A New Chilean Migration Act: an Approach to International Standards

The current Chilean Migration Act is the oldest in South America. It was created under the paradigm of national security, not human rights, and today does not adequately serve a participating democratic state, active within the international community. The Chilean government will soon be moving to discuss in congress a new migration act. We want to emphasize that the government should not forget the importance of incorporating international standards of migration policy into the national sphere. Chile is part of the United Nations system and, as a participating member, ratifies all core human rights treaties. Given that the United Nations Human Rights Bodies have made recommendations about migration policy, it is essential that this discussion be brought to the attention of our governing officials. This article reviews the UN recommendations as a concrete approach to the implementation of international standards in Chilean migrant policy.     

Review of Australian Health Related Social Work Research 1990–2009

Abstract

Social workers form a critical component of the Australian health workforce. While their roles as practitioners are very strategic within the health system, less clear is their contribution to health research. This paper reviews the published record of social work research in Australian health from 1990–2009 in order to discern the patterns of the social work contribution to new knowledge in health. The results of this review indicate a tendency to focus on discursive commentary rather than empirical research as well as a less-than-expected focus on client studies. Given the rise of evidence-based practice, there are potentially serious implications for social work in terms of how it positions itself as a contributor to new knowledge within the health field.     

Rural Students’ Social Capital in the College Search and Application Process

Although the growing mandate for higher education creates challenges for students in rural areas, rural high school graduates currently attend college at a rate similar to their peers in other locale types. Prior research has attributed this accomplishment to family, school, and community social capital, yet the processes through which students translate social capital into educational attainment remain unspecified. This study examines how successful rural students access and engage various forms of social capital during the college search and application process. Analysis of semistructured interviews with 30 college graduates from communities throughout one predominantly rural state showed that family social capital provided most students with generalized support, but college‐specific guidance tended to correlate with parental education and income. Most students benefited from school social capital, primarily through pro‐college climate, peer networks, teachers, guidance counselors, and academic tracking. Students accessed community social capital through supportive youth and adult interactions, extended family ties, and a caring community, but these forms of social capital did not explicitly support the college search process. Although quantitative studies have operationalized family, school, and community social capital as distinct concepts, this study argues that these constructs cannot be disentangled given the interconnectedness of rural families, schools, and communities.     

A machine learning analysis of drought and rural population change on the North American Great Plains since the 1970s

Population and Environment - Machine learning techniques have to date not been widely used in population-environment research, but represent a promising tool for identifying relationships between...     

A Note on a Specification Test for Time Series Models Based on Spectral Density Estimation

In a recent paper, Paparoditis [Scand. J. Statist. 27 (2000) 143] proposed a new goodness‐of‐fit test for time series models based on spectral density estimation. The test statistic is based on the distance between a kernel estimator of the ratio of the true and the hypothesized spectral density and the expected value of the estimator under the null and provides a quantification of how well the parametric density fits the sample spectral density. In this paper, we give a detailed asymptotic analysis of the corresponding procedure under fixed alternatives.     

Implementation and evaluation of an HIV/STD intervention in Peru

This paper presents the lessons learned through a process evaluation (PE) after 1 year of implementation of a 2-year community intervention in Lima, Peru. The intervention consisted of training and motivating community popular opinion leaders (CPOLs) for three marginal population segments to disseminate prevention messages among their peers. PE data included: observations, qualitative interviews with CPOLS, conversations and messages delivered by CPOLs, training facilitators' perceptions about implementation, and a survey of CPOLs. The PE helped to document and enhance the intervention. CPOLs were motivated to talk to their peers. CPOLs perceived that their participation had an effect on their own risk behaviors and saw their role as beneficial to their community. The PE was helpful in examining training delivery and the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention in order to assess the elements related to program success necessary to replicate the CPOL model.     

Constituents of healthy workplaces

The aim of the study presented here was to identify and characterize the constituents of a healthy workplace from the viewpoints of employees at four different companies with low rate of absenteeism due to illness. A non-randomized, purposive selection was made of 27 respondents -- four department heads, 16 white-collar workers, and seven blue-collar employees. The respondents were told to describe in writing how they experience factors contributing to good health at their workplace. The data analysis was carried out with a phenomenographic approach. Four main categories of health-related factors emerged: Good Work Environment, Active Keep-Fit Measures, Functional Leadership and Individual Responsibility. The employers fulfil demands for a good physical working environment, but the need for improvements in the psychosocial environment remains. The most promising finding is that the respondents' accept personal responsibility for maintaining their own good health.     

A Detrended Range Unit Root (DRUR) Test

We extend the Range Unit Root test in two directions. First, we consider the process with time trend and prove that the modified standardized number of new records converges to a sum of two Rayleigh distributions. Second, more general structures of autocorrelated disturbances are also taken into account. Monte Carlo experiments show the good sample properties of this nonparametric unit root test.