Assistant professors of color confront the inequitable terrain of academia: a community cultural wealth perspective

Abstract

This qualitative study adopted Yosso’s community cultural wealth (CCW) framework to examine how 16 assistant professors of color (APOC) drew upon various forms of capital (navigational, aspirational, social, resistant, linguistic, familial) to deal with racism and marginalization in academia. Findings revealed how APOC: dealt with students’ stereotypes of them, maintained their authentic selves to make academia more accessible and relevant, persevered with integrity despite hostility or marginalization, self-advocated for quality mentorship, and engaged in strategic service while avoiding cultural taxation and tokenism. Findings highlighted the positive cultural assets APOC enact within the academy while reiterating the need to address racist and marginalizing policies and practices in higher education. Variations in experiences based on gender and international status that can be explored further in future research also emerged. Working at a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) also did not eliminate or lessen racist or marginalizing experiences for participants.     

Partial degree bounded edge pacing problem for graphs and $$$$-uniform hypergraphs

Given a graph \(G=(V,E)\) and a non-negative integer \(c_u\) for each \(u\in V\), partial degree bounded edge packing problem is to find a subgraph \(G^{\prime }=(V,E^{\prime })\) with maximum \(|E^{\prime }|\) such that for each edge \((u,v)\in E^{\prime }\), either \(deg_{G^{\prime }}(u)\le c_u\) or \(deg_{G^{\prime }}(v)\le c_v\). The problem has been shown to be NP-hard even for uniform degree constraint (i.e., all \(c_u\) being equal). In this work we study the general degree constraint case (arbitrary degree constraint for each vertex) and present two combinatorial approximation algorithms with approximation factors \(4\) and \(2\). Then we give a \(\log _2 n\) approximation algorithm for edge-weighted version of the problem and an efficient exact algorithm for edge-weighted trees with time complexity \(O(n\log n)\). We also consider a generalization of this problem to \(k\)-uniform hypergraphs and present a constant factor approximation algorithm based on linear programming using Lagrangian relaxation.     

Couples' Views about Planning Fertility in the Philippines*

Abstract This research examines Filipino couples' attitudes toward the occurrence and timing of their most recent pregnancies. Differences between processes operating in rural and urban areas are highlighted. Specific topics include the role of couples' fertility preferences in predicting the intention status of pregnancies, the effect of personal agency in decision making about contraception and childbearing, and whether women who are better able to communicate with their husbands about sex and related matters are more able than other women to avoid unintended births. These topics are explored through survey data and in‐depth interviews.     

Prior education and entrepreneurial intentions: the differential impact of a wide range of fields of study

Studies on entrepreneurial intentions often neglect the heterogeneity of individuals’ education background. This paper develops an integrated intention-based framework and analyzes the impact of fields of study on entrepreneurial intentions. Based on a sample of 2423 final-year students, enrolled in 32 fields of study, and resorting to logistic estimations, we find that, beside the attitude towards starting a business, fields of study, considered at a highly detailed level, are relevant (direct and indirect) predictors of entrepreneurial intention. We unambiguously show that there is a huge hidden potential for new venture creation in fields of study related to creative and leisure activities (e.g., Arts and humanities, or, more specifically, Literature and linguistics, History and archaeology, Audio-visual techniques and media production, Sports, and Architecture and town planning), Law, and Health (most notably, Pharmacy and Veterinary). Significant differences in the level of intention between students of different fields of study indicate that universities should more extensively focus entrepreneurship education on students in other subject area than business or engineering/technology sciences.     

Objective and subjective social indicators of the quality of life in American SMSA'S: A reanalysis

The paper examines and critiques Schneider's work that related the subjective and objective indicators of quality of life in American cities. The work then employs data collected by Liu in 1973, and the Institute for Survey Research in 1972 as part of their national election study for 41 large and medium-sized Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA's) to re-examine the question of the relationship between the objective and subjective factors. Although the results of this paper are in general comparable with those obtained by Schneider, there are individual cases where they differ. The paper then concludes with a discussion of the reasons why objective and subjective indicators may coincide.     

Affluence,Feelings of Stress,and Well-being

Data from the Gallup World Poll highlighted the differential relations between perceived stress, well-being, and wealth at the individual- versus nation-level. At the nation level, stress was a distinct concept from negative affect (NA). It correlated positively with well-being (positive affect, life satisfaction, and domain satisfaction) and wealth (as measured by income, gross domestic product, and modern conveniences). In contrast, NA correlated inversely with well-being and income. Although similar to NA at the individual level, stress showed weaker negative relations with well-being than NA did. In sum, nation-level stress and NA were related in the opposite direction to wealth (and poverty), well-being, and life expectancy. Furthermore, the concept of stress differed at the individual and nation levels. For the former, stress appeared to be purely a negative marker of affective well-being (albeit weaker than other discrete negative emotions); for the latter, it appeared to reflect lifestyle differences that were strongly associated with wealth, and with affective and cognitive well-being to a smaller degree.     

Cessation of breastfeeding in association with oxytocin administration and type of birth. A prospective cohort study

Background

Some studies have suggested an association between synthetic oxytocin administration and type of birth with the initiation and consolidation of breastfeeding.

Homevisiting

A homevisiting research project can both facilitate data gathering in poor and minority communities and provide an innovative learning opportunity for direct practice students. Based on the experiences of the authors, who as teacher and MSW student visited homes in three low-income communities in New York to interview single African-American mothers and assess their children's preschool readiness, this article provides a structure for teaching and learning skills in data gathering and intervening with families in poor urban neighborhoods. It notes the benefits and obstacles of homevisiting and offers thoughts on integrating policy, research, and direct practice.     

The QAP-polytope and the graph isomorphism problem

In this paper we propose a geometric approach to solve the Graph Isomorphism (GI in short) problem. Given two graphs \(G_1, G_2\), the GI problem is to decide if the given graphs are isomorphic i.e., there exists an edge preserving bijection between the vertices of the two graphs. We propose an Integer Linear Program (ILP) that has a non-empty solution if and only if the given graphs are isomorphic. The convex hull of all possible solutions of the ILP has been studied in literature as the Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) polytope. We study the feasible region of the linear programming relaxation of the ILP and show that the given graphs are isomorphic if and only if this region intersects with the QAP-polytope. As a consequence, if the graphs are not isomorphic, the feasible region must lie entirely outside the QAP-polytope. We study the facial structure of the QAP-polytope with the intention of using the facet defining inequalities to eliminate the feasible region outside the polytope. We determine two new families of facet defining inequalities of the QAP-polytope and show that all the known facet defining inequalities are special instances of a general inequality. Further we define a partial ordering on each exponential sized family of facet defining inequalities and show that if there exists a common minimal violated inequality for all points in the feasible region outside the QAP-polytope, then we can solve the GI problem in polynomial time. We also study the general case when there are k such inequalities and give an algorithm for the GI problem that runs in time exponential in k.