Provision of a Wildfire Risk Map: Informing Residents in the Wildland Urban Interface

Wildfires in the wildland urban interface (WUI) are an increasing concern throughout the western United States and elsewhere. WUI communities continue to grow and thus increase the wildfire risk to human lives and property. Information such as a wildfire risk map can inform WUI residents of potential risks and may help to efficiently sort mitigation efforts. This study uses the survey-based contingent valuation (CV) method to examine annual household willingness to pay (WTP) for the provision of a wildfire risk map. Data were collected through a mail survey of the East Mountain WUI area in the State of New Mexico (USA). The integrated empirical approach includes a system of equations that involves joint estimation of WTP values, along with measures of a respondent's risk perception and risk mitigation behavior. The median estimated WTP is around U.S. $12 for the annual wildfire risk map, which covers at least the costs of producing and distributing available risk information. Further, providing a wildfire risk map can help address policy goals emphasizing information gathering and sharing among stakeholders to mitigate the effects of wildfires.     

Single-machine scheduling problems with the effects of learning and deterioration

In this paper, we consider the single-machine scheduling problems with the effects of learning and deterioration. By the effects of learning and deterioration, we mean that job processing times are defined by functions of their starting times and positions in the sequence. It is shown that even with the introduction of learning effect and deteriorating jobs to job processing times, single-machine makespan and sum of completion times (square) minimization problems remain polynomially solvable, respectively. But for the following objective functions: the weighted sum of completion times and the maximum lateness, this paper proves that the WSPT rule and the EDD rule can construct the optimal sequence under some special cases, respectively.     

Equal Processing Time Bicriteria Scheduling on Parallel Machines

We consider the problem of scheduling jobs on parallel, identical machines so as to minimize a primary and a secondary criteria. All the jobs are assumed to have identical processing times. Polynomial time algorithms, that generate optimal solutions, are presented for various combinations of primary and secondary criteria.     

Goodbye to the golden cage: Transformations in gender norms and family morality for working‐class women in occupations considered masculine in Mexico

This article seeks to contribute to the debate, within the feminist sociological theory and gender studies, about the possibility of ‘undoing gender’ in different social fields, mainly family relations. It is based on the premise that as women's objective dependency in the social structure decreases, the unstable character of what Bourdieu called ‘submissive dispositions’ becomes visible, and that women act reflectively, both to adapt to the challenges posed by their participation in different social fields and to gain personal liberties. The results of qualitative research, based on discussion groups and narrative interviews in which 109 women in working‐class sectors in Mexico City participated, are presented. Conflicts around breadwinning, housework distribution and personal liberties demonstrate a displacement of gender norms, parallel to efforts to maintain certain assurances regarding the traditional family model within the context of economic precariousness.     

Blurred lines: German freelance journalists with secondary employment in public relations

Nearly half of all German freelance journalists have a second job, mainly in public relations (PR). This work combination can be problematic, since journalists and PR practitioners have different responsibilities. Working as a journalist entails contributing to the public duties of journalism such as informing the public, offering multiple viewpoints, and representing societal interests; in contrast, PR practitioners must advocate solely in their clients’ interests. Conflicts can arise between these two roles if a freelance journalist is, for instance, required to critically investigate his or her PR client. However, there has been little research on freelance journalists with secondary work in PR. This study seeks to address this gap in research; therefore, we conducted a quantitative online survey among German “PR-journalists”. Our results show that nearly half of the participants take on secondary PR work for financial reasons; however, a similar number of journalists take on PR-work voluntarily, as they find the work interesting and enjoyable. Moreover, participants described their professional identity very similarly to that of German journalists in general. The PR-journalists surveyed were aware of the potential for conflicts of interest arising from their dual role. While such conflicts have been rarely encountered by those in the study sample, most participants assumed that other PR-journalists face such conflicts often, and expressed concern that these conflicts are not handled professionally.     

Good work? Sustainable work and sustainable development: a critical gender perspective from the Global North

ABSTRACT

Work has just recently been recognized as an important topic in the discourse of development. But often it stays unclear how work is related to issues of gender equality, an indispensable goal of sustainable development from its start. The article explores how gender and work is addressed in three approaches to work and sustainable development, which are currently discussed in the German language literature on this topic: in the current mainstream concept of the green economy and green jobs, in alternative concepts of degrowth or postgrowth societies and in eco-feminist concepts of caring societies. The critical discussion of these approaches leads to the argument that a fundamental reassessment and reorganization of the critical society-nature relationship and consequently a new conceptualization of sustainable work is needed.     

Identifying key influencers of Chinese PR practitioners’ strategic conflict management practice: A survey on contingent variables in Chinese context

As the first quantitative test of contingency theory in China using an online survey, this study examined the influence of each of the over 80 individual contingent variables as perceived by Chinese public relations practitioners. Individual characteristics as related to conflict management as well as political–social factors were identified as the most influential variables. By forming influential contingent factors and exploring the dimensionality of these factors using factor analysis, the results of this study suggested structural stability of the contingency matrix. Further, the effects of gender and types of organizations were tested on how Chinese practitioners perceive these influences in their public relations practice. The findings provide insights for both practitioners and researchers on how to strategically identify and combine the most influential factors in effective and ethical conflict management in China.     

医学生就业心理误区及调适

完成长达五年的医科学业,进入人才市场求职择业,是大学生们人生的重大转折。面对日益激烈的高校毕业生就业市场,莘莘学子容易走入心理误区,从而影响他们顺利就业。文章在问卷调查的基础上,对医学生的各种就业心理误区及其成因进行了剖析,并提出了帮助医学生走出心理误区的方法。     

Want Ads and Jobs for the Poor: A Glaring Mismatch

This study tested the claim that newspaper help-wanted sections list enough jobs for all who want work. We counted jobs listed in The Washington Post's help-wanted section, sorting them by skill, education, and experience to identify those available to the unemployed poor. Then we asked employers how many people had applied. Only 13% of all vacancies and only 8% of all full-time vacancies offered work for the unemployed poor. Although these menial jobs paid low wages and rarefy offered fringe benefits, they received an average of 21 applications and were quickly filled. The tight labor market for menial jobs portends great difficulty in securing paid employment for people now being evicted from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.     

新时期大学生就业压力分析及其措施

随着我国高等教育制度的改革,高校毕业生的数量逐年猛增,一定程度上增加了大学生的就业压力,其中最主要的原因是现行教育体制、高校人才培养模式、就业制度、大学生择业观与市场经济的不相适应,而不断推进教育改革,引导学生做好个人生涯职业规划,树立正确的择业观是解决当前问题的具体措施。