Shifting Family Definitions: The Effect of Cohabitation and Other Nonfamily Household Relationships on Measures of Poverty

Recently there have been proposals to change the way we define families for the purpose of measuring poverty. This paper used the 1990 and 1992 SIPP to examine several of the practical and conceptual issues of changing the definition of “family.” This research found that the poverty rate for 1990 was not greatly affected by expanding the definition of family for poverty calculations to include persons with nonfamily household relationships, although some population subgroups—including single-parent families—were more affected. If the family definition were changed, many currently available surveys would provide an inaccurate picture of poverty because they measure living arrangements at a single point in time, rather than longitudinally. Finally, the main rationale for expanding the family definition—that persons in cohabiting and other nonfamily household relationships are likely to share resources—was not given strong support in this research. Income from persons in nonfamily household roles was found to have contributed slightly less to helping other household members avoid financial hardship, implying that they tend to keep more of this income to themselves.

Defamation in Hong Kong and the People\u27s Republic of China: Potential Perils of Two Standards of Free Speech

Britain will return sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People\u27s Republic of China (PRC) in 1997. Britain and the PRC have agreed that Hong Kong law will remain in effect until at least 2047. Using defamation law as an example, this Note explains why this agreement actually offers little protection or reassurance to the people of Hong Kong. Hong Kong law as written and Hong Kong law as enforced by the British differ greatly. Recently actions of the PRC government, particularly the Tienamen Square Massacre, suggest that the PRC is likely to enforce the laws in their stricter, written form. This Note compares the defamation law of Hong Kong and the PRC. Then, the potential conflict between the two is examined. Finally, the Note suggests a method of resolving disputes between the two systems

Behavioral Phenotyping of Juvenile Long-Evans and Sprague-Dawley Rats: Implications for Preclinical Models of Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The laboratory rat is emerging as an attractive preclinical animal model of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), allowing investigators to explore genetic, environmental and pharmacological manipulations in a species exhibiting complex, reciprocal social behavior. The present study was carried out to compare two commonly used strains of laboratory rats, Sprague-Dawley (SD) and Long-Evans (LE), between the ages of postnatal day (PND) 26-56 using high-throughput behavioral phenotyping tools commonly used in mouse models of ASD that we have adapted for use in rats. We detected few differences between young SD and LE strains on standard assays of exploration, sensorimotor gating, anxiety, repetitive behaviors, and learning. Both SD and LE strains also demonstrated sociability in the 3-chamber social approach test as indexed by spending more time in the social chamber with a constrained age/strain/sex matched novel partner than in an identical chamber without a partner. Pronounced differences between the two strains were, however, detected when the rats were allowed to freely interact with a novel partner in the social dyad paradigm. The SD rats in this particular testing paradigm engaged in play more frequently and for longer durations than the LE rats at both juvenile and young adult developmental time points. Results from this study that are particularly relevant for developing preclinical ASD models in rats are threefold: (i) commonly utilized strains exhibit unique patterns of social interactions, including strain-specific play behaviors, (ii) the testing environment may profoundly influence the expression of strain-specific social behavior and (iii) simple, automated measures of sociability may not capture the complexities of rat social interactions

Giant Magnetic Moments of Nitrogen Stabilized Mn Clusters and Their Relevance to Ferromagnetism in Mn Doped GaN

Using first principles calculations based on density functional theory, we show that the stability and magnetic properties of small Mn clusters can be fundamentally altered by the presence of nitrogen. Not only are their binding energies substantially enhanced, but also the coupling between the magnetic moments at Mn sites remains ferromagnetic irrespective of their size or shape. In addition, these nitrogen stabilized Mn clusters carry giant magnetic moments ranging from 4 Bohr magnetons in MnN to 22 Bohr magnetons in Mn_5N. It is suggested that the giant magnetic moments of Mn_xN clusters may play a key role in the ferromagnetism of Mn doped GaN which exhibit a wide range (10K - 940K) of Curie temperatures

A review of UK media coverage of physical activity associated with the publication of special issues in a high-impact medical journal

Objectives: The media is a substantial vehicle for conveying public health messages to the public. This study examined the extent to which the publication of special issues in a high-impact medical journal in 2012 and 2016 generated media interest in physical activity and health in the UK and explored the main issues that were reported. Study design: This is a systematic narrative review of print media. Methods: Relevant print news articles were identified by searching Factiva and Google News. The timeframe of each search was 2 weeks, using the publication date of each special issue as the anchor point. Overall, 20 articles were included in the analysis for 2012 and 37 articles for 2016. Results: The news media coverage was encouraging for the profile of physical activity and health. In 2012 and 2016, common themes included the benefits of physical activity and the risks of being inactive, comparisons between mortality rates from physical inactivity and smoking and the recommended volume of physical activity to benefit health. Conclusions: The profile given to an issue through prestigious scientific publication is one of the levers for community attention and policy change. Efforts are needed to further use the media for improving policy, practice and public awareness, which are antecedents to population health change

Functional co-monotony of processes with applications to peacocks and barrier options

We show that several general classes of stochastic processes satisfy a functional co-monotony principle, including processes with independent increments, Brownian diffusions, Liouville processes. As a first application, we recover some recent results about peacock processes obtained by Hirsch et al. which were themselves motivated by a former work of Carr et al. about the sensitivity of Asian Call options with respect to their volatility and residual maturity (seniority). We also derive semi-universal bounds for various barrier options.Comment: 27 page

DEVELOPING AWARENESS OF COMPUTER ETHICS

The most important factor in effective computer security is people -- their attitudes, actions, and sense of right and wrong. This workshop will explore the ethical problems and issues raised in the computing environment. Topics to be discussed include misuse of computers, concepts of privacy, codes of conduct for computer professionals, disputed rights to products, defining ethical, moral, and legal parameters, and what security practitioners should do about ethics. Audience opinions will be wetcome as they will aid in developing ethical standards for the information systems profession

Strangers of the north: South Asians, cricket and the culture of ‘Yorkshireness’

As a county, Yorkshire is what Wagg and Russell refer to as a ‘cultural region’: an imagined space, where culture is constructed, refined and articulated by a set of discursive relationships between local populations and a whole range of cultural forms. In this context however, culture is conceived as something which belongs to, and is only accessible by, certain groups of people. Our focus in this article is on the culture of Yorkshire cricket. Historically, Yorkshire cricket has been linked with white male privilege and some studies have shown that people within Yorkshire take a degree of pride in this. Consequently, the county and its cricket club have faced frequent accusations from minority ethnic communities of inveterate and institutionalised racism. Drawing upon Bauman’s notion of ‘liquid modernity’, we argue that the processes of deregulation and individualisation championed by New Right policies have led to a divorce between power and politics, a corner stone of the old solid modern world. This in turn has led to an erosion of the state, causing individuals to navigate turbulent life projects which are consistently haunted by the spectres of fear and insecurity. Such an environment has caused cricket to be pushed further behind gated social spaces, in an attempt to maintain a semblance of ‘community’