Development of alcohol use disorder in young Swiss men: The influence of retrospectively perceived parenting profiles

This four-wave longitudinal study aimed to examine the associations between retrospectively perceived parenting profiles in adolescence and the development of alcohol use disorder (AUD) throughout emerging adulthood. The cohort consisted of 190 young Swiss men who completed retrospective reports of parenting at baseline and a short AUD self-report screening tool at four measurement times (mean age at baseline = 20.18; Time 1: 21.52; Time 2: 25.61; Time 3: 26.99). Latent profile analysis revealed three parenting profiles in adolescence based on retrospective measures of parenting styles and practices: Optimal (the highest levels of involvement, structure and knowledge; 69%), Uninformed (high levels of involvement, moderate levels of structure and the lowest levels of knowledge; 17%), Low Support (the lowest levels of involvement, moderate levels of structure and knowledge; 14%). Using latent growth curve analysis, we found that young men in the Low Support profile experienced a greater increase in AUD severity compared with those in the Uninformed and Optimal profiles. Young men in the Uninformed profile reported higher levels of AUD severity at baseline than those in the Optimal profile. These findings highlight the associations between retrospectively perceived parenting profiles during adolescence and the development of AUD during emerging adulthood

ERBlox: Combining Matching Dependencies with Machine Learning for Entity Resolution

Entity resolution (ER), an important and common data cleaning problem, is about detecting data duplicate representations for the same external entities, and merging them into single representations. Relatively recently, declarative rules called matching dependencies (MDs) have been proposed for specifying similarity conditions under which attribute values in database records are merged. In this work we show the process and the benefits of integrating three components of ER: (a) Classifiers for duplicate/non-duplicate record pairs built using machine learning (ML) techniques, (b) MDs for supporting both the blocking phase of ML and the merge itself; and (c) The use of the declarative language LogiQL -an extended form of Datalog supported by the LogicBlox platform- for data processing, and the specification and enforcement of MDs.Comment: To appear in Proc. SUM, 201

Assessing Online and Offline Adolescent Social Skills: Development and Validation of the Real and Electronic Communication Skills Questionnaire.

Studies examining the associations between Internet use and social skills are increasingly frequent. However, most of them only evaluate offline social skills and consider them as equivalents to online social skills. So far, no instrument allowed differentiating social skills depending on online versus offline contexts. This study aimed to develop and validate the Real and Electronic Communication Skills questionnaire (RECS), a new measure evaluating several dimensions of social skills in two different contexts (i.e., face-to-face and computer-mediated communication). Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses among a sample of 657 adolescents and young adults (mean age = 17.68 years; 67% female) showed that the best fitting model for each context is a bifactor solution, with one general factor (Social Competence) and four specific factors (Sociability, Emotion Decoding, Disclosure, and Assertiveness). Each specific factor was differentially correlated with theoretically relevant subscales of the Social Skills Inventory, confirming the external validity of the RECS. The RECS is the first instrument allowing not only to assess social competence in online settings but also to quantify the relationships between offline social skills and their online counterpart. Given its ease of use and brevity, the RECS is a useful and promising instrument to capture social skills in both online and offline contexts

Adolescents’ responses to parental regulation: The role of communication style and self-determination

This study examined whether adolescents’ perceptions and reactions to parental regulation were predicted by parents’ communication style and by adolescents’ self-determination. Adolescents (N = 294; Mage = 14.3) reported their self determination, and then read a hypothetical scenario of parental regulation of their academic behavior, whereby parents’ communication style was either autonomy-supportive or psychologically controlling. Following the scenario, adolescents reported their perceptions of the situation (i.e., autonomy satisfaction, autonomy frustration, legitimacy) and their anticipated responses (i.e., oppositional defiance, negotiation). In response to psychological control, adolescents reported less autonomy satisfaction, more autonomy frustration, less legitimacy, and more defiance. Further, adolescents higher in self-determination reported less autonomy frustration, more legitimacy, less defiance, and more negotiation. Finally, self-determination moderated two effects of communication style: adolescents low on self-determination reported less legitimacy and more defiance in response to the psychologically controlling (vs. autonomy-supportive) situation. For adolescents high on self determination, these between-vignette differences were not significant

« Où étais-tu et avec qui ? » Les informations communiquées aux parents par les adolescents : un état de la littérature

La connaissance parentale des activités de temps libre des adolescents est largement reconnue comme un facteur protecteur pour l’ajustement psychosocial des adolescents. Les parents savent (ou ignorent) ce que leurs adolescents effectuent hors de la supervision parentale parce que leurs enfants partagent (ou dissimulent) des informations sur leurs activités ou leurs amitiés. Ainsi, durant cette période développementale marquée par un besoin accru d’indépendance, les adolescents utilisent plusieurs stratégies (p. ex., libre divulgation, secrets, mensonges) pour gérer les informations détenues par leurs parents. L’objectif de cet article est de passer en revue ces différents moyens, de présenter leur fonction développementale et de discuter de leurs conséquences sur l’adaptation psychosociale des adolescents et sur la relation avec leurs parents. Cet article propose également de s’interroger sur les raisons pour lesquelles les adolescents choisissent de divulguer ou de cacher des informations, notamment en abordant successivement leurs motifs personnels et les caractéristiques de la relation avec leurs parents

When Do Adolescents Accept or Defy to Maternal Prohibitions? The Role of Social Domain and Communication Style.

