Using satellite remote sensing and household survey data to assess human health and nutrition response to environmental change

Climate change and degradation of ecosystem services functioning may threaten the ability of current agricultural systems to keep up with demand for adequate and inexpensive food and for clean water, waste disposal and other broader ecosystem services. Human health is likely to be affected by changes occurring across multiple geographic and time scales. Impacts range from increasing transmissibility and the range of vectorborne diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever, to undermining nutrition through deleterious impacts on food production and concomitant increases in food prices. This paper uses case studies to describe methods that make use of satellite remote sensing and Demographic and Health Survey data to better understand individual-level human health and nutrition outcomes. By bringing these diverse datasets together, the connection between environmental change and human health outcomes can be described through new research and analysis.     

How people experience and change institutions: a field guide to creative syncretism

This article joins the debate over institutional change with two propositions. First, all institutions are syncretic, that is, they are composed of an indeterminate number of features, which are decomposable and recombinable in unpredictable ways. Second, action within institutions is always potentially creative, that is, actors draw on a wide variety of cultural and institutional resources to create novel combinations. We call this approach to institutions creative syncretism. This article is in three parts. The first shows how existing accounts of institutional change, which are rooted in structuralism, produce excess complexity and render the most important sources and results of change invisible. We argue that in order to ground the theory of creative syncretism we need a more phenomenological approach, which explains how people live institutional rules. We find that grounding in John Dewey’s pragmatist theory of habit. The second part of the article explains Dewey and shows how the theory of habit can ground an experiential account of institutional rules. The third part presents a field guide to creative syncretism. It uses an experiential approach to provide novel insights on three problems that have occupied institutionalist research: periodization in American political development, convergence among advanced capitalist democracies, and institutional change in developing countries.     

From neustadt to Alaska, 1939: A failed attempt of community resettlement

Between 1939 and 1941, members of the Jewish community in the German village of Neustadt (Hesse) attempted to immigrate to Alaska under a resettlement plan proposed by the US Department of the Interior. The plan failed and no one from Neustadt reached Alaska. The situation of Neustadt Jews during the 1930s is examined, focusing particularly on the effects of anti‐Jewish measures. The two‐year attempt to resettle in Alaska is followed through correspondence between the spokesman of the community and officials in Washington. The article concludes with an account of the fate of the Neustadt Jews.     

“Minutes to Midnight”: Problems and Promises

Abstract

This paper assesses the relative impact of direct and indirect determinants of marital fertility in Pakistan, where the vast majority of women do not use any method of fertility regulation. Data came from the 1990/91 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey, and models were estimated for women aged 15–49, 15–24, 25–34 and 35–49. The younger cohort may be the vanguard of change; change which may be masked by investigating only the conventional 15–49 age group. Findings indicate that unlike the older cohorts, the younger cohort does not have negative and significant relationships between education, employment and fertility; and, that the current use of family planning is positive and significant with fertility for the 35–49 cohort only. These findings suggest that there is a threshold or minimum number of children that a woman must produce before determinants such as current use of family planning, education and employment impact fertility.     

Proportional quota weighted voting system hierarchies

We investigate achievable and unachievable hierarchies in weighted voting systems where the quota is a proportion of the total weight. This extends work of Bean et al. (Theory Dec 65:285–302, 2007) where simple majority achievable hierarchies were characterized. In particular we resolve the question of which hierarchies are possible with common quota rules other than simple majority, such as 2/3-majority or 3/4-majority, and offer a conjecture about proportional quota achievable hierarchies in general.     

University Rewards for Faculty Community Service

Survey data collected from deans and directors of graduate schools of social work indicate that community service is the least valued of faculty activities among faculty peers, deans, and university administrators. Publication and teaching are consistently the most valued and rewarded in tenure and promotion and other personnel decisions. Findings are discussed, and recommendations made that might help to close the gap between the need for service activities and the existing faculty reward system.