bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Midlife Impacts of Adolescent Parenthood
Authors: Lounds Taylor Julie
Published: January 2009

The present study examined the midlife outcomes of 548 adults who became parents before the age of 20. Participants were from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) and were followed prospectively from age 18 until age 53. Their life-course development was compared to sample members who gave birth at the mean age for the WLS. Midlife outcomes were assessed in five domains: educational and occupational attainment, family formation, social participation and support, physical health, and psychological health. Compared to delayed child bearers, early child bearers completed less schooling and, in midlife, had less prestigious occupations, more unstable marriages, and were less physically healthy. Differences were not evident in appraisals of job and marital satisfaction, social support, and psychological health, revealing areas of positive adaptation as well as areas of vulnerability unique to adolescent parenthood.
Curriculum Evaluation and Revision in a Nascent Field
Authors: Pelfrey William V. , Pelfrey William V.
Published: January 2009

Although most academic disciplines evolve at a measured pace, the emerging field of homeland security must, for reasons of safety and security, evolve rapidly. The Department of Homeland Security sponsored the establishment of a graduate educational program for key officials holding homeland security roles. Because homeland security is a nascent field, the establishment of a program curriculum was forced to draw from a variety of disciplines. Curriculum evaluation was complicated by the rapid changes occurring in the emerging discipline, producing response shift bias, and interfering with the pre—post assessments. To compensate for the validity threat associated with response shift bias, a retrospective pretest—posttest evaluative methodology was used. Data indicate the program has evolved in a significant and orderly fashion and these data support the use of this innovative evaluation approach in the development of any discipline.
The New Geography of Work
Authors: Ross Andrew
Published: January 2009

This article describes the emergence of a prized labor market in sectors that policymakers have designated as the creative industries. Statistics generated about these sectors have been legion. By contrast, there has been precious little attention to the quality of work life with which such livelihoods are associated. The article considers several features of creative work that have a qualitative dimension and recommends a policy-minded approach to each. The second half of the article examines the case for a cross-class coalition of the sort proposed by the anti-precarity movement. Though they occupy opposite ends of the labor market hierarchy, workers in retail and low-end services and the `creative class' temping in high-end knowledge sectors share certain elements of precarious, or nonstandard employment. While these different segments have existential conditions in common, is there any reason to imagine that they interpret or experience them in similar ways? And, even if they do, is there enough commonality to forge a political coalition of interest against the class polarization associated with economic liberalization?
Beyond the Self-expressive Creative Worker
Authors: Christopherson Susan
Published: January 2009

Evidence from industry reports, labor union data, and interviews with producers and union officials indicates that while the demand for media products and the number of productions continues to rise, much of the increase in demand is in low-budget features and extremely low-budget production for cable networks. In this production environment, the conglomerates are pressuring producers to reduce labor costs and produce a larger number of low-cost products. Producers are using various strategies to reduce costs, including requiring more flexibility from the production workforce with respect to the length of workdays and working conditions. This article examines how production trends, influenced by conglomerate domination of production and distribution, are affecting the media workforce. In particular I look at three tendencies. The first is a widening split between core workers and peripheral workers employed in industry projects. The second is a change in professional and craft identities as a result of technological specialization by freelancers and the loss of union control over production projects, especially at the low end of the budget spectrum. Finally, there is the persistence of `hard-wired' social and economic networks to reduce worker and employer risk. These networks foster and reinforce labor segmentation among women and men, and among ethnic groups, restricting access to job opportunities and careers.
Paul against Biopolitics
Authors: Milbank John
Published: January 2009

As others have argued, modern liberalism can be seen as dominated by the biopolitical. In both the economic and the political realms, this involves a contradictory notion of how the natural gives rise to the cultural and the cultural both suppresses and advances the natural. On either side of this divide, uncontrollable excesses arise, which ensure that this immanentist model is never immune from the return of the theopolitical in a bastardized form. Antique notions of natural justice to some degree escaped these aporias, and yet antiquity had its own version of the biopolitical with its own contradictions: particularly as to whether justice consists in an exchanged balance of legal obligations or a unilateral imposition of equity in the face of living exigencies. Both models of the biopolitical ultimately seek to shore up a doomed finite life in the face of death and hence place limits on the hope for human justice. Only St Paul presented an alternative vision, which makes life itself infinitely indestructible and co-terminous both with meaning and with human existence. His counterfactual of `resurrection' allowed him to imagine an unreserved possibility of human justice beyond legality, which blends equity with hierarchical guidance and makes justice coincide with the entire fulfilment of every human being in relation to all others. Any secular alternative to this is bound to be less radical.
Religious Speech
Authors: Turner Bryan S.
Published: January 2009

In recent years, sociologists have been much concerned with the nature of communication and its consequences, but little attention, even in the sociology of religion, has been given to the idea of communication between human society and other worlds. Divine communication is sociologically interesting as a communication puzzle: authentic religious communication tends to be ineffable and hence it requires considerable intellectual work by experts to translate it into the effable domain. The ineffability of religious inspiration is associated with hierarchical structures in societies with high illiteracy, because the untutored laity cannot readily interpret such messages expertly. The arrival of an information society and extensive literacy presupposes some degree of democratization and in particular an emphasis on — to conjure up a word strangely missing from modern English — effability. This transition from the hierarchical/ineffable to the horizontal/ effable implies a profound change in systems of authority in society and hence a transformation of the relationships between formal and popular religion.
Machines Making Gods
Authors: Burton James
Published: January 2009

This article addresses shared themes in the writing of Saint Paul and the work of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Much recent philosophical interest in Saint Paul focuses on his contemporary significance as a radical political thinker, following Jacob Taubes' influential late work, The Political Theology of Paul. Assessments of Paul's writing in this context (e.g. by Agamben, Badiou, Milbank) highlight the various ways in which he uses fictionalizing, for example in setting up the tension between the present world and a messianic future, in the role he assigns to faith, and in the importance he assigns to the counter-factuality of resurrection. Yet the common thread of fictionalizing running through these themes has not been explicitly discussed. Meanwhile, the supposed `religious turn' in Dick's late writing has often been taken to have less political significance than his earlier science fiction. Considering Paul alongside Philip K. Dick, this article will attempt to bring out this central role of fictionalizing in the religious experiences of both. Like Paul, Dick experienced a visionary encounter with a God-like entity that shaped his interests and writing for the remainder of his life, and developed his own soteriology in response to what he perceived as the continued existence of (the Roman) Empire in modernity. Bringing out the mutual complementarity of Dick and Paul is facilitated by a framework derived from Henri Bergson's Two Sources of Religion, which theorizes the relation between mechanization as a human tendency characterizing both imperialism and industrialization, and fabulation as a human faculty for using fiction for the jointly immanent-transcendent purposes of survival/salvation. In this context, the diverse modes of fictionalizing employed by both Dick and Paul, including their unconsciously produced visions, may be understood as part of an ongoing, continually renewed strategy of revolutionary transformation of both self and world.
Rescuing Critique
Authors: Lewandowski Joseph D.
Published: January 2009

This article explores the work of the contemporary sociologist and urban photographer, Camilo Vergara. The piece draws on early work in critical theory to characterize Vergara's work as `rescuing critique'. Specifically, the article maintains that it is only in the theoretical vocabulary of Walter Benjamin that the methodological uniqueness, historical sensitivity and critical thrust of Vergara's project can be adequately understood. Indeed, it is argued that what is truly distinct about Vergara's work is the decidedly Benjaminian way in which, in the ruinous present of neoliberal `progress', it fuses the aesthetic power of images with an anamnestic obligation to the urban past. In such a fusion, Vergara's photo-ethnographies of America's new ghettos raise critical questions about what has – and might yet – become of such places, and those who inhabit them.
The Art of Interruption
Authors: Teh David
Published: January 2009

This text is an edited version of my curatorial essay for `The More Things Change . . .', the 5th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (BEFF 5). I introduce it here with some background on the political flux since the most recent coup d'etat (2006), from which Thailand's political system is yet to recover. I outline two key themes that emerged in BEFF 5's Thai programmes. The first concerns the cycles — `historical, biological and psycho-social' — that find expression in the country's repetitive political narrative. The second concerns the poetics of reproduction in Thailand, an historical, economic and spiritual complex that connects everyday life and folk culture with sovereign and national symbolism. This article is not a comprehensive engagement with the films in BEFF 5, but rather seeks to establish a context in which non-mainstream Thai visual culture might be better understood. I also offer some reflections on the relationship between film and contemporary art in Thailand.
`China Design Now'
Authors: Buckley Bernadette
Published: January 2009

This article draws from cultural studies, political theory, international relations, art history and museum studies in order to consider `China Design Now' — the blockbuster exhibition, recently held at the V&A. It argues that, despite the inclusion of a number of interesting exhibits, the attempt to frame contemporary Chinese design independently of political contextualization has led to an exhibition which is largely unsatisfying. The approach taken by the V&A is further shown to have produced several ironic outcomes. First, by attempting to avoid `contentious' political issues, the museum has, in fact, forced the `political' to the fore. Second, by taking such an approach, the V&A demonstrates that it has failed to understand the essentially political nature of the design problem. Third, it has produced an exhibition which appears to advocate a (highly political) neoliberal agenda — one which insists on an inexorable drive towards greater global economic integration. Finally, it has failed to mention its own embeddedness within larger strategies of `cultural diplomacy' and the significance of such strategies for international relations and for cultural production. As well as drawing on a range of relevant literature, the article makes direct reference to exhibition wall texts, exhibit labels and quotations from the catalogue in order to support its argument.
Foucault on Governmentality and Liberalism
Authors: Gane Mike
Published: January 2009

