Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Decision To Breastfeed In The United States: Does Race Matter?, Renata Forste Phd, Jessica Weiss Bs, Emily Lippincott Bs

Faculty Publications

Objectives. To estimate the effects of maternal and birth characteristics on the decision to breastfeed and to relate breastfeeding practices to racial differences in infant mortality.

Methods. Using a sample of women with young children from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), Cycle V, 1995, the likelihood of breastfeeding was modeled using logistic regression techniques. In addition, single, live births from the NSFG 1988 and 1995 surveys were analyzed to model the effects of race and breastfeeding on infant mortality using Cox regression methods.

Results. After controlling for socioeconomic background and birth characteristics, race remained a strong predictor of …

Economy And 'New Economy' In The United States And Germany, Phillip J. Bryson

Faculty Publications

The expression "New Economy" is used inconsistently. This Article review the driving forces of the US boom of the 1990s, examining the changes introduced in the period and before, focusing on the IT sector and new technologies. The "New Economy" is not just the new sectors, but changes in the overall economy emanating from them. These changes will not evaporate in an economic slowdown. Comparisons of the USA with Germany and Europe illustrate that the "New Economy" will also continue to develop there on the foundations already laid.

Parenting Stress In Families With Children With Disabilities, Timothy B. Smith, Matthew N. I. Oliver, Mark S. Innocenti

Faculty Publications

Parenting stress is an important variable to consider in families with children with disabilities. This study evaluated 880 such families, using measures of child and family functioning. Results suggest that factors such as income, time available for interaction with the child, and social support predict parenting stress much better than do aspects of child functioning.

Appraising Industrial Special-Purpose Properties, Robert G. Crawford, Barrett A. Slade

Faculty Publications

This article proposes a new technique, based on utilization rates, for estimating economic obsolescence in the appraisal of industrial special-purpose properties. A utilization-based measure, which explicitly considers the operating leverage of the facility, allows for proper calculation of the obsolescence. Theoretically correct valuation principles underlie the proposed utilization methodology. The technique uses inputs that are reasonably available to an appraiser, thus providing a practical application of the proposed methodology.

A Speech Interface To Genealogical Data, Deryle W. Lonsdale

Faculty Publications

This talk presents an interface that has been developed to enable users to access genealogical information via speech. Whereas the more traditional approaches for accessing data are prevalent in today’s commercial genealogical products (e.g. windows, icons, and point-and-click methods), hands-free access to information is becoming increasingly popular. There would seem to be a potential demand for speech-based access to genealogical information, particularly among enthusiasts who might require mobile access, or those who are uncomfortable with or unable to use manual methods. Yet software to perform this function for genealogical access does not appear to be widely available yet.

An Integrated System For Processing Information From Genealogical Text, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Merrill Hutchison, Tim Richards, William Taysom

Faculty Publications

This presentation introduces an integrated software system that has been designed and implemented to allow processing of difficult text. The genealogical text subdomain often exhibits characteristics that do not occur in more general written language. The system we describe has been developed specifically to address the extraction and analysis of information from such specialized text.

Language Acquisition In Children With Autism, Tina Taylor

Faculty Publications

By definition, children with autism have deficits in communication. Often, when parents notice that something is "different" about their child, it is that he does not acquire language at the same rate as his peers, that the child uses what language he has in an idiosyncratic fashion (e.g., repeating phrases from videos, using pronouns incorrectly), or that the child appears to understand only that language which might be reinforcing to him (e.g., not responding to "Look at Mommy," but responding to "Do you want a cookie?)" When these "red flags" are apparent, parents should beware of misguided advice such as …

A Two-Level Implementation For Lushootseed Morphology, Deryle W. Lonsdale

Faculty Publications

This paper describes the implementatio of a computer system that processes Lushootseed word forms. Built on the two-level model and leveraging finite-state technology, the system is able both to parse surface forms to arives at the underlying morphemic decomposition, and to generate surface forms given such a representation. Components of the system are discussed including the lexicon architecture, rule formulation and specification, ans the word-structurer grammar. Issues relevant to processing Lushootseed are discussed including reduplication, allomorphic variation, inflectional and derivational affixation, and morphophonemic alternations.

A Usage-Based Simulation Of Spanish S-Weakening, David Eddington

Faculty Publications

The pronunciation of Spanish /s/ as an aspirate [h] (or its deletion) is studied in a usagebased simulation that assumes that prior linguistic experiences are stored as memory traces, and that these stored experiences, instead of generalizations abstracted from them, are the source of the knowledge speakers have of their language. This exploratory simulation was carried out using the algorithm of Analogical Modeling of Language (Skousen 1989, 1992).

Lg-Soar: Parsing For Information, Deryle W. Lonsdale, Merrill Hutchison, Tim Richards, William Taysom

Faculty Publications

Mine content from problematic text

Address complicated linguistic issues

Output information into a usable format

Integrate components within an agent architecture

An Operator-Based Account Of Semantic Processing, Deryle W. Lonsdale, C. Anton Rytting

Faculty Publications

This paper explores issues of psychological plausibility in modeling natural language understanding within Soar, a symbolic cognitive model. It focuses on constructing syntactic and semantic representations in simulated real time, with particular emphasis on word sense disambiguation (WSD). We discuss (i) what level of WSD should be modeled and (ii) how to use resources such as WordNet to inform these models. A preliminary model of coarse-grained WSD is included to show how syntactic, semantic, and other knowledge sources interact in Soar. Finally, we explore issues of interleaving, learning, and integrating other WSD approaches with Soar's native model of learning.

