Community Resources in a Diverse City: Supermarket Location and Emerging Racial Hierarchies

Disparities are pronounced along racial/ethnic lines in the USA. Convention draws our attention to blacks and whites, but increased racial/ethnic diversity in the USA requires shifts in that focus. We contribute to studies of racial/ethnic stratification by interrogating the association between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location in Houston, Texas. First, we assess the benefits of a new approach to defining the racial/ethnic composition of local areas, an approach that acknowledges an increasingly complex racial/ethnic demography. Second, we contribute to our understanding of emerging racial/ethnic stratification hierarchies by examining the position of the racial/ethnic composition categories relative to one another. Our results suggest a persistent link between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location, which highlights entrenched black disadvantage coupled with malleable middle positions for Hispanic areas. The associated stratification hierarchy is gradual in nature, yet there is evidence supporting arguments that the USA is moving toward a tri-racial system.     

The Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita

This study utilizes regression discontinuity to examine the long‐run impacts of the mita, an extensive forced mining labor system in effect in Peru and Bolivia between 1573 and 1812. Results indicate that a mita effect lowers household consumption by around 25% and increases the prevalence of stunted growth in children by around 6 percentage points in subjected districts today. Using data from the Spanish Empire and Peruvian Republic to trace channels of institutional persistence, I show that the mita's influence has persisted through its impacts on land tenure and public goods provision. Mita districts historically had fewer large landowners and lower educational attainment. Today, they are less integrated into road networks and their residents are substantially more likely to be subsistence farmers.     

Regulation,the public interest and the establishment of an accounting supervisory body

The accounting/auditing profession in Ireland has maintained a form of self-regulation since the era of professional formation in the late-nineteenth century. In general, the view taken was that the public interest was best served by allowing the profession to monitor and regulate its own members. This reflected a general confidence in the workings of the market, with regulation being considered necessary only to address specific shortcomings. In recent years, a combination of factors ranging from corporate collapses in which the independence of the auditing profession was questioned, to a variety of political pressures arising from globalisation and the exigencies of international financial markets, have created an environment in which increased state involvement has been seen as critical to securing the public interest. In Ireland, these international developments conjoined with political and media disquiet at revelations regarding the conduct of prominent accountants and auditing firms to create an environment in which modifications to this regime could be considered. The result was a state initiative to introduce an independent authority, the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority, to regulate the profession. Using public interest theories as the dominant paradigm, this paper investigates this development.     

Educational Mismatch of Graduates: a Multidimensional and Fuzzy Indicator

In this paper we attempt to measure the educational mismatch, seen as a problem of overeducation, using a multidimensional and fuzzy methodology. Educational mismatch can be difficult to measure because many factors can converge to its definition and the traditional unidimensional indicators presented in literature can offer a restricted view of the problem. We discovered two dimensions that properly define overeducation. The first includes information regarding job satisfaction, the use of expertise and the coherence between study and work, but also the measure on which the traditional indicator is based and the second concern earning aspects. We then calculate a degree of membership to the set of overeducated workers using the defined dimensions. We believe that in this manner we can partially overcome the rigidity of the traditional measures. Our findings suggested that generally women have a degree of mismatch higher than men and the graduates in Pharmacy, Medicine and Engineering are the least overeducated in terms of the first dimension, even if in terms of the earnings dimension they have similar mismatches to the other fields of education. Self-employment and collaboration contracts reduce overeducation when the first dimension is considered; on the other hand, when the second dimension is taken into account graduates with collaboration contracts are the most mismatched out of those having a job. Additionally, university reform introduced in the academic year 2001–2002 in the Italian higher education system is shown as not contributing to a reduction of the overeducation phenomenon.     

Functional Behavior Assessment of the Unintentional Discharge of Firearms in Law Enforcement

Unintentional discharge (UD) is a term used in law enforcement to distinguish between an unplanned gunshot and a planned gunshot, regardless of context. The purpose of this paper is to (a) discuss the interdisciplinary literature on this topic, (b) merge and summarize the behavioral literature to provide a cohesive account of the phenomenon, (c) analyze injuries in relation to antecedent classes and context, and (d) develop strategies for firearm safety training that might prevent UDs and associated injuries in law enforcement. We provide a contextual behavioral taxonomy through the identification of six distinct antecedent classes in which UD can be categorized: contact with objects, medical symptoms, muscle coactivations, routine tasks, startle stimuli, and unfamiliar tasks.     

