Economic Segregation,Race, and Homicide*

Objective. Prior research assessing the association between structured inequality and homicides has produced inconsistent findings, particularly in regard to establishing an association between economic disadvantage and black homicide rates. In this study, we employ a measure of the spatial distribution of income, Jargowksy's (1996) economic segregation measure, to assess overall and race‐specific homicide rates. Methods. Using cross‐sectional Census data and Supplemental Homicide Report data across 166 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, the present analysis uses negative binomial regression models to examine the association between economic segregation and homicide rates. Results. We find that both economic segregation and absolute deprivation (i.e., the overall extent of economic disadvantage) are robust predictors of black, white, and overall homicide rates. However, an alternative measure of economic segregation, a measure capturing poverty concentration, was not found to be a significant predictor of black homicide rates. Conclusion. We suggest that further studies should consider the extent of isolation across the income continuum, instead of focusing solely on poverty concentration.     

Health E-types?

This paper presents a simple typology of different forms of engagement with the Internet by families with children with various forms of chronic illness. The analysis is informed by ongoing debates about the nature, distribution and efficacy of reflexivity in contemporary social life, especially as it relates to the changing nature of information and knowledge. Drawing upon qualitative interviews with sixty-nine parents and sixteen children, the paper offers a nuanced account of the manner in which laypeople are engaging with e- health. It is an account that argues that any reading of the 'digital divide' that is based upon a simple homology between socio-structural location, reflexivity and differential ability to gain material purchase from information in the 'information age' is misjudged.     

Pretesting Experimental Instructions

Laboratory experiments, well established in sociology and social psychology, are alternate realities constructed for assessing derivations from theories. Experiments instantiate a theory's scope and initial conditions, and that information is usually delivered through instructions to participants. Because experiments often use video and computer technology and often test very precise predictions of new theories, we suggest developing objective means to assess information delivery. We illustrate these points by reference to a widely used standard experiment to assess theories of status processes. We first describe elements of good experimental design with their justifications. Next, we describe new techniques we have developed and illustrate their usefulness, showing results of a first use of the new techniques. While the assessment still relies somewhat on judgments, we find the technique useful and suggest further developments that might improve it for experimental and other research uses.     

Evaluating Public Commentary and Scientific Evidence Submitted in the Development of a Risk Assessment

Risk assessments form the methodological basis for many public policies. A key component of the risk assessment process is the public commentary period. We conducted a case study of the California environmental tobacco smoke risk assessment to describe the contribution of the commentary to the risk assessment process. We used content analysis to examine the sources, quantity, and quality of public commentary, as well as the agency's response to the commentary. We examined the type and quality of publications cited in the commentary. Most of the comments were from critics of the risk assessment (36/44, 80%), especially tobacco industry affiliates (30/36, 83%). Critics were more likely to evoke the science evaluation criteria of study quality, reliability, and validity than were supporters. More than half the critics argued that appropriate procedures were not followed (13/23, 57%). Of the 29 commentaries on the respiratory, carcinogenic, and cardiovascular chapters, four resulted in changes to the risk assessment, such as the addition of new references or reanalysis of data. Journal articles were the most frequently cited type of reference, cited by critics (1,022/1,526 of references, 67%) and supporters (39/60, 65%). However, journal articles submitted by critics had lower impact factors than those cited by supporters (2.6 vs. 3.6, p=0.03). Participation in the public input process was not balanced among all interested parties, although this may reflect different opportunities for stakeholders to participate in stages of the process. Critics and supporters of the risk assessment used different criteria to evaluate the scientific evidence, suggesting that they were socially constructing the evidence to support their positions.     

Democratic Deficit in the ACT: Is the Citizen Initiated Referendum a Solution?

