Seasonal Patterns of Reproduction in Matlab,Bangladesh

In Bangladesh twice as many births occur in December as in July. This paper examines the seasonal patterns of the risks of conception, fetal loss and return of menses post partum in a longitudinal study of 2,300 women in 14 villages of Matlab, Bangladesh. Life tables were estimated for each month of entry event and then ‘period’ life tables were constructed with the risks for a given calendar month. Confirming the results of earlier studies, risks of resumption of menses were higher in November and December, regardless of time elapsed since the last birth. Similarly, there are increased conception risks in the period from February to April for all fecundable women. The time of lowest fetal loss and stillbirth risks is in the cool season, though this variation makes only a minor contribution to the overall seasonality of births. The pattern of fecundability estimated from data on coital frequency did not match the pattern estimated from reported conceptions; these discrepancies imply possible seasonal changes in other parameters of fecundability besides intercourse.     

Has the World Really Survived the Population Bomb? (Commentary on “How the World Survived the Population Bomb: Lessons From 50 Years of Extraordinary Demographic History”)

In his PAA presidential address and corresponding article in Demography, David Lam (Demography 48:1231–1262, 2011) documented the extraordinary progress of humankind—vis-à-vis poverty alleviation, increased schooling, and reductions in mortality and fertility—since 1960 and noted that he expects further improvements by 2050. However, although Lam briefly covered the problems of global warming and pollution, he did not address several other major environmental problems that are closely related to the rapid human population growth in recent decades and to the progress he described. This commentary highlights some of these problems to provide a more balanced perspective on the situation of the world. Specifically, humans currently are using resources at an unsustainable level. Groundwater depletion and overuse of river water are major problems on multiple continents. Fossil fuel resources and several minerals are being depleted. Other major problems include deforestation, with the annual forest clearing globally estimated to be an area the size of New York State; and species extinction, with rates estimated to be 100 to 1,000 times higher than background rates. Principles of ecological economics are presented that allow an integration of ecology and economic development and better potential for preservation of the world for future generations.     

Re-thinking a systemic approach to child welfare: A critical response to the framework for the assessment of children in need and their families

The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need was introduced by the Department of Health (England and Wales) in 2000. Offering guidance to social workers in child and family settings, it came as a watershed in three main ways. First, it emphasized the connection between child poverty and developmental delay. Second, it advocated a systemic approach to child welfare by drawing on a number of related theories, including Bronfenbrenner's (1979) model of human development. Third, it overturned a restricted preoccupation with child abuse that had dominated much of child and family social work in the past. These developments aside, the systemic basis of the framework is problematic because it fails to explain how power operates within society. Without this understanding, social workers will not be in a position to tackle the inequalities which the framework rightly targets. This paper seeks to remedy these deficits by drawing on the critical systems theory of Jürgen Habermas.     

Reproducibility of the Dose-Response Curve of Steroid-Induced Cleft Palate in Mice

Pregnant CD-1 mice were exposed to cortisone acetate at doses ranging from 20 to 100 mg/kg/ day on days 10-13 by oral and intramuscular routes. Multiple replicate assays were conducted under identical conditions to assess the reproducibility of the dose–response curve for cleft palate. The data were fitted to the probit, logistic, multistage or Armitage-Doll, and Weibull dose-response model separately for each route of exposure. The curves were then tested for parallel slopes (probit and logistic models) or coincidence of model parameters (multistage and Weibull models). The 19 replicate experiments had a wide range of slope estimates, wider for the oral than for the intramuscular experiments. For all models and both routes of exposure the null hypothesis of equality of slopes was rejected at a significant level of p < 0.001. For the intramuscular group of replicates, rejection of slope equality could in part be explained by not maintaining a standard dosing regime. The rejection of equivalence of dose-response curves from replicate studies showed that it is difficult to reproduce dose-response data of a single study within the limits defined by the dose-response model. This has important consequences for quantitative risk assessment, public health measures, or development of mechanistic theories which are typically based on a single animal bioassay.     

