Plain Diversity: Amish Cultures and Identities

Review of: "Plain Diversity: Amish Cultures and Identities," by Steven M. Nolt and Thomas J. Meyers

"To Remind Us of Who We Are" : An Ethnographic Exploration of Women's Dress and Gender Roles in a Conservative Mennonite Community

Combining ethnographic methodology and feminist theory, this interdisciplinary study explores women's dress and gender roles in the religious culture of Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonites, a conservative Mennonite group concentrated in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, that has never been researched before. My study is based on participant observation and qualitative analysis of interviews with 11 women and two men in three church districts. I argue that conservative women's domestic roles in the private sphere and their adherence to strict dress codes create the denomination's primary cultural boundary marker. Although Eastern Pa. Mennonites accept modern technology and most no longer farm, members adhere to a church-wide discipline that forbids "immodest" and "fashionable" clothing, jewelry, and cut hair for women, while prescribing a particular style of women's dress and head covering. (Men's clothing is less regulated.) Religious understandings around women's dress reinforce a gender ideology that is firmly rooted in women's subordination to men. My study explores the multiple meanings that conservative women attach to their clothing. Much like a uniform, women's dress expresses group affiliation, suppresses individual expression, and mutes economic and social distinctions. Moreover, their dress affords them a feeling of protection from harm, offers them an opportunity to witness, and serves as an internal motivation toward religiosity. In sum, their dress both produces and reflects particular gender roles. Finally, I discuss the interpretative challenges of my partial membership status and my use of feminist analysis to frame a discussion about women who would not describe themselves as feminists

Amish Women, Business Sense: Old Order Women Entrepreneurs in the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Tourist Marketplace

This dissertation is an examination of Amish businesswomen and gender roles in the tourist marketplace of Lancaster County, PA. Tourism in Lancaster is a $1.5 billion business; most tourists come because of the Amish and values associated with them. Recently, tourism has come to provide an important source of income for many Old Order Mennonite and Amish women, whose business enterprises cater primarily to a tourist market. Among the Amish, known for their separation from wider society, tourism now puts many women on the front lines in dealing with outsiders, a monumental shift historically. Thus, this ethnography of Amish businesswomen serves as a useful lens for examining Amish women's changing gender roles in Lancaster County today. Moreover, it fills a significant gap in the literature, as little has been written about Amish women, to date. Mine is a micro-study that examines tourism, entrepreneurship, and gender through the words of Amish women themselve, and my analysis of them. Using ethnography and life history I examine the lives of Old Order Amish and Mennonite women whose businesses range from quilt shops to greenhouses to serving meals in their homes. As I show, the ways in which these women handle their business, family, and community roles sometimes involves extensions of traditional roles and sometimes departures from them

Envisioning the Library’s Role in Scholarly Communication in the Year 2025

This research probes future roles for libraries in the scholarly communication process through the use of scenarios. The researchers asked 20 ARL library directors to read and provide constructive comments on the scenarios, name the scenarios, and either select a scenario that most closely matched their vision or propose a new scenario. The directors identified six possible futures. Issues such as library as publisher, the economy, and the need for collaboration are discussed, as well as the timeframe for such futures and the desire versus the likelihood of a particular scenario happening

Influence of Rural Out-Migration on Household Participation in Community Forest Management? Evidence from the Middle Hills of Nepal

Rural out-migration was a rare socio-economic phenomenon when community forestry began in the 1980s in Nepal. Now, out-migration significantly influences nearly every aspect of rural livelihoods in the country. However, it is unclear how out-migration affects community forestry governance, which is essential for sustainable rural development. Therefore, this paper addresses the following research question: Does rural out-migration affect forest users’ participation in community forestry decision-making and management practices? This paper draws on data collected from an extensive survey of 415 households from 15 community forest user groups in 2 Mid-Hill districts of Nepal. The research used ordered-logit regression to model the impacts of out-migration on participation in forest management and decision-making, while controlling for a number of other socio-economic factors. The model results show that total household size and number of internal migrants, together with multiple resource characteristics and institutional attributes, were major factors affecting participation in decision-making and forest management. However, the number of international migrants did not have a significant role in determining the levels of the participation. This study provides valuable insights for future community forestry policymaking that aims to address the effects of out-migration on community forest management in Nepal

Evaluation of Total Daily Dose and Glycemic Control for Patients Taking U-500 Regular Insulin Admitted to the Hospital

