No Place Like Home: A Study of Two Homeless Shelters

Homelessness is one of the most pressing social problems today. Society has responded to the problem with the creation of homeless shelters. yet, the nature of the operation of the shelter is not defined. This study explored the operations of two single adult homeless shelters to understand how they operate in addressing the problem of homelessness. The study identified two different types of services, one called "house" and the other ((home." House services provided basic food, shelter, and linkage to social services, which fulfilled the basic definition of the problem of homelessness as defined by the Institute of Medicine. Home services provided the basic services of house but also went one step beyond by providing these services within the context of a supportive environment, thus creating informal social supports. The study discusses the implications of each of these modalities in addressing the problems associated with people who are homeless as well as the differences in policies and structures which contribute to one shelter providing house and the other home services.     

Generational Patterns in Home Ownership and Housing Quality among Racial/Ethnic Groups in New York City, 1999

We use survey data for 1999 to evaluate how well the spatial assimilation model characterizes the generational patterns in housing conditions for racial/ethnic groups in New York City. Focusing on home ownership, crowding, and housing quality, bivariate analyses reveal that housing conditions improve across generations, but mainly for whites and other Hispanics. Among blacks, we find patterns of generational decline in housing conditions and socioeconomic status. Multivariate models reveal significant generational improvements among whites and Puerto Ricans with respect to home ownership and among whites, blacks, and other Hispanics, with respect to crowding. However, notable generational declines are evident for blacks in home ownership and housing quality. Broad support for spatial assimilation theory is evident in the associations of socioeconomic status with housing conditions, but the results for blacks raise questions about the overall primacy of the spatial assimilation model.     

LEARNING TO FORECAST PRICE

We study learning in an individual choice price forecasting task in which subjects must learn coefficients of two independent variables in stationary linear stochastic processes. The 99 subjects each forecast in 480 trials with feedback. Learning is tracked by fitting individual forecasts to the independent variables. Results: (1) Learning is fairly consistent with respect to objective values, but with slight tendency toward overresponse. (2) Learning is noticeably slower than the Marcet-Sargent ideal. Two striking treatment effects are tendencies toward (3) overresponse with high background noise and (4) underresponse with asymmetric coefficients.     

Utility functions that lead to the likelihood ratio as a relative model performance measure

In this paper, we adopt the point of view of a decision-maker who evaluates a probabilistic model based on the test-sample averaged utility of the expected-utility optimal strategy that the model suggests in a horse race setting. After briefly reviewing the basic properties of the resulting performance measure for probabilistic models, we show that such a measure ranks two models according to their likelihood ratio if and only if the performance measure is based on a generalized logarithmic utility function. Thus, we provide a new decision theoretic motivation of the likelihood ratio as a model performance measure.     

Autobiographical sociology

In autobiographical sociology a sociologist probes one or more past personal experiences as a way of identifying and analyzing something sociologically relevant. The general nature and importance of autobiographical sociology, as well as illustrations of and guidelines for it, are explored.     

Physical activity and cognitive-health content in top-circulating magazines, 2006-2008

Physical activity may promote cognitive health in older adults. Popular media play an important role in preventive health communication. This study examined articles discussing associations between physical activity and cognitive health in top-circulating magazines targeting older adults. 42,753 pages of magazines published from 2006 to 2008 were reviewed; 26 articles met inclusion criteria. Explanations regarding the link between physical activity and cognitive health were provided in 57.7% of articles. These explanations were generally consistent with empirical evidence; however, few articles included empirical evidence. Physical activity recommendations were presented in 80.8% of articles; a wide range was recommended (90-300 min of physical activity per wk). Socioeconomic status and education level were not mentioned in the text. Results suggest an opportunity for greater coverage regarding the role of physical activity in promoting cognitive health in popular media. Magazine content would benefit from including more empirical evidence, culturally sensitive content, and physical activity recommendations that are consistent with U.S. guidelines.     

Using a Community Participatory Research Approach to Understand Satisfaction with Psychopharmacology Among Families of Children with Psychiatric Co-Morbidities

How do parents of children with psychiatric co-morbidities perceive their children’s use of psychiatric medications? To learn more, the Parent/Professional Advocacy League of Massachusetts (PAL), representing families of children with mental health needs, collaborated with researchers on a community-based participatory research (CBPR) study. A questionnaire assessed satisfaction with psychiatric medication as it pertained to children with psychiatric co-morbidities (n = 212). Satisfied parents were likely to employ alternative therapies and feel that prescribers had informed them about medication use and side effects. Results reinforce the need for prescribers to discuss psychopharmacology with families. CBPR improved study relevance and supported PAL’s advocacy efforts.     

Suburban landscape: Views of New Jersey artists 1

Suburban landscape predominates within New Jersey; people live in one suburb and drive to a job in another. Research on community ideologies suggests, however, that even suburban residents have vague images of suburbs. Vague images can mean, in turn, that the state's visual artists produce few images that incorporate the newly‐created suburban landscape that they see every day. Research on art worlds also suggests little encouragement for work that depicts the newer suburbs. Consistent with this, only a few of the visual artists living in New Jersey who have put slides in three large slide files include work that deals with the newer suburban landscape or with the process of creating suburbs. Instead, artists who depict New Jersey landscape concentrate on the state's “natural” landscape or on the state's older industrial suburbs. The privacy of newer suburbs no doubt also contributes to this pattern. In suburbs, even places designed for crowds, such as retail malls, are private.     

“There are Two People at Work that I'm Fairly Certain are Black”: Uncertainty and Deliberative Thinking in Blind Race Attribution

Geneticists, biologists, social scientists, and humanist scholars have powerfully critiqued race as a stable set of biological categories. Despite this, in everyday life, race is consistently assumed to be visually available in physical features. Racial categories also continue to be used in scientific and social scientific research as if they were self‐evident and real. In this study, I examine the role of visual perception in the construction of racial categories and their recalcitrance in everyday thought and interaction. My observations are based on in‐depth interviews with 25 blind people, which highlight the unique features of their nonvisual, non‐appearance‐based experiences of race.