perceived neighborhood around the home and dietary behaviors and obesity in adults. Future studies are needed to determine whether relationships between these environments and behavior exist, and if so, if they are causal and warrant intervention attempts.

Adults' Daily Walking for Travel and Leisure: Interaction Between Attitude Toward Walking and the Neighborhood Environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Yong; Diez-Roux, Ana V

2017-09-01

Studies on how the interaction of psychological and environmental characteristics influences walking are limited, and the results are inconsistent. Our aim is to examine how the attitude toward walking and neighborhood environments interacts to influence walking. Cross-sectional phone and mail survey. Participants randomly sampled from 6 study sites including Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Manhattan, and Bronx Counties in New York City, and Forsyth and Davidson Counties in North Carolina. The final sample consisted of 2621 persons from 2011 to 2012. Total minutes of walking for travel or leisure, attitude toward walking, and perceptions of the neighborhood environments were self-reported. Street Smart (SS) Walk Score (a measure of walkability derived from a variety of geographic data) was obtained for each residential location. Linear regression models adjusting for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, and income. Attitude toward walking was positively associated with walking for both purposes. Walking for travel was significantly associated with SS Walk Score, whereas walking for leisure was not. The SS Walk Score and selected perceived environment characteristics were associated with walking in people with a very positive attitude toward walking but were not associated with walking in people with a less positive attitude. Attitudes toward walking and neighborhood environments interact to affect walking behavior.

Effects of early auditory experience on the spoken language of deaf children at 3 years of age.

Science.gov (United States)

Nicholas, Johanna Grant; Geers, Ann E

2006-06-01

mo of age). Examination of the independent influence of these predictors through multiple regression analysis revealed that pre-implant-aided PTA threshold and duration of cochlear implant use (i.e., age at implant) accounted for 58% of the variance in Language Factor scores. A significant negative coefficient associated with pre-implant-aided threshold indicated that children with poorer hearing before implantation exhibited poorer language skills at age 3.5 yr. Likewise, a strong positive coefficient associated with duration of implant use indicated that children who had used their implant for a longer period of time (i.e., who were implanted at an earlier age) exhibited better language at age 3.5 yr. Age at identification and amplification was unrelated to language outcome, as was aided threshold with the cochlear implant. A significant quadratic trend in the relation between duration of implant use and language score revealed a steady increase in language skill (at age 3.5 yr) for each additional month of use of a cochlear implant after the first 12 mo of implant use. The advantage to language of longer implant use became more pronounced over time. Longer use of a cochlear implant in infancy and very early childhood dramatically affects the amount of spoken language exhibited by 3-yr-old, profoundly deaf children. In this sample, the amount of pre-implant intervention with a hearing aid was not related to language outcome at 3.5 yr of age. Rather, it was cochlear implantation at a younger age that served to promote spoken language competence. The previously identified language-facilitating factors of early identification of hearing impairment and early educational intervention may not be sufficient for optimizing spoken language of profoundly deaf children unless it leads to early cochlear implantation.

Pedagogy for Liberation: Spoken Word Poetry in Urban Schools

Science.gov (United States)

Fiore, Mia

2015-01-01

The Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, hip hop of the 1980s and early 1990s, and spoken word poetry have each attempted to initiate the dialogical process outlined by Paulo Freire as necessary in overturning oppression. Each art form has done this by critically engaging with the world and questioning dominant systems of power. However,…

Community Gardening, Neighborhood Meetings, and Social Capital

Science.gov (United States)

Alaimo, Katherine; Reischl, Thomas M.; Allen, Julie Ober

2010-01-01

This study examined associations between participation in community gardening/beautification projects and neighborhood meetings with perceptions of social capital at both the individual and neighborhood levels. Data were analyzed from a cross-sectional stratified random telephone survey conducted in Flint, Michigan (N=1916). Hierarchical linear…

Feature Statistics Modulate the Activation of Meaning during Spoken Word Processing

Science.gov (United States)

Devereux, Barry J.; Taylor, Kirsten I.; Randall, Billi; Geertzen, Jeroen; Tyler, Lorraine K.

2016-01-01

Understanding spoken words involves a rapid mapping from speech to conceptual representations. One distributed feature-based conceptual account assumes that the statistical characteristics of concepts' features--the number of concepts they occur in ("distinctiveness/sharedness") and likelihood of co-occurrence ("correlational…

Walks on SPR neighborhoods.

Science.gov (United States)

Caceres, Alan Joseph J; Castillo, Juan; Lee, Jinnie; St John, Katherine

2013-01-01

A nearest-neighbor-interchange (NNI)-walk is a sequence of unrooted phylogenetic trees, T1, T2, . . . , T(k) where each consecutive pair of trees differs by a single NNI move. We give tight bounds on the length of the shortest NNI-walks that visit all trees in a subtree-prune-and-regraft (SPR) neighborhood of a given tree. For any unrooted, binary tree, T, on n leaves, the shortest walk takes Θ(n²) additional steps more than the number of trees in the SPR neighborhood. This answers Bryant’s Second Combinatorial Challenge from the Phylogenetics Challenges List, the Isaac Newton Institute, 2011, and the Penny Ante Problem List, 2009.

Can neighborhoods explain racial/ethnic differences in adolescent inactivity?

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Richmond, Tracy K; Field, Alison E; Rich, Michael

2007-01-01

To determine if neighborhoods and their attributes contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in adolescent inactivity. We undertook a cross-sectional analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 17,007), a nationally representative school-based study in the United States. Stratifying by gender, we used multivariate linear regression and multi-level modeling to determine whether neighborhood of residence may partially explain racial/ethnic disparities in adolescent physical inactivity, defined as hours viewing television or videos/DVDs and/or playing computer/video games each week. Participants lived in largely segregated communities. Black and Hispanic adolescent girls reported higher levels of inactivity than White adolescent girls (21 vs. 15 vs. 13 hours/week, respectively, p violent crime in the neighborhood was associated with inactivity, despite the individual's perception of his/her neighborhood as safe not being predictive. Although inactivity varies by race/ethnicity and gender, only in Hispanic adolescent girls does neighborhood fully explain the differential use. Our findings suggest that approaches other than changing neighborhood characteristics are needed to eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in adolescent inactivity.

Using cross-classified multilevel models to disentangle school and neighborhood effects: an example focusing on smoking behaviors among adolescents in the United States.

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Dunn, Erin C; Richmond, Tracy K; Milliren, Carly E; Subramanian, S V

2015-01-01

Despite much interest in understanding the influence of contexts on health, most research has focused on one context at a time, ignoring the reality that individuals have simultaneous memberships in multiple settings. Using the example of smoking behavior among adolescents in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we applied cross-classified multilevel modeling (CCMM) to examine fixed and random effects for schools and neighborhoods. We compared the CCMM results with those obtained from a traditional multilevel model (MLM) focused on either the school and neighborhood separately. In the MLMs, 5.2% of the variation in smoking was due to differences between neighborhoods (when schools were ignored) and 6.3% of the variation in smoking was due to differences between schools (when neighborhoods were ignored). However in the CCMM examining neighborhood and school variation simultaneously, the neighborhood-level variation was reduced to 0.4%. Results suggest that using MLM, instead of CCMM, could lead to overestimating the importance of certain contexts and could ultimately lead to targeting interventions or policies to the wrong settings. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Influence of avenue-trees on air quality at the urban neighborhood scale. Part II: traffic pollutant concentrations at pedestrian level.

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Gromke, Christof; Blocken, Bert

2015-01-01

Flow and dispersion of traffic-emitted pollutants were studied in a generic urban neighborhood for various avenue-tree layouts by employing 3D steady RANS simulations with the realizable k-ε turbulence model. In comparison to the tree-free situation quantitative and qualitative changes with flow reversal in the wind field were observed. Low to moderate increases (pollutant concentration were found at pedestrian level. An approximately 1% increase in the neighborhood-averaged concentration was obtained with each percent of the street canyon volumes being occupied by vegetation for occupation fractions between 4 and 14%. The overall pattern of concentration changes relative to the tree-free situation was similar for all avenue-tree layouts. However, pronounced locally restricted decreases or increases in concentration (-87 to +1378%) occurred. The results indicate the necessity to account for existing or planned avenue-trees in neighborhood scaled is dispersion studies. Their consideration is prerequisite for reliable urban air quality assessment.

