Gender Role Beliefs and Family Migration Decision-Making - Consequences for Married Women's Economic and Labor Force Success

Despite significant gains in educational attainment and attitudes toward women in the labor force, women continue to lag behind men in economic and labor market success. The role of family migration in social science and policy discussions of this gender-gap has gone unnoticed, in spite of the fact that nearly 25 years ago the noted economist Jacob Mincer proposed that “Tied migration ranks next to child rearing as an important dampening influence in the life-cycle wage evolution of women.” Decades of family migration research have concluded that migration harms the economic and labor force status of married women, that the effect of family migration on married women cannot be entirely explained by economic factors, and that family-based gender roles likely explain much of this effect. However, only three quite limited and dated analyses have directly considered how gender-related processes contribute to the observed effects of moving on women’s economic status. Thus, we are left with the conclusion that all of the empirical evidence points toward gender role beliefs as the key variable shaping family migration outcomes but without any empirical evidence to support the conclusion. This research seeks to determine if the accepted explanation for the trailing wife effect is indeed true by constructing measures of the gender role beliefs of husbands and wives and developing empirical methods for determining their effect on both the migration decision and the outcomes of migration. Data for the analysis is drawn from Waves 1 through 3 of the National Survey of Families and Households. In particular, it is expected that economically “rational” migration decisions and outcomes will only occur when both the husband and the wife share strong progressive gender role beliefs. In all other cases, the migration decision is expected to be largely dominated by the husband’s labor market characteristics and that the effect of migration will be to harm the economic status of women. The analysis will provide a new and unique perspective from which to evaluate decades of evidence regarding family migration and will have an impact on public policy debates concerning the gender-gap in economic and labor market success.

A Stream Continuum Analysis of Bacteria Community Assembly in Association with Crayfish and their Symbionts

Undergraduate Applie

Reliability of a high-intensity endurance cycling test.

This study assessed the reproducibility of performance and selected metabolic variables during a variable high-intensity endurance cycling test. 8 trained male cyclists (age: 35.9 ± 7.7 years, maximal oxygen uptake: 54.3 ± 3.9 mL·kg - 1·min - 1) completed 4 high-intensity cycling tests, performed in consecutive weeks. The protocol comprised: 20 min of progressive incremental exercise, where the power output was increased by 5% maximal workload (Wmax) every 5 min from 70% Wmax to 85% Wmax; ten 90 s bouts at 90% Wmax, separated by 180 s at 55% Wmax; 90% Wmax until volitional exhaustion. Blood samples were drawn and heart rate was monitored throughout the protocol. There was no significant order effect between trials for time to exhaustion (mean: 4 113.0 ± 60.8 s) or total distance covered (mean: 4 6126.2 ± 1 968.7 m). Total time to exhaustion and total distance covered showed very high reliability with a mean coefficient of variation (CV) of 1.6% (95% Confidence Intervals (CI) 0.0 ± 124.3 s) and CV of 2.2% (95% CI 0.0 ± 1904.9 m), respectively. Variability in plasma glucose concentrations across the time points was very small (CV 0.46-4.3%, mean 95% CI 0.0 ± 0.33 to 0.0 ± 0.94 mmol·L - 1). Plasma lactate concentrations showed no test order effect. The reliability of performance and metabolic variables makes this protocol a valid test to evaluate nutritional interventions in endurance cycling

Locomotor patterns and persistent activity in self-organizing neural models

The thesis investigates principles of self-organization that may account for the observed structure and behaviour of neural networks that generate locomotor behaviour and complex spatiotemporal patterns such as spiral waves, metastable states and persistent activity. This relates to the general neuroscience problem of finding the correspondence between the structure of neural networks and their function. This question is both extremely important and difficult to answer because the structure of a neural network defines a specific type of neural dynamics which underpins some function of the neural system and also influences the structure and parameters of the network including connection strengths. This loop of influences results in a stable and reliable neural dynamics that realises a neural function. In order to study the relationship between neural network structure and spatiotemporal dynamics, several computational models of plastic neural networks with different architectures are developed. Plasticity includes both modification of synaptic connection strengths and adaptation of neuronal thresholds. This approach is based on a consideration of general modelling concepts and focuses on a relatively simple neural network which is still complex enough to generate a broad spectrum of spatio-temporal patterns of neural activity such as spiral waves, persistent activity, metastability and phase transitions. Having considered the dynamics of networks with fixed architectures, we go on to consider the question of how a neural circuit which realizes some particular function establishes its architecture of connections. The approach adopted here is to model the developmental process which results in a particular neural network structure which is relevant to some particular functionality; specifically we develop a biologically realistic model of the tadpole spinal cord. This model describes the self-organized process through which the anatomical structure of the full spinal cord of the tadpole develops. Electrophysiological modelling shows that this architecture can generate electrical activity corresponding to the experimentally observed swimming behaviour

High Impedance Arc Fault Detection in a Manhole Environment.

The scope of this thesis was to develop a prototype high-impedance arc detection system that a utility worker could use as an early warning system while working in a manhole environment. As part of this system sensors and algorithms were developed to increase the sensitivity of detecting an arc while ignoring loads that can give false positive signatures for arcing. The latest technology was used to repeat measurements performed in previous research from decades ago that lacked in sampling speed and amplitude resolution. Several types of arcs were produced and analyzed so to establish a library of various waveform and frequency signatures. The system was constructed as a development unit and is currently gathering information in the field. Data being collected will be analyzed so future revisions will give higher confidence levels of arc detection. Other future plans involve designing a more compact and portable unit

What's That Noise? Or, a Case Against Digital Privacy as a Matter of Regulation and Control

Digital privacy is typically understood as the restriction of access to personal information and user data. This assumes regulation and control on the part of governments and corporations, realized through various laws and policies. However, there exists another realm bearing on digital privacy. This realm involves a wider network of actors carrying out practices and techniques beyond merely governmental and corporate means: users who engage and manipulate digital privacy software that is created by coders, as well as the software itself for the ways in which it mediates the relationship between users and coders. The dissertation argues that by focusing attention on this other realm of coders, users and software interacting with one another we as analysts develop alternative understandings of digital privacy, specifically by attending to each actors noisemaking: the deliberate (or even incidental) process of obfuscating, interrupting, precluding, confusing or misleading access to digital information. The dissertation analyzes how each of these three actors engage in noisemaking across three different types of encrypted Internet systems: The Onion Router web browser; the WhatsApp instant messaging service; the SpiderOak One file hosting service. These relatively taken-for-granted actors instruct the academy that digital privacy is less about regulating and controlling information as much as it is about surrendering control over information management and security. The dissertation demonstrates that digital privacy thus ought to be understood as a reflection of the variegated, contingent and incidental nature of social and political forces unfolding at the edge of and even beyond the purview of governments and corporations

Spillovers from immigrant diversity in cities

Using comprehensive longitudinal matched employer-employee data for the U.S., this paper provides new evidence on the relationship between productivity and immigration-spawned urban diversity. Existing empirical work has uncovered a robust positive correlation between productivity and immigrant diversity, supporting theory suggesting that diversity acts as a local public good that makes workers more productive by enlarging the pool of knowledge available to them, as well as by fostering opportunities for them to recombine ideas to generate novelty. This paper makes several empirical and conceptual contributions. First, it improves on existing empirical work by addressing various sources of potential bias, especially from unobserved heterogeneity among individuals, work establishments, and cities. Second, it augments identification by using longitudinal data that permits examination of how diversity and productivity co-move. Third, the paper seeks to reveal whether diversity acts upon productivity chiefly at the scale of the city or the workplace. Findings confirm that urban immigrant diversity produces positive and nontrivial spillovers for U.S. workers. This social return represents a distinct channel through which immigration generates broad-based economic benefits

The Old French and Chaucerian fabliaux : a study of their comic climax

Includes index.Bibliography: pages 201-213.This study is about the comic structure of the fabliaux. The survival of approximately 160 Old French fabliaux, some in several versions and in different manuscripts, attests to their widespread popularity in the Middle Ages. Chaucer's fabliaux are essentially the same genre as the Old French fabliaux, and hence their humor is essentially the same. Our own enjoyment of them is in its own way quite refined and even analogous to certain spiritual experiences. In focusing on the comic climax of the fabliaux, I necessarily talk about their structure, which has its own function within the story regardless of what influenced it or caused it to be there and regardless of what it reflects.Introduction -- Preparation for the climax: The showing -- Preparation for the climax The telling -- The comic climax -- Humor in the fabliaux -- Chaucer's fabliaux -- Conclusion.Digitized at the University of Missouri--Columbia MU Libraries Digitization Lab in 2012. Digitized at 600 dpi with Zeutschel, OS 15000 scanner. Access copy, available in MOspace, is 400 dpi, grayscale