Hopeful of bringing citizens closer to government decision‐making Gary Humphries recently presented the Community Referendum Bill 2002 to the ACT Legislative Assembly. The Citizen Initiated Referendum has many staunch advocates however this paper considers whether CIR is an appropriate solution to perceived democratic deficits in the ACT or anywhere else in Australia. The paper canvasses a number of pitfalls of CIR. These include: their potential to aggravate rather than ameliorate the democratic deficit; the problems associated with under‐deliberation; and potentially detrimental consequences for existing electoral arrangements. Specifically, CIR could engender voter fatigue, reduce the salience of elections and exacerbate levels of ungovernability and accountability, all of which are known to turn people off politics and voting.     

Stress Crossover in Newlywed Marriage: A Longitudinal and Dyadic Perspective

Studies of stress and marital quality often assess stress as an intrapersonal phenomenon, examining how spouses’ stress may influence their own relationship well‐being. Yet spouses’ stress also may influence partners’ relationship evaluations, a phenomenon referred to as stress crossover. This study examined stress crossover, and conditions that may facilitate crossover, in a sample of 169 newlywed couples over 3.5 years. A significant crossover effect emerged for husbands, which was moderated by couples’ observed conflict resolution skills. For wives, a significant stress interaction emerged, such that the influence of husbands’ stress on wives’ marital satisfaction depended on wives’ own stress levels. These findings highlight the importance of a dyadic approach when examining the role of stress in marriage.     

Improving robustness of next-hop routing

A weakness of next-hop routing is that following a link or router failure there may be no routes between some source-destination pairs, or packets may get stuck in a routing loop as the protocol operates to establish new routes. In this article, we address these weaknesses by describing mechanisms to choose alternate next hops. Our first contribution is to model the scenario as the following tree augmentation problem. Consider a mixed graph where some edges are directed and some undirected. The directed edges form a spanning tree pointing towards the common destination node. Each directed edge represents the unique next hop in the routing protocol. Our goal is to direct the undirected edges so that the resulting graph remains acyclic and the number of nodes with outdegree two or more is maximized. These nodes represent those with alternative next hops in their routing paths. We show that tree augmentation is NP-hard in general and present a simple \(\frac{1}{2}\)-approximation algorithm. We also study 3 special cases. We give exact polynomial-time algorithms for when the input spanning tree consists of exactly 2 directed paths or when the input graph has bounded treewidth. For planar graphs, we present a polynomial-time approximation scheme when the input tree is a breadth-first search tree. To the best of our knowledge, tree augmentation has not been previously studied.     

Moving toward virtual interdisciplinary teams and a multi-stakeholder approach in community-based return-to-work care

More efforts are needed to help stakeholders who are geographically isolated from one another become more collaborative in their approach to return-to-work (RTW). A review of the literature on team processes, and insights from the experiences of a federally funded Round Table Project on Safe and Timely Return to Function and Return to Work were used to inform strategies that might enhance collaboration among health professionals and stakeholders in injury and illness management and return-to-work. A case study serves to highlight the individual, identifies the problem and provides a potential solution at the broader service and system levels. It becomes evident that there is a need for a common language as well as policies that emphasize the importance of fostering awareness of interprofessional potentials and contributions of all stakeholders. Establishing shared goals, and building capacity for sustaining collaboration when multi-stakeholders do not function in the same physical location, but work virtually, might maximize effectiveness, efficiency and productivity.     

I'm going back to work: back injured clients' perceptions and experiences of their worker roles

This study aimed to elicit perceptions and experiences of facilitators and barriers that affected individuals who received back rehabilitation and their ability to resume their worker roles. Qualitative research methods were used in order to explore the research question. Participants were selected by means of simple random sampling and the data were collected by means of semi-structured focus groups. Some factors that were seen as facilitatory in maintaining the worker role of an individual who received back rehabilitation included injury management strategies, a positive work culture and having meaningful/satisfactory work experiences. Factors or barriers that prevented individuals from resuming their worker roles included physical and psychosocial stressors of the job, a lack of education by the employer and inadequate workplace policy. The results indicated that occupational therapists need to reassess their role within the wider context of the helping professions where they should become more involved in on-the-job evaluations, work placements and training of individuals who received back rehabilitation.