Empty nest, cohort, and employment in the well-being of midlife women

Whether the empty-nest experience has positive or negative consequences for women's well-being at midlife may depend on their historical cohort membership and employment status. In this study, it was posited that the empty nest was likely to be a negative experience among the particular cohort of women (Cohort II) who reached adulthood during the period of strong societal emphasis on women's maternal role known as the feminine mystique, would be experienced positively among the earlier cohort (Cohort I) who as young adults were encouraged to enter the labor force during World War II. Analyses of covariance tested the relationships among empty-nest status, cohort membership, and employment status, and three measures of psychological well-being, adjusted for age, education, and marital status. The results of this study show that cohort and employment each have important independent associations with women's well-being at midlife, but that the experience of the empty nest depends on these two factors, especially cohort experiences.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45589/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00287990.pd

Changing trends in mastitis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>The global dairy industry, the predominant pathogens causing mastitis, our understanding of mastitis pathogens and the host response to intramammary infection are changing rapidly. This paper aims to discuss changes in each of these aspects. Globalisation, energy demands, human population growth and climate change all affect the dairy industry. In many western countries, control programs for contagious mastitis have been in place for decades, resulting in a decrease in occurrence of <it>Streptococcus agalactiae </it>and <it>Staphylococcus aureus </it>mastitis and an increase in the relative impact of <it>Streptococcus uberis </it>and <it>Escherichia coli </it>mastitis. In some countries, <it>Klebsiella </it>spp. or <it>Streptococcus dysgalactiae </it>are appearing as important causes of mastitis. Differences between countries in legislation, veterinary and laboratory services and farmers' management practices affect the distribution and impact of mastitis pathogens. For pathogens that have traditionally been categorised as contagious, strain adaptation to human and bovine hosts has been recognised. For pathogens that are often categorised as environmental, strains causing transient and chronic infections are distinguished. The genetic basis underlying host adaptation and mechanisms of infection is being unravelled. Genomic information on pathogens and their hosts and improved knowledge of the host's innate and acquired immune responses to intramammary infections provide opportunities to expand our understanding of bovine mastitis. These developments will undoubtedly contribute to novel approaches to mastitis diagnostics and control.</p

ESTIMATION OF STATEWIDE URBAN PUBLIC TRANSIT BENEFITS IN TENNESSEE

A comprehensive transit benefits assessment procedure is described as applied to each of the 12 urban public transit operating districts in the state of Tennessee. A multiple-branch benefits assessment tree is developed around transit use benefits and transit supply benefits, the former emphasizing the costs of lost mobility in the absence of current transit services and the latter reflecting the economic benefits resulting from federal and state support for public transit in each district. Empirical results are presented at the statewide level and in dollar terms. With a generally conservative approach to benefits estimation, it is found that urban transit benefits--mainly from fixed-route bus service--exceed costs by 2 to 2.5 times, with higher ratios possible in the larger metropolitan areas. Sensitivity to forgone travel benefits, however, suggests the need for further data refinements. On the basis of past literature, the study develops a comprehensive set of wide-ranging benefits computations that have been applied consistently across each of the state\u27s 12 urban transit districts and uses data sources that can be cost-effectively updated by transit planners

ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF OHIO RIVER NAVIGATION INVESTMENT MODEL

The Ohio River Navigation Investment Model (ORNIM) estimates the benefits of navigation improvements and balances those estimated benefits against the estimated costs of improvements. The economic assumptions within ORNIM are identified; the rationale for these assumptions is provided; and how these assumptions alter the estimates of inland-water navigation benefits, as compared with those of the theoretical model, are addressed. ORNIM is a spatially detailed partial equilibrium model that incorporates the following assumptions: (a) demand for individual movements, provided exogenously, is perfectly inelastic; (b) willingness to pay (WTP) for individual river movements is equal to the exogenously given least-cost alternative rail rate; and (c) the supply of rail for individual movements is perfectly elastic at the exogenously given rail rate. The first assumption biases upward estimates of with-project benefits. However, empirical evidence on demand elasticity and WTP suggests that these assumptions are reasonable in the short run. In the long run, decisions to move cargo by water depend only in part on river rates, with environmental and energy policies also being critical. The demand for waterway movements is determined exogenously to ORNIM, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers\u27 recent scenario-based approach to demand projection is laudable. The third assumption unequivocally biases downward ORNIM\u27s estimate of with-project benefits. Future ORNIM enhancements include improvements in analyzing congestion fees, environmental externalities, traffic management, and system reliability as well as improvements in data quantity and quality. ORNIM, like other navigation models, is data constrained. Without significant data improvements, attempts to relax economic assumptions within ORNIM are of questionable value

Ohio River navigation investment model: Requirements and model design

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is assisting the US Army Corps of Engineers in improving its economic analysis procedures for evaluation of inland waterway investment projects along the Ohio River System. This paper describes the context and design of an integrated approach to calculating the system-wide benefits from alternative combinations of lock and channel improvements, providing an ability to project the cost savings from proposed waterway improvements in capacity and reliability for up to fifty years into the future. The design contains an in-depth treatment of the levels of risk and uncertainty associated with different multi-year lock and channel improvement plans, including the uncertainty that results from a high degree of interaction between the many different waterway system components