Conferences are like swans

Chris Corker was the lead on bringing the 2011 Higher Education Research Scholarship Group Conference to fruition, both in the months preceding the event and on the day. In this viewpoint, Chris shares his experiences of conference administration and delivery, and explores how conferences and swans have more in common that you would imagine

Congress Needs to Find a Productive Role in Restoring Confidence to Our Financial System

As our very resilient economy begins the long road to recovery, we will need to evaluate the lessons learned from the financial market turmoil.Senate, banking, Senate Banking Committee, GSE, discal discipline, financial system, federal, congress, confidence

Polygyny and family planning programs in sub-Saharan Africa: representation and reality

1. Significance/background Polygyny is rarely, if ever, included in family planning (FP) messaging in Sub-Saharan Africa, even though the region has the world’s highest rates of polygyny. In West Africa a majority of women will spend some portion of their married life in a polygynous union as a co-wife. Research on polygyny has tended to focus on the influence of polygyny on outcomes such as fertility preferences and rates and contraceptive use, and there is little consensus as to the direction of these relationships. The role played by polygyny in the design and consumption of FP programs has been ignored. For example, the study of spousal communication about FP has been limited to monogamous couples and there is no model for spousal communication within polygynous marriages. This paper will focus on the ways in which – if at all – polygyny is represented by, or addressed in, family planning programs in sub-Saharan Africa. It assesses the presence (or absence) of polygyny in FP messaging and research and argues that polygynous unions are sufficiently different from monogamous unions to warrant audience segmentation in FP programs in areas with high levels of polygyny. 2. Main question/hypothesis This paper aims to assess the place of polygyny in FP messaging in sub-Saharan Africa, and whether a case should be made for segmentation by marriage type (polygynous/monogamous) in FP communication. It sets out three research questions in order to address this aim: i. Do the FP experiences of men and women differ significantly between monogamous and polygynous marriages? ii. How is polygyny represented in FP messaging? iii. What might be the consequences of excluding polygyny from FP program design and implementation? 3. Methodology This paper uses mixed methods including: i. Systematic mapping of the research relating to polygyny and FP in sub-Saharan Africa ii. Review FP visual communication materials (e.g.: JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs Media/Materials Clearinghouse) for evidence pertaining to polygyny in family planning messaging iii. Secondary quantitative analyses of DHS data Our mapping of current literature reveals little consensus on the relationship between polygyny and fertility. While many studies conclude that individual fertility is lower for polygynous than for monogamous women (although polygyny increases fertility at the aggregate level because fewer women remain unmarried) others report that polygynous women have higher fertility than their monogamous counterparts. Polygyny increases individual male fertility. Our analyses of polygyny and its effects on fertility intentions and behaviors, contraceptive use, and husband-wife communication regarding FP consider whether men and women in polygynous unions face situations different from their monogamous counterparts. By comparing results on FP perceptions, intentions and behaviors of polygynous men and women this those in monogamous marriages, we demonstrate how using conventional models of couples’ analysis (i.e. studying monogamous couples) is inappropriate for researching polygynous unions, which should therefore be specifically segmented and targeted in FP messaging. 4. Results/key findings Polygyny is rarely, if ever, included in FP messaging in Sub-Saharan Africa, even in areas with high rates of polygyny. Polygynous marriages differ from monogamous marriages in a number of crucial ways (greater age difference between polygynous spouses, decreased decision-making power for wives, higher fertility preferences for men, competition for a husband’s resources, and lower spousal communication about FP) that have major implications for FP programs. Polygynous marriages may result in higher fertility preferences for women, longer periods of breast-feeding and post-partum abstinence, and decreased likelihood of contraceptive use and increased likelihood that, if used, it would be clandestinely. While formally recognized polygyny is declining, it is often replaced by unofficial forms of polygynous unions (“private polygyny”). Polygyny may be increasingly replaced by private polygyny because polygyny is now often considered less acceptable or is illegal. Many seemingly monogamous marriages are actually adapted forms of polygyny, with unofficial outside wives. Lastly, polygyny seems to have a strong effect on men’s desired number of children, which are considerably greater than those of both polygynous women and monogamous men or women. Desired high fertility is often given as a reason for marrying polygynously. The implication for this kind of marriage decision on family size and for FP programs is significant. 5. Knowledge Using conventional models of couples’ analysis (i.e. studying monogamous couples) may be inappropriate for researching polygynous unions. Polygyny is often disregarded or misrepresented in research, even when studies are carried out in areas with high rates of polygyny. Men and women in polygynous unions have markedly different experiences than do their monogamous counterparts. Ignoring the reality of polygyny in FP communication has implications for the effectiveness of family planning campaigns in parts of Africa with high rates of official and/or unofficial polygyny. We conclude with suggestions of ways that polygyny might be included in FP messaging in Sub-Saharan Africa