Demarcation of local neighborhoods to study relations between contextual factors and health

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Chor Dora

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Several studies have highlighted the importance of collective social factors for population health. One of the major challenges is an adequate definition of the spatial units of analysis which present properties potentially related to the target outcomes. Political and administrative divisions of urban areas are the most commonly used definition, although they suffer limitations in their ability to fully express the neighborhoods as social and spatial units. Objective This study presents a proposal for defining the boundaries of local neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro city. Local neighborhoods are constructed by means of aggregation of contiguous census tracts which are homogeneous regarding socioeconomic indicators. Methodology Local neighborhoods were created using the SKATER method (TerraView software. Criteria used for socioeconomic homogeneity were based on four census tract indicators (income, education, persons per household, and percentage of population in the 0-4-year age bracket considering a minimum population of 5,000 people living in each local neighborhood. The process took into account the geographic boundaries between administrative neighborhoods (a political-administrative division larger than a local neighborhood, but smaller than a borough and natural geographic barriers. Results The original 8,145 census tracts were collapsed into 794 local neighborhoods, distributed along 158 administrative neighborhoods. Local neighborhoods contained a mean of 10 census tracts, and there were an average of five local neighborhoods per administrative neighborhood. The local neighborhood units demarcated in this study are less socioeconomically heterogeneous than the administrative neighborhoods and provide a means for decreasing the well-known statistical variability of indicators based on census tracts. The local neighborhoods were able to distinguish between different areas within administrative neighborhoods

Demarcation of local neighborhoods to study relations between contextual factors and health.

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Santos, Simone M; Chor, Dora; Werneck, Guilherme Loureiro

2010-06-29

Several studies have highlighted the importance of collective social factors for population health. One of the major challenges is an adequate definition of the spatial units of analysis which present properties potentially related to the target outcomes. Political and administrative divisions of urban areas are the most commonly used definition, although they suffer limitations in their ability to fully express the neighborhoods as social and spatial units. This study presents a proposal for defining the boundaries of local neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro city. Local neighborhoods are constructed by means of aggregation of contiguous census tracts which are homogeneous regarding socioeconomic indicators. Local neighborhoods were created using the SKATER method (TerraView software). Criteria used for socioeconomic homogeneity were based on four census tract indicators (income, education, persons per household, and percentage of population in the 0-4-year age bracket) considering a minimum population of 5,000 people living in each local neighborhood. The process took into account the geographic boundaries between administrative neighborhoods (a political-administrative division larger than a local neighborhood, but smaller than a borough) and natural geographic barriers. The original 8,145 census tracts were collapsed into 794 local neighborhoods, distributed along 158 administrative neighborhoods. Local neighborhoods contained a mean of 10 census tracts, and there were an average of five local neighborhoods per administrative neighborhood.The local neighborhood units demarcated in this study are less socioeconomically heterogeneous than the administrative neighborhoods and provide a means for decreasing the well-known statistical variability of indicators based on census tracts. The local neighborhoods were able to distinguish between different areas within administrative neighborhoods, particularly in relation to squatter settlements. Although the literature on

User-Centred Design for Chinese-Oriented Spoken English Learning System

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Yu, Ping; Pan, Yingxin; Li, Chen; Zhang, Zengxiu; Shi, Qin; Chu, Wenpei; Liu, Mingzhuo; Zhu, Zhiting

2016-01-01

Oral production is an important part in English learning. Lack of a language environment with efficient instruction and feedback is a big issue for non-native speakers' English spoken skill improvement. A computer-assisted language learning system can provide many potential benefits to language learners. It allows adequate instructions and instant…

The neighborhood environment and obesity: Understanding variation by race/ethnicity.

