Using spatial models as priors in astronomical image analysis

Optical astronomers now normally collect digital images by means of CCD detectors, which are blurred by atmospheric motion and distorted by physical noise in the detection process. We examine Bayesian procedures to clean such images using explicit models from spatial statistics for the underlying structure, and compare these methods with those based on maximum entropy.     

Informed consent comprehension among vulnerable populations in Ecuador: video-delivered vs. in-person standard method

The informed consent comprehension process is key to engaging potential research subject participation. The aim of this study is to compare informed consent comprehension between two methods: standard and video-delivered. We compared the in-person and video-delivered informed consent process in the Familias Unidas intervention. We evaluated comprehension using a 7-item true/false questionnaire. There were a total of 152 participants in the control group and 87 in the experimental. General characteristics were similar between both groups (p > 0.05). First-attempt informed consent comprehension was higher in the intervention group but was not statistically significant (80% and 78% respectively p = 0.44). A video-delivered informed consent process did not differ from the standard method of informed consent in a low educational and socioeconomic environment.     

The Migrant Border Crossing Study: A methodological overview of research along the Sonora–Arizona border

Increased border enforcement efforts have redistributed unauthorized Mexican migration to the United States (US) away from traditional points of crossing, such as San Diego and El Paso, and into more remote areas along the US–Mexico border, including southern Arizona. Yet relatively little quantitative scholarly work exists examining Mexican migrants’ crossing, apprehension, and repatriation experiences in southern Arizona. We contend that if scholars truly want to understand the experiences of unauthorized migrants in transit, such migrants should be interviewed either at the border after being removed from the US, or during their trajectories across the border, or both. This paper provides a methodological overview of the Migrant Border Crossing Study (MBCS), a unique data source on Mexican migrants who attempted an unauthorized crossing along the Sonora–Arizona border, were apprehended, and repatriated to Nogales, Sonora in 2007–09. We also discuss substantive and theoretical contributions of the MBCS.     

Regional unemployment,gender, and time allocation of the unemployed

This paper analyzes the relationship between time allocation decisions of the unemployed, gender, and regional unemployment rates. Using two cross-sections from the 2002–2003 and 2009–2010 Spanish Time Use Surveys, we find that higher regional unemployment rates are associated with increases in the time devoted to study by men. Regional unemployment rates are also associated with more time devoted to household production, particularly for unemployed men and women living in a couple, and to less time devoted to leisure, particularly for unemployed men with a working partner and unemployed women not living in a couple. We interpret our findings as evidence favoring consumption smoothing. Higher regional unemployment rates imply a lower availability of jobs for the unemployed, it reduces individual expectations of finding a job, and thus households may try to increase their time spent on household production to reduce market expenditures and thus maintain their consumption constant. Increases in the time devoted to household production during business cycles need to be considered in the analysis of the wellbeing of the unemployed. Consumption smoothing may imply increased wellbeing, but more time devoted to household production is associated with lower experienced utility of individuals throughout the day.     

The Motherhood Wage Penalty in Spain

We present evidence for the motherhood wage penalty in Spain as a representative Southern European Mediterranean country. We used the European Community Household Panel (ECHP 1994–2001) to estimate, from both pool and fixed-effects methods, a wage equation in terms of observed variables and other non-observed individual characteristics. The empirical results confirm that there is clear evidence of a wage penalty for Spanish working-women with children. Specifically, the fact that there was a birth in the family during the current year means that the woman lost 9% of her wage. We also found that, having one child living in the household means a significant loss in wages of 6%, having two children, almost a 14% loss, and having three or more children, in a more than 15% loss.

How Good Are Networks for Migrant Job Seekers? Ethnographic Evidence from North Carolina Farm Labor* Camps

Migrant farmworker networks are vital components in their job seeking and underemployment minimization strategies. Yet, farmworker cultural, physical, and institutional isolation along with the itinerant and clandestine features of farmwork have become major obstacles in the development of robust lateral communitywide network ties that would otherwise favor reciprocity and resource sharing. Thus, contrary to the positive social capital assumption, we argue that the paucity and fragmented features of farmworkers’ lateral ties have increased their vulnerability and locked them in exploitative relationships in a hostile social environment that makes impractical or impossible the formation of alternative ties. Our study is based on participant observation through a 6‐week stay in three North Carolina farm labor camps. On‐site evidence shows that the two larger groups of solitary male farmworkers and farmworking families break up into smaller groups, each group in pursuit of its own short‐term goals. We conclude that, even though farmworker networks help them to find and ensure temporary jobs, their inability to use the networks to share resources is ultimately detrimental for participants’ long‐term socioeconomic prospects.     

Modelling of socio-ecological connectivity. The rural-urban network in the surroundings of Madrid (Central Spain)

As most of Europe’s metropolitan landscapes grow, a change is occurring in their surrounding rural environment. The consequences thereof mainly involve losses of traditional land uses and changes in the socioecomic structures of the local population. The lack of coupling ‘urban society-countryside’ can be considered to constitute a driving force of this process. The present paper focuses upon the rural-urban network around the metropolis of Madrid (Central Spain). We developed a quantitative model to explain the socio-ecological rural-urban linkages, taking into account the influence of the metropolis in the network of neighbouring municipalities. The results show a rural landscape gradient ranging from silvo-pastoral to agricultural land uses and maintaining different interactions with the local socioeconomy. Urban-rural polarisation of the territory and accessibility to the metropolis are the main factors influencing the landscape dynamics. Territorial cohesion among municipalities and connectivity with the metropolis are factors determining the socio-ecological structure. The agricultural area presents good social cohesion, but a weak connection with the City. The silvo-pastoral landscape, on the contrary, maintains prominent links with the metropolis, but a non-significant interconnection between the small towns. The model tested constitutes a useful tool for analysing socio-ecological connectivity and for quantifying, designing and promoting territorial cohesion policies.