Foucault announced that his lectures of 1977—78 would be on `biopolitics'; in the end, they were on governmentality: from the pastoral of souls to the raison d'état . He announced his lectures of 1978—79 would also be on `biopolitics', but then presented lectures based on textual analysis, examining the way Smith and Ferguson invented a distinctive conception of civil society from that of Hobbes, Rousseau or Montesquieu, one that opened a site of civil society. These latter lectures continued by examining the birth of neo-liberalism in the very specific conjuncture of Germany at the end of the 1930s; it subsequently migrated, in a further mutation of `anarchocapitalism', to Chicago. Foucault adopted radically opposed methods in these two lecture courses.
The Poverty of Networks
Authors: Berry David M.
Published: January 2009

The use of networks as an explanatory framework is widespread in the literature that surrounds technology and information society. The three books reviewed here — The Wealth of Networks by Yochai Benkler, Decoding Liberation: The Promise of Free and Open Source Software by Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter, and The Exploit: A Theory of Networks by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker — all make a claim to the novelty that networks provide to their subject matter. By looking closely at the way in which the network is utilized in each of the texts, this review attempts to question the extent to which a network analysis can ground a claim about a discontinuity in technology, society or economics.
Classification of manual abilities in children with cerebral palsy under 5 years of age: how reliable is the Manual Ability Classification System?
Authors: Plasschaert VFP , Ketelaar M. , Nijnuis MG , Enkelaar L. , Gorter JW
Published: January 2009

Objective: To assess the interobserver reliability of the Manual Ability Classification System (MACS) in young children (age 1—5 years) with cerebral palsy.

Design: Interobserver reliability study.

Setting: A cross-sectional study of a hospital-based population of children with cerebral palsy.

Subjects: Thirty children, 18 boys and 12 girls between 1 and 5 years of age (mean age 2.5 years ± 14.2 SD, Gross Motor Function Classification System level I—IV). Measures: the children were classified by means of the MACS by two independent observers. Interobserver reliability was analysed using Cohen's kappa.

Results: Overall interobserver reliability of the MACS for children aged 1—5 years was moderate, with a linear weighted kappa (κ) of 0.62 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.49—0.76). According to the generally accepted categories of agreement, reliability was moderate for children under 2 years of age (κ = 0.55), and good for children between 2 and 5 years of age (κ = 0.67).

Conclusion: Classification of manual ability of young children with cerebral palsy is possible between 2 and 5 years of age. For children younger than 2 years old, it should be done with caution. Further development of the MACS for children under 5 years of age is recommended with an emphasis on age-appropriate descriptions of manual abilities.
A Hybrid Cohort Individual Sampling Natural History Model of Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Assessing the Cost-Effectiveness of Screening Using Probabilistic Calibration
Authors: Karnon Jonathan , Czoski-Murray Carolyn , Smith Kevin J. , Brand Christopher
Published: January 2009

Background. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of visual impairment and blindness. It is likely that treatment of AMD at earlier stages is more effective than later treatment; thus, screening for AMD should be considered. The aim of this study was to develop a natural history model of AMD to estimate the cost-effectiveness of screening. Methods. A hybrid cohort/individual sampling decision analytic model was developed. Primary data sets, expert elicitation, and data from the literature were used to populate the model. To incorporate joint parameter uncertainty, and to populate unobservable parameters, an innovative form of probabilistic calibration was applied to a range of output parameters. Results. In the reference case, annual screening from age 60 y is the most cost-effective option, although this is subject to high levels of uncertainty. Alternative, age-specific utility values show that screening is predicted to be less cost-effective, assuming interventions that reduce progression to wet AMD moderately improve the cost-effectiveness of screening, whereas the addition of anti—vascular endothelial growth factor therapy for juxtafoveal or subfoveal wet AMD lesions improves the cost-effectiveness of screening significantly. Conclusions. The extent of the uncertainty around the mean results, and the additional resources and possible reorganization of services required to implement screening, indicate that it may be preferable to reduce the level of uncertainty before implementing screening for AMD. Initial actions may be best targeted at assessing how routine data may be used to describe clinical presentation, a screening pilot study, and a secondary costing study.
Natural Frequencies Help Older Adults and People with Low Numeracy to Evaluate Medical Screening Tests
Authors: Galesic Mirta , Gigerenzer Gerd , Straubinger Nils
Published: January 2009

