Midlife Career Transitions of Men Who Are Scientists and Engineers: A Narrative Study

This article summarizes the results of a qualitative study of career transition experiences of middle‐aged male scientists and engineers in the current socioeconomic environment in the United States. The study addresses the effects of the transitions from psychosocial perspectives. The authors selected participants from research organizations, industry, and academic fields. The authors used a narrative approach to collect data and analyzed the data using a grounded theory approach. The results suggest that the major factors that describe the dynamics in the career transition experiences are personhood, relationships, lifestyle, and workplace environment. The findings and their implications in developing coping skills and counseling strategies are discussed.     

Sibling Facilitation Mediates the Association Between Older and Younger Sibling Alcohol Use in Late Adolescence

Previous research has shown adolescent siblings are similar in their alcohol use and that this similarity is largely due to their shared environment. Using a genetically informed sibling sample (196 full‐biological pairs, 384 genetically unrelated pairs), we confirmed that the extent to which older siblings facilitate younger siblings' alcohol use (i.e., help them get alcohol) was one factor contributing to this shared environmental association. All analyses controlled for parent and peer influences. Findings were not moderated by sibling differences in genetic relatedness, gender, or ethnicity. Proximity in sibling age strengthened these associations, somewhat. Results were especially strong for sibling pairs where the older sibling was of legal drinking age. Implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.     

Complementarity and Leverage as Drivers of the Stock Market Reaction to Global Alliance Formation

Companies are increasingly using global alliances to accelerate their international expansion. This paper identifies the critical factors that influence how the stock market will react to news of this type of alliance. We argue that abnormal returns on such news depend on the degree to which partners fill gaps in their international networks. We also argue that these alliances should be designed to take advantage of these complementarities in a well-defined geographical area. An empirical analysis of the stock market reaction to 72 global alliances by listed Spanish companies confirmed the importance of complementarity and leverage in explaining abnormal returns, and the irrelevance of the region of origin of the partner.     

Incorporating Neighborhood Choice in a Model of Neighborhood Effects on Income

Studies of neighborhood effects often attempt to identify causal effects of neighborhood characteristics on individual outcomes, such as income, education, employment, and health. However, selection looms large in this line of research, and it has been argued that estimates of neighborhood effects are biased because people nonrandomly select into neighborhoods based on their preferences, income, and the availability of alternative housing. We propose a two-step framework to disentangle selection processes in the relationship between neighborhood deprivation and earnings. We model neighborhood selection using a conditional logit model, from which we derive correction terms. Driven by the recognition that most households prefer certain types of neighborhoods rather than specific areas, we employ a principle components analysis to reduce these terms into eight correction components. We use these to adjust parameter estimates from a model of subsequent neighborhood effects on individual income for the unequal probability that a household chooses to live in a particular type of neighborhood. We apply this technique to administrative data from the Netherlands. After we adjust for the differential sorting of households into certain types of neighborhoods, the effect of neighborhood income on individual income diminishes but remains significant. These results further emphasize that researchers need to be attuned to the role of selection bias when assessing the role of neighborhood effects on individual outcomes. Perhaps more importantly, the persistent effect of neighborhood deprivation on subsequent earnings suggests that neighborhood effects reflect more than the shared characteristics of neighborhood residents: place of residence partially determines economic well-being.     

Puerto Rico exodus: long-term economic headwinds prove stronger than Hurricane Maria

Population and Environment - In September 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico causing 102 billion worth of damages, demolishing the electric grid and severely affecting essential...     

Conceptual design pattern for ergonomic workplaces

In this paper, we analyzed two laboratories of liquid chromatography (LC), separation technique of mixtures and identification of its components, in order to identify projectual gaps relating to the environment and the working station. The methodology used was the ergonomic analysis with interactional and participatory techniques applied during the activity performance. This work incorporated and adapted the concept developed by Alexander (1979)--pattern languages--passing from architectural projects to workstations project and physical arrangement of the work environment. The adaptation of the concept resulted in a list of recommendations, requirements and concepts that have brought design solutions for the problematic aspects observed in the ergonomic analysis. The employed methodology, strongly supported in ergonomics principles, and in interactional and participatory techniques, contributed to achieve our gold that is what we now call Conceptual Standards. The patterns go beyond of a usual model of book a of ergonomics specification, once incorporating the viewpoint of the end user, it is also a set of best project practices and of project management in conception ergonomics.     

Some kids are left behind: The failure of a perspective,using critical race theory to expand the coverage in the sociology of youth sports

Sports are no longer simply extracurricular activities. For many children, sports are curricular, central to their identity, development, and peer and familial relationships. However, sport scholars and sociologists spend little time trying to learn and understand the huge growth in youth sports participation and even less attention to the role of race in youth sports. Sociology could offer much more, but suffers from what James McKee calls ( 1993 ) “the failure of a perspective” with regard to studying and understanding race, racism, and race relations. Critical Race Theory can help to extend the coverage of youth sports to include more input from Youth and of Scholars of Color. In this article, we review a current debate in the sociology of youth sports, which illustrates the gap in understanding the experiences of youth of color and Black athletes in particular. And, we provide solutions and ideas for future research.     

The rural arena: The diversity of protest in rural England

In the past 15–20 years, the rural areas of England have been used by a wide diversity of groups as the stage for their protest activities. Some have argued that this is due the rise of a rural social movement; this paper contends that rural areas have become both available and advantageous as the locale of protest through a range of interlocking factors. Firstly, that the rise of the network society has repositioned the societal importance of rural areas. Secondly, that the governance of rural areas has changed, allowing the social stake of rurality to be more widely contested. Thirdly, that opportunities to protest have shifted in favour of rural spaces, in terms of technology and policing. Through a discussion of recent changes in rural England and three case studies, The Land is Ours, Farmers for Action and the Organic Food and Farming Movement, this paper examines these changes and what they mean for the future of rural England.