Spanish Epenthesis: Formal And Preformance Perspectives, David Eddington

Faculty Publications

Epenthesis of /e/ before sC- clusters in Spanish is documented word-initially (e.g., eJfera) as well as in word-internal contexts (e.g., subestimar). Cases of alternating epenthesis also exist (e.g., arteriosclerosis I arterioeclerosis). Epe nthesis is examined in the formal frameworks of lexical phonology and optimality theory. Both formal analyses are able to account for the majority of the data presented, however, each requires some arguably ad hoc manipulation in order to do so. From a performance standpoint, it is argued that epenthesis plays no role in the processing of native Spanish words. The appearance of epenthesis in loan words (e.g., stress …

Surface Analogy And Spelling Rules In English Vowel Alterations, David Eddington

Faculty Publications

Previous psycholinguistic research into the English vocalic system suggest that the vowel alternations [ei-re, ii-£, ai-1, ow- a, u"-A], termed SPELLING RULE ALTERNATIONS, are psychologically significant for English speakers, in that they can influence the pronunciation of unfamiliar words. In this paper, the influence of these salient alternations on nonce words and neologisms is assessed. The effect of su1face analogy on the pronunciation of novel words is also examined. Surface analogy may be defined as the influence exerted by the fu lly specified surface forms of the morphemic relatives of a word. It assumes that all allomorphs of a given …

Index Of Utah Construction Company / Utah International Collection, 1900-1984 Ms 100, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

This is a detailed index of the Utah Construction / Utah International Collection or Manuscript Collection 100 (MS 100) housed in Special Collections at the Stewart Library, Weber State University. The collection comprises 275 boxes of records chronicling the activities of Utah Construction Company/Utah International. From these files comes a history of worldwide construction and mining activities undertaken by the company for nearly a century. Records of the Administrative Departments: meeting announcements, minutes, agendas, and financial files pertaining to the Board of Directors and Executive Committee. The collection also includes organizational charts, financial data, annual reports, daybooks, journals, ledgers, legal …

Varieties Of Religion-Family Linkages, John R. Snarey, David C. Dollahite

Faculty Publications

The 4 articles in this special issue make important contributions to both family and religious studies as well as to their interface. This commentary begins by considering 4 unifying themes present across all of the articles, including meaningful religion-family linkages, the importance of gender differences in the faith-family interface, the significance of intergenerational relationships, and the need for better theory. The authors then discuss the unique major strength and secondary limitations of each study. Finally, the commentary focuses on two challenges inhibiting the contemporary study of religion and the family–a relative lack of racial and religious diversity in samples and …

Relational Victimization In Childhood And Adolescence: I Hurt You Through The Grapevine, Nicki R. Creek, David A. Nelson, Julie R. Morales, Crystal Cullerton-Sen, Juan F. Casas, Susan E. Hickman

Faculty Publications

Sylvia usually feels pretty good about herself, but lately her friends at school have been acting a little strangely toward her. When she goes to sit with them in the cafeteria at lunch, everyone stops talking. When she passes people in the hall, she hears them whispering behind their hands. And then just yesterday she overheard someone saying that Mindy was having a birthday party, and she hasn't been invited. What Sylvia doesn't know is that Mindy has been spreading gossip about her to their mutual friends ever since Sylvia beat her out for the lead in the school play. …

Behavioral Inhibition, Social Withdrawal, And Parenting, Kim B. Burgess, Kenneth H. Rubin, Charissa S. L. Cheah, Larry J. Nelson

Faculty Publications

The study of children's social and emotional development requires that attention be paid to such factors as dispositional/biological factors (e.g., temperament), familial interactions and relationships, social contexts (e.g., school, neighborhood), and culture. For example, Hinde (1995) has advanced the notion that development be considered from a multi-level perspective beginning with individual characteristics and progressing the interaction, relationship, and group levels of analysis and conjecture. At the level of the individual child, developmental scientists have studies such constructs as temperament that might lead to problematic social or behavioral outcomes. One such interpersonal characteristic is that of "difficult" temperament – a phenomenon …

Non-Social Play As A Risk Factor In Social And Emotional Development, Charissa S. L. Cheah, Larry J. Nelson, Kenneth H. Rubin

Faculty Publications

Children spend much of their youthful energy engaged in play. Indeed, play, in its various forms, represents a serious business – not only for the active participations, but also for students of the phenomenon. To many researchers, play is viewed as a generative fore in children's social, emotional, and cognitive development (see Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg, 1983; Saracho & Spodek, 1998; Fromberg & Bergen, 1998). The extent to which children engage in play with others is of added developmental significance. In light of the complexity and developmental significance of children's play and especially play with peers, it seems important to …