Background. Understanding information about medical screening tests often requires estimating positive predictive values (i.e., posterior probabilities), which is a notoriously difficult task. Previous studies have shown that representation of information in terms of natural frequencies (i.e., counts of occurrences that preserve base rates) facilitates judgments of positive predictive values. The objective of this study was to investigate whether natural frequencies facilitate accurate estimates in elderly people and whether performance depends on numeracy skills. Elderly people are more often than younger people required to use such information to make informed choices regarding medical procedures (e.g., screenings). Method. This was an experimental study in which information about 2 medical screening tests was presented either as conditional probabilities or natural frequencies. Participants were 47 older adults (62—77 years of age; average numeracy score 8.6) and 115 younger adults (18—35 years of age; average numeracy score 10.3). Results. When the screening information was presented in terms of conditional probabilities, only 15% of the younger adults and 18% of the older adults provided accurate estimates in at least 1 of the tasks. When information was presented in terms of natural frequencies, 55% of the younger adults and 58% of the elderly participants gave correct estimates. This effect occurred without explicit training. Furthermore, participants with higher numeracy scores performed better in the estimation tasks than those with lower numeracy scores. Conclusions. Natural frequencies help elderly and young patients—including those with lower numeracy skills—to understand positive predictive values of medical screening tests.
Building Trust in Public and Nonprofit Networks
Authors: Lambright Kristina T. , Mischen Pamela A. , Laramee Craig B.
Published: January 2009

This article provides greater understanding of factors influencing interpersonal trust in networks composed of public and nonprofit service providers. The present theoretical model identifies propensity to trust, the perceived trustworthiness of the trustee, the relationship between the trustee and trustor, and third-party relationships as influencing interpersonal trust. The model is tested using action research data collected from a network of local social service providers. Key findings include the following: (a) Successful past cooperation between a trustor and a trustee and structural equivalence increase the likelihood the trustor will perceive the trustee as trustworthy; (b) the frequency of interactions between the trustor and trustee, trust transferability, and the perceived trustworthiness of the trustee have a direct, positive impact on whether the trustor trusts the trustee; and (c) trust between the trustor and trustee has a positive impact on expected future cooperation.
Impact of Competing Accountability Requirements on Perceived Work Performance
Authors: Kim Seok Eun , Lee Jung Wook
Published: January 2009

A number of qualitative studies have found that failure to accomplish missions can be attributed to competing accountability requirements. This article presents empirical evidence concerning the impact of competing accountability requirements on employees’ perceived work performance. Specifically, this article has two objectives: (a) to identify different types of accountability requirements with quantitative data and (b) to determine to what extent the competing pressures of accountability affect individual employees’ perceived work performance. The authors find that accountability is indeed a complex and multidimensional construct— compliance, professional, and political accountability—that imposes competing pressures on employees’ perceptions of their work performance, which can reduce the probability of actual mission accomplishment in an agency.
Sex Offender Treatment
Authors: Levenson Jill S. , Prescott David S. , D'Amora David A.
Published: January 2009

Convicted sex offenders attending an outpatient treatment program in Connecticut were surveyed about their experiences in therapy, their perceived importance of treatment content, their satisfaction with the help they receive, and their engagement in therapeutic services. There were strong correlations between perceived importance of content items and satisfaction with services. A robust correlation was also found between engagement and satisfaction. Clients rated accountability and victim empathy as the most important components of treatment. Other popular content areas were thinking errors, relapse prevention concepts, uncovering motivations to offend, and controlling deviant arousal. Most sex offenders valued the peer support and confrontation offered by group therapy. Though reduced recidivism is clearly the crucial measure of treatment success, clients who are engaged in the treatment process and develop healthy interpersonal skills by participating in therapy may be less likely to engage in abusive behavior. Implications for practitioners are discussed.
The Relationships Between Social Goals, Skills, and Strategies and Their Effect on Aggressive Behavior Among Adolescents
Authors: Winstok Zeev
Published: January 2009