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Wong, Michelle S; Chan, Kitty S; Jones-Smith, Jessica C; Colantuoni, Elizabeth; Thorpe, Roland J; Bleich, Sara N

2018-06-01

Neighborhood characteristics have been associated with obesity, but less is known whether relationships vary by race/ethnicity. This study examined the relationship between soda consumption - a behavior strongly associated with obesity - and weight status with neighborhood sociodemographic, social, and built environments by race/ethnicity. We merged data on adults from the 2011-2013 California Health Interview Survey, U.S. Census data, and InfoUSA (n=62,396). Dependent variables were soda consumption and weight status outcomes (body mass index and obesity status). Main independent variables were measures of three neighborhood environments: social (social cohesion and safety), sociodemographic (neighborhood socioeconomic status, educational attainment, percent Asian, percent Hispanic, and percent black), and built environments (number of grocery stores, convenience stores, fast food restaurants, and gyms in neighborhood). We fit multi-level linear and logistic regression models, stratified by individual race/ethnicity (NH (non-Hispanic) Whites, NH African Americans, Hispanics, and NH Asians) controlling for individual-level characteristics, to estimate neighborhood contextual effects on study outcomes. Lower neighborhood educational attainment was associated with higher odds of obesity and soda consumption in all racial/ethnic groups. We found fewer associations between study outcomes and the neighborhood, especially the built environment, among NH African Americans and NH Asians. While improvements to neighborhood environment may be promising to reduce obesity, null associations among minority subgroups suggest that changes, particularly to the built environment, may alone be insufficient to address obesity in these groups. Published by Elsevier Inc.

A Systematic Review of Neighborhood Disparities in Point-of-Sale Tobacco Marketing.

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Lee, Joseph G L; Henriksen, Lisa; Rose, Shyanika W; Moreland-Russell, Sarah; Ribisl, Kurt M

2015-09-01

We systematically reviewed evidence of disparities in tobacco marketing at tobacco retailers by sociodemographic neighborhood characteristics. We identified 43 relevant articles from 893 results of a systematic search in 10 databases updated May 28, 2014. We found 148 associations of marketing (price, placement, promotion, or product availability) with a neighborhood demographic of interest (socioeconomic disadvantage, race, ethnicity, and urbanicity). Neighborhoods with lower income have more tobacco marketing. There is more menthol marketing targeting urban neighborhoods and neighborhoods with more Black residents. Smokeless tobacco products are targeted more toward rural neighborhoods and neighborhoods with more White residents. Differences in store type partially explain these disparities. There are more inducements to start and continue smoking in lower-income neighborhoods and in neighborhoods with more Black residents. Retailer marketing may contribute to disparities in tobacco use. Clinicians should be aware of the pervasiveness of these environmental cues.

A Systematic Review of Neighborhood Disparities in Point-of-Sale Tobacco Marketing

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Henriksen, Lisa; Rose, Shyanika W.; Moreland-Russell, Sarah; Ribisl, Kurt M.

2015-01-01

We systematically reviewed evidence of disparities in tobacco marketing at tobacco retailers by sociodemographic neighborhood characteristics. We identified 43 relevant articles from 893 results of a systematic search in 10 databases updated May 28, 2014. We found 148 associations of marketing (price, placement, promotion, or product availability) with a neighborhood demographic of interest (socioeconomic disadvantage, race, ethnicity, and urbanicity). Neighborhoods with lower income have more tobacco marketing. There is more menthol marketing targeting urban neighborhoods and neighborhoods with more Black residents. Smokeless tobacco products are targeted more toward rural neighborhoods and neighborhoods with more White residents. Differences in store type partially explain these disparities. There are more inducements to start and continue smoking in lower-income neighborhoods and in neighborhoods with more Black residents. Retailer marketing may contribute to disparities in tobacco use. Clinicians should be aware of the pervasiveness of these environmental cues. PMID:26180986

The relation of the number of languages spoken to performance in different cognitive abilities in old age.

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Ihle, Andreas; Oris, Michel; Fagot, Delphine; Kliegel, Matthias

2016-12-01

Findings on the association of speaking different languages with cognitive functioning in old age are inconsistent and inconclusive so far. Therefore, the present study set out to investigate the relation of the number of languages spoken to cognitive performance and its interplay with several other markers of cognitive reserve in a large sample of older adults. Two thousand eight hundred and twelve older adults served as sample for the present study. Psychometric tests on verbal abilities, basic processing speed, and cognitive flexibility were administered. In addition, individuals were interviewed on their different languages spoken on a regular basis, educational attainment, occupation, and engaging in different activities throughout adulthood. Higher number of languages regularly spoken was significantly associated with better performance in verbal abilities and processing speed, but unrelated to cognitive flexibility. Regression analyses showed that the number of languages spoken predicted cognitive performance over and above leisure activities/physical demand of job/gainful activity as respective additional predictor, but not over and above educational attainment/cognitive level of job as respective additional predictor. There was no significant moderation of the association of the number of languages spoken with cognitive performance in any model. Present data suggest that speaking different languages on a regular basis may additionally contribute to the build-up of cognitive reserve in old age. Yet, this may not be universal, but linked to verbal abilities and basic cognitive processing speed. Moreover, it may be dependent on other types of cognitive stimulation that individuals also engaged in during their life course.

