HIV seroprevalence and risk behaviors among clients attending a clinic for the homeless in Miami/Dade County,Florida, 1990–1996

In the early 1990s, HIV seroprevalence was highest at the Miami homeless clinic among 16 homeless sites participating in a nationwide sentinel survey. To examine dynamic seroprevalence patterns in Miami's homeless clients in relation to demographics and risk behaviors over six years, we analyzed data from an unlinked (blinded) serosurvey of clients attending the principal primary care clinic serving Miami's homeless. Data were from 3,797 medical encounters with homeless persons who, on their initial clinic visit within an annual survey period, received routine serologic testing and a risk behavior survey. Overall HIV seroprevalence was 15.9% and infection rates for men (16.4%) and women (14.5%) did not differ. Seroprevalence for blacks (19.9%) was significantly higher than for Hispanics (9.1%) or whites (8.3%) (p < 0.0001). Seroprevalence was 12.6% (35 times the national rate) for clients reporting heterosexual contact as their only risk. Significant increases in seroprevalence, above this heterosexual-contact-only 'baseline', were found for clients disclosing high-risk behaviors: male-to-male sex, drug injection, receiving or giving money/drugs for sex, and sexual contact with a drug injector or HIV-infected partner (p < 0.0001). Seroprevalence declined over six years from 23.2 to 7.2% (p < 0.0001). Significant downward trends were observed for men and women, blacks and Hispanics, men who have sex with men, and clients reporting heterosexual contact. The proportion of clients reporting high-risk behaviors decreased sharply (p < 0.0001). Elevated HIV seroprevalence in Miami's homeless clients was strongly associated with high-risk behaviors. Expansion of HIV prevention and HIV/drug treatment services for homeless persons is strongly recommended.     

Fiscal Sustainability and Immigration in the Madrid Region

The growing number of immigrants in the Madrid region raises several questions concerning the welfare of future native generations. The debates shift from increasing concern about the congestion of public services like education or healthcare, to how immigration helps to ease tension in relation to financing those services and other benefits to the region's general welfare. In order to evaluate the global effect, our analysis uses a generational accounting method which is applied to different productivity, interest rate and growth scenarios. The results show that the impact of immigrants is positive, with intergenerational distribution towards the currently most active taxpayers.     

Voices of Nigerian Women Survivors of Trafficking Held in Italian Centres for Identification and Expulsion

This article examines the vicissitudes that affect the migration trajectories of many Nigerian women who experienced trafficking before arriving in Italy, and end up in Centers for Identification and Expulsion (CIE) for undocumented migrants. Their life stories, collected within the CIE of Ponte Galeria (Rome), revealed violence as “a rule of action” with which these women are obliged to cope with at different levels. Moreover, they highlighted the failure of traditional security approaches to human trafficking, and the necessity to rethink the measures adopted to ensure survivors' protection and rights. As it is conceived, the system of immigration control prevents the full guarantee of survivors' rights, often labelling them as “illegal migrants”. Finally, there is the need to extend protection to all survivors of human trafficking even if the crime against them has not happened in Italy.     

A new continuous distribution on the unit interval applied to modelling the points ratio of football teams

We introduce a new flexible distribution to deal with variables on the unit interval based on a transformation of the sinh–arcsinh distribution, which accommodates different degrees of skewness and kurtosis and becomes an interesting alternative to model this type of data. We also include this new distribution into the generalised additive models for location, scale and shape (GAMLSS) framework in order to develop and fit its regression model. For different parameter settings, some simulations are performed to investigate the behaviour of the estimators. The potentiality of the new regression model is illustrated by means of a real dataset related to the points rate of football teams at the end of a championship from the four most important leagues in the world: Barclays Premier League (England), Bundesliga (Germany), Serie A (Italy) and BBVA league (Spain) during three seasons (2011–2012, 2012–2013 and 2013–2014).     

Associations of Migrants in Spain: An Enquiry into Their Digital Inclusion in the “Network Society” in the 2010s

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This paper explores the way that associations of migrants in Spain (AMS) in the 2010 decade integrate into the Network...     

From social capital to entrepreneurial orientation: The mediating role of dynamic capabilities

This paper analyzes how social capital and its three dimensions—structural, relational, and cognitive—affect entrepreneurial orientation through dynamic capabilities. We specifically analyzed the effect of each dimension of social capital on firms' entrepreneurial orientation and the mediating effect of dynamic capabilities to explain these relationships. This study was conducted on a sample of firms in the Spanish agri-food industry. The results of the empirical analysis show that dynamic capabilities are generated by firms' social capital. Dynamic capabilities lead relational and cognitive social capital to develop a higher entrepreneurial orientation. The negative effect of structural social capital can only be countered if firms build and develop dynamic capabilities.     

Dysfunctional sexual beliefs as vulnerability factors to sexual dysfunction

The differences on sexual beliefs presented by men and women with sexual dysfunction and their sexually functional counterparts were investigated. A total of 488 participants (160 females and 232 males without sexual problems and 47 females and 49 males with a DSM-IV diagnosis of sexual dysfunction) answered the Sexual Dysfunctional Beliefs Questionnaire. Findings showed that, although effects have only reached statistical significance for the female group, both dysfunctional men and women endorsed more sexual dysfunctional beliefs than functional. Women presented significantly more age related beliefs (after menopause women loose their sexual desire, as women age, the pleasure they get from sex decreases) and body image beliefs (women who are not physically attractive cannot be sexually satisfied). Additionally, sexually dysfunctional males presented higher scores (not statistically significant) on 'macho' belief (a real man has sexual intercourse very often) and the beliefs about women satisfaction (the quality of the erection is what most satisfies women). Overall, findings support the idea that sexual beliefs may play a role as vulnerability factors for sexual dysfunction.     

Adapting The Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire to The Portuguese Context

This study aimed to adapt the Revised Self-Leadership Questionnaire (RSLQ) (Houghton and Neck in J Manag Psychol 17(8):672?C691, 2002) for the Portuguese population. 720 professionals, and university and post-graduate students participated in this study. The RSLQ factorial structure was accessed through exploratory and multi group confirmatory factor analysis. From the 9 sub dimensional and 34 items original scale, only 7 sub dimensions and 21 items were preserved. The model tested through cross-validation multigroup analysis proved to be totally invariant across the groups, suggesting good model fit.