It is widely accepted that conflict-related goals, skills, and strategies are linked. Yet it is rarely explored how these factors relate to each other and how they jointly promote or inhibit aggressive behaviors. The aim of this study is to provide answers to these questions. Data were derived from a structured questionnaire administered to 660 male and female adolescents of an average age of 14.99 years from two urban schools in northern Israel. Findings show that goals, skills, and strategies that promote or inhibit violence are positively interrelated. Furthermore, negative association was found between violence promoting and inhibiting goals, skills, and strategies. Gender differences were also analyzed. It has been found that boys display aggressive behavior more frequently then girls. Findings also show that the rate of violence promoting goals, skills, and strategies is higher among boys than among girls, whereas that of violence inhibiting ones are higher among girls than among boys. Yet when controlling the effects of goals, skills, and strategies, girls demonstrate aggressive behavior more frequently than boys. These research findings are discussed and conceptualized within the theoretical framework of social adjustment.
Honor Killings and the Quest for Justice in Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in the United Kingdom
Authors: Gill Aisha
Published: January 2009

Crimes of honor are characterized by violence against women (VAW) and are consequently not gender neutral. This article not only examines the relationship between gender and violence in communities where honor crimes are committed, focusing on the status of women in South Asian communities, but also considers other contexts in which these crimes are practiced. Criminal justice responses to the issue over the last 10 years are then examined, leading to an analysis of a round-table discussion intended to consider approaches to the issue. The viability of criminalization is called into question because the official response to these crimes is often insensitive to women’s cultural circumstances. Recommendations are made to help reduce the numbers of these crimes.
Gubernatorial Crime Control Rhetoric
Authors: Marion Nancy E. , Smith Colleen M. , Oliver Willard M.
Published: January 2009

Past research on presidential rhetoric about crime shows that presidents use crime rhetoric in a specific manner. When talking about crime, they are most likely to use symbolic statements that are designed to make people feel satisfied about government action. To date, no research has analyzed how governors employ political language related to crime. The current study draws on hypotheses derived from research related to the federal executive and applies them to the 50 state executives. A content analysis of 7 years (2002-2008) of governors’ State of the State speeches was conducted to assess how governors employ the issue of crime in their political communication. Overall, the results show that governors rarely follow the same patterns as presidents when speaking to their constituents about crime.
Neither Slave nor Free: The Ideology of Capitalism and the Failure of Radical Reform in the American South
Authors: Hollis Shirley A.
Published: January 2009

Both before and during the US Civil War, political rhetoric in the northern states had a markedly radical tone that gave Southern blacks every reason to expect that they would be rewarded with `forty acres and a mule' at the end of the war, along with some measure of economic independence. Instead, freedmen were cast out across the landscape, most with no material possessions other than the clothes on their back. The current article offers a critical analysis of the structural and ideological forces that shaped American policy in the post-Civil War period and deprived the freedmen of promised resources that were vital to their gaining independence and, subsequently, to developing on a par with their white counterparts. This analysis suggests that these forces can best be understood within the context of the unique set of ideologies that were — and continue to be — the very backbone of Western capitalism.
Black Aesthetics and Panther Rhetoric: A Critical Decoding of Black Masculinity in The Black Panther, 1967—80
Authors: Hughey Matthew W.
Published: January 2009

This article provides a critical decoding of black masculine representations in the Black Panther Party newspaper — The Black Panther. Through a random sample of 100 issues inclusive of 1316 articles from 1967 to 1980, the analysis focuses on both the aesthetic and rhetorical devices that construct black masculinity. These depictions do not turn on agendas to install `positive' images in order to contest `negative' ones, but are concerned with a recuperation of power and self-determinism to reframe the terms of debate over those representations. Findings challenge earlier assumptions that black nationalist (and specifically Black Panther) conceptions of black masculinity were predicated solely on essentialized, fixed, and patriarchal identities, and posit that these representations yielded a fluid and socially constructed notion of a black self founded upon a resistive politic.
Risk, Realism and the Politics of Resistance
Authors: Rigakos George S. , Law Alexandra
Published: January 2009

Social theorizing about risk has produced important implications for both analytic strategy and resistance. The ontology of risk, however, has either been taken for granted or dismissed altogether. We consider what a realist philosophy of risk might look like given the desire to analyze risks as more than discursive constructs yet avoiding the pitfalls of empiricism. We argue that a necessary first step is to treat as ontologically real both the objects and subjects of risk power. While a realist philosophy of risk does not necessarily produce critical praxis, within the context of class struggle it does allow for this possibility by providing the tools necessary for recognizing risk's historical situatedness and the political role of science in resisting risk ideologies.
Nonviral Hepatitis
Authors: Wilbur Kerry
Published: January 2009