Drawing upon both Social-Cognitive Domain Theory and Self-Determination Theory, the goal of the present multi-informant study was to test whether the correlates of maternal prohibitions depend on what is prohibited (i.e., the content of the social domain involved), thereby contrasting moral with friendship prohibitions, as well on how the prohibition is communicated, thereby contrasting an autonomy-supportive with a controlling communication style. In a sample of adolescents (N = 196; mean age = 13.9 years; 63 % female) and their mothers (N = 185; mean age = 44 years), we first examined mean-level differences between the two domains in terms of mothers' degree and style of prohibition, as well as on a number of developmental outcomes (i.e., adolescents' legitimacy perceptions, internalization, and oppositional defiance). Both adolescents and mothers reported more maternal involvement in the moral domain (e.g., higher scores for degree of prohibition and controlling communication style). In addition, adolescents reported greater perceived legitimacy and less oppositional defiance in the moral domain (as compared to the friendships domain). Second, we tested whether associations between degree and style of prohibition and the developmental outcomes were moderated by social domain. Whereas associations between degree of prohibition and developmental outcomes either were non-significant or moderated by domain, the associations with communication style were more domain-invariant, with an autonomy-supportive style generally yielding an adaptive pattern of correlates and with a controlling style relating to maladaptive outcomes. The discussion focuses on similarities and differences in the characteristics and correlates of both types of prohibitions

Feasibility tests of transmission x-ray photoelectron emission microscopy of wet samples

We performed feasibility tests of photoelectron emission spectromicroscopy of wet samples in the water window (285-532 eV) soft x-ray spectral region. Water was successfully confined in an ultrahigh vacuum compatible compartment with x-ray transparent sides. This water cell was placed in the MEPHISTO spectromicroscope in a transmission geometry, and complete x-ray absorption spectra of the water window region were acquired. We also show micrographs of test samples, mounted outside of the compartment, and imaged through the water. This technique can be used to study liquid chemistry and, at least to the micron level, the microstructure of wet samples. Possibilities include cells in water or buffer, proteins in solution, oils of tribological interest, liquid crystals, and other samples not presently accessible to the powerful x-ray photoelectron emission spectromicroscopy technique

A Simple Iterative Algorithm for Parsimonious Binary Kernel Fisher Discrimination

By applying recent results in optimization theory variously known as optimization transfer or majorize/minimize algorithms, an algorithm for binary, kernel, Fisher discriminant analysis is introduced that makes use of a non-smooth penalty on the coefficients to provide a parsimonious solution. The problem is converted into a smooth optimization that can be solved iteratively with no greater overhead than iteratively re-weighted least-squares. The result is simple, easily programmed and is shown to perform, in terms of both accuracy and parsimony, as well as or better than a number of leading machine learning algorithms on two well-studied and substantial benchmarks

A Simple Model for the Influence of Meiotic Conversion Tracts on GC Content

A strong correlation between GC content and recombination rate is observed in many eukaryotes, which is thought to be due to conversion events linked to the repair of meiotic double-strand breaks. In several organisms, the length of conversion tracts has been shown to decrease exponentially with increasing distance from the sites of meiotic double-strand breaks. I show here that this behavior leads to a simple analytical model for the evolution and the equilibrium state of the GC content of sequences devoid of meiotic double-strand break sites. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, meiotic double-strand breaks are practically excluded from protein-coding sequences. A good fit was observed between the predictions of the model and the variations of the average GC content of the third codon position (GC3) of S. cerevisiae genes. Moreover, recombination parameters that can be extracted by fitting the data to the model coincide with experimentally determined values. These results thus indicate that meiotic recombination plays an important part in determining the fluctuations of GC content in yeast coding sequences. The model also accounted for the different patterns of GC variations observed in the genes of Candida species that exhibit a variety of sexual lifestyles, and hence a wide range of meiotic recombination rates. Finally, the variations of the average GC3 content of human and chicken coding sequences could also be fitted by the model. These results suggest the existence of a widespread pattern of GC variation in eukaryotic genes due to meiotic recombination, which would imply the generality of two features of meiotic recombination: its association with GC-biased gene conversion and the quasi-exclusion of meiotic double-strand breaks from coding sequences. Moreover, the model points out to specific constraints on protein fragments encoded by exon terminal sequences, which are the most affected by the GC bias