A location analysis approach for military maintenance scheduling with geographically dispersed service areas

This research uses a two-stage maximal covering location problem (MCLP) model to develop Inter continental ballistic missile (ICBM) maintenance schedules for the US Air Force. Solutions are compared to actual missile maintenance activities accomplished at F. E. Warren Air Force Base (AFB), Wyoming in May 2005. Sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the impact of altering security response times and the number of security patrol areas on the quality of daily maintenance schedules and personnel usage. Results indicate marked improvement over traditional Air Force scheduling methods. In addition sensitivity analysis identifies the levels at which the quality and quantity of maintenance performance is impacted.     

Parental Speech at 6 Months Predicts Joint Attention at 12 Months

In a prospective longitudinal study of a representative community sample (N = 264), mothers' references to infants' mental states were coded during a topic‐sharing task in the home at 6 months. Joint attention behaviour was assessed in the laboratory at 12 months. Individual joint attention skills (gaze following, gaze alternating, and declarative pointing) were significantly inter‐correlated, with a single factor accounting for 68% of the variance. Mothers' references to infants' mental states at 6 months predicted infants' joint attention at 12 months. The association was not explained by sociodemographic characteristics of the family, the mother's mental state, or by the quantity or acoustic properties of her speech. However, variability in pitch of maternal speech was an independent predictor of the infants' later joint attention skills. Taken together, these findings suggest that mothers' infant‐directed speech fosters infants' attentive participation in topic‐sharing interactions, which in turn provide an important arena in which joint attention skills develop over the first year of life.     

Baseline Characteristics of Dependent Youth Who Have Been Commercially Sexually Exploited: Findings From a Specialized Treatment Program

ABSTRACT

Commercial sexual exploitation of children has emerged as a critical issue within child welfare, but little is currently known about this population or effective treatment approaches to address their unique needs. Children in foster care and runaways are reported to be vulnerable to exploitation because they frequently have unmet needs for family relationships, and they have had inadequate supervision and histories of trauma of which traffickers take advantage. The current article presents data on the demographic characteristics, trauma history, mental and behavioral health needs, physical health needs, and strengths collected on a sample of 87 commercially sexually exploited youth. These youth were served in a specialized treatment program in Miami-Dade County, Florida, for exploited youth involved with the child welfare system. Findings revealed that the youth in this study have high rates of previous sexual abuse (86% of the youth) and other traumatic experiences prior to their exploitation. Youth also exhibited considerable mental and behavioral health needs. Given that few programs emphasize the unique needs of children who have been sexually exploited, recommendations are offered for providing a continuum of specialized housing and treatment services to meet the needs of sexually exploited youth, based on the authors’ experiences working with this population.     

Impacts of urbanisation on the native avifauna of Perth, Western Australia

Urban development either eliminates, or severely fragments, native vegetation, and therefore alters the distribution and abundance of species that depend on it for habitat. We assessed the impact of urban development on bird communities at 121 sites in and around Perth, Western Australia. Based on data from community surveys, at least 83 % of 65 landbirds were found to be dependent, in some way, on the presence of native vegetation. For three groups of species defined by specific patterns of habitat use (bushland birds), there were sufficient data to show that species occurrences declined as the landscape changed from variegated to fragmented to relictual, according to the percentage of vegetation cover remaining. For three other groups (urban birds) species occurrences were either unrelated to the amount of vegetation cover, or increased as vegetation cover declined. In order to maximise the chances of retaining avian diversity when planning for broad-scale changes in land-use (i.e. clearing native vegetation for housing or industrial development), land planners should aim for a mosaic of variegated urban landscapes (>60 % vegetation retention) set amongst the fragmented and relictual urban landscapes (<60 % vegetation retention) that are characteristic of most cities and their suburbs. Management actions for conserving remnant biota within fragmented urban landscapes should concentrate on maintaining the integrity and quality of remnant native vegetation, and aim at building awareness among the general public of the conservation value of remnant native vegetation.     

