African Americans and municipal employment: A test of two perspectives

A survey of the extant literature addressing the factors that drive African American municipal employment offers two broad types of explanations: (1) Black political power and (2) institutional. A comparative assessment of the performance of each of these explanations fills a gap in the literature by illuminating the differences of these distinct perspectives when it comes to employment of Blacks in the public sector. Focusing on six Florida cities from 1960 to 2000, this study tests the predictive power of each of these explanations comparatively for four city departments. The findings indicate that the Black political power explanation performs better than the institutional explanation as a predictor of Black employment.     

Operating the production calculus: ordering a production system in the print industry

The topic of shop-floor work has been extensively examined within sociology. However, the organizational structures within which this work takes place have, in the most part, been taken as unexamined givens. Yet, their operation is also the shop-floor work of some people. This paper examines the way in which the stable organizational structures within which shop-floor work takes place are achieved. It is based upon a fieldwork investigation of a large commercial printer and focuses upon the collaborative work of those who are involved in scheduling the production of a job and their use of 'the production calculus' in planning the work of the site. The print industry is undergoing considerable technological change and scheduling technologies have been developed to automate this work. However, there has been little take up of these technologies and the paper also considers how the characteristics of operating the production calculus in practice may account for this.     

Mothers' Representations of Relationships with their Children: Relations with Parenting Behavior, Mother Characteristics, and Child Disability Status

Representational models of mother-child relationships were assessed through interview for 112 mothers of children ages 14 to 52 months. Fifty-eight (51.8%) children had a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, 19 (17%) were diagnosed with epilepsy, while the remaining 35 (31.3%) had no diagnosis. Relations were examined between dimensions of representations (compliance, achievement, secure base, enmeshment, worry, pain) and maternal age, education and stress; diagnostic group and child developmental status; and mother's behavior with the child in a problem-solving task. Mothers for whom boundary violations were represented were also less focused with child achievement and experienced more worry and pain in the relationship. More severe disability status was associated with less compliance and more pain in representations. Longer time since diagnosis was positively correlated with painful representations. Representations were unrelated to child gender, child age, maternal education or age, or parenting stress. With educational level controlled, mothers' support for the child and positive affect in a problem-solving task were negatively related to representations of worry about the child's future. Boundary concerns were predictive of mothers' pressuring behavior in the problem-solving task. Findings suggest representations are related to caregiving behavior apart from other maternal characteristics, and that mothers' representations reflect variability in their children.     

Prevalence of sarcopenia and its association with functional and nutritional status among male residents in a nursing home in Turkey

Introduction The Aging Male Symptoms' (AMS) scale was designed as a health-related quality of life (QoL) scale and standardized as a self-administered scale, first, to assess symptoms of aging (independent from those which are disease-related) between groups of males under different conditions, second, to evaluate the severity of symptoms/QoL over time, and, third, to measure changes pre- and post-androgen replacement therapy. The scale is in widespread use (17 languages currently available) and a recent review of methodological data documented good psychometric characteristics and ability as a clinical utility. This paper describes test characteristics of the AMS (positive and negative predictive values), taking two internationally established and published screening scales for androgen deficiency as the available standard.

Method A sample of 150 German males aged 40–69 years completed the AMS scale and two screening scales for androgen deficiency: the ADAM scale of Morley and colleagues and the screener of Smith and colleagues. The technique of a computer-assisted telephone interview was applied.

Result The comparison of the AMS with the two screening instruments for androgen deficiency showed sufficiently good compatibility despite conceptual differences. The AMS scale sufficiently predicted the results of the two screening instruments. A positive predictive value of 92% and a negative predictive value of 50% were found regarding the ADAM scale. The respective figures regarding Smith's screener were 65% and 49% for positive and negative predictive values, respectively.

Conclusion The AMS scale obviously measures a similar phenomenon as the two established and widely used screeners for androgen deficiency, although it was not developed as a screening instrument.     

Experienced crawlers avoid real and water drop-offs,even when they are walking

Crawling experience was recently linked to crawling and walking infants’ avoidance of falling on real and water cliffs, whereas walking experience had no effect on walkers’ avoidance behavior (Burnay et al., 2021). In the current study, the behavior of 25 infants was analyzed on the Real Cliff/Water Cliff apparatus using a longitudinal study design. Infants were tested as experienced crawlers (M_crawling = 2.93 months, SD = 1.07), novice walkers (M_walking = 0.68 months, SD = 0.29), and experienced walkers (M_walking = 4.90 months, SD = 0.92). Infants avoided falling on both cliffs when tested as experienced crawlers and their behavior was not different when tested as novice or experienced walkers. These findings confirmed the effect of crawling experience on crawling and walking infants’ avoidance of falls from heights and into water and the transfer of perceptual learning from crawling to walking postures.     

Deregulation and Liberalization of European Air Transport Markets

This paper is concerned with the remaining limitations to full interoperability within the European Union (EU) air transport market. Twenty years ago the European air transport network was fragmented, with airlines being treated as public entities designed to serve largely national interests. Considerable progress has been made in recent years, notably the three 'Packages' of EU legislation, to remove such barriers. The situation still differs in several ways from the almost totally free market that has been in place in the USA since the 1980s but, within the EU, fares and market entry are independent of national frontiers. Some barriers remain, largely legacy effects that are gradually being tidied up, but with some significant matters concerning routes outside of the EU and capacity constraints relating to the still largely publicly provided infrastructure still needing resolution.     

What's an Oscar worth?

This article examines the impact of an Academy Award nomination and award for best picture, best actor/actress, and best supporting actor/actress on a film's (i) market share of theaters, (ii) average revenue per screen, and (iii) its probability of survival. The model is estimated using weekly box-office data for a matched sample of nominated and non-nominated films. The results indicate substantial financial benefits for a nomination and award for best picture and best actor/actress. The structure of rewards is consistent with that found in two-stage, single-elimination tournaments.     

Sexual orientation and education politics: gay and lesbian representation in American schools

In what has sometimes provoked a "culture war" over America's schools, gays and lesbians have sought an expanded voice in the making of education policy. This paper explores the factors that promote gay representation on school boards, how this variable in turn influences gay representation in both administrative and teaching positions, and how all three forms of gay representation relate to school board policies regarding sexual orientation education. Three of the four models drawn from the social movement literature help to explain gay school board representation. In a manner similar to other minority groups, gay representation on school boards directly or indirectly promotes the appointment of gays to administrative and teaching positions and the adoption of policies that address the problems faced by gay and lesbian students in the public schools.