For Love or Money: Has Neoliberalism Impacted Fertility? A Historical Comparison

Known as neoliberalism, an economic philosophy has spread throughout the world and may be contributing to total fertility rates that have fallen well below replacement value. I present two neoliberal mechanisms and how they may have driven total fertility rates around the world well below replacement levels and inhibited growth. These include increased social risks in the labor market as well as in the household. I then build a theoretical framework based on the social embeddedness of markets as conceived by Karl Polanyi and the concept of social risk as suggested by Richard Breen, suggesting that the unique combinations of speed and degree of adaptation can be broken into four ideal types. For each combination I indicate a unique hypothesis that indicates expected fertility patterns to emerge. Using the above mechanisms and framework, I use four historical case studies (Sweden, Germany, France and the UK) to represent each of the ideal models and test the validity of my theoretical framework and assertions. Finally, I draw conclusions regarding the impact of neoliberalism on fertility from these case studies and present future implications of these findings as well as proposed future research

Adaptation Outcomes in Climate-Vulnerable Locations: Understanding How Short-Term Climate Actions Exacerbated Existing Gender Inequities in Coastal Bangladesh

Adverse climate impacts present a significant challenge for the majority of the world’s population. It is especially true for smallholder farmers in coastal Bangladesh, where some adaptation initiatives appeared to be short-sighted and reproduced further inequity, poverty, and food insecurity. Based on empirical insights, this paper shows how short-sighted climate responses can adversely affect gender equity, illustrated through three adaptation strategies. First, agricultural institutions have traditionally and historically linked with gender roles. Outmigration from the region is gendered as males leave first. This forces increased household and farm responsibilities onto female household members and increased vulnerability. This gendered vulnerability becomes compounded by the ways critical weather information flows at the local level. Taking this gendered lens, this paper illustrates how shrimp farming has caused long-term woes for society. These insights help in understanding the complexity of climate–society interactions and the importance of long-term planning on any climate adaptation initiatives

The Gingival Sulcus and the Periodontal Pocket Immediately Following Scaling of Teeth

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141622/1/jper0167.pd

Mothers on the Market: Employer Hiring Practices and Motherhood Penalties

Recent scholars have identified a phenomenon known as the motherhood wage penalty with research demonstrating that women with children face wage discrepancies beyond those associated with being female. This project adds to our understanding of non-wage-related penalties by investigating two distinct gatekeeping stages: screening and interviewing. I asked do employer hiring practices create barriers to mothers’ access to jobs? To answer this question, I used a novel mixed-methods approach, combining a dual-state audit study with qualitative employer interviews. I framed my study using the status theory of motherhood, which suggests that whenever motherhood is salient in the labor market, mothers will face discrimination. This study is the first of its kind in the field of motherhood and organizational discrimination. In phase one, I completed an audit study in two states: Utah and California. Each week, I applied for 10 jobs in each state using two fictitious applicants for a total of 40 resumes per week. This resulted in 960 applications (480 companies) over a 24-week period. I then randomly selected employers in each state for a total of 27 interviews, allowing me to speak directly with hiring managers regarding their employment practices. Throughout this project I identified employer bias at both the screening and interviewing stages. This included three key mechanisms: employers’ ideal expectations for their workers, the subjective assessment of both soft skills and family responsibilities, and the employment gap inquiry. Findings also varied by state suggesting that the salience of motherhood may be impacted by larger cultural and policy contexts resulting in varied labor market outcomes

A Pilot Evaluation of the Performance Diagnostic Checklist for Assessing Employee Satisfaction and Support in Call Centers

Call center employees play a critical role in providing customer service, and directly influence customer satisfaction and retention (Slowiak, 2014). Determining what variables influence employee satisfaction and performance in call centers is crucial for organizations and businesses to support their employees. The Performance Diagnostic Checklist (PDC) was developed to identify variables that influence employee performance (Austin, 2000). The PDC has been found to be effective in a variety of settings, but a review of the literature indicates it has not been used to assess employee support in financial institutions. This study aims to adapt the PDC for use with employees in a financial institution call center to systematically assess factors related to employee support throughout the department. Results of the study indicate overall high levels of employee support, but indicate the potential for improvement in communication of department performance indicators as well as monitoring and providing clear performance feedback.Sponsored by the UAA Office of Undergraduate Research & Scholarship (OURS).Acknowledgements / Abstract / Introduction / Method / Results / Discussion / Conclusio

Stobe Photography Mapping of Cell Membrane Potential with Nanosecond Resolution

The ability to directly observe membrane potential charging dynamics across a full microscopic field of view is vital for understanding interactions between a biological system and a given electrical stimulus. Accurate empirical knowledge of cell membrane electrodynamics will enable validation of fundamental hypotheses posited by the single shell model, which includes the degree of voltage change across a membrane and cellular sensitivity to external electric field non-uniformity and directionality. To this end, we have developed a high-speed strobe microscopy system with a time resolution of ~ 6 ns that allows us to acquire time-sequential data for temporally repeatable events (non-injurious electrostimulation). The imagery from this system allows for direct comparison of membrane voltage change to both computationally simulated external electric fields and time-dependent membrane charging models. Acquisition of a full microscope field of view enables the selection of data from multiple cell locations experiencing different electrical fields in a single image sequence for analysis. Using this system, more realistic membrane parameters can be estimated from living cells to better inform predictive models. As a proof of concept, we present evidence that within the range of membrane conductivity used in simulation literature, higher values are likely more valid

Pulsed Electric Field Ablation of Esophageal Malignancies and Mitigating Damage to Smooth Muscle: An In Vitro Study

Cancer ablation therapies aim to be efficient while minimizing damage to healthy tissues. Nanosecond pulsed electric field (nsPEF) is a promising ablation modality because of its selectivity against certain cell types and reduced neuromuscular effects. We compared cell killing efficiency by PEF (100 pulses, 200 ns–10 µs duration, 10 Hz) in a panel of human esophageal cells (normal and pre-malignant epithelial and smooth muscle). Normal epithelial cells were less sensitive than the pre-malignant ones to unipolar PEF (15–20% higher LD50, p \u3c 0.05). Smooth muscle cells (SMC) oriented randomly in the electric field were more sensitive, with 30–40% lower LD50 (p \u3c 0.01). Trains of ten, 300-ns pulses at 10 kV/cm caused twofold weaker electroporative uptake of YO-PRO-1 dye in normal epithelial cells than in either pre-malignant cells or in SMC oriented perpendicularly to the field. Aligning SMC with the field reduced the dye uptake fourfold, along with a twofold reduction in Ca2+ transients. A 300-ns pulse induced a twofold smaller transmembrane potential in cells aligned with the field, making them less vulnerable to electroporation. We infer that damage to SMC from nsPEF ablation of esophageal malignancies can be minimized by applying the electric field parallel to the predominant SMC orientation

Control of the Electroporation Efficiency of Nanosecond Pulses by Swinging the Electric Field Vector Direction

Reversing the pulse polarity, i.e., changing the electric field direction by 180°, inhibits electroporation and electