Missing from the Conversation: Sexual Risk Factors Across Young People by Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

Abstract

Objectives: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer/questioning (LGBQ), and transgender/nonbinary (trans/NB) youth experience health disparities. Much research combines gender identity with sexual orientation or siloes them, ignoring intersections. Methods: Logistic regressions with representative data from 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey (n?=?15,970) explores sexual risk. Results: Findings indicate LGBQ and trans/NB youth have differential levels of sexual risk (drugs during sexual interactions, not using condoms) compared to cisgender heterosexual peers. Other identities, mental health, and bullying are also related. Conclusions: There is a need for culturally responsive bullying prevention, mental health support, education, and sexual health services for marginalized populations.     

Using our brains to develop better policy

Current governmental practices often use a method called weight of evidence (WoE) to integrate and weigh different sources of information in the process of reaching a decision. Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience have identified WoE-like processes in the brain, and we believe that these advances have the potential to improve current decision-making practices. In this article, we describe five specific areas where knowledge emerging from cognitive neuroscience may be applied to the challenges confronting decisionmakers who manage risks: (1) quantifying evidence, (2) comparing the value of different sources of evidence, (3) reaching a decision, (4) illuminating the role of subjectivity, and (5) adapting to new information. We believe that the brain is an appropriate model for structuring decision-making processes because the brain's network is designed for complex, flexible decision making, and because policy decisions that must ultimately depend on human judgment will be best served by methods that complement human abilities. Future discoveries in cognitive neuroscience will likely bring further applications to decision practice.     

On the invariance of accounting principles to business models: a discussion of the Singleton-Green and Page articles

Let me first begin by saying that I agree in general with Brian’s proposition that the theory of the firm provides insights into requisite financial reporting systems. I also agree with Mike’s characterization of business models as diverse, subjective, and mostly aspirational and if I may add, essentially vacuous. I disagree with the notion that financial reporting and recognition and measurement principles should be tailored to business models. Rather, I shall make the argument that recognition and measurement principles should be invariant to diverse business models. Indeed, the theory of the firm would suggest universal recognition and measurement principles that apply independently of the business models. The role of business models, I contend, is to facilitate proper quantifications—the required output of applying the universal recognition and measurement principles.     

What is the leanness level of your organisation in lean transformation implementation? An integrated lean index using ANP approach

We develop a lean index to assess the leanness level of the organisation in sustaining lean transformation. This ‘lean index’ is developed from theory, and is quantified using a multi-criteria approach i.e., analytic network process (ANP). This index provides a useful measure for sustainable lean performance because it adopts a holistic approach of performance measurement based on the socio-technical perspective which considers the interdynamics of human, system and technology.     

Expatriate Cultural Antecedents and Outcomes

This field note is based upon a case study of US expatriates working for a multinational nonprofit organization in North and Central Africa. The purpose of this study was to examine expatriate culture adjustment from two vantage points. First, the study tested the impact of three organizational conditions on expatriate culture adjustment. Second, the study examined the relationship between an expatriate's culture adjustment and (1) their intention to prematurely leave the international assignment and (2) their effectiveness in host country relationships. In the first phase of analysis, the study found that the expatriate's alignment with organizational mission and values, level of team esprit‐de‐corps, and job satisfaction were significant predictors of national cultural adjustment. In the second phase, the study found that higher levels of expatriate cultural adjustment (1) yielded lower levels of employees’ premature turnover intention and (2) enhanced the expatriate's ability to work with host country nationals and their organizations. The validated survey instrument in this study provides managers with a tool to measure the organizational conditions, expatriate's level of cultural adjustment, turnover intention, and relationships with host ‐country nationals. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Racial Differences in Public Confidence in Education: 1974–2002*

Objective. This article examines the black‐white gap in confidence in education in the United States and how the gap has changed over time. Method. The study uses ordinal logit regression on General Social Surveys (1974–2002). Results. Whites have less confidence in education, partly because whites tend to have higher levels of education, income, and conservatism, and are more likely to be affiliated with the Republican Party and evangelical denominations. The black‐white gap is largest at lower levels of education, and disappears among college graduates. The gap shrinks during Republican control of the presidency in the United States, and widens during Democratic control. Conclusion. The black‐white gap in confidence is not due solely to individual factors, but also to the larger political context and to the groups' different relationships to the institution of education.     

‘Green Tibetans’ in China: Tibetan geopiety and environmental protection in a multilayered Tibetan landscape

This article examines how certain Tibetans and Han Chinese converts to Tibetan Buddhism in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Beijing are articulating various forms of environmental discourse, both in terms drawn from Tibetan ‘geopiety’, and/or from a Western model of environmental protection. In relation to these trends, I further explore how certain Tibetans are articulating their understanding of Tibetan Buddhism within an apparently localised context, while other Tibetans are more obviously appropriating from discourses originating in the West and/or wider Chinese society to become more ‘modern’, while at the same time retaining a conceptualisation of Tibetan Buddhism that is hybridised between traditional and modernist understandings. I also explore how some Han practitioners may seek to become more ‘Tibetan’ by endorsing localised forms of Tibetan Buddhism and/or ‘performing’ certain Tibetan modes of religiosity, while others, due in part to geographical distance from the Tibetan landscape and cultural context, endorse an understanding of Tibetan Buddhism which is more closely tied to discourses of environmental protection originating in the West. In both Tibetan and Han Chinese cases, informants reflect upon their own beliefs and identity by gazing at the Other (Tibetan, Han, or Westerner), and marking out differences and similarities between Self and Other.