Culture Clash and Second Home Ownership in the U.S. Northern Forest

Culture clash, or intracommunity tensions related to rapid in‐migration, between permanent and newcomer residents has been well studied in relation to environmental conservation in natural amenity communities; however, less is known about culture clash within communities characterized by high rates of second home ownership. We examine the causes of perceived culture clash in communities of the U.S. Northern Forest using mail survey data from four case studies within New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. In contrast to past culture clash research, we consider multiple dimensions of cultural capital that are independent of second home owners' rural or urban origins, and how key aspects of culture compare to economic standing and social interaction as drivers of perceived culture clash. Permanent residents perceive greater levels of culture clash than second home owners, net other measures, indicating that seasonal migration in and of itself encourages notions of otherness between residents. More frequent social interaction between resident groups helps to ameliorate intracommunity tensions. Cultural capital and social interaction measures were equally effective in explaining variation in perceived culture clash. Our findings indicate that the culture clash concept extends beyond scenarios of environmental conflict and applies to more general forms of intergroup tensions.     

Personality Typologies for Conservative Christians in Intensive Marital Therapy

In our study we used a two-step cluster analytic approach to identify personality typologies for conservative Christians seen in intensive marital therapy (N = 207). Sixteen Personality Factor Fifth Edition results revealed significant personality differences based on gender as well as five significantly different personality clusters: (1) abstract, deferential, trusting, and tolerates disorder; (2) reactive and deferential; (3) reserved, abstract, serious, grounded, traditional, and self-reliant; (4) grounded; and (5) socially bold, abstracted, forthright, and open to change. Conclusions are drawn related to how these results compare with other personality studies in the literature and how these differing personality types might fit together in Christian marriage dyads.     

Visual Expressions of Corporate Superiority: A Review of Jacqueline Hassinck’s Photographic Art Project and Booklet ‘The Table of Power’

Arguing that institutional rationality constitutes a meta‐institution upon which the specific institutions of the capitalist social order depend, this paper explores the possibility that it might be interrogated through the imaginary worlds created by readers in their responses to literary fiction. It does so by constructing a fictive encounter between the response aesthetics of Wolfgang Iser and two novels by Ian McEwan, Saturday and Enduring love, both of which feature institutional rationality as a core element of the ‘reality’ from which they are constructed.

The conclusions are somewhat negative. The problems posed to McEwan’s personifications of institutional rationality, despite the author’s reputation for arbitrary and sometimes macabre plotlines, are nowhere such as to call into question their understandings of the events which befall them. Nor, reading the novels as explorations of that very one‐dimensionality, are readers likely to be induced into a questioning of their own understandings of the world. This is because the novels in question, like most modern literary fiction, have been produced within a tradition which reaches back to the romantic/humanist reaction to institutional rationality, and this makes it possible for readers to distance themselves from characters in which it is exemplified. Far from producing a critical Imaginary, readers who respond in this manner are likely to externalize any interrogations of institutional rationality suggested by its fictional recontextualization and produce, instead, one in which the superiority of their own understandings of the world is confirmed. Whilst this may be opposed to institutional rationality in the routinised sense of an antagonistic accommodation, nothing new is added by the reading of the novels.

Whilst some of the problem may lie in the characterization of the principle protagonists in the selected novels – which is both flat and static – it is suggested that there is also a problem with the initial expectation of a critical imaginary created by Iser’s theory. The fact is that its creation depends on an assumed response on the part of the reader that has no evidential basis. This empirical deficit cannot be made good either by Iser’s earlier construct of an ‘implied reader’, nor by his later posit of self‐aware role‐taking as a fundamental anthropological need. Whilst one cannot rule out the possibility that some readers might respond as Iser supposes – even to the novels discussed in this paper – there is no particular reason to rule it in either.     

Domestic responsibilities and the employment of young Māori women

Abstract

While the employment rate of women has risen steadily in New Zealand over the last two decades, employment is still highly variable by ethnicity and age. One of the groups least engaged in paid employment is young Māori women (15–24 years). Their employment rates are much lower than their Pākehā counterparts (42 and 64%, respectively) and this is not offset by their greater involvement in education.

Although there is a general awareness of these differences, there has been no systematic enquiry into the possible reasons for the relatively low engagement of young Māori women in the formal economy. Using a full set of 178,776 unit records pertaining to all young Māori and Pākehā women from the 2001 Census of Population and Dwellings, we develop a number of novel measures of household composition as indicators of domestic responsibilities. These become arguments in a multivariate statistical model in which young women are modelled as choosing to participate in the formal paid workforce and/ or in education.

Our results show that young Māori women's choice of paid work is no more sensitive to her domestic responsibilities than those of young Pākehā women, but they do encounter these responsibilities far more often. The results have a number of important implications for Māori development.