What Impact Do Contextual Variables Have on the Changing Geography of Mortality in Italy?

Using data for 94 provinces, three periods (1971–1973, 1981–1983 and 1991–1993), and for men and women, we present an interesting picture of the geography of adult and elderly mortality by cause of death in Italy. This picture brings into focus the North/South gap that has yet again emerged, this time in gender differences in mortality. Particular attention is given to mortality from those causes that would appear to depend on the geographical context and that have a greater role to play in overall mortality differences. We then define which causes of death have changed the geographic pattern in the period considered. Lastly we study the relationship between mortality by cause and socio-economic, health care, environmental, cultural, and nutritional variables. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Other Side of the Paradox: The Risk of Low Birth Weight among Infants of Migrant and Nonmigrant Households within Mexico

The main aim of this study is to understand how the international migration process affects the risk of low birth weight among Mexican‐born infants using the ENADID 1997 (Encuesta Nacional de la Dinámica Demográfica), a nationally representative survey of the Mexican population. The total sample includes 23,607 infants. We employ logistic regression to estimate models in which migration status is included as a risk factor for low birth weight. The analysis demonstrates that membership in a migrant household provides protection from the risk of low birth weight largely through the receipt of remittances. In light of this evidence, it is particularly important that international migration be recognized as one of the processes that has a positive and significant effect on perinatal outcomes in both countries of origin and in countries of destination.     

Making sense of the information age

This article traces the development in Britain of research on information and communications in relation to trends in Sociology and this discipline's relations with Cultural Studies. It observes at the outset the seminal contribution of Daniel Bell's conception of Post-Industrial Society, characterizing it as blending theory with empirical observation while providing an account of the most consequential features of change. Sociology in the UK during the 1980s largely ignored macro-level analysis and focused on work and employment, took its starting point as opposition to the technological determinism associated with this first wave enthusiasm for the 'microelectronics revolution', and produced localized and textured studies. Manuel Castells' conception of the Network Society, while distinctive, signalled a return to the scale and scope offered by Bell, notably in being a macro analysis that combined theory and empirical evidence. Castells' contribution coincided with a second wave of technological enthusiasm associated especially with the Internet. Alongside this Sociology in Britain has experienced the rise of Cultural Studies, a field that has competed for important parts of what might have been considered Sociology's terrain. Indeed, Cultural Studies has outpaced Sociology in response to recent changes in the information domain. Its emergence expressed little concern with technological determinism, embracing 'virtuality' and being more open to the exploration of expanding culture. Nonetheless, Cultural Studies remains methodologically flawed while, like so much sociological research on ICTs and information, seemingly incapable of combining theory and empirical evidence that identify and explain the major contours of change.     

The Critical Component of Cognitive Restructuring in Couples Therapy: A Case Study

This case study is offered as an example of how cognitive‐behavioral strategies, namely, cognitive restructuring of couples' schemas and the use of specific homework assignments, may be integrated into the course of couple therapy. The article suggests that all therapeutic modalities, regardless of their theoretical orientation, embrace some form of cognitive restructuring and behavioural instruction as a primary agent of change. Cognitive restructuring is highlighted in particular as a critical component of treatment. Michelle Webster, who practices Emotionally Focused Therapy, responds to Frank Dattilio, and he then replies.     

Birth,blood and belonging: identity claims in post‐devolution Scotland1

Scotland is often seen as a good example of a civic/territorial rather than an ethnic/cultural form of nationalism. From the 1970s the campaign for a Scottish parliament stressed an inclusive, residence based, civic sense of being Scottish, and more recently, Scotland's political elites have seen the new parliament as an endorsement of territorial belonging. How valid are these assumptions? To what extent is political ideology at odds with people's sense of their national identity? Using a qualitative approach, we explore different identity claims currently being made in post‐devolution Scotland – those based on blood, birth and belonging. We argue that these are better conceptual tools for the purpose of unravelling the complexities of identity politics in this context than the contrast between civic and ethnic. Our data come from the Scottish part of a study in England and Scotland, and focus on three sets of respondents: English migrants to Scotland making blood or birth claims to Englishness and/or Britishness; English migrants making belonging claims to Scottishness; and Scottish nationals making claims for themselves as well as assessing migrants’ claims. We also explore the significance of constitutional change in the context of respondents’ identity negotiations, and examine whether it has affected their understandings of Scottishness.     

Educating spatial planners for the age of co-creation: the need to risk community,science and practice involvement in planning programmes and curricula

Abstract

Planners are often billed as leaders and change agents of the (un)built environment. It is, however, important to recognize that they are in reality only one of many players in a sea of actors involved in shaping future developments and projects. Plans and interventions today are co-created and in fact co-evolve relying as much on the input, cooperation and actions of inhabitants, users, developers, politicians as on expert planners and a wide variety of other professions. In this introductory section, we, as editors of this special issue, posit that planners therefore require skills for co-creation drawing on science and working with other disciplines. In turn, planning programmes and curricula need to incorporate learning and teaching approaches that prepare students in higher education for working in co-creation settings by purposefully exposing them to learning environments that involve community, science and practice. The collection of papers, which were presented initially at the 2014 Association of European Schools of Planning congress in Utrecht hereafter showcase curriculum developments and pedagogical research of planning educators from different world regions that in the round shed light on a variety of issues and challenges of embedding learning and teaching for co-creation and co-evolution. In particular, we elaborate on the tensions of employing transformational yet high-risk pedagogies in higher education settings that are becoming increasingly risk-averse and streamlined and we suggest an agenda for planning curriculum development.     

Simultaneous Confidence Tubes in Multivariate Linear Regression

Simultaneous confidence bands have been shown in the statistical literature as powerful inferential tools in univariate linear regression. While the methodology of simultaneous confidence bands for univariate linear regression has been extensively researched and well developed, no published work seems available for multivariate linear regression. This paper fills this gap by studying one particular simultaneous confidence band for multivariate linear regression. Because of the shape of the band, the word ‘tube’ is more pertinent and so will be used to replace the word ‘band’. It is shown that the construction of the tube is related to the distribution of the largest eigenvalue. A simulation‐based method is proposed to compute the 1 ? α quantile of this eigenvalue. With the computation power of modern computers, the simultaneous confidence tube can be computed fast and accurately. A real‐data example is used to illustrate the method, and many potential research problems have been pointed out.