Pinning Motherhood: The Construction of Mothering Identities on Pinterest

This research examines the new social media site, Pinterest, to uncover the processes through which mothers construct self- and public-identities. Despite being valued at over $3.8 billion dollars (Perez 2013), having an impressive user retention rate (Moore 2014), and having a highly gendered user base (Tekobbe 2013), Pinterest has been the site of limited sociological inquiry. Seventeen semi-structured qualitative interviews on mothering and Pinterest use were conducted with central Florida mothers who have a Pinterest account and at least one child between 6 months and 10 years old. Through analysis based in a grounded theory approach, three central themes emerged from the data: (1) mothers negotiate motherhood ideals, perpetuated through Pinterest, through drawing on gendered ideologies; (2) mothers\u27 use of Pinterest both supports and impairs construction of positive self-identities, complexly overlapping with concerns of technology overuse; and (3) the compartmentalized nature of Pinterest facilitates the activation of multiple identities which allow \u27escapes\u27 from the pressures of motherhood and everyday responsibilities. Insights derived from this research can also be helpful in explaining the overlaps between online and offline identities, how women manage motherhood ideals, and the compartmentalization of self-identities

\u27If You Don\u27t Score High Enough, Then That\u27s Your Fault\u27: Student Civic Dispositions in the Context of Competitive School Choice

When school choice policies position young people to compete with one another to access public educational resources, students stand to experience these policies in not only academic, but also civic dimensions. Young people’s very encounters with competitive school choice policy through their day-to-day schooling constitute a civic experience. This article, then, explores how students who encounter competitive school choice policies come to understand themselves and other youth as citizens. We pursue this line of inquiry through a critically-oriented, qualitative case study conducted with a racially, ethnically, linguistically and socioeconomically diverse group of 36 students undergoing Chicago’s competitive high school admissions process. Our findings strongly suggest that competitive school choice policies position youth to see their fellow citizens (and themselves) as individuals with unequal degrees of civic entitlement and capacity, who must earn their rights, and who have limited civic obligations to others. This article concludes with a discussion of implications for school choice policy equity, civic learning, and the role of youth as powerful policy actors

Insightful Insiders? Insider Trading and Stock Return Around Debt Covenant Violation Disclosures

This paper documents significant trading by insiders around a first-time debt covenant violation disclosure in an SEC filing and is interesting from a research and regulatory standpoint because of three considerations - delay and relative infrequency of new covenant violation disclosures lack of attention to disclosure issues by regulators and dearth of research. Importantly we find a lead relation between net insider selling in the 12 months before a debt covenant violation disclosure and investors' negative returns and net insider buying up to 12 months after disclosure and investors' positive returns. This relation is robust to the presence of other information. These results support our contention that insiders' trades around a covenant violation disclosure may benefit from an information advantage unavailable to other market participants. The aggregate return to insiders - the sum of the losses avoided from selling and the gains from buying - approaches almost two billion dollars over an eight-year study period

Dividing America? the role of \u27division streets\u27 in residential segregation

Residential segregation is an issue where multiple variables such as race, class, and income converge. Identifying the remaining variables contributing to the continuation of residential segregation is what remains in order to understand the issue completely. A possible variable that has yet to be considered is the effect that the name of a road has on the surrounding area. The objective of this research is to identify the relationship between Division Streets and residential segregation. Although this relationship may not be causal, the existence of any tie between labels as apparent as \u27division\u27 on a road where residential segregation is prominent has many implications. Although it has proven difficult to explain the origin and intent of the name of a road, this research looks to more deeply investigate the situation. Residential segregation is a multifaceted topic and the effect of road labels on society\u27s perception of an area is an untapped resource in defining the situation of residential segregation. Working within the framework that was set up by Massey in the early 1990s this research strives to create a complete picture of residential segregation. Data were collected online from the map application on the website Google. With this technology the largest 100 cities in the United States were searched and as not every city had a Division Street the pool of potential cities to be analyzed diminished. Forty of the 100 largest cities had Division Streets in their city limits. Utilizing the program SimplyMap it was determined that of these 40 Division Streets, only eleven roads served as boundaries for block groups as collected by the United States Census Bureau. These eleven roads were analyzed to determine if there were differences in levels of racial residential segregation on either side. Findings will reveal the relationship between the names of roads and areas of residential segregation.; This research does not offer any suggestions on how to eliminate or remedy residential segregation; rather it identifies areas of concern. Ultimately, this data will contribute another layer of understanding about residential segregation

From Seed to Product: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Linking the Agriculture and Industrial Stages of Cotton through Water Research

The apparel industry has a tremendous impact on water, yet unlike food systems, where consumer interest in sustainability is growing, it is difficult for the everyday consumer to understand the nuances of sustainable clothing and there has been little growth in sustainability labels and claims. Water use and pollution needs to be evaluated throughout the clothing supply chain to identify leverage points to reduce water impacts and design new processes to integrate water sustainability into production industry-wide

Reliability and validity of a domain-specific last 7-d sedentary time questionnaire