Research Progresses of Halo Streams in the Solar Neighborhood

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Xi-long, Liang; Jing-kun, Zhao; Yu-qin, Chen; Gang, Zhao

2018-01-01

The stellar streams originated from the Galactic halo may be detected when they pass by the solar neighborhood, and they still keep some information at their birth times. Thus, the investigation of halo streams in the solar neighborhood is very important for understanding the formation and evolution of our Galaxy. In this paper, the researches of halo streams in the solar neighborhood are briefly reviewed. We have introduced the methods how to detect the halo streams and identify their member stars, summarized the progresses in the observation of member stars of halo streams and in the study of their origins, introduced in detail how to analyze the origins of halo streams in the solar neighborhood by means of numerical simulation and chemical abundance, and finally discussed the prospects of the LAMOST and GAIA in the research of halo streams in the solar neighborhood.

A Model for Assessing the Level of Walkability in Urban Neighborhoods in Sri Lanka

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Gayani Ranasinghe

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The quality of the neighboring environment plays a major role in encouraging people to walk when attending their daily needs. Although past studies have identified a relationship between neighborhood design factors and the level of walkability, this interdependence is poorly understood in urban planning in Sri Lanka. The purpose of this study is to determine factors and conditions that influence walkability in a selected neighborhood in the town of Panadura and develop a model to predict what design factors enhance walkability in the neighborhood area. Ninety three (93 factors that affect the walkability in urban neighborhood were identified as the findings of the literature review of this study. Seventy six (76 walkability factors identified through perception surveys were examined within a 100m radius of 70 buffered circles representing 140 participants’ residences through a questionnaire survey and field observations. Chi-square and Bivariate correlation analysis were carried out to identify the most decisive factors for walkability. Multiple Linear Regression analysis was applied to develop a model to assess the level of walkability of residents in the selected area based on the most significant factors. The study has identified main nine variables that determine the level of walkability. Based on the significant values the model can be used to assess the level of walkability of the people in Sri Lankan context.

Income, neighborhood stressors, and harsh parenting: test of moderation by ethnicity, age, and gender.

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Barajas-Gonzalez, R Gabriela; Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne

2014-12-01

Family and neighborhood influences related to low-income were examined to understand their association with harsh parenting among an ethnically diverse sample of families. Specifically, a path model linking household income to harsh parenting via neighborhood disorder, fear for safety, maternal depressive symptoms, and family conflict was evaluated using cross-sectional data from 2,132 families with children ages 5-16 years from Chicago. The sample was 42% Mexican American, 41% African American, and 17% European American. Results provide support for a family process model where a lower income-to-needs ratio is associated with higher reports of neighborhood disorder, greater fear for safety, and more family conflict, which is in turn, associated with greater frequency of harsh parenting. Our tests for moderation by ethnicity/immigrant status, child gender, and child age (younger child vs. adolescent) indicate that although paths are similar for families of boys and girls, as well as for families of young children and adolescents, there are some differences by ethnic group. Specifically, we find the path from neighborhood disorder to fear for safety is stronger for Mexican American (United States born and immigrant) and European American families in comparison with African American families. We also find that the path from fear for safety to harsh parenting is significant for European American and African American families only. Possible reasons for such moderated effects are considered.

The observed and perceived neighborhood environment and physical activity among urban-dwelling adults: The moderating role of depressive symptoms.

