Going Places: Effects of Early U.S. Compulsory Schooling Laws on Internal Migration

Population Research and Policy Review - Both the industrialization thesis and institutional theories of education hypothesize that early educational expansion increased internal migration. We take...     

Social,Relational and Network Determinants of Unprotected Anal Sex and HIV Testing Among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Beirut,Lebanon

Objectives: We examined the social, relational and network determinants of condom use and HIV testing among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Beirut. Methods: Two-hundred thirteen men were recruited via respondent driven sampling and administered a survey. Results: Sixty-four percent reported unprotected anal intercourse (UAI), including 23% who had UAI with unknown HIV status partners (UAIU); 62% of participants had tested for HIV. In multivariate analysis, being in a relationship was associated with UAI and HIV testing; lower condom self-efficacy was associated with UAIU and HIV testing; gay discrimination was associated with UAIU; MSM disclosure was associated with UAI, UAIU and HIV testing; and network centralization was associated with HIV testing. Conclusions: Multi-level social factors influence sexual health in MSM.     

Exploring intergenerational communication and stress in refugee families

More than half of the refugees who have resettled to the United States in recent years have been youth. Refugee youth have often witnessed or experienced violence and family separation prior to resettlement and face barriers to successful resettlement such as language and educational challenges. These factors elevate risk for mental and emotional distress, and protective factors like strong familial relationships are important to promoting mental well‐being. This study utilized focus groups with 36 refugees ages 18 to 25 from four ethnic groups to explore conceptualizations of and communication about mental and emotional distress within and outside of family systems. Youth reported a nuanced conceptualization of their premigration and postmigration stressors and their patterns of communication about distress in three domains: (a) exposure to traumatic stress prior to resettlement, (b) stressful experiences in resettlement, and (c) communication about mental health inside and outside of family groups.     

Herbivores and natural enemies of brassica crops in urban agriculture

Urban agriculture has been growing in popularity around the globe. As more land is allocated to urban agriculture, there is a greater need to understand arthropod herbivores and natural enemies in these sites. The area and production type of urban agriculture could influence the risk of pest outbreaks, since larger food production areas are hypothesized to host more abundant herbivore populations. To determine the potential for pest outbreaks, we sampled for pests and above-ground natural enemies at three types of sites with variable amounts of cultivated areas: residential gardens, community gardens, and urban farms. We focused on pests of brassica, a widely cultivated crop family attacked by cabbageworms and aphids. We investigated the relationships of garden characteristics and surrounding land cover on natural enemies and herbivores of brassica. More herbivores and plant damage were expected in larger community gardens and urban farms. However, herbivore populations were low across sites and not explained by garden characteristics or area of production. Herbivory on brassica averaged less than 15% at all sites. Limited plant damage and low herbivore numbers may be attributed to the positive effects of garden flowers on parasitoids and high numbers of parasitoids and generalist predators across sites. Garden area and floral resources had positive relationships with natural enemy abundance, although community composition was similar across sites. Since arthropod natural enemies were abundant across all types of food production, this suggests that urban agriculture is a beneficial habitat that could support regulating ecosystem services such as biological control.     

Measuring community mobilization in the Seattle Minority Youth Health Project.

This article assesses the validity and reliability of the approach used to measure community mobilization in the Seattle Minority Youth Health Project (MY Health), a neighborhood-based program to prevent drug use, violence, teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Two constructs were measured: neighborhood cooperation in solving problems, and sense of pride and identification with the neighborhood. The convergent validity of the measurement approach was assessed by comparing several independent measures of community mobilization generated from surveys of key neighborhood leaders, youth, and parents. For the neighborhood cooperation construct, correlations were uniformly positive across measures from different surveys and statistically significant about a quarter of the time. The correlations for the neighborhood pride construct were weaker and generally not statistically significant. Interrater reliability was low for all of the surveys, possibly reflecting varying ideas about what community mobilization meant among survey respondents.     

The Production of Several Items in a Single Facility with Linearly Changing Demand Rates

In this paper we extend the ELSP model to allow for linearly changing demand rates over a fixed planning horizon. This extension of the ELSP research provides a model that can be used in coordinating the production and marketing planning activities in a firm. The model allows the user to evaluate the impact of changes in product demand on production costs and customer service. We solve the model using a standard nonlinear programming package (MINOS) and show through examples based on actual production data how the model can be used to support coordinated production and marketing planning.