TEEAL and AGORA: Improving Access to Agricultural Journals in Low-Income Countries

The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) and Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) are programs that will provide low-income countries with access to agricultural journal literature that advances their agricultural research and education objectives. Developed by Cornell University's Mann Library and launched in 1999, TEEAL is a self-contained agricultural research library with full-text articles and graphics of 140 major journals related to agriculture from 1993 through 2003, stored and indexed on over 400 CD-ROMs. In mid-2005, most of the collection also became available for use over local area networks. Launched in October 2003, AGORA is an Internet-based journal delivery system led by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with Mann Library as a principal partner. AGORA offers almost 800 journals from twenty-seven international publishers to 113 low-income countries and territories for free or a nominal fee.     

Married women's retirement behavior

In this paper we examine the economic and family determinants of married women's retirement behavior. A life cycle model of wives' retirement decisions is tested empirically using data on working married women from the Longitudinal Retirement History Survey. This exploratory analysis indicates that family considerations are more important in wives' retirement decisions than own economic opportunities. These findings contrast with those obtained previously for male workers and if substantiated by other research could have important implications for policy questions regarding pension and Social Security reform.This research was funded by the 1986–7 Small Grants Program sponsored by the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Institute for Research on Poverty, the Cornell Institute of Social and Economic Research, and the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Excellent programming assistance was provided by Vivian Fields. We are grateful to Glen Cain and two anonymous referees for useful comments. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not those of the above-named persons or institutions.     

Abortion Underreporting in Add Health: Findings and Implications

Population Research and Policy Review - Well-documented, large-scale abortion underreporting on U.S. surveys raises questions about the use of abortion self-reports for statistical inference. This...     

What are Research Expectations? A Comparative Study of Different Academic Disciplines

This paper is intended to assist professors, administrators, librarians and other members of university level committees that must consider research expectations and research quality in academic fields that they lack. While this is not a problem for field experts, it is a difficulty when people are asked to make decisions in areas of study other than their own. This is commonly the case for senior university professors, librarians and administrators in regards to university wide decisions. The paper investigates this gap, through a study of 27 academic fields in 348 highly regarded universities. We find that there are almost always statistically significant differences in activity between academic fields, regardless of the metric one considers. However, it is possible to understand these differences by comparing the distribution of a known academic field to that of a field that one is not familiar with. Tables and information are provided to assist in the comparison of different fields of study on metrics such as: departmental publications and researcher level metrics of publications, citations, H-index, and total number of co-authors. The information can also be used to support decisions associated with promotion to senior posts such as endowed chairs and professorships. Information regarding specific universities and researchers are included in the data supplement.     

Hunters and healers: social change and cultural conflict in rural Maine

This is a story of two people with different philosophies concerning use of land and attitudes towards animals. What makes their situation unique is that they share abutting property and live on the same road in a small village in Maine. Phil owns the house and land on which he grew up and has always hunted the surrounding land, including the property more recently acquired by Marie. Marie emigrated from Massachusetts with the intention to create a sanctuary for animals. Their polarized views have resulted in strife between them and illustrate the conflict between hunters and non-hunters in Maine.     

Using clinical signs of neglect to identify elder neglect cases

Elder neglect is the one of the most pervasive forms of mistreatment, and often the only place outside of the individual’s residence to identify and assist neglected individuals is in a medical setting. However, elder neglect cases treated in hospitals do not present with a single diagnosis or clinical sign, but rather involve a complex constellation of clinical signs. Currently, there is a lack of comprehensive guidelines on which clinical signs to use in screening tools for neglect among patients treated in hospitals. Using the DELPHI method, a group of experts developed and tested a scale to be used as a pre-screener that conceptually could be integrated into electronic health record systems so that it could identify potential neglect cases in an automated manner. By applying the scale as a pre-screener for neglect, the tool would reduce the pool of at-risk patients who would benefit from in-depth screening for elder neglect by 95%.     

The Development of Peer Interaction in Infancy: Exploring the Dyadic Processes

Peer interaction is an important component of children's social repertoires that is associated with a variety of developmental outcomes and life skills. The present study provides an in‐depth study of early dyadic peer behaviors during the infancy period, during which social competence with peers is first being developed. Results from variable‐centered analyses highlight the effectiveness of behaviors, such as offering objects to peers, and point to the importance of the social context set by a peer's prior social behavior and processes for eliciting peer responses. Findings from person‐centered analyses reveal marked individual differences in the processes through which infants are successful in eliciting responses from their peers, illustrating the presence of multiple pathways to achieving social competence with peers.     

The Role of Community in Disaster Response: Conceptual Models

We focus on the role that community plays in the continuum of disaster preparedness, response and recovery, and we explore where community fits in conceptual frameworks concerning disaster decision-making. We offer an overview of models developed in the literature as well as insights drawn from research related to Hurricane Katrina. Each model illustrates some aspect of the spectrum of disaster preparedness and recovery, beginning with risk perception and vulnerability assessments, and proceeding to notions of resiliency and capacity building. Concepts like social resilience are related to theories of “social capital,” which stress the importance of social networks, reciprocity, and interpersonal trust. These allow individuals and groups to accomplish greater things than they could by their isolated efforts. We trace two contrasting notions of community to Tocqueville. On the one hand, community is simply an aggregation of individual persons, that is, a population. As individuals, they have only limited capacity to act effectively or make decisions for themselves, and they are strongly subject to administrative decisions that authorities impose on them. On the other hand, community is an autonomous actor, with its own interests, preferences, resources, and capabilities. This definition of community has also been embraced by community-based participatory researchers and has been thought to offer an approach that is more active and advocacy oriented. We conclude with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of community in disaster response and in disaster research.     

Examining coping strategies used by Spanish female social work students: evidence for the importance of social problem-solving abilities

The present study examined the role of social problem-solving abilities in the coping strategies used by 310 female social work students from Spain. Results from comparative analyses of the coping strategies, used by students to deal with stressful situations, indicated the greater use of functional forms of coping (eg problem solving and cognitive restructuring), compared to dysfunctional forms of coping (eg problem avoidance and wishful thinking). Moreover, results from regression analyses indicated that constructive social problem-solving abilities, namely, positive problem orientation and rational problem solving, predicted the use of functional coping strategies (eg problem solving, cognitive restructuring, and express emotions). Alternatively, one damaging social problem-solving ability, namely, negative problem orientation, predicted the use of dysfunctional coping strategies (eg problem avoidance, wishful thinking, self criticism, and social withdrawal). Taken together, these findings provide an important first step for understanding what and how social problem-solving abilities might inform how social work students cope with stressful situations as they arise. Some implications for social work education and training are discussed.