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Orstad, Stephanie L; McDonough, Meghan H; Klenosky, David B; Mattson, Marifran; Troped, Philip J

2017-10-01

Physical environmental features of neighborhoods are associated with physical activity, but the influence of mental health factors, such as depression, on these associations is poorly understood. We examined whether the perceived neighborhood environment mediated associations between the observed neighborhood environment and physical activity, and whether these associations were moderated by depressive symptoms. Data consisted of systematic social observations of 343 neighborhoods and resident surveys. Participants' (N = 2969) mean age was 41.9 ± 16.2 years, 60.2% were female, and 67.9% were non-White. We conducted multiple linear regression and tests for mediation and moderated mediation. Observed recreation facilities, commercial destinations, physical disorder, and physical deterioration were indirectly associated with walking via perceived neighborhood environment variables. Observed recreation facilities was indirectly and positively associated with leisure-time physical activity via perceived park access, and indirectly and inversely associated with walking and leisure-time physical activity via perceived traffic danger, but only among participants with low depressive symptom scores. Observed recreation facilities was indirectly and inversely associated, and observed physical disorder and physical deterioration were indirectly and positively associated with walking via perceived disorder, but only among participants with high depressive symptom scores. Depressive symptoms affected the strength and direction of associations between the observed neighborhood environment and physical activity via residents' perceptions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of housing relocation and neighborhood environment on adolescent mental and behavioral health.

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Byck, Gayle R; Bolland, John; Dick, Danielle; Swann, Gregory; Henry, David; Mustanski, Brian

2015-11-01

This study examined whether relocating from a high-poverty neighborhood to a lower poverty neighborhood as part of a federal housing relocation program (HOPE VI; Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) had effects on adolescent mental and behavioral health compared to adolescents consistently living in lower poverty neighborhoods. Sociodemographic, risk behavior, and neighborhood data were collected from 592 low-income, primarily African-American adolescents and their primary caregivers. Structured psychiatric interviews were conducted with adolescents. Prerelocation neighborhood, demographic, and risk behavior data were also included. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was used to test associations between neighborhood variables and risk outcomes. HLM was used to test whether the effect of neighborhood relocation and neighborhood characteristics might explain differences in sexual risk taking, substance use, and mental health outcomes. Adolescents who relocated of HOPE VI neighborhoods (n = 158) fared worse than control group participants (n = 429) on most self-reported mental health outcomes. The addition of subjective neighborhood measures generally did not substantively change these results. Our findings suggest that moving from a high-poverty neighborhood to a somewhat lower poverty neighborhood is not associated with better mental health and risk behavior outcomes in adolescents. The continued effects of having grown up in a high-poverty neighborhood, the small improvements in their new neighborhoods, the comparatively short length of time they lived in their new neighborhood, and/or the stress of moving appears to worsen most of the mental health outcomes of HOPE VI compared to control group participants who consistently lived in the lower poverty neighborhoods. © 2015 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Grammatical Deviations in the Spoken and Written Language of Hebrew-Speaking Children With Hearing Impairments.

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Tur-Kaspa, Hana; Dromi, Esther

2001-04-01

The present study reports a detailed analysis of written and spoken language samples of Hebrew-speaking children aged 11-13 years who are deaf. It focuses on the description of various grammatical deviations in the two modalities. Participants were 13 students with hearing impairments (HI) attending special classrooms integrated into two elementary schools in Tel Aviv, Israel, and 9 students with normal hearing (NH) in regular classes in these same schools. Spoken and written language samples were collected from all participants using the same five preplanned elicitation probes. Students with HI were found to display significantly more grammatical deviations than their NH peers in both their spoken and written language samples. Most importantly, between-modality differences were noted. The participants with HI exhibited significantly more grammatical deviations in their written language samples than in their spoken samples. However, the distribution of grammatical deviations across categories was similar in the two modalities. The most common grammatical deviations in order of their frequency were failure to supply obligatory morphological markers, failure to mark grammatical agreement, and the omission of a major syntactic constituent in a sentence. Word order violations were rarely recorded in the Hebrew samples. Performance differences in the two modalities encourage clinicians and teachers to facilitate target linguistic forms in diverse communication contexts. Furthermore, the identification of linguistic targets for intervention must be based on the unique grammatical structure of the target language.

Association Between Neighborhood Violence and Biological Stress in Children.