On the Use of the Cause Table in Handling Common Cause Events in System Analysis

A method is presented for applying the cause table concept to the problem of common cause events. This method can be regarded as an alternative to the approach in which these events are included directly into the system fault trees. In comparison with this approach, the cause table method offers the advantage of simple fault trees, convenient visibility of the contributions of causes, and the ability to truncate the numerical calculation conveniently by aggregating small terms into an "other" category. Generally speaking, the cause table method can be said to handle common causes at the level of arithmetic (i.e., numbers) rather than at the level of algebra (determining cutsets and frequency equations).     

How smart is smart? Theoretical and empirical considerations on implementing smart city objectives – a case study of Dutch railway station areas

The current widespread attention on the concept of smart city in both policy and practice has stimulated academic discussion regarding the scope and applicability of this concept. An important question is whether cities and regions are truly advanced in implementing the concept in their policies and practices relative to its conceptual elaborations in academia. The aim of this paper is to analyse this congruence between theory and practice in the context of the ongoing transformations of railway station areas in European urban regions. Based on in-depth interviewing using aspects of Q-methodology, this paper investigates whether and how smart city concepts are implemented by stakeholders in three station redevelopment projects in the Netherlands. The results show that the current implementation of smart city concepts in practice is varied but modest and not (yet) very advanced. Knowledge exchange and innovations are currently hampered by a lack of acceptance and know-how among stakeholders, as well as by institutional and competitive constraints. For instance, stakeholders stress that data privacy regulations should be well organized before further implementation can occur. Transparency about how and what data are used may create more willingness among users to assist in developing and accepting new data technologies. However, the technologies are not yet completely developed, and concerns about the “loss” of personal privacy are holding back the widespread and advanced use of data supplied technologies. Although stakeholders seem to be aware of the opportunities the smart city concept offers, for now, the widespread implementation of innovative and advanced smart city concepts remains in the future.     

Building resilience in a children's home: results from an action research project

This paper reports on the findings of an action research project aimed at building resilience in young people in a residential children's home. Daniel and Wassell's six domains for promoting resilience in young people were adopted as a conceptual framework to guide the residential social workers as they engaged in successive cycles of reflection and action. Two core areas were explored: (a) the approaches deemed to be helpful in building resilience; and (b) the background factors that enabled and constrained the social workers' interventions. The findings showed that the participants acted creatively to use resources and tools both within the system of State‐mandated parenting and the informal, meaning‐oriented world of the young people.     

Poverty in Nonmetropolitan America: Impacts of Industrial,Employment, and Family Structure Variables

Abstract Poverty is more extensive and more severe in nonmetropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas. Here we maintain that the extensive industrial and economic transformations occurring in rural areas have resulted in patterns contributing to these high poverty levels. These transformations, which include an increase in service‐sector employment, in many ways mirror the economic changes that have occurred in the inner city. We maintain that Wilson's model of the inner‐city underclass can be useful in understanding some poverty trends in nonmetropolitan areas. To test the Wilson model, we analyze 1990 census data. The data generally support the model and indicate that the industrial transformation of rural areas leads to changes in the gender structure of the labor force, and to a more unbalanced sex ratio. These changes, in turn, result in adjustments to family structure, including an increase in the percentage of female‐headed households. This process results in higher poverty levels.     

Three methods of estimating births averted nationally by contraception

This paper compares the performance of three methods applicable to national-level demographic data of estimating births averted as a consequence of contraceptive practice. Two are based on the relationship between the general fertility rate (GFR) or total fertility (TFR) and contraceptive prevalence, while the third uses Bongaarts' proximate determinants (PD) model. Estimates of the number of births averted and the percentage by which the number would have increased in the absence of contraception are consistent between the GFR-based and TFR-based methods, but in general lower than the estimates generated by the PD-based method, except for a few high-contraceptive-prevalence countries. For 156 countries and areas around the world the estimated number of births that would have occurred in a recent year in the absence of contraception--the average of the estimates of the three methods--is approximately 230 million, which is more than the estimated 129 million births that actually occurred.     

Use and Abuse of Weights in Multiple Objective Decision Support Models*

This paper examines difficulties with the use of weights to solve multiple objective decision support models: misunderstanding of the meaning of weights, issues of commensurability and, most important, the likely inability of weights alone to isolate the decision maker's most-preferred point. The constraint method is shown to be an attractive alternative.