Sexual practices and the duration of last heterosexual encounter: findings from the Australian longitudinal study of health and relationships

This study investigated the association between sexual practices and duration of a sexual encounter. Using data from a population-based computer-assisted telephone survey of 8,656 Australians aged 16 to 64 years, four distinct patterns of sexual practices among respondents were found: "basic sexual encounter" (involving mainly kissing, cuddling, stroking one's partner and being stroked, and vaginal intercourse), "basic sexual encounter plus oral sex," "all assessed sexual practices" (all sexual behaviors included in the survey), and "mainly vaginal intercourse" (characterized by lower levels of kissing, cuddling, and stroking). For both men and women, respondents classified in the basic sexual encounter plus oral sex, and all assessed sexual practices clusters reported significantly longer durations than those in the basic sexual encounter group, whereas respondents in the mainly vaginal intercourse cluster reported shorter durations. These differences were found even after allowing for demographic differences in sexual duration-specifically, age and partner type of the most recent opposite-sex partner. These findings add to the understanding of what typically happens in a sexual encounter. Overall, longer sexual encounters appear to be associated with the inclusion of the least common sexual practices-namely, oral sex and self-stimulation.     

Schedule flexibility in hourly jobs: unanticipated consequences and promising directions

This article considers the challenge of extending conventional models of flexibility to hourly jobs that are often structured quite differently than the salaried, professional positions for which flexibility options were originally designed. We argue that the assumptions of job rigidity and overwork motivating existing flexibility options may not be broadly applicable across jobs in the US labor market. We focus specifically on two types of flexibility: (1) working reduced hours and (2) varying work timing. We first review central aspects of the US business and policy contexts that inspire our concerns, and then draw on original analyses from US census data and several examples from our comparative case-study research to explain how conventional flexibility options do not always map well onto hourly jobs, and in certain instances may disadvantage workers by undermining their ability to earn an adequate living. We conclude with a discussion of alternative approaches to implementing flexibility in hourly jobs when hours are scarce and fluctuating rather than long and rigid.     

Exercise self-regulation among older women participating in a heart disease-management intervention

Using behavioral self-regulation processes may facilitate exercise among older women with heart disease. Data from women in a heart disease-management program (n = 658, mean 73 years), was used to explore associations among exercise self-regulation components (i.e., choosing to improve exercise and observing, judging, and reacting to one's behavior) and exercise capacity. General linear models showed that choosing exercise predicted higher exercise self-regulation scores postprogram and 8 months later. In turn, these scores predicted greater improvements in exercise capacity concurrently and 8 months later. Interaction analyses revealed that the effect of self-regulation on exercise capacity was stronger among women who chose to work on exercise.     

Spatial Inequality in Access to Food Assistance in Indiana

This project is an analysis of the spatial inequality that exists between rural and urban areas in access to food assistance agencies. I gathered the population of all food pantries and soup kitchens in 24 sample counties in Indiana and mapped the location of these agencies using geographic information system analysis. Using the population center of the census block group, I measured the distance from the population center to the nearest food assistance agency. If the closest agency was more than a mile away, the census block group was considered a food assistance desert, a concept I created that draws on the food desert measurement. I found that rural high‐poverty counties in my sample are the most likely to contain census block groups that are food assistance deserts, and urban high‐poverty counties are the least likely to contain food assistance deserts. From these findings, I determine that access to assistance agencies needs to be increased in rural areas, especially rural areas with high‐poverty rates.     

Beards and Bloomers: Flight Attendants,Grievances and Embodied Labour in the Canadian Airline Industry, 1960s–1980s

This paper examines union grievances dealing with the body, appearance and demeanour fought by the Canadian Air Line Flight Attendants Association, on behalf of its female and male members over a 30‐year period. Taking a historical, materialist‐feminist approach, we examine how workers used the grievance system to resist regulations they believed contradicted their right to dignified labour. We ask how and why bodily regulation differed for men and women, and how this changed over time, as the union merged its male and female job occupations. Using arbitrated grievances, union records and discussion of these issues in the mass media, we show how both feminism and service union activism encouraged flight attendant resistance to airlines’ efforts to regulate the appropriate body and attire for male and female workers. The use of labour law offered workers some respite from regulation, but did not facilitate fundamental questions about the power of management to ‘dress’ its workers.     

From Taboo to Tourist Industry: The Construction of Interracial Intimacies between Black Men and White Women in Colonial and Contemporary Times

This literature review examines the role emotions play in the construction and regulation of commercialized heterosexual interracial intimacies between White women and Black men, beginning with the strict regulations of the colonial era, and moving to the development of “romance tourism” in the contemporary era between Northern White women and Black men in the Caribbean. During colonialism, White men constructed a taboo against sexual relationships between White women and Black men in order to ensure their dominance over women in their own racial group and all “Other” men. In contemporary times, relationships between White women and Black men have moved from taboo and marginalized to touristic attraction, as more middle class White women from the United States head to the Caribbean (and at times Africa) in search of romance with local men, demonstrating the importance that emotions like desire have in (re)producing globalization.     

Hierarchische Planung für industrielle Logistikdienstleister

In this paper a planning and control system for logistics service providers (called LPS system) is developed under consideration of their specific flexibility potentials. Due to the complexity of such planning decisions (different planning levels and data quality of these levels as well as time horizons etc.), a multi-stage, hierarchical planning system is proposed which minimizes the relevant costs under consideration of the flexibilities. The advantage of a hierarchical planning concept consists in a limited planning complexity because otherwise data collection and solution development would lead to unsolvable problems in practice. The results of using LPS systems for a real-life case show a significant pay-off for logistics service providers due to the remarkable cost savings by applying a hierarchical planning concept.     

The use of video in research dissemination: Children as experts on their own family lives

The paper considers the use of video as a medium for the dissemination of research findings in the context of a study of children's concepts of care and their experience and contribution to family life. While the video medium was chosen to give a direct voice to children, it served other purposes. It served as an opportunity to feed back research results to children and to reflect on the ways researchers had interpreted data concerning their own views and experiences of family life. It also provided a public context in which children enacted competences namely in the articulation of expert opinions. The process of making a professional video in many respects mirrored the process of doing research.