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Theall, Katherine P; Shirtcliff, Elizabeth A; Dismukes, Andrew R; Wallace, Maeve; Drury, Stacy S

2017-01-01

.002 [0.001]; P = .04), as did children exposed to more violent crime within 500 m of their home (β [SE] -0.032 [0.014]; P = .02). Neighborhoods are important targets for interventions to reduce the effect of exposure to violence in the lives of children. These findings provide the first evidence that objective exposures to neighborhood-level violence influence both physiological and cellular markers of stress, even in children.

Impact of individual and neighborhood factors on disparities in prostate cancer survival.

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DeRouen, Mindy C; Schupp, Clayton W; Koo, Jocelyn; Yang, Juan; Hertz, Andrew; Shariff-Marco, Salma; Cockburn, Myles; Nelson, David O; Ingles, Sue A; John, Esther M; Gomez, Scarlett L

2018-04-01

We addressed the hypothesis that individual-level factors act jointly with social and built environment factors to influence overall survival for men with prostate cancer and contribute to racial/ethnic and socioeconomic (SES) survival disparities. We analyzed multi-level data, combining (1) individual-level data from the California Collaborative Prostate Cancer Study, a population-based study of non-Hispanic White (NHW), Hispanic, and African American prostate cancer cases (N = 1800) diagnosed from 1997 to 2003, with (2) data on neighborhood SES (nSES) and social and built environment factors from the California Neighborhoods Data System, and (3) data on tumor characteristics, treatment and follow-up through 2009 from the California Cancer Registry. Multivariable, stage-stratified Cox proportional hazards regression models with cluster adjustments were used to assess education and nSES main and joint effects on overall survival, before and after adjustment for social and built environment factors. African American men had worse survival than NHW men, which was attenuated by nSES. Increased risk of death was associated with residence in lower SES neighborhoods (quintile 1 (lowest nSES) vs. 5: HR = 1.56, 95% CI: 1.11-2.19) and lower education (influence overall survival of men with prostate cancer. Additional research is needed to identify the mechanisms underlying these robust associations. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Impact of Orthographic Consistency on German Spoken Word Identification

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Beyermann, Sandra; Penke, Martina

2014-01-01

An auditory lexical decision experiment was conducted to find out whether sound-to-spelling consistency has an impact on German spoken word processing, and whether such an impact is different at different stages of reading development. Four groups of readers (school children in the second, third and fifth grades, and university students)…

On-Line Syntax: Thoughts on the Temporality of Spoken Language

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Auer, Peter

2009-01-01

One fundamental difference between spoken and written language has to do with the "linearity" of speaking in time, in that the temporal structure of speaking is inherently the outcome of an interactive process between speaker and listener. But despite the status of "linearity" as one of Saussure's fundamental principles, in practice little more…

Association between neighborhood safety and overweight status among urban adolescents

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Johnson Renee M

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Neighborhood safety may be an important social environmental determinant of overweight. We examined the relationship between perceived neighborhood safety and overweight status, and assessed the validity of reported neighborhood safety among a representative community sample of urban adolescents (who were racially and ethnically diverse. Methods Data come from the 2006 Boston Youth Survey, a cross-sectional study in which public high school students in Boston, MA completed a pencil-and-paper survey. The study used a two-stage, stratified sampling design whereby schools and then 9th–12th grade classrooms within schools were selected (the analytic sample included 1,140 students. Students reported their perceptions of neighborhood safety and several associated dimensions. With self-reported height and weight data, we computed body mass index (BMI, kg/m2 for the adolescents based on CDC growth charts. Chi-square statistics and corresponding p-values were computed to compare perceived neighborhood safety by the several associated dimensions. Prevalence ratios (PRs and 95% confidence intervals (CI were calculated to examine the association between perceived neighborhood safety and the prevalence of overweight status controlling for relevant covariates and school site. Results More than one-third (35.6% of students said they always felt safe in their neighborhood, 43.9% said they sometimes felt safe, 11.6% rarely felt safe, and 8.9% never felt safe. Those students who reported that they rarely or never feel safe in their neighborhoods were more likely than those who said they always or sometimes feel safe to believe that gang violence was a serious problem in their neighborhood or school (68.0% vs. 44.1%, p p = 0.025. In the fully adjusted model (including grade and school stratified by race/ethnicity, we found a statistically significant association between feeling unsafe in one's own neighborhood and overweight status among