OBJECTIVE: Patients using U-500 regular insulin are severely insulin resistant, requiring high doses of insulin. It has been observed that a patient\u27s insulin requirements may dramatically decrease during hospitalization. This study sought to systematically investigate this phenomenon. METHODS: We performed a retrospective chart review of patients with U-500 insulin outpatient regimens who were admitted to the San Antonio Military Medical Center over a 5-year period. Each patient\u27s outpatient total daily dose (TDD) of insulin was compared to the average inpatient TDD. The outpatient estimated average glucose (eAG) was calculated from the glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) and compared to the average inpatient glucose. RESULTS: There were 27 patients with a total of 62 separate admissions. The average age was 64.4 years, with a mean body mass index of 38.9 kg/m CONCLUSION: U-500 insulin is prone to errors in the hospital setting, so conversion to U-100 insulin is a preferred option. Despite a significant reduction in insulin TDD, these patients had clinically similar glucose levels. Therefore, patients taking U-500 insulin as an outpatient can be converted to a U-100 basal-bolus regimen with at least a 50% reduction of their outpatient TDD. ABBREVIATIONS: BG = blood glucose eAG = estimated average glucose HbA1c = glycated hemoglobin NPO = nil per os SPSS = Statistical Package for the Social Sciences TDD = total daily dose

Linear Estimation of Location and Scale Parameters Using Partial Maxima

Consider an i.i.d. sample X^*_1,X^*_2,...,X^*_n from a location-scale family, and assume that the only available observations consist of the partial maxima (or minima)sequence, X^*_{1:1},X^*_{2:2},...,X^*_{n:n}, where X^*_{j:j}=max{X^*_1,...,X^*_j}. This kind of truncation appears in several circumstances, including best performances in athletics events. In the case of partial maxima, the form of the BLUEs (best linear unbiased estimators) is quite similar to the form of the well-known Lloyd's (1952, Least-squares estimation of location and scale parameters using order statistics, Biometrika, vol. 39, pp. 88-95) BLUEs, based on (the sufficient sample of) order statistics, but, in contrast to the classical case, their consistency is no longer obvious. The present paper is mainly concerned with the scale parameter, showing that the variance of the partial maxima BLUE is at most of order O(1/log n), for a wide class of distributions.Comment: This article is devoted to the memory of my six-years-old, little daughter, Dionyssia, who leaved us on August 25, 2010, at Cephalonia isl. (26 pages, to appear in Metrika

Comparison of the Mojonnier, Cenco Moisture Balance and Karl Fisher Titration as Methods of Determining the Total Solids in Fluid Milk

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Incident HIV among pregnant and breast-feeding women in sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVES: A previous meta-analysis reported high HIV incidence among pregnant and breast-feeding women in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), but limited evidence of elevated risk of HIV acquisition during pregnancy or breast-feeding when compared with nonpregnant periods. The rapidly evolving HIV prevention and treatment landscape since publication of this review may have important implications for maternal HIV incidence. DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis. METHODS: We searched four databases and abstracts from relevant conferences through 1 December 2018, for literature on maternal HIV incidence in SSA. We used random-effects meta-analysis to summarize incidence rates and ratios, and to estimate 95% prediction intervals. We evaluated potential sources of heterogeneity with random-effects meta-regression. RESULTS: Thirty-seven publications contributed 100 758 person-years of follow-up. The estimated average HIV incidence rate among pregnant and breast-feeding women was 3.6 per 100 person-years (95% prediction interval: 1.2--11.1), while the estimated average associations between pregnancy and risk of HIV acquisition, and breast-feeding and risk of HIV acquisition, were close to the null. Wide 95% prediction intervals around summary estimates highlighted the variability of HIV incidence across populations of pregnant and breast-feeding women in SSA. Average HIV incidence appeared associated with age, partner HIV status, and calendar time. Average incidence was highest among studies conducted pre-2010 (4.1/100 person-years, 95% prediction interval: 1.1--12.2) and lowest among studies conducted post-2014 (2.1/100 person-years, 95% prediction interval: 0.7--6.5). CONCLUSION: Substantial HIV incidence among pregnant and breast-feeding women in SSA, even in the current era of combination HIV prevention and treatment, underscores the need for prevention tailored to high-risk pregnant and breast-feeding women