Connected in Seattle? An exploratory study of student perceptions of discipline and attachments to teachers

How do students' perceptions about their treatment in school differ along racial and gender lines?     

On Integrality, Stability and Composition of Dicycle Packings and Covers

Given a digraph D, the minimum integral dicycle cover problem (known also as the minimum feedback arc set problem) is to find a minimum set of arcs that intersects every dicycle; the maximum integral dicycle packing problem is to find a maximum set of pairwise arc disjoint dicycles. These two problems are NP-complete.Assume D has a 2-vertex cut. We show how to derive a minimum dicycle cover (a maximum dicycle packing) for D, by composing certain covers (packings) of the corresponding pieces. The composition of the covers is simple and was partially considered in the literature before. The main contribution of this paper is to the packing problem. Let be the value of a minimum integral dicycle cover, and * () the value of a maximum (integral) dicycle packing. We show that if = then a simple composition, similar to that of the covers, is valid for the packing problem. We use these compositions to extend an O(n³) (resp., O(n⁴)) algorithm for finding a minimum integral dicycle cover (resp., packing) from planar digraphs to K_3,3-free digraphs (i.e., digraphs not containing any subdivision of K_3,3).However, if , then such a simple composition for the packing problem is not valid. We show, that if the pieces satisfy, what we call, the stability property, then a simple composition does work. We prove that if = * holds for each piece, then the stability property holds as well. Further, we use the stability property to show that if = * holds for each piece, then = * holds for D as well.     

Putting experts in their place: Achieving policy impact as an outsider-academic in civil service reforms in Slovakia

This paper studies two processes of civil service reform in Slovakia during the period of 2014–2015 in order to reflect on the involvement of an ‘outsider-academic’ and her strategies to achieve policy impact. The context of such involvement are multi-level processes permeated by political interests and poor on evidence, which favour strategic interests, bargaining and political pressure and contestation (the mode of ‘powering’) and a mode of legal-based ‘puzzling’ as opposed to a conceptual, intellectual search for solutions friendly towards outside academics—and achieving only incremental results. We theorise on the success of these strategies (including helping serendipity, throwing ideas to see what sticks, mobilising allies, anchoring a non-binding concept, and finding and developing long-term connections) and sketch analogies and differences between the position of an outsider-academic and a policy entrepreneur. We rely on auto-ethnographic data and documentation of the work of the committees involved and their outputs.     

Work Disability Among Native-born and Foreign-born Americans: On Origins,Health, and Social Safety Nets

Public debates about both immigration policy and social safety net programs are increasingly contentious. However, little research has explored differences in health within America’s diverse population of foreign-born workers, and the effect of these workers on public benefit programs is not well understood. We investigate differences in work disability by nativity and origins and describe the mix of health problems associated with receiving Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. Our analysis draws on two large national data sources—the American Community Survey and comprehensive administrative records from the Social Security Administration—to determine the prevalence and incidence of work disability between 2001 and 2010. In sharp contrast to prior research, we find that foreign-born adults are substantially less likely than native-born Americans to report work disability, to be insured for work disability benefits, and to apply for those benefits. Overall and across origins, the foreign-born also have a lower incidence of disability benefit award. Persons from Africa, Northern Europe, Canada, and parts of Asia have the lowest work disability benefit prevalence rates among the foreign-born; persons from Southern Europe, Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Caribbean have the highest rates.     

Poverty‐aware social work practice: service users' perspectives

In recent years, there has been an increase in scholarly writing on the theory and practice of critical social work with people living in poverty. Yet there is a lack of research on the experiences and perspectives of service users regarding this kind of practice. This paper presents a qualitative study that explored the practice of a special poverty‐aware social work programme in Israel, through the experiences of women who took part in it. Using an interpretative interactionist approach, in‐depth interviews with nine women were held three times over a 2‐year period. Findings reveal a high degree of satisfaction with the programme on the part of the women. The satisfaction was derived from four main experiences: the experience of visibility, the experience of the active partnership in the fight against poverty, the experience of close, hierarchy‐challenging relationships, and the experience of responsiveness to material and emotional needs. The findings are discussed in terms of three principles of practice: intervention in a real‐life context, relationship‐based intervention and the focus on both the material and emotional needs and their fulfilment.     

The implications of increased survivorship for mortality variation in aging populations

The remarkable growth in life expectancy during the twentieth century inspired predictions of a future in which all people, not just a fortunate few, will live long lives ending at or near the maximum human life span. We show that increased longevity has been accompanied by less variation in ages at death, but survivors to the oldest ages have grown increasingly heterogeneous in their mortality risks. These trends are consistent across countries, and apply even to populations with record-low variability in the length of life. We argue that as a result of continuing improvements in survival, delayed mortality selection has shifted health disparities from early to later life, where they manifest in the growing inequalities in late-life mortality.     

Income Affluence in Poland

This paper examines the evolution of income affluence (richness) in Poland during 1998–2007. Using household survey data, the paper estimates several statistical indices of income affluence including income share of the top percentiles, population share of individuals receiving incomes higher than the richness line, and measures that take into account both the extent and the intensity of affluence. Results show that over the period under study there was a statistically significant and socio-economically sizable rise in income affluence by between 9 and 50%, depending on the index used. The overall income distribution in the period has shifted in favour of the rich as relative poverty and relative size and income share of the middle class have declined.     

Social remittances and intra-EU mobility: non-financial transfers between U.K. and Poland

The massive rise in intra-European Union (EU) mobility in recent decades has spawned several important social and cultural phenomena that are still not covered by academic research. Social remittances – the transfer of ideas, practices, codes of behaviours, values and norms between the place of origin and destination are an important aspect of social change and modernity and they are still to be explored and documented. However, not all migrants acquire, transfer and implement them in the same way. Ongoing acts of resistance, imitation and innovation are involved, so that some migrants become ‘ordinary agents of change’ in their local microcosms, while others may contest that change. Tracing these processes in a transnational perspective through a three-year transnational multi-sited qualitative longitudinal research, this article offers an in-depth look at the consequences of human mobility within the enlarged EU.     

察合台汗国的外交与遣使实践初探

正就我所知,察合台汗国送往其他国家的信札均未被保存下来。然而察合台汗国位于诸蒙古汗国的中心,且与邻国的关系往往很紧张,许多不同的史料也提及察合台汗国的使臣和信件,可见察合台汗国与其他蒙古汗国,以及诸如埃及和叙利亚的马木鲁克算端、德里算端、教廷等同时代