Higher Education's Role in the Dialogue on Race

The university is a logical locus for discussionof the role race has played in our society. Perhaps noAmerican institution is more committed to free andopen dialogue than the university. Higher educationcan thus provide a context for the recognition ofissues as well as a forum for the resolution ofinitiatives. To date, however, university attempts atdiversity training have often imbued recipients withself-consciousness, usurping the unity implicit in theword `university' and evoking an even greater tendencytoward separatism. The university's traditional questfor truth has been subverted by a subtle and pervasivesense that some views are more correct than others,that openness is dangerous, and that some issues mighteven be taboo. At best, such an approach to diversityleads to a fragile stalemate among self-containedenclaves. By championing President Clinton's call fora dialogue on race, the university can restore itselfas an institution that puts honesty above all else.Not only is there a resonant rationale for theuniversity's central responsibility in this debate,but there is also a pedagogical means by which itsrole can be realized. This paper proposes a model forethnic dialogue relevant to either a text-based orissues-based class. Borrowing from pedagogy developedin professional schools, we believe that the tenets ofthe `case method' can create a climate conducive tothe substantive scrutiny of race, ethnicity, andprejudice in general. We argue that this dialogueshould not be a mere add-on to college life, butintegrated into existing curricula in the socialsciences, literature, and history. Heated debate canthen occur without anger, and race/ethnicity can bediscussed without fear of recrimination.Paradoxically, the very expression of ethnicity may bethe catalyst that eventually moves multiculturalismtoward interculturalism – where differences are nolonger articulated, measurable or even discernible.     

Sequence Independent Lifting in Mixed Integer Programming

We investigate lifting, i.e., the process of taking a valid inequality for a polyhedron and extending it to a valid inequality in a higher dimensional space. Lifting is usually applied sequentially, that is, variables in a set are lifted one after the other. This may be computationally unattractive since it involves the solution of an optimization problem to compute a lifting coefficient for each variable. To relieve this computational burden, we study sequence independent lifting, which only involves the solution of one optimization problem. We show that if a certain lifting function is superadditive, then the lifting coefficients are independent of the lifting sequence. We introduce the idea of valid superadditive lifting functions to obtain good aproximations to maximum lifting. We apply these results to strengthen Balas' lifting theorem for cover inequalities and to produce lifted flow cover inequalities for a single node flow problem.     

Insecurity related to working life by age groups in Finland and Estonia in the 1990s

This article compares the reasons for insecurity related to working life in different age groups in Finland and Estonia, and the coping strategies evident in the two countries. Insecurity related to working life is more common in Finland than in Estonia. The differences between the two countries are more distinct with respect to experienced work-related insecurity than to an experienced lack of well-being linked to work. This shows that feelings of insecurity are affected not only by external factors, but also by internal factors linked to a person's earlier development. The most common causes of insecurity for people of working age are unemployment, mental strain and difficulties in interpersonal relationships at the work place. The individual's willingness to find means of coping at work is more clearly evident in Estonia than in Finland. People of working age in Finland are more likely to attempt to change the external conditions of work than are their Estonian counterparts.     

Alcohol-Related Problems Seen at the Student Health Services

Abstract

The number and types of alcohol-related problems seen by medical, nursing, and mental health professionals at the University of Massachusetts Health Services has been assessed since 1975 as part of a Demonstration Alcohol Education Project.

Medical outpatient clinic alcohol-related contacts using encounter forms completed on every outpatient visit during 1975 and 1976 revealed that 0.08% of approximately 92,500 visits annually were alcohol related, including 0.03% for chronic problems and 0.05% for acute problems (mainly contusions, lacerations, and fractures). Week-long contact surveys conducted in November 1976, and April 1977 recorded a much higher proportion of alcohol-related problems for over 60% of about 2,200 contacts each week. In November 1976, 1.4% of 1,346 reported visits were alcohol related, including 8.0% of contacts which occurred on weekends. In April 1977 2.7% of 1,582 reported visits were alcohol related, including 17.0% of weekend visits. No chronic alcohol problems were reported either week, and most of the acute problems involved traumatic injuries, such as contusions, lacerations, and sprains.

Mental health outpatient clinic alcohol-related contacts self-reported by students at the initial visit revealed that 5.8% of 1,179 initial visits between January 1976, and June 1977 were alcohol related, most involving their own alcohol use. Week-long contact surveys involving all 256 contacts during November 1976 and 192 contacts during April 1977 showed that 13.7% of contacts were for alcohol-related problems, over half due to alcohol abuse by someone else, such as a parent or boy/girlfriend.

The findings suggest that a significant proportion of students seen by student health services have acute rather than chronic alcohol-related problems, especially acute traumatic injuries and relationship problems.     

Mind the gap! translating practice problems into research questions in an evaluation of a welfare programme

In the current environment of constrained budgets and growing pressure for an empirically based practice, the need for bridging the gap between practice and research in social work is challenged. The purpose of this article is to illustrate how - in a collaborative partnership between practitioners and researchers - problems experienced by practitioners have been formulated as research questions, outcomes, and measurable indicators in an evaluation of a new intervention programme addressing social assistance.     

Modeling heavy-tailed,skewed and peaked uncertainty phenomena with bounded support

A prevalence of heavy-tailed, peaked and skewed uncertainty phenomena have been cited in literature dealing with economic, physics, and engineering data. This fact has invigorated the search for continuous distributions of this nature. In this paper we shall generalize the two-sided framework presented in Kotz and van Dorp (Beyond beta: other continuous families of distributions with bounded support and applications. World Scientific Press, Singapore, 2004) for the construction of families of distributions with bounded support via a mixture technique utilizing two generating densities instead of one. The family of Elevated Two-Sided Power (ETSP) distributions is studied as an instance of this generalized framework. Through a moment ratio diagram comparison, we demonstrate that the ETSP family allows for a remarkable flexibility when modeling heavy-tailed and peaked, but skewed, uncertainty phenomena. We shall demonstrate its applicability via an illustrative example utilizing 2008 US income data.     

Patients' Evaluations of the Mental Health Service at a Health Sciences Campus

Abstract

Health science students, along with the health professionals they hope to become, are at increased risk for certain occupational injuries and illnesses. One of these risks is occupational exposure to blood-borne pathogens, such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis, which may result in severe illnesses or even death. Two case studies demonstrate postexposure care of exposed individuals at the University of Texas Medical Branch Student Health Services before and after policy changes and prevention strategies were strengthened in response to exposure incidents.     

Getting Out and About: The Relationship Between Urban Form and Senior Travel Patterns

As the overall U.S. population expands outward from the central city and core suburbs and as people age in place, more seniors will reside in suburban and exurban locations. This research seeks to determine whether older adults who live in areas with differing urban forms experience travel pattern variations under controls for other factors related to travel. We analyzed data from a telephone survey of a random sample of seniors aged 75 years and older and we employed a unique approach for establishing the urban form of their residential settings. The results show that urban form does influence travel patterns, including the number of trips and transportation mode, and suggest that the construction of compact, mixed-use communities where today's older adults can age in place may be part of the solution to addressing the mobility needs of our aging population.