Family Responsibilities,Productivity, and Earnings: A Study of Gender Differences Among Canadian Lawyers

This study examines whether men and women invest in different determinants of productivity and whether these investments affect productivity and salary in different ways. Hypotheses are tested from human and social capital theories that include more direct measures for family responsibilities and family-friendly firm arguments. Data from 670 law firm lawyers were used given they report a standardized measure of productivity in billable hours. Despite men investing more in their careers and women investing more in their families, both report similar productivity and their productivity is affected similarly by these factors. In addition, equally productive men and women are paid the same. The findings further our understanding of productivity and salary and the relevance of family responsibilities and family-friendly firms.

Playing With Time: Gay Intergenerational Performance Work and the Productive Possibilities of Queer Temporalities

This article examines the tendencies of LGBT intergenerational theater projects. By engaging with ideas of queer time, temporal drag, and the pervasive heteronormative imagery of heritability and inheritance, this article explores the possibility that LGBT intergenerational projects may generate some of the problems they aim to challenge. Through the lens of queer time, the article describes the normativity generated in LGBT intergenerational theater projects as a form of restrictive interpellation. The article explores the temporal complexities at play in such theater productions as The Front Room, a specific LGBT intergenerational theater project performed in the United Kingdom in 2011. The article concludes by noting some ways in which intergenerational theater projects might seek to work through the embodiment of the historical quotidian as a mode of resistance to normativity’s recirculation.     

IMPLICIT OPTIMAL AND HEURISTIC LABOR STAFFING IN A MULTIOBJECTIVE,MULTILOCATION ENVIRONMENT*

This paper presents a tractable set of integer programming models for the days-off scheduling of a mix of full- and part-time employees working α to β days/week (cycle) in a multiple-objective, multiple-location environment. Previous models were formulated to specifically schedule part-time employees working either two or three days per week. These models were intractable because they required complete employee schedule information. The new models are deemed implicit optimal since they are required to supply only essential information. While the number of variables in previous models is an exponential increasing function of β-α, the size of three of the new models is independent of α and β. The first three models developed here (as in [18]) deal with the trade-offs between idle time, the number of employees required to work at multiple “locations,” and the size of the total labor pool. The inherent flexibility of the implicit modeling approach is illustrated by the presentation of various modifications of the basic models. These modifications permit the use of preference weights on the number of employee work days/week (cycle) or the minimization of payroll costs where differential pay rates exist. These latter models may also be formulated such that idle time is ignored, constrained or minimized. The execution time for the implicit models (on a CDC CYBER 730 computer with commercially available software) averaged well under five seconds on 1200 trial problems for the type of application considered in [18]. A solution was obtained in less than 46 seconds of CPU time for a trial problem which would have required over 1.4 million integer variables with previous models. The availability of optimal solutions was invaluable in the development of two heuristics designed to deal with the trade-offs of [16]. In an experimental analysis a previous heuristic produced results which averaged from 74 to 508 percent above optimum across six experimental conditions. The comparable new heuristic produced results which averaged from 3 to 8 percent above optimum for the same experimental conditions. The paper concludes by developing a framework to integrate the results of this research with the tour scheduling problem and by identifying several other areas for related research.     

Un-imagining the local/future: cinematic engagement with the absence of hope

ABSTRACT

With reference to the 2014 Umbrella Movement and Hong Kong’s uncertain fate come 2047, I ask how one un-imagines the cultural future of inhabiting the locality. As people take prompts from the present predicament to cope with real possibilities about the future, they realize that a strong embodiment of local consciousness permeates the sociocultural space. I discuss how such engagement takes place through cinematic experience, and examine tactics of the spectator’s critique centring around the erosion of hope at the core of everyday, intellectual and affective imagination. I trace the ways in which postcolonial subjects engage with hope and with the shock of hopelessness in a lived social imaginary. Examining in detail three differently representative recent films, namely, The Midnight After (2014. Dir. Fruit Chan, The Midnight After Film and One Ninety Films), Overheard 3 (2014. Dir. Alex Mak and Felix Chong, Sil-Metropole, Bona Film and Pop Movies) and Ten Years (2015. Dir. K. L. Ng (‘Local Egg’, Boon-deh dan), J. Au (‘Dialect’, Fong-yin), K. Chow (‘Self-Immolator’, Jee-fun jeh), F. P. Wong (‘Season of the End’, Dong sim), and Z. Kwok (‘Extras’, Fau gua), Ten Years Studio), I depict the modes in popular imagination that invoke people’s engagement with the ‘local’, albeit in its affective state. Accordingly, in the context of ‘externalized’ social realities, I identify three interlocking modes of cultural engagement, which I characterize as figurative, performative and prefigurative, respectively. In their ‘future’ imaginary, I look for ordinary people’s ways to face the absurdity of the status quo and the performativity of local struggles with the self.     

The Children First Program: The Effectiveness of a Parent Education Program for Divorcing Parents

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Children First parent education programs for parents experiencing divorce or separation. Participants were 678 parents experiencing separation or divorce in 2 Midwestern counties. Changes from pretest to posttest on participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and likelihood of adaptive coparenting were assessed. Both editions of the program had a significant positive effect on all 3 measures of adaptive coparenting. The effect sizes from pretest to posttest for the 2nd edition were small, whereas the effect sizes for the 3rd edition of the program were nearly twice as large. Superiority of the 3rd edition might be due to an increased focus on explicit training on adaptive coparenting behaviors.     

Elevated phosphorus: dynamics during four years of green roof development

Green roofs are emerging engineered ecosystems that provide multiple benefits, but many are constructed with nutrient-rich substrate and have been found to leach out high levels of phosphorus (P) in runoff. It is unclear, however, how long green roofs act as sources of P or what mechanisms are responsible for these net losses. We measured P concentrations in runoff water over 4 years from a 1–5 year old extensive green roof in Cincinnati, OH, USA, produced a model to predict runoff P levels into the future, and validated predictions using runoff from 2 nearby extensive green roofs. P concentrations in runoff from the focal green roof were on par with heavily fertilized agroecosystems and displayed strong seasonal dynamics and a rapid decline over the 4-year study. Runoff measurements and changes in substrate P content over a 2-year period were used to estimate a mass balance for green roof P. P loss from the substrate was substantial (4.55 ± 2.3 g P/m²/yr), but only a small portion of the loss was attributable to leaching of P in runoff (0.19–0.65 g P/m²/yr). Missing P may be attributed to a combination of plant uptake and altered P form and binding strength, but further research is needed to precisely identify the mechanisms of P depletion. Our results also suggest that these and similar extensive green roofs are likely to act as environmentally significant sources of P for 10 or more years following roof installation, highlighting the need for reductions in initial substrate P content.     

Family Caregiver Communication in the ICU: Toward a Relational View of Health Literacy

We interviewed 18 family caregivers about their communication experiences in the ICUs at an urban hospital. Analysis of their narratives suggests health literacy is important in family caregiver/healthcare provider communication, especially as complicated illnesses move the caregiver deeper into decision making. Using the domains of Yuen et al.’s conceptual model of caregiver health literacy (2015), we identified three themes within the context of ICU communication: agency, coordinated communication, and caregiver’s evolving role. We saw family caregivers negotiating domains of health literacy as they built upon knowledge of the patient’s needs, their rights as family caregivers, and the hierarchy of the professional staff. We found that these narratives represent co-created, or relational communication, rather than individual health literacy skills. Conceptualized in the transaction of relationship, health literacy is enacted; it is socially constructed and is the scaffolding upon which family caregivers make decisions, care for their loved one, and care for themselves.