U.S. HUMAN RIGHTS POLICIES WITH CHINA: TRADITIONAL CHALLENGES AND THE IMPACT OF AMERICA’S NEW CONFRONTATIONAL STRATEGY

This thesis sought to determine the factors that have traditionally challenged effective U.S. human rights policies with China, examining U.S. preferences, policies, developments, and conditions from 1993 through 2021. This thesis investigated the efficacy of U.S. human rights policies with China according to policy makers’ prioritization of those policies, in terms of time, effort, and competing or conflicting impacts to other national interests. U.S. policy makers from the Clinton through the Obama administrations demonstrated a consistent preference to prioritize economic relations and security cooperation with China under an overarching engagement strategy at the expense of effective human rights efforts. Under Trump, however, conditions and events resulted in a major shift from the engagement policy toward a competition strategy. The major contributors to the strategy shift were (1) China’s human rights issues in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, (2) U.S. policy makers’ acknowledgement that China was growing powerful at the expense of the U.S. and that its development had not led to liberalization, and (3) Trump’s America First foreign policy tendencies, which rejected overreliance on China to achieve his national goals. U.S. human rights policies became more effective as policy makers became increasingly willing to use confrontational measures against China’s human rights issues to include imposing sanctions and passing punitive and prevention-related legislation.Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Linear Programming Analysis and Diet Breadth Modeling at Bridge River, British Columbia

Studies in diet breadth modeling and patch choice have been and continue to be a hot topic of interest among practitioners of human behavioral ecology and the set of data available at Bridge River can certainly add to these debates and discussions that have been dominating anthropology in the past few decades. The faunal assemblage of Housepit 54’s 17 anthropogenic floors have provided researchers with a plethora of data that clearly indicates periods of resource depletion and partial to full site abandonment. Using Linear Programming and Diet Breadth Modelling I analyze the most represented species in the record and establish an optimal projection for how best to utilize time fishing, hunting and gathering. While optimality is established on the basis of nutrition and time spent processing, correlation coefficients are also used to compare frequencies of salmon versus trout, deer, and other less desirable land vertebrates by floor layer. Establishing how the prehistoric peoples of Bridge River dealt with depletion of their most valued food resource of salmon could prove useful not just in increasing our knowledge of the events that transpired at Bridge River during this time but can also serve as a reference for how best to optimize dwindling resources in the 21st century

Coming to terms with the nonmedical use of prescription medications

In this commentary we highlight limitations with the way nonmedical use of prescription medications has been measured in U.S. national studies. We also offer an alternative way of conceptualizing the nonmedical use of prescription medications for future study

Vasectomy reversal and prostate cancer risk: A multi-centre collaborative demonstration project of the Intentional Population Data Linkage Network

This first collaborative demonstration project of the International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) has recently been completed. This project collated data from five data linkage centres across Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada to investigate the effect of vasectomy reversal on prostate cancer risk in vasectomized men. We discuss the study and the challenges of organising and analysing multi-centre linked data studies

Race/ethnicity and gender differences in drug use and abuse among college students

This study examines race/ethnicity and gender differences in drug use and abuse for substances other than alcohol among undergraduate college students. A probability-based sample of 4,580 undergraduate students at a Midwestern research university completed a cross-sectional Web-based questionnaire that included demographic information and several substance use measures. Male students were generally more likely to report drug use and abuse than female students. Hispanic and White students were more likely to report drug use and abuse than Asian and African American students prior to coming to college and during college. The findings of the present study reveal several important racial/ethnic differences in drug use and abuse that need to be considered when developing collegiate drug prevention and intervention efforts.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377408/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2377408/Accepted manuscrip

Evaluation of approximate comparison methods on Bloom filters for probabilistic linkage

