Relationships between problematic alcohol consumption and delinquent behaviour from adolescence to young adulthood

Abstract Background. Heavy episodic drinking (HED) has been associated with increased risk for short- and long-term injury and harms, such as violence and delinquent behaviour; however, the temporal relationship between the two remains unclear, pathways between HED and delinquent behaviour from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Methods. Data were drawn from the Australian Temperament Project; a population-based longitudinal study that has followed the health and development of participants (and parents) across 30 years from birth in 1982.The analytic sample was 1650 participants and included five measurement waves spanning adolescence (3 waves: 13–18 years) and young adulthood (2 waves; 19–24 years). Results. There was strong continuity across waves of both HED and delinquency, as well as across-time associations between them. Delinquent behaviour in adolescence was associated with up to twofold increases in the odds of HED at each subsequent adolescent wave. HED in the late teens was associated with over fourfold increases in the odds of persistent (two waves) HED in young adulthood. HED in the late teens was associated with increases in the odds of delinquent behaviour in young adulthood (over twofold for male and one and a half-fold for female participants). Conclusions. While delinquent behaviour predicts both future HED and future delinquent behaviour in adolescence, once young people reach the legal drinking age of 18 years, HED becomes a predictor of current and future delinquent behaviour and future HED, suggesting that increased access to alcohol increases the likelihood of young people engaging in delinquent behaviour. [Miller PG, Butler E, Richardson B, Staiger PK, Youssef GJ, Macdonald JA, Sanson A, Edwards B, Olsson CA. Relationships between problematic alcohol consumption and delinquent behaviour from adolescence to young adulthood. Drug Alcohol Rev 2015]

Shaping pathways to gambling consumption? An analysis of the promotion of gambling and non-gambling activities from gambling venues

Background: In Australia, venues which provide gambling activities also provide activities that are utilised by families and children. However, there has been limited theoretical or empirical discussion about whether engagement with non-gambling activities may play a role in shaping pathways to current or future engagement in gambling within these environments. We examined marketing tactics for non-gambling and gambling activities in Clubs. Using this data, we propose a conceptual model to test the role of non-gambling activities within gambling environments in shaping gambling attitudes and consumption intentions.

Methods: This study used a mixed method interpretive content analysis to review the marketing activities on the websites of a sample of 65 registered Clubs in New South Wales, Australia. We identified the extent and nature of techniques used to market gambling and non-gambling activities, particularly non-gambling activities directed towards families and children.

Results: Clubs use various marketing tactics to appeal to families and encourage parents to bring their children into venues. We hypothesise that marketing aimed at bringing children and families into gambling environments may play a role in shaping children’s and adults perceptions of these environments and may be influential in the development of a pathway that increases the likelihood that children will continue to visit these environments as adults, and subsequently the extent to which they engage in gambling later in life.

Conclusions: Future research should explore how the presence of family-friendly activities in Clubs and other venues with gambling activities may play a role in shaping future gambling attitudes and behaviours.

What influences the beliefs, behaviours and consumption patterns of 'moderate risk' gamblers?

Gambling is emerging as a significant health issue. Problem gambling does not develop instantaneously and is often the result of risky consumption patterns over a period of time. Early intervention strategies depend on a detailed understanding of ‘at risk’ gamblers, yet surprisingly little is known about this group. This qualitative study explores the beliefs, behaviours, risk perceptions, and consumption patterns of 35 individuals who were screened as having ‘moderate risk’ gambling behaviours. Two thirds of participants gambled at least once a week and most consumed multiple types of gambling products. Participants gambled for social or emotional reasons, with many using gambling as a mechanism to socially connect and interact with others. Perceptions of behavioural control led many to believe that they were not at risk or could control gambling risks. Understanding the range of drivers that influence gambling risk is essential in developing prevention and harm minimisation strategies.

