A Comparison of Mental Health,Substance Use,and Sexual Risk Behaviors Between Rural and Non-Rural Transgender Persons

The aim of this study was to compare the mental health, substance use, and sexual risk behaviors of rural and non-rural transgender persons. Online banner advertisements were used to recruit 1,229 self-identified rural and non-rural transgender adults (18+ years) residing in the United States. Primary findings include significant differences in mental health between rural and non-rural transmen; relatively low levels of binge drinking across groups, although high levels of marijuana use; and high levels of unprotected sex among transwomen. The results confirm that mental and physical health services for transgender persons residing in rural areas are urgently needed.     

Business drivers not sector membership determine the most effective production planning and control; a novel approach to a perennial problem

This paper outlines research aimed at developing novel planning and scheduling reference models for industrial sectors where the MRPII paradigm is not appropriate. It outlines the process mapping approach adopted, the data capture method developed for the case study companies, the use of ARIS (Scheer's) enterprise modelling tool, and the first stages in the production of sector reference models.     

Managerial manpower planning— A systematic approach

At what ages should managers be recruited? Are the young managers receiving the right sort of experience at an early stage in their careers? What effect will the proposed merger have on the career prospects in the company.....? Questions such as these are likely to face every company from time to time, but finding the answers can be very difficult. The task may be made much easier through the application of some simple analytical techniques. These techniques are discussed here in the form of a case study.     

Family Development Cycle,Social Class,and Inequality in Rwanda1

Abstract The relative importance of social class differences (social differentiation) and stages of the family development cycle (demographic differentiation) on income inequalities in rural Rwanda are discussed and compared using survey data from 1,019 households. Both forms of differentiation are conceptualized as dynamic processes that intersect through their mutual inclusion of landholding—land being fundamental to our understanding of social class in the Third World and likewise closely tied to the timing of the developmental stages of the family cycle. Findings demonstrate that both forms of differentiation are vitally important, in roughly equal proportions, to household income generation in Rwanda. Emphasis is placed on the direct effects of the social class variables and on the indirect effects of the demographic differentiation process. The importance of the impact of contextual variables, such as land scarcity and the absence of alternative nonfarm employment, on income inequality are assessed.     

Moments of Inertia and Graph Separators

Graphs that arise from the finite element or finite difference methods often include geometric information such as the coordinates of the nodes of the graph. The geometric separator algorithm of Miller, Teng, Thurston, and Vavasis uses some of the available geometric information to find small node separators of graphs. The algorithm utilizes a random sampling technique based on the uniform distribution to find a good separator. We show that sampling from an elliptic distribution based on the inertia matrix of the graph can significantly improve the quality of the separator. More generally, given a cost function f on the unit d-sphere Ud, we can define an elliptic distribution based on the second moments of f. The expectation of f with respect to the elliptic distribution is less than or equal to the expectation with respect to the uniform distribution, with equality only in degenerate cases. We also demonstrate experimentally that the benefit gained by the use of the additional geometric information is significant. Some previous algorithms have used the moments of inertia heuristically, and suffer from extremely poor worst case performance. This is the first result, to our knowledge, that incorporates the moments of inertia into a provably good strategy.     

The Political Attitudes of Australian Voters and Candidates

Modern theories of political representation assume that there will be little congruence between the views of political elites and the voters they govern. This paper uses survey data collected among candidates and voters at the 1987 Australian federal election to examine the extent of elite-mass differences on a range of 33 issues. The results show that Labor candidates and Labor voters are more likely to disagree on political issues, while Liberal-National candidates and voters are more likely to agree. Candidates of all parties are more liberal on issues such as Asian immigration, law enforcement and the protection of the environment, compared to their voters, while Senate candidates are more liberal than House of Representatives candidates. Finally, as other studies have found, candidates with constituency responsibilities, in this case those standing for the House of Representatives and incumbents, are more likely to be closer to the views of their party's voters than Senate and non-incumbent candidates.     

The Multicultural Welfare State: International Experience and North American Narratives

Contemporary debates are increasingly pessimistic about the impact of ethnic diversity on support for the welfare state. A growing number of analysts argue that greater ethnic diversity in Western democracies is weakening public support for redistribution, and that this underlying tension is exacerbated by the adoption of robust multiculturalism policies. The purpose of this essay is to summarize early findings from several studies that bear on the questions at the heart of such debates. These studies analyse the implications of immigration and multiculturalism policies for the welfare state across OECD countries, and also focus more closely on the experience of two distinctively multicultural countries, the United States and Canada. The evidence points to more complex relationships than often assumed. OECD countries with large foreign‐born populations have not had more difficulty in sustaining their welfare states than other countries. The extent of change does seem to matter, however, as countries in which immigrant communities grew rapidly between 1970 and the late 1990s did experience lower rates of growth in social spending. But despite the warnings of some critics, robust multiculturalism policies do not systematically exacerbate this tension. Moreover, the United States and Canada reflect different patterns. In the US racial diversity does weaken support for redistribution; but Canadian experience suggests that immigration, multiculturalism policies and redistribution can represent a stable political equilibrium. These contrasting narratives from North America stand as a warning against premature conclusions based on the US experience alone. There is no inevitability at work, and policy choices do seem to matter.     

Lawyers in the legislature: The case of Ohio

Do lawyer-legislators differ significantly from their non-lawyer colleagues? This question is significant given the large number of lawyers occupying state and federal legislatures. The predominant theory of “professional convergence” holds that lawyer-legislators and non-lawyer-legislators exhibit no significant differences. In examining the Ohio General Assembly, this study finds that lawyers tend to be more ambitious, and think of their legislative roles differently than their non-lawyer associates. The study concludes that convergence theory needs to be revised to become attuned to present day realities of law and politics.     

Parenthood and Marital Satisfaction: A Meta‐Analytic Review

This meta‐analysis finds that parents report lower marital satisfaction compared with nonparents (d=?.19, r=?.10). There is also a significant negative correlation between marital satisfaction and number of children (d=?.13, r=?.06). The difference in marital satisfaction is most pronounced among mothers of infants (38% of mothers of infants have high marital satisfaction, compared with 62% of childless women). For men, the effect remains similar across ages of children. The effect of parenthood on marital satisfaction is more negative among high socioeconomic groups, younger birth cohorts, and in more recent years. The data suggest that marital satisfaction decreases after the birth of a child due to role conflicts and restriction of freedom.