Chronic liver diseases are a significant cause of death worldwide. Cirrhosis is most frequently caused by hepatitis C or alcohol abuse, but other nonviral etiologies are now recognized as important contributors to the development of hepatitis. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, caused by abnormal accumulation of lipids in hepatocytes, can progress from simple steatosis to necroimflammation and cirrhosis. It is estimated to occur in up to 40% of the general population, and its pathophysiology is closely linked to features of metabolic syndrome. There is currently no proven treatment for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Management strategies largely address identification and treatment of associated risk factors and include drug therapy for obesity, insulin resistance (eg, metformin, thiazolidinediones), and dyslipidemia (eg, fibrates, HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors). Autoimmune hepatitis is characterized by necroinflammation mediated by autoantibody attack against liver antigens in genetically predisposed patients. It is considered a rare form of chronic liver disease but can progress to cirrhosis if unrecognized and untreated. Autoimmune hepatitis usually responds well to long-established immunosuppressive regimens with prednisone and azathioprine; however, new approaches are required for those patients who do not achieve or sustain desired outcomes or are intolerant to standard therapy.
Recruitment of Three Generations of African American Women Into Genetics Research
Authors: Taylor Jacquelyn Y.
Published: January 2009

Successful outcomes for studies on health disparities depend on recruitment of research participants. Obtaining willing participants, protecting their rights, and acknowledging their contribution to research is as important as seeking answers to the study phenomena. Recruiting research participants can be an arduous process for investigators. Although literature has published participant recruitment methods, investigators sometimes underestimate the time and intensity required to attract eligible participants into research studies. This article reports on methods used to recruit 42 African American generational triads (grandmothers, mothers, and granddaughters) into a hypertension genetics study, the lessons learned, and suggestions for successful recruitment.
Attitudes Toward Flexibility
Authors: Molleman Eric
Published: January 2009

Although worker flexibility may well be beneficial for team performance, it may also have unanticipated social side effects. This study examines to what extent task interdependence and perceived task autonomy are related to the beliefs of team members that being flexible brings social benefits and social downsides. Completed questionnaires are returned by 432 employees and their supervisors, working in 90 flexible teams across 15 organizations. The results demonstrate a positive relationship between perceived task autonomy and the perceived social benefits of worker flexibility, but only for teams with high levels of task interdependence. In addition, task autonomy, in the sense of having discretion over the use of flexibility, proves to be negatively related to the perceived social downsides of being flexible, but only if task interdependence is high. The results suggest that it is important to match the level of task autonomy with the level of task interdependence.
Connecting Work—Family Policies to Supportive Work Environments
Authors: Cook Alison
Published: January 2009

This research provides a theory-driven approach to study the relationship between the availability of work—family policies and family-supportive organization perceptions (FSOPs) and supervisory support perceptions (SSPs). At-risk family characteristics, which are characteristics that potentially affect work—family conflict such as a young child in the home, are investigated as a moderator of the proposed relationships. Findings substantiate positive relationships between the availability of work—family policies and FSOPs and SSPs; in addition, at-risk family characteristics are found to strengthen the relationship between work—family policies and SSPs. FSOPs and SSPs are also examined as mediators of the relationship between work—family policies and employee outcomes of intention to turnover, job satisfaction, and job burnout. Findings partially support FSOPs and SSPs as having mediating influences in the work—family policies and work attitudes relationship.
Career Aspirations and Expectations of College Students
Authors: Metz A.J. , Fouad Nadya , Ihle-Helledy Kris
Published: January 2009

Replicating previous research, this study examined differences in 677 diverse college students' career aspirations and expectations based on gender and ethnicity, and compared their career expectations to the U.S. workforce. This study extended the literature base by exploring discrepancies between occupational aspirations and expectations (aspiration—expectation discrepancy) in terms of Holland code congruence and complexity. Further, this study investigated how perceptions of career barriers, career decision self-efficacy, and differential status identity may be related to the aspiration—expectation discrepancy. Results revealed significant ethnic and gender differences in career aspirations and expectations. Furthermore, the careers college students expected to pursue were not entirely aligned with the current labor market. Discrepancies existed between the careers students aspired to and expected to pursue. Finally, our findings revealed that career barriers, career decision self-efficacy, and differential status identity are three factors that may be related to the aspiration—expectation discrepancy, which warrants more research.
The Structure of the Career Beliefs Inventory on a Sample of Italian High School Students
Authors: Hess Timothy R. , Tracey Terence J. G. , Nota Laura , Ferrari Lea , Soresi Salvatore
Published: January 2009

This study was an examination of the validity of Krumboltz's Career Beliefs Inventory in a sample of Italian high school students ( N = 256). The factor structure was examined at the item level using exploratory factor analysis. A five-factor structure emerged during analysis highlighting beliefs about Career Confidence, Career Activity, Career Independence, Career Flexibility, and Career Positivity. These factors appear to have little overlap with the results of other studies examining American and other cross-national samples. The factor scores were correlated with several career measures to aid interpretation.
Anandamide Preserves Cardiac Function and Geometry in an Acute Doxorubicin Cardiotoxicity Rat Model
Authors: Hydock David S. , Lien Chia-Ying , Hayward Reid
Published: January 2009

