The Effects of Urban Form on Ambient Air Pollution and Public Health Risk: A Case Study in Raleigh,North Carolina

Since motor vehicles are a major air pollution source, urban designs that decrease private automobile use could improve air quality and decrease air pollution health risks. Yet, the relationships among urban form, air quality, and health are complex and not fully understood. To explore these relationships, we model the effects of three alternative development scenarios on annual average fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) concentrations in ambient air and associated health risks from PM_2.5 exposure in North Carolina's Raleigh‐Durham‐Chapel Hill area. We integrate transportation demand, land‐use regression, and health risk assessment models to predict air quality and health impacts for three development scenarios: current conditions, compact development, and sprawling development. Compact development slightly decreases (?0.2%) point estimates of regional annual average PM_2.5 concentrations, while sprawling development slightly increases (+1%) concentrations. However, point estimates of health impacts are in opposite directions: compact development increases (+39%) and sprawling development decreases (?33%) PM_2.5‐attributable mortality. Furthermore, compactness increases local variation in PM_2.5 concentrations and increases the severity of local air pollution hotspots. Hence, this research suggests that while compact development may improve air quality from a regional perspective, it may also increase the concentration of PM_2.5 in local hotspots and increase population exposure to PM_2.5. Health effects may be magnified if compact neighborhoods and PM_2.5 hotspots are spatially co‐located. We conclude that compactness alone is an insufficient means of reducing the public health impacts of transportation emissions in automobile‐dependent regions. Rather, additional measures are needed to decrease automobile dependence and the health risks of transportation emissions.     

From mistress to hooker: 40 years of cartoon humor in men's magazines

This paper explores mass media humor and its relationship to the changing nature of male sexual mores and prostitution. All cartoons in the two leading men's magazines,Esquire andPlayboy, with prostituion as the topic were subjected to a content analysis. The change in content of these cartoons over the 40 year period covered is described.     

Religious Cults: Family Concerns and the Law

The activities of contemporary religious cults cause concern and controversy among parents and mental health practitioners, both because they are perceived as threats to the well-being of their young adult members and because such cults are protected by the First Amendment. The primary issues discussed here are "mind control" and informed consent. Possible bases for legal redress of alleged injuries, as well as possible preventive measures, are suggested.     

What Flexibility Do Women Offer? Comparing the Use of,and Attitudes to,Part-Time Work in Britain and France in Retail Banking

A much neglected aspect in the comparative literature on labour market flexibility has ignored how employers' use of flexibility is affected by national differences in labour market characteristics. In this paper the case of part-time work, in the retail banking sector in Britain and France, is taken to show how the preferences of available female workers, together with differences in educational attainment, childcare provision, legal regulation, personnel policy and organizational culture affect employers' use of this type of flexibility. The main argument of this paper is that the type of flexibility employers can obtain from female workers varies between countries. Thus employers design jobs, consciously or not, in response to these differences. This paper supports the approach which emphasizes the need to integrate an analysis of economic production with social reproduction so as to enrich our understanding, from a comparative perspective, of the nature of contemporary work organization.     

Latin America and the Caribbean Revisited: Pathways for Research

This introductory article on Third sector research on Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) was designed with two objectives in mind. The first, to present readers with a general up to date of the political, economic, and social overview as well as an actualized context of the region, intending to show the needs and trends that individuals and civil society organizations have experienced in the past 20 years by underlining some main advances and shortcomings for LAC. This was done with the intent and idea to provide the understanding of the issues that require attention to be approached in a scholarly and interdisciplinary fashion with a Third sector studies lens. The second was to present a series of pertinent original articles placed into three distinct axis or categories that correspond distinctively to major trends identified by the guest editors of this special issue as social inclusion and development, human rights and public policies and governance of Third sector organizations. The article clearly introduces original material by fourteen specialists in Third sector research who provide results on an ample and wide range of studies and theoretical analysis of this particular region of the world.