Squashed dreams and rare breeds: ableism and the arbiters of life and death

The week beginning 29 June 2015 is not just historic for the closure of the Independent Living Fund in the United Kingdom, but for me was the week they decided that my life is not worth investing in; they being NHS England, NICE and, with them, the Department of Health. They chose not to support the enzyme replacement therapy that has been not only keeping me alive, but giving me a quality of life – enabling me to return to finish my Disability Studies PhD exploring how Christian leaders explain disability, where ethics have become the main topic, and to rebuild my career – or so I thought.     

The Impact of Neighboring on Changes in Sense of Community Over Time: A Latent Transition Analysis

Sense of community (SOC) is associated with the quality of community life and the building of social capital. While its linkage to informal social behavior, such as neighboring, is inherent in discussions regarding theory, empirical evidence remains scarce. Moreover, the degree to which neighboring behavior influences SOC over time is largely unknown. Using a latent transition analysis, the effect of neighboring on SOC was investigated over a 5-year span from 2006 to 2011 among a sample of adults (n?=?165) in Arizona. Initially, a latent class analysis identified two SOC subgroups: Low SOC and High SOC. The likelihood of shifts in SOC class membership over 5 years was generally stable, with most individuals staying in the same group (82.3% Low SOC; 92.4% High SOC). Neighboring behavior and socio-demographic covariates impacted the likelihood that individuals changed classes, with 25.3% of Low SOC individuals transitioning to High SOC in 2011 and 55.4% of High SOC individuals moving to Low SOC in 2011. Specifically, having an income greater than $60,000 and visiting with neighbors lessened the likelihood of being in the Low SOC class in 2006; and length of residence and exchanging favors with neighbors lessened the likelihood of being in the Low SOC class in 2011. These findings have implications for both community design and community development practice. Design and development interventions that promote greater social interaction may help build and sustain SOC over time.

     

Foreign-born and native-born migration in the U.S.: evidence from linked IRS administrative and census survey records

Journal of Population Research - This paper details efforts to link administrative records from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to American Community Survey (ACS) and 2010 Census microdata for...     

Dairy Farm Survival in a Metropolitan Area: Dutchess County,New York, 1984–19901

Abstract The effect of nonfarm development on dairy farm survival in New York's highly developed lower Hudson Valley is analyzed. The major hypothesis is that significant losses of dairy farms during this period are the result of urban development pressures. Contrary to this hypothesis, however, the bivariate and multivariate analyses of data from a mail survey of all commercial dairy operators in Dutchess County as of 1984 and industry survivors, exiters, and new entrants through 1990 demonstrate that nonfarm development has a negligible effect on dairy farm survival; rather, survival is significantly affected by age of operator and by family disruption. Thus, demographic and family process factors are found to be more powerful determinants of dairy farm survival in this particular metropolitan context.     

美学方法论和艺术本质观--从东、西方古典美学看艺术的审美本质

本文从美学方法论的角度 ,以对东西方古典美学艺术本质观的论述为基础 ,结合当前的文艺实践 ,对艺术本质给予了现时代的规定。本文认为 ,西方古典美学和艺术思想的基本特征 ,是以纯哲学和社会学的方法研究艺术 ,把艺术规定为是一种特殊的认识活动 ,将摹拟、再现、认识看作是艺术的本质特征 ;而中国古典美学则主要是以伦理学与哲学的辩证统一、艺术哲学和艺术心理学相统一的方法观察和研究艺术 ,把情感看作艺术的特质 ,将抒情、写意规定为是艺术的基本特征。东西方古典美学各自在艺术本质问题上的合理性和片面性 ,以及当今东西方艺术发展的趋势 ,说明对艺术本质的思考和探求 ,既不能单纯执着于表现主义 ,也不能固守于理智主义 ,而是应该扬弃其各自的片面性 ,对东西方古典美学的艺术本质观 ,在现时代的规定下进行辩证的综合     

Still-births among the offspring of male radiation workers at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant: detailed results and statistical aspects

Summary. This study investigates whether there was evidence of increasing risk of still-birth with increasing paternal exposure to ionizing radiation received during employment at the Sellafield nuclear installation before the child was conceived. A significant positive association is found between the total paternal preconceptional exposure to external ionizing radiation and the risk of still-birth (after adjustment for year of birth, social class, birth order and paternal age, odds ratio at 100 mSv 1.24 (95% confidence interval 1.04–1.45)). A summary of the principal scientific findings of this study has been published in the Lancet . This paper describes in detail the statistical methods that were used in the investigation and presents the results in full.     

Estimation of location extremes within general families of scale mixtures

In this paper, we study the estimation of the minimum and maximum location parameters, respectively, representing the minimum guaranteed lifetime of series and parallel systems of components, within a general class of scale mixtures. The conditional or underlying distribution has only the primary restriction of being a location-scale family with positive support. The mixing distribution is also quite general in that we only assume that it has positive support and finite second moment. For demonstrative purposes several special cases are highlighted such as the gamma, inverse-Gaussian, and discrete mixture. Various estimators, including bootstrap bias corrected estimators, are compared with respect to both mean-squared-error and Pitman's measure of closeness.     

人均耕地资源对农业集约经营的影响

从农业生产的历史发展趋势、定性和实证等 3个方面分析 ,认为人均耕地资源是影响农业集约经营的重要因素 ,人均耕地资源的减少在一定条件下将促进农业集约经营水平的提高。