We investigated the use of the endocannabinoid anandamide as a means of cardioprotection against doxorubicin-induced cardiac dysfunction. Male rats received doxorubicin with or without anandamide pretreatment. Cardiac function was assessed in vivo using transthoracic echocardiography and ex vivo using the isolated working heart 5 days posttreatment. Doxorubicin administration without anandamide pretreatment resulted in a decline in fractional shortening (P < .05) and left ventricular wall thickness when compared to controls (P < .05). Ex vivo cardiac function analysis revealed a reduction in left ventricular developed pressure in hearts from animals receiving doxorubicin without anandamide pretreatment when compared to controls (P < .05). Left ventricles from animals receiving anandamide pretreatment before doxorubicin administration did not exhibit depressed fractional shortening, ventricular wall thickness, or developed pressure when compared to controls (P > .05). These results suggest that a potential therapy for doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity involves targeting the endogenous cannabinoid system.
If We Seek, Do We Learn?
Authors: Kahlor LeeAnn , Rosenthal Sonny
Published: January 2009

Derived from the risk information seeking and processing model (RISP), this study sought to isolate predictors of the public's knowledge of global warming. Using a national sample ( N = 805), multiple regression yielded a number of significant relationships among 13 moderators. Notably, the number of media sources used for information about global warming, information seeking effort, and general education were relatively strong predictors of knowledge. Counter to expectations, informational subjective norms were inversely related to knowledge.
Reorienting Climate Change Communication for Effective Mitigation
Authors: Ockwell David , Whitmarsh Lorraine , O'Neill Saffron
Published: January 2009

Climate communication approaches expend significant resources promoting attitudinal change, but research suggests that encouraging attitudinal change alone is unlikely to be effective. The link between an individual's attitudes and subsequent behavior is mediated by other influences, such as social norms and the “free-rider” effect. One way to engender mitigative behaviors would be to introduce regulation that forces green behavior, but government fears a resulting loss of precious political capital. Conversely, communication approaches that advocate individual, voluntary action ignore the social and structural impediments to behavior change. The authors argue that there are two crucial, but distinct, roles that communication could play in engaging the public in low carbon lifestyles: first, to facilitate public acceptance of regulation and second, to stimulate grass-roots action through affective and rational engagement with climate change. The authors also argue that using communication to stimulate demand for regulation may reconcile these “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches.
“Fear Won't Do It”
Authors: O'Neill Saffron , Nicholson-Cole Sophie
Published: January 2009

Fear-inducing representations of climate change are widely employed in the public domain. However, there is a lack of clarity in the literature about the impacts that fearful messages in climate change communications have on people's senses of engagement with the issue and associated implications for public engagement strategies. Some literature suggests that using fearful representations of climate change may be counterproductive. The authors explore this assertion in the context of two empirical studies that investigated the role of visual, and iconic, representations of climate change for public engagement respectively. Results demonstrate that although such representations have much potential for attracting people's attention to climate change, fear is generally an ineffective tool for motivating genuine personal engagement. Nonthreatening imagery and icons that link to individuals' everyday emotions and concerns in the context of this macro-environmental issue tend to be the most engaging. Recommendations for constructively engaging individuals with climate change are given.
Transgressive Borders
Authors: Reyes Cruz Mariolga , Moreira Claudio , Yomtoob Desiree
Published: January 2009

This performance piece is a collaboration between three diasporic subjects: a brown woman from Puerto Rico, an American-Persian-Iraqi woman, and a (White) Brazilian man. Their stories are weaved together to narrate a collective piece of diasporic life that moves across different social-cultural-political contexts and time. Reyes Cruz narrates her personal borders as she grew up, left her home country, and returned. Yomtoob tells stories that connect the intimacy of familial borders with the arbitrariness of those imposed on us. Moreira challenges the lines drawn upon us attempting to keep him and his bunch at the margin. The text was created to be performed collectively in front of an audience.
Split Selves and Situated Knowledge
Authors: Frentz Thomas S.
Published: January 2009

Grounded within Donna Haraway's theory of feminist objectivity that foregrounds split selves, embodied vision, and situated knowledges, the author tells of his experiences with the medical practitioners who performed his hip replacement surgery. The story unfolds in three episodes: the first highlighting the trickster, a second his conversion into a cyborg, and the third a trickster/cyborg hybrid. Reflecting back on the story, he suggests how Haraway's feminist vision might well be enhanced by laughter, vulnerable feelings, and evocative storytelling.
Biblical Framings of and Responses to Spousal Violence in the Narratives of Abused Christian Women
Authors: Nash Shondrah Tarrezz , Hesterberg Latonya
Published: January 2009

