Bomb

Abstract

The University of Tennessee Libraries Career Employee Program (CEP) was inaugurated in 1999 to provide career staff with opportunities for educational and service enrichment and to financially reward support staff who meet the program requirements. This article describes the experiences of the participants, a review board member, and a supervisor, all of whom work in serials areas of the University of Tennessee Libraries. The libraries' human resources officer explains the origin of the CEP and the process of making it an ongoing program.     

Relationship education among incarcerated populations

Abstract

Incarceration represents a significant shift in the life course trajectories of the nearly seven million inmates in the American criminal justice system and their families and can have far-reaching effects on intimate and family relationships. Prior research has highlighted the relationship difficulties that inmates face while incarcerated and upon their release. Using a life course perspective, we review the disruptive impact of incarceration on relationships. We examine how relationship education targeted to incarcerated individuals may be an opportunity to provide knowledge and skills that help improve and maintain healthy relationships both during incarceration and upon release. Relationship education courses have consistently been shown to be effective within a variety of settings, and preliminary studies indicate that they may be effective within incarcerated populations as well.     

An agent-based random-utility-maximization model to generate social networks with transitivity in geographic space

Stochastic actor-based approaches receive increasing interest in the generation of social networks for simulation in time and space. Existing models however cannot be readily integrated in agent-based models that assume random-utility-maximizing behavior of agents. We propose an agent-based model to generate social networks explicitly in geographic space which is formulated in the random-utility-maximizing (RUM) framework. The proposed model consists of a friendship formation mechanism and a component to simulate social encounters in a population. We show how transitivity can be incorporated in both components and how the model can be estimated based on data of personal networks using likelihood estimation. In an application to the Swiss context, we demonstrate the estimation and ability of the model to reproduce relevant characteristics of networks, such as geographic proximity, attribute similarity (homophily), size of personal networks (degree distribution) and clustering (transitivity). We conclude that the proposed social-network model fits seamlessly in existing large-scale micro-simulation systems which assume RUM behavior of agents.     

Social influences on use of cigarettes,e-cigarettes,and hookah by college students

ABSTRACT

Objectives: (1) Compare social norms and perceived peer use between college student cigarette, e-cigarette, and/or hookah users and nonusers; and (2) determine variables associated with social influences. Participants: Undergraduate students attending a large university in the Southeast United States (N = 511). Methods: An April 2013 online survey assessed use of 3 types of tobacco, social norms, perception of peer use, number of smokers in life, exposure to secondhand smoke, and demographic characteristics. Results: Participants indicated greater acceptance of emerging tobacco products than for cigarettes and consistently overestimated the percent of peers who use various tobacco products. Males and current users had higher social norm scores for all 3 forms of tobacco. Conclusion: To counter marketing of alternative tobacco products, education about the dangers of their use needs to be implemented across college campuses as part of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy that also includes tobacco-free campus policies.     

The UWE Student Occupation

This profile looks at how students at the University of the West of England (UWE) undertook direct action in protest against the British government's cuts to educational funding in the higher education sector. Situating the in the broader context of the struggle against cuts to education, the authors observed the organisation of students, interviewing them and holding focus groups to get a full picture of the growth of the movement and the UWE occupation. The profile considers the motivations of participants, the impact participation had on individuals and explains the effectiveness of the occupation in a number of aspects. The research found that the occupation played an important role in the broader anti-cuts movement, in publicising the cuts agenda and mobilising resistance against it.     

Confronting abusers: the opinions of clinicians and survivors

Confrontation of an abuser is often regarded as a powerful process in clinical work with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. This paper explores direct and symbolic forms of survivors confronting their abusers via a review of the current literature and the self-report of 12 female survivors, post-therapy. Six of the survivors had chosen to directly confront their abusers and six had not. Their experiences and opinions are presented together with a discussion of important issues within this area and the need for further research.