Does Drinking Really Decrease in Bad Times?

This paper investigates the relationship between macroeconomic conditions, alcohol use, and drinking problems using individual-level data from the 1987-1999 years of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. We confirm the procyclical variation in overall drinking identified in previous research using aggregate sales data and show that this largely results from changes in consumption among existing drinkers, rather than movements into or out of drinking. Moreover, the decrease in alcohol use occurring during bad economic times is concentrated among heavy consumers, with light drinking actually increasing in these periods. We find no evidence that the decline in overall drinking masks a rise in alcohol use for persons becoming unemployed during contractions, suggesting that any stress-induced increases in consumption are more than offset by reductions resulting from changes in economic factors such as lower incomes.

Designing Effective Questions for Classroom Response System Teaching

Classroom response systems (CRSs) can be potent tools for teaching physics. Their efficacy, however, depends strongly on the quality of the questions used. Creating effective questions is difficult, and differs from creating exam and homework problems. Every CRS question should have an explicit pedagogic purpose consisting of a content goal, a process goal, and a metacognitive goal. Questions can be engineered to fulfil their purpose through four complementary mechanisms: directing students' attention, stimulating specific cognitive processes, communicating information to instructor and students via CRS-tabulated answer counts, and facilitating the articulation and confrontation of ideas. We identify several tactics that help in the design of potent questions, and present four "makeovers" showing how these tactics can be used to convert traditional physics questions into more powerful CRS questions.Comment: 11 pages, including 6 figures and 2 tables. Submitted (and mostly approved) to the American Journal of Physics. Based on invited talk BL05 at the 2005 Winter Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers (Albuquerque, NM

The Relationship between Involvement in Religious Student Organizations and the Development of Socially Responsible Leadership Capacity

This study of 76,365 students from 82 U.S. institutions explored the relationship between involvement in a religious student organization and student capacities for socially responsible leadership, based on the Social Change Model of Leadership (SCM). Results from t-tests found students involved in both religious and secular student organizations reported statistically significantly higher scores on all eight measures of socially responsible leadership than students involved in only religious student organizations. Hierarchical multiple regression models explained between 26% and 29% of the variance in student reported levels of overall socially responsible leadership. Compared to students involved in no organizations, involvement in religious only, secular only, and both religious and secular organization types were found to be negative yet statistically insignificant predictors of socially responsible leadership. The highest predictors of socially responsible leadership were precollege capacities for socially responsible leadership, number of years in school, and collegiate student organization involvement frequency

Seasonal Variation in 25(OH)D at Aberdeen (57°N) and Bone Health Indicators- Could Holidays in the Sun and Cod Liver Oil Supplements Alleviate Deficiency?

Vitamin D has been linked with many health outcomes. The aim of this longitudinal study, was to assess predictors of seasonal variation of 25-hydroxy-vitamin D (25(OH)D) (including use of supplements and holidays in sunny destinations) at a northerly latitude in the UK (57°N) in relation to bone health indicators. 365 healthy postmenopausal women (mean age 62.0 y (SD 1.4)) had 25(OH)D measurements by immunoassay, serum C-telopeptide (CTX), estimates of sunlight exposure (badges of polysulphone film), information regarding holidays in sunny destinations, and diet (from food diaries, including use of supplements such as cod liver oil (CLO)) at fixed 3-monthly intervals over 15 months (subject retention 88%) with an additional 25(OH)D assessment in spring 2008. Bone mineral density (BMD) at the lumbar spine (LS) and dual hip was measured in autumn 2006 and spring 2007 (Lunar I-DXA). Deficiency prevalence (25(OH)