Do No Harm

The mission of Congress and the Obama administration should be the same as a doctor treating a patient: do no harm.Bob Corker, health care reform, healthcare reform, healthcare, health care, SGR, Medicare, Oliver Wyman, Tennessee, insurance

A situation-response model for intelligent pilot aiding

An intelligent pilot aiding system needs models of the pilot information processing to provide the computational basis for successful cooperation between the pilot and the aiding system. By combining artificial intelligence concepts with the human information processing model of Rasmussen, an abstraction hierarchy of states of knowledge, processing functions, and shortcuts are developed, which is useful for characterizing the information processing both of the pilot and of the aiding system. This approach is used in the conceptual design of a real time intelligent aiding system for flight crews of transport aircraft. One promising result was the tentative identification of a particular class of information processing shortcuts, from situation characterizations to appropriate responses, as the most important reliable pathway for dealing with complex time critical situations

Research issues in implementing remote presence in teleoperator control

The concept of remote presence in telemanipulation is presented. A conceptual design of a prototype teleoperator system incorporating remote presence is described. The design is presented in functional terms, sensor, display, and control subsystem. An intermediate environment, in which the human operator is made to feel present, is explicated. The intermediate environment differs from the task environment due to the quantity and type of information presented to an operator and due to scaling factors protecting the operator from the hazards of the task environment. Potential benefits of remote presence systems, both for manipulation and for the study of human cognition and preception are discussed

See the Person (Not the Disability): Deconstructing the Politics of Visibility and the Performance of "Positive" Images

Produced by The Center on Disability Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i and The School of Social Studies, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas for The Society for Disability Studies

Urbanization and Demographic Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: Three essays on fertility and child mortality differentials in a rapidly urbanizing context

Nearly all demographic research on sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) utilizes a strict urban/rural dichotomy, which implicitly assumes homogenous demographic outcomes within these categories. In this dissertation, I use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to demonstrate that using an urban continuum reveals substantial differences in the demographic outcomes among SSA\u27s growing urban settlements. In the first chapter, I use event-history analysis to examine whether SSA\u27s long-held urban child survival advantage is diminishing, accounting for differentials in city size and potential bias in survival rates due to migration. I find the overall under-5 survival advantage of urban over rural areas persists but that there is a widening of the advantage in the largest cities over smaller urban areas. In the second chapter, I model annual birth probabilities to examine whether there is a discernible urban effect of lower fertility among internal migrants in West Africa. Results suggest an association of urban residence and lower fertility, as women who moved either to or from urban areas have lower annual odds of a birth compared to both rural non-migrants and rural-to-rural migrants. I also find that women who relocate to the largest cities have lower fertility than do women who move to smaller urban areas, suggesting that the influence of urban residence on fertility is strongest where fertility rates are lowest. In the final chapter, I estimate total fertility rates and under-5 mortality probabilities for cities of different size in West Africa by linking DHS cluster data to census and geographic information systems (GIS) data for four distinct urban sub-categories. Results show a clear gradient in fertility and child mortality in urban areas according to size, with the largest cities most advantaged; this gradient is as steep between the largest and smallest urban areas as it is between the smallest urban and rural areas. I use the findings from this dissertation to argue for wider use of urban continuums in demographic research on SSA instead of the continued reliance on a strict urban/rural dichotomy that obscures important nuances in the interrelationship of urbanization and demographic change in this rapidly-urbanizing region

Deaf Studies and Disability Studies: An Epistemic Conundrum

Produced by the Center on Disability Studies, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i and The School of Social Sciences, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas for The Society for Disability Studies