A model for lesbian, bisexual and queer-related influences on alcohol consumption and implications for policy and practice

Research consistently reports higher rates of problematic drinking among lesbian, bisexual and queer women than among heterosexual women, but relatively little research has identified underlying factors. Within this context, the aim of the present study was to qualitatively explore the sociocultural influences on alcohol consumption among lesbian, bisexual and queer women in Australia. An ethnographic study including in-depth interviews and 10 sessions of participant observation was conducted with 25 Australian lesbian, bisexual and queer women. Analysis of transcripts and fieldnotes focused on lesbian, bisexual and queer-related influences on alcohol consumption. Three lesbian, bisexual and queer-related factors were identified that influenced alcohol use: (1) coping, (2) connection and (3) intersections with lesbian, bisexual and queer identity. Most participants reported consuming alcohol to cope with discrimination or to connect with like-minded others. Alcohol use had positive influences for some women through facilitating social connection and wellbeing. Women with a high lesbian, bisexual and queer identity salience were more likely to seek lesbian, bisexual and queer community connection involving alcohol, to publicly identify as lesbian, bisexual and queer and to experience discrimination. National policies need to address underlying causes of discrimination against lesbian, bisexual and queer women. Alcohol policies and clinical interventions should acknowledge the impact of discrimination on higher alcohol consumption amongst lesbian, bisexual and queer women compared with heterosexual women, and should utilise health promotion messages regarding safe drinking that facilitate lesbian, bisexual and queer social connection.

The political economy of markets and development: a case study of health care consumption in the State of Kerala, India

Marketing theory has largely ignored the issue of power in influencing exchanges. Most of the studies either disregard the role of power, or resource power is the only dimension taken into account. In this study, we expand the existing understanding by centrally situating the role of socio-political power in the consumption process. We examine the health care system in the Indian state of Kerala and highlight that socio-political power is a crucial determinant of consumption levels. In the process, we argue that in a resource—constrained Third World society socio-political empowerment is critical to the development process.

Balanced-budget consumption taxes and aggregate stability in a small open economy

In a small open economy facing a perfect world capital market, this paper shows that if the government follows a balanced-budget fiscal policy based on endogenous consumption tax rates, then the steady state is saddle-path stable and hence beliefs-driven aggregate instability can be ruled out. This result is in contrast to those obtained in some closed economy models, and it suggests that unrestricted world capital mobility can help stabilize the economy under the balanced-budget fiscal policy based on consumption taxation.

The density of alcohol outlets and adolescent alcohol consumption: an Australian longitudinal analysis

 Higher density of alcohol outlets has been linked to increased levels of adolescent alcohol-related behaviour. Research to date has been cross-sectional. A longitudinal design using two waves of annual survey data from the Australian arm of the International Youth Development Study was used. The sample comprised 2835 individuals with average age at wave 2 of 14 years (SD=1.67; range=11–17 years). GSEM was used to examine how absolute levels of alcohol outlet density was associated with student-reported alcohol use one year later, while controlling for prior alcohol use, risk factors at wave one and changes in density over the 2 years. Adolescents' perception of alcohol availability and friends' alcohol use were tested as potential mediators of the association between alcohol outlet density and adolescent alcohol use. Elasticity modelling identified a 10% increase in overall density at wave one was associated with an approximately 17% increase in odds of adolescent alcohol consumption at wave two. Living in areas with a higher density of outlets was associated with a statistically significant increase in the likelihood of adolescents developing early age alcohol consumption.

Awareness of energy drink intake guidelines and associated consumption practices: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Despite concern regarding harms of energy drink (ED) consumption, no research has been conducted to determine awareness and compliance with ED intake guidelines displayed on product packaging in Australia (a novel approach internationally).

METHODS: A convenience sample of 1922 people completed an online survey. Participants reported their knowledge of maximum recommended daily ED intake according to Australian guidelines.

RESULTS: Guideline awareness was reported by 38, 23 and 19 % of past year consumers, lifetime, and non-consumers, respectively. Amongst past year consumers, 'accurate estimators' reported greater ED intake and were more likely to exceed intake guidelines and consume alcohol mixed with ED (AmED). After controlling for demographics and frequency of use, guideline awareness predicted increased likelihood of exceeding guidelines in ED sessions, but was not associated with exceeding ED guidelines in AmED sessions.

CONCLUSIONS: Australia is considered to have the most stringent regulatory approach to EDs internationally. However, advisory statements are not associated with greater awareness and compliance with intake guidelines. Failure to comply with standards for efficacious product labelling, and absence of broader education regarding guidelines, needs to be addressed.

Whether smaller plates reduce consumption depends on who’s serving and who’s looking: a meta-analysis

The literature on whether varying plate size has an effect on consumption is mixed and contradictory.This meta-analysis of 56 studies from 20 papers shows that varying the size of the container holding food (e.g., plate orbowl) has a substantial effect on amount self-served and/or consumed (Cohen’s d 5 .43). More generally, we found adoubling of plate size increased the amount self-served or amount consumed by 41%. Our analysis resolves the variouscontradictions of past reviews: we found that the plate-size effect had a substantial effect on amount self-served (d 5.51) and on amount consumed when the portion was self-served (d 5 .70) or manipulated along with (confoundedwith) plate size (d 5 48). However, plate size had no effect on amount consumed when the portion size was held constant(d 5 .03). Overall, plate size had a stronger effect when participants were unaware that they were participatingin a food study (d 5 .76).

A data as a product model for future consumption of big stream data in clouds

Data is becoming the world’s new natural resourceand big data use grows quickly. The trend of computingtechnology is that everything is merged into the Internet and‘big data’ are integrated to comprise completeinformation for collective intelligence. With the increasingsize of big data, refining big data themselves to reduce data sizewhile keeping critical data (or useful information) is a newapproach direction. In this paper, we provide a novel dataconsumption model, which separates the consumption of datafrom the raw data, and thus enable cloud computing for bigdata applications. We define a new Data-as-a-Product (DaaP)concept; a data product is a small sized summary of theoriginal data and can directly answer users’ queries. Thus, weseparate the mining of big data into two classes of processingmodules: the refine modules to change raw big data into smallsizeddata products, and application-oriented mining modulesto discover desired knowledge further for applications fromwell-defined data products. Our practices of mining big streamdata, including medical sensor stream data, streams of textdata and trajectory data, demonstrated the efficiency andprecision of our DaaP model for answering users’ queries

StressCloud: a tool for analysing performance and energy consumption of cloud applications

Finding the best deployment configuration that maximises energy efficiency while guaranteeing system performance of cloud applications is an extremely challenging task. It requires the evaluation of system performance and energy consumption under a wide variety of realistic workloads and deployment configurations. This paper demonstrates StressCloud, an automatic performance and energy consumption analysis tool for cloud applications in real-world cloud environments. StressCloud supports 1) the modelling of realistic cloud application workloads, 2) the automatic generation and running of load tests, and 3) the profiling of system performance and energy consumption. A demonstration video can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l4-a-CNtVQ.

Automated analysis of performance and energy consumption for cloud applications

In cloud environments, IT solutions are delivered to users via shared infrastructure. One consequence of this model is that large cloud data centres consume large amounts of energy and produce significant carbon footprints. A key objective of cloud providers is thus to develop resource provisioning and management solutions at minimum energy consumption while still guaranteeing Service Level Agreements (SLAs). However, a thorough understanding of both system performance and energy consumption patterns in complex cloud systems is imperative to achieve a balance of energy efficiency and acceptable performance. In this paper, we present StressCloud, a performance and energy consumption analysis tool for cloud systems. StressCloud can automatically generate load tests and profile system performance and energy consumption data. Using StressCloud, we have conducted extensive experiments to profile and analyse system performance and energy consumption with different types and mixes of runtime tasks. We collected finegrained energy consumption and performance data with different resource allocation strategies, system configurations and workloads. The experimental results show the correlation coefficients of energy consumption, system resource allocation strategies and workload, as well as the performance of the cloud applications. Our results can be used to guide the design and deployment of cloud applications to balance energy and performance requirements.

Uncorking the Mommy Market: Phenomenal Facebook following has Marilé Borden contemplating the future of Moms Who Need Wine

Marilé Borden ’94 has hundreds of thousands of people watching her Facebook page Moms Who Need Wine. Now what to do with them?