Purpose: The objective of this study is to examine test-retest reliability, criterion validity, and absolute agreement of a self-report, last 7-d sedentary behavior questionnaire (SIT-Q-7d), which assesses total daily sedentary time as an aggregate of sitting/lying down in five domains (meals, transportation, occupation, nonoccupational screen time, and other sedentary time). Dutch (DQ) and English (EQ) versions of the questionnaire were examined. Methods: Fifty-one Flemish adults (ages 39.4 +/- 11.1 yr) wore a thigh accelerometer (activPAL3 (TM)) and simultaneously kept a domain log for 7 d. The DQ was subsequently completed twice (median test-retest interval: 3.3 wk). Thigh-acceleration sedentary time was log annotated to create comparable domain-specific and total sedentary time variables. Four hundred two English adults (ages 49.6 +/- 7.3 yr) wore a combined accelerometer and HR monitor (Actiheart (R)) for 6 d to objectively measure total sedentary time. The EQ was subsequently completed twice (median test-retest interval: 3.4 wk). In both samples, the questionnaire reference frame overlapped with the criterion measure administration period. All participants had five or more valid days of criterion data, including one or more weekend day. Results: Test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient (95% CI)) was fair to good for total sedentary time (DQ: 0.68 (0.50-0.81); EQ: 0.53 (0.44-0.62)) and poor to excellent for domain-specific sedentary time (DQ: from 0.36 (0.10-0.57) (meals) to 0.66 (0.46-0.79) (occupation); EQ: from 0.45 (0.35-0.54) (other sedentary time) to 0.76 (0.71-0.81) (meals)). For criterion validity (Spearman rho), significant correlations were found for total sedentary time (DQ: 0.52; EQ: 0.22; all P <0.001). Compared with domain-specific criterion variables (DQ), modest-to-strong correlations were found for domain-specific sedentary time (from 0.21 (meals) to 0.76 (P < 0.001) (screen time)). The questionnaire generally overestimated sedentary time compared with criterion measures. Conclusion: The SIT-Q-7d appears to be a useful tool for ranking individuals in large-scale observational studies examining total and domain-specific sitting

Protective efficacy of a recombinant plague vaccine when co-administered with another sub-unit or live attenuated vaccine.

Vaccines against bioterrorism agents offer the prospect of providing high levels of protection against airborne pathogens. However, the diversity of the bioterrorism threat means that it may be necessary to use several vaccines simultaneously. In this study we have investigated whether there are changes to the protective immune response to a recombinant sub-unit plague vaccine when it is co-administered with other sub-unit or live attenuated vaccines. Our results indicate that the co-administration of these vaccines did not influence the protection afforded by the plague vaccine. However, the co-administration of the plague sub-unit vaccine with a live vaccine resulted in markedly increased levels of IgG2a subclass antibodies, and markedly reduced levels of IgG1 subclass antibodies, to the plague sub-unit vaccine. This finding might have implications when considering the co-administration of other vaccine combinations

Insightful Insiders? Insider Trading and Stock Return Around Debt Covenant Violation Disclosures

This paper documents significant trading by insiders around a first-time debt covenant violation disclosure in an SEC filing and is interesting from a research and regulatory standpoint because of three considerations - delay and relative infrequency of new covenant violation disclosures lack of attention to disclosure issues by regulators and dearth of research. Importantly we find a lead relation between net insider selling in the 12 months before a debt covenant violation disclosure and investors' negative returns and net insider buying up to 12 months after disclosure and investors' positive returns. This relation is robust to the presence of other information. These results support our contention that insiders' trades around a covenant violation disclosure may benefit from an information advantage unavailable to other market participants. The aggregate return to insiders - the sum of the losses avoided from selling and the gains from buying - approaches almost two billion dollars over an eight-year study period

School Choice, Youth Voice: How Diverse Student Policy Actors Experience High School Choice Policy

School choice research is abundant, but rarely incorporates students’ experiences or perspectives. This study investigates a diverse group of students’ school choice experiences as they applied to, gained admission to and enrolled in high school in Chicago Public Schools, which offers over 130 options. Adapting Ball and colleagues’ (2012) concept of policy actor positionality, we analyzed the role of students’ developmental and social statuses in students’ school choice experiences. Students’ policy encounters were developmentally consistent, but their admissions results and subsequent academic trajectories diverged by their socioeconomic status. We discuss these findings’ developmental and equity implications for school choice policy

Sleep duration and cardiometabolic risk factors among individuals with type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between sleep duration and cardiometabolic risk factors among individuals with recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes (n = 391). METHODS: Sleep duration was derived using a combination of questionnaire and objective heart rate and movement sensing in the UK ADDITION-Plus study (2002-2007). Adjusted means were estimated for individual cardiometabolic risk factors and clustered cardiometabolic risk (CCMR) by five categories of sleep duration. RESULTS: We observed a J-shaped association between sleep duration and CCMR - individuals sleeping 7 to <8 h had a significantly better CCMR profile than those sleeping ≥9 h. Independent of physical activity and sedentary time, individuals sleeping 7 to <8 h had lower triacylglycerol (0.62 mmol/l (0.29, 1.06)) and higher high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol levels (0.23 mmol/l (0.16, 0.30)) compared with those sleeping ≥9 h, and a lower waist circumference (7.87 cm (6.06, 9.68)) and body mass index (BMI) (3.47 kg/m(2) (2.69, 4.25)) than those sleeping <6 h. Although sleeping 7 to <8 h was associated with lower levels of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, HbA1c, total cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol, these associations were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Sleep duration has a J-shaped association with CCMR in individuals with diabetes, independent of potential confounding. Health promotion interventions might highlight the importance of adequate sleep in this high-risk population.The trial is supported by the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council, Diabetes UK and National Health Service R&D support funding. SJG was a member of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Primary Care Research. The General Practice and Primary Care Research Unit was supported by NIHR Research funds. SJG received support from the Department of Health NIHR Programme Grant funding scheme [RP-PG-0606-1259]. ATP is supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2014.10.00