Through narrative, the authors examine the coping activities of three Christian women to learn how they used religion to organize actions intended to end spouse abuse. Findings suggest an apparent creative attempt to stop violation. Respondents formed coping strategies from biblical archetypes that resembled their oppression and clued a method to its end. However, their responses encouraged ownership of spousal change and impeded removal of violation. Given these confines, the authors address why religion became an important resource. A discussion on legal and cultural views surrounding abused women's responses and the contextual factors that limit but do not preclude acts of subversion is given.
Belief Systems of Families of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders or Down Syndrome
Authors: King Gillian , Baxter Donna , Rosenbaum Peter , Zwaigenbaum Lonnie , Bates Anita
Published: January 2009

Parents in 16 families of children with autism spectrum disorders or Down syndrome participated in a qualitative study examining family (i.e., all caregivers in the home) belief systems. All families had children who had recently entered elementary school or who were in the early years of high school. As a result of their experiences, families reported becoming more certain about what matters. Families adopted perspectives of optimism, acceptance, and appreciation, and of striving to change the environment or to meet their children's needs as well as possible. These perspectives provided families with a sense of hope, meaning, and control over their situations. The findings indicate the strengths and resilience of families in the face of life's adversities. Implications for families and service providers are discussed.
Speech-Generating Devices Used at Home by Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders
Authors: Thunberg Gunilla , Sandberg Annika Dahlgren , Ahlsén Elisabeth
Published: January 2009

Three children diagnosed within the autism spectrum between the ages of 5 and 7 years at different stages of communication development were supplied with speech-generating devices (SGDs) in their homes. The parents were taught to introduce the SGDs into home routines and the effects were evaluated naturalistically. Videotapes recorded by the parents before and during SGD use were coded with respect to communication effectiveness, mode, role in turn taking, and engagement in activity. Findings varied among the children and activities, but an increased level of communication effectiveness was seen during SGD use for all children. Variations of outcome among the three children and factors of importance for effective SGD use in the homes of children with autism spectrum disorders are discussed.
The Role of Price Tiers in Advance Purchasing of Event Tickets
Authors: Moe Wendy W. , Fader Peter S.
Published: January 2009

This article focuses on the empirical modeling of advance purchasing and the effects of price on purchasing behavior. Because pricing strategies are typically more complex than simply setting a single price point, the authors consider multiple aspects of price: (a) use of multiple price tiers, (b) face value of tickets, and (c) discounts resulting in week-to-week variations in price. They show that failure to account for price tiers can lead to exaggerated inferences about the role of price over time. Findings reflect substantial differences across tiers. Purchasers in the high-priced tier tend to buy earlier in the selling period and are influenced by price discounts and premiums in the spot market. Purchasers in the low- and mid-priced tiers tend to delay purchasing and are influenced only by face value prices in the spot market. The authors discuss the implications of these empirical observations for future researchers and marketing managers.
Transitionless biographies?
Authors: Molgat Marc , Vézina Mireille
Published: January 2009

The sociology of youth has typically focused on transitions as a way of determining how young people make it to adulthood. However, the transition from single life to partnership and family life seems to warrant further investigation because many young people are putting off conjugality and family formation. Some may not view living alone only as a transitional period but also as a more or less permanent feature of their existence. Analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews con-ducted with individuals aged under 65 and living alone (n = 51) in two Montreal neighbourhoods shows that younger respondents in their mid to late twenties and early thirties have three representations of ‘solo living’: (i) a youth lifestyle; (ii) a period of transition to conjugality; (iii) a way of life for the long term. Impli-cations for transitions research are raised, in particular how to grapple with bio-graphies that are ‘transitionless’ in the relational sphere.
Young people making sense of risk
Authors: Wall Erika , Olofsson Anna
Published: January 2009

By using the term ‘sensemaking’ our intention is to deepen the understanding of young people and risk. Four focus group interviews with young people were made in 2004/05, two in an urban area (Greater Stockholm) and two in a rural area (the county of Jämtland). Three reference interviews with adults were also made (two in Greater Stockholm and one in Jämtland). The results indicate that sensemaking of risk is a fruitful way of capturing hidden heterogeneity regarding how young people with similar risk perceptions give risk meaning. Based on the empirical results, that is, depending on where young people live they make sense of risk differently, a two–dimensional theoretical model for sensemaking of risk is proposed; individualism–collectivism, and local attachment–local detachment.