Edge-disjoint spanning trees and the number of maximum state circles of a graph

Motivated by the connection with the genus of unoriented alternating links, Jin et al. (Acta Math Appl Sin Engl Ser, 2015) introduced the number of maximum state circles of a plane graph G, denoted by \(s_{\max }(G)\), and proved that \(s_{\max }(G)=\max \{e(H)+2c(H)-v(H)|\) H is a spanning subgraph of \(G\}\), where e(H), c(H) and v(H) denote the size, the number of connected components and the order of H, respectively. In this paper, we show that for any (not necessarily planar) graph G, \(s_{\max }(G)\) can be achieved by the spanning subgraph H of G whose each connected component is a maximal subgraph of G with two edge-disjoint spanning trees. Such a spanning subgraph is proved to be unique and we present a polynomial-time algorithm to find such a spanning subgraph for any graph G.     

Are diamonds a safe haven?

The diamond market has recently experienced important structural changes moving from a monopolistic market to a more liberalised and competitive one. As a result, diamonds are being discussed as a new investment asset class, with possible valuable portfolio contributions. The aim of this paper is to analyse their potential role within an investment framework, using previously unpublished data. We use the GemShares and NASDAQ OMX patented license and Polished Prices proprietary Price Reporting Agency (PRA) database to build our own standardized financial polished diamond basket indices (DBIs), using actual reported data of traded prices, adjusted for liquidity by traded volume. The impact of adjusting for traded volume of investment grade (only) diamonds is sufficient to develop a unique subset different to that captured and reported by the PRA. We first construct an index for High-Quality (HQ) and a second one for Medium-Quality (MQ) diamonds so we can study both of their dynamics and investment features. We further analyse the relationship the two indices have with major macroeconomic and financial variables, as well as other precious commodities to investigate their role as safe haven or hedge. We find that the DBI_HQ Index returns are, on average, positively correlated with major macroeconomic variables—in particular with the Euro and Chinese Interest rates. The DBI_MQ Index returns are largely uncorrelated with the same macroeconomic variables—with the exception of Euro Interest rates and the Israeli Exchange rate. When we compare our Diamond Indices returns with major financial variables and other precious commodities, we find a broad lack of correlation between their returns, and significant difference between the DBI_HQ and DBI_MQ Indices. We may conclude that diamonds are broadly a poor hedge for any of the portfolios we considered, with a few important exceptions—especially gold. Using Bauer and Lucey’s (Financ Rev 45(2):217–229. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.952289, 2010) approach we further tested the “safe haven value” and “hedging usefulness” of the two Indices. In contrast with previous studies we believe the unique data we accessed allowed us to demonstrate that diamonds represent a strong hedge for gold investors, and in addition exhibit features of a safe haven for stock markets during periods of financial stress.     

Dairy Livestock Interventions for Food Security in Uganda: What are the Implications for Women's Empowerment?*

Women are increasingly the target of agricultural development programs aimed at reducing poverty and food insecurity, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Some feminist scholars argue that such efforts are driven more by concerns about the efficient use of resources than the rights of women and do little to transform gendered power relations. We examine how development interventions that target women affect household well-being, especially food insecurity, empower women, and transform gendered power relations. Our study uses the case of the Gates Foundation funded East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) program in Uganda. Our methods include the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index survey and in-depth interviews of women farmers and key informants, within the EADD program. We argue that the livestock sector provides critical insights into women's empowerment because livestock are not “socially neutral” in their gendered effects. Our study found that: (1) ownership of dairy cows enhanced important dimensions of women's empowerment and gender equity that benefited women and households; (2) women's labor responsibilities for dairy cows disempowered some women by increasing their time poverty and; (3) ownership of dairy cows provided a means for women to disrupt entrenched social norms related to gender roles within the household and agriculture.     

Figuring It Out: How Late Adolescent and Young Adult Men and Women Perceive and Address Problems in Sexual Functioning

Although there are high rates of sexual problems and sexual dysfunction in adulthood (Mitchell et al., 2013), little is known about the circumstances under which problems are first experienced. A growing body of research addresses prevalence of problems in sexual functioning among adolescents and young adults, yet little is known about the meanings that young people give to these experiences or how they deal with them. We used content analysis of qualitative interviews with 53 heterosexual, sexually active Canadian adolescents (ages 18 to 21) to explore their perceptions of the sexual problems in functioning they had experienced and the strategies (if any) they used to address them over time. Problems among most young people originated early in their partnered sexual life. Figuring it out emerged as an intentional process directed toward improving sexual experiences, although certainly not all young people were successful. Strategies for figuring it out included informational or material help seeking, experimentation to inform future actions, mutual sharing and problem solving, and building emotional connection to improve sexual functioning. Implications for understanding the development of sexual dysfunctions in adulthood are discussed.