Introduction The need for increased privacy protection in data linkage has driven the development of privacy-preserving record linkage (PPRL) techniques. A popular technique using Bloom filters with cryptographic analyses, modifications, and hashing variations to optimise privacy has been the focus of much research in this area. With few applications of Bloom filters within a probabilistic framework, there is limited information on whether approximate matches between Bloom filtered fields can improve linkage quality. Objectives In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of three approximate comparison methods for Bloom filters within the context of the Fellegi-Sunter model of recording linkage: Sørensen–Dice coefficient, Jaccard similarity and Hamming distance. Methods Using synthetic datasets with introduced errors to simulate datasets with a range of data quality and a large real-world administrative health dataset, the research estimated partial weight curves for converting similarity scores (for each approximate comparison method) to partial weights at both field and dataset level. Deduplication linkages were run on each dataset using these partial weight curves. This was to compare the resulting quality of the approximate comparison techniques with linkages using simple cut-off similarity values and only exact matching. Results Linkages using approximate comparisons produced significantly better quality results than those using exact comparisons only. Field level partial weight curves for a specific dataset produced the best quality results. The Sørensen-Dice coefficient and Jaccard similarity produced the most consistent results across a spectrum of synthetic and real-world datasets. Conclusion The use of Bloom filter similarity comparisons for probabilistic record linkage can produce linkage quality results which are comparable to Jaro-Winkler string similarities with unencrypted linkages. Probabilistic linkages using Bloom filters benefit significantly from the use of similarity comparisons, with partial weight curves producing the best results, even when not optimised for that particular dataset

Police responses to child sexual abuse 2010–2014, An analysis of administrative data for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

This quantitative study was commissioned by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (the Royal Commission) and undertaken by researchers at the Centre for Population Health Research, Curtin University. The purpose of the research was two-fold. Firstly, researchers undertook a systematic statistical review of police reports relating to child sexual abuse across Australia to gain a better understanding of how police in all jurisdictions respond to and process reports of child sexual abuse... Secondly, researchers undertook a more detailed statistical analysis of the extent and nature of child-to-child sexual abuse reported to police

A Triple Threat: Alcohol Use Disorders in the Presence of Comorbid Chronic Pain Conditions and Depressive Disorders in the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys, 2001-2003

Background: Frequently patients with chronic pain conditions have comorbid depressive disorders. The relationship between the diagnoses is often bidirectional, with the effects of one condition exacerbating the effects of the other. Alcohol use disorders (AUD) are also independently associated with both conditions. This study aims to determine the prevalence of alcohol use disorders among patients with comorbid chronic pain conditions and depressive disorders in a nationally representative sample of US adults and ascertain the characteristics of patients with all three diagnoses. Methods: This cross-sectional analysis utilizes data from the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001-2003. The sample includes respondents who reported having a chronic pain condition during their lifetime. The outcome is a dichotomous measure of past 12 month AUD, meeting DSM-IV criteria. The exposure is represented as a categorical variable with four groups: no depressive disorder(s) or chronic pain conditions during past year, at least one depressive disorder but no chronic pain conditions during the past year, at least one chronic pain condition during the past year but no depressive disorders during the past year, at least one depressive disorder and at least one chronic pain condition during the past year. Models determining prevalence and patient characteristics were obtained using logistic regression. All analyses account for complex survey design effects. Preliminary Results: Results show an elevated association between having a comorbid chronic pain condition and a depressive disorder and an AUD during the past 12 months, POR=1.914 (0.394, 9.573). This association is not present for the other exposure categories: past year chronic pain but no depressive disorder and past year depressive disorder but no chronic pain. Subsequent models concur after adjusting for potential confounding variables. The prevalence of past year comorbid chronic pain conditions and depressive disorders is 10.93% (SE=0.6931), among adults reporting any chronic pain condition during their lifetime. The prevalence of AUD among adults with comorbid chronic pain and depression is 3.82% (SE=1.132). Discussion: This analysis provides empirical support for the association between psychiatric illness and chronic pain. An association between AUD and comorbid chronic pain and depression signals a need for clinicians to conduct additional screening for AUD when evaluating treatment plans and diagnostic recommendations among adults receiving treatment for chronic pain and depression