Operative strategies of HLB's scouts of a citrus property within the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil

This research aimed to study the activity of the HLB's scouts, workers whose function is to identify symptomatic plants, in order to understand the physical constraints, cognitive and organizational involved in accomplishing the task, characterizing the operative approach used to identify diseased plants, and to elucidate what aspects hinder the identification of symptoms. The method adopted for the research was the Ergonomic Analysis of Work--EAW [6]. The results, after validation with the operators and management, allowed understanding the complex relationships between the physical, cognitive and organizational aspects present on activity. Major difficulties were observed mainly in relation to the disposal of the scouts on the platforms and in relation to working hours, at the beginning and end of the journey. Important findings have highlighted strategies, unknown by the organization, used by scouts to locate candidates' trees to the fine analysis of investigation of symptoms. In conclusion, the analysis enable to understand the constraints and find technical and organizational solutions to the survey work on citrus groves as well as it showed signs and symptoms not investigated yet or rarely considered by researchers involved on searches aimed at increasing the ability to diagnose the disease in the field.     

Piecewise linear rank-dependent utility

Choice under risk is modelled using a piecewise linear version of rank-dependent utility. This model can be considered a continuous version of NEO-expected utility (Chateauneuf et al., J Econ Theory 137:538–567, 2007). In a framework of objective probabilities, a preference foundation is given, without requiring a rich structure on the outcome set. The key axiom is called complementary additivity.     

The specter of failure: rendering Afghan women as sites of precarity in empowerment regimes

This article analyzes how the category of “Afghan women” and discourses of precarity intersect within the women’s empowerment regime in Afghanistan. By examining an NGO that seeks to empower women through writing, I argue that staff members draw upon precarity as a go-to logic to describe the state of Afghan women writers’ successes under conditions of insecurity and limited communication. Specifically, it is writers’ desires to subvert their social orders and to carve out their own futures that staff members and writing coordinators frame as subject to potential destruction. While recent work has highlighted the importance of recognizing the precarious lifeworlds of vulnerable populations, this article points to the potential implications of a hyper-recognition of precarity – namely, the obscuring of the complexities of individual women’s past and present realities. Through analyzing the pedagogies of one empowerment NGO working with women in a post-9/11 Afghanistan, I show how the logic of precarity is concerned with the vulnerability of women’s desires and sentiments, rather than their material and political vulnerabilities. It is thus deeply inflected by a historically situated “common sense” about which potentialities and aspirations are inherent to Afghan women.     

DIVERSIFICATION GAINS FROM INCLUDING REAL ESTATE IN MIXED-ASSET PORTFOLIOS*

Diversification gains in mean-variance efficiency derived from including real estate in financial asset portfolios are examined. Optimal financial and mixed-asset portfolios were generated by selecting from an investment universe including several distinct financial and real estate media. Deficiencies of previous studies were overcome by employing data with improved representativeness and comparability. The efficient mixed-asset portfolios dominated the efficient financial asset portfolios implying that purely financial asset diversification is inefficient. The optimal mixed-asset portfolio prescribed that approximately two-thirds of the investment wealth be allocated to real estate and one-third to the financial media.     

Childcare costs and the demand for children—evidence from a nationwide reform

Exploiting the exogenous variation in user fees caused by a Swedish childcare reform, we are able to identify the causal effect of childcare costs on fertility in a context in which childcare enrollment is almost universal, user fees are low, and labor force participation of mothers is very high. Anticipation of a reduction in childcare costs increased the number of first and higher-order births, but only seemed to affect the timing of second births. For families with many children we also find a marginally significant negative income effect on fertility.     

Measurement of the effect of wool advertising

The paper reports a recent International Wool Secretariat (I.W.S.) study to measure the overall effect on sales of fibre advertising, based on annual data for eight major wool-consuming countries, collected from 1960 to 1970. An economic model of the fibre market is set up, and multiple linear regression is used to demonstrate a significant positive relationship between fibre sales and advertising. The effect of wool advertising is quantified, using the estimated regression coefficients, and its cost is compared with the estimated benefits to the wool industry in terms of increased revenue. Possible drawbacks of the approach described are considered, and aspects of the work requiring further study are also mentioned.     

Leg-extension strength and chair-rise performance in elderly women with Parkinson's disease

The lower extremity performance in elderly female patients with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease (PD; n = 12) and controls (n = 16) was compared. Isometric dynamometry and force-plate measurements were used. PD patients had lower (p < .05) bilateral (BL) maximal isometric leg-extension force (MF), BL isometric MF relative to body mass, and maximal rate of isometric force development than control participants. BL strength deficit was greater (p < .05) in PD patients than in controls. A significantly longer chair-rise time and lower maximal rate of vertical-ground-reaction-force development while rising from a chair was found in PD patients than in controls. These findings suggest that elderly women with PD have lowered voluntary isometric force-generation capacity of the leg-extensor muscles. Reduced BL leg-extension strength might contribute to the difficulty of individuals with PD to rise from a chair.     

Disaster and deritualization: A re-interpretation of findings from early disaster research

This study investigates how ritual practices are disrupted in disasters and the ways people deal with those situations. We employ structural ritualization theory to conduct this investigation focusing on deritualization, which refers to the breakdown or loss of ritualized activities that occur in daily life. The thesis of this paper is that ritual practices are disrupted in a disaster leading to the breakdown of action and meaning. Data were collected from 19 seminal sociological studies from the National Academy of Sciences published first under the name of the Committee on Disaster Studies (1951–1957) and then under the rubric of the Disaster Research Group (1957–1962). A content analysis of these studies revealed many instances of deritualization. Deritualization is manifested or most evident through its effects on action and meaning in rituals. Examples were categorized according to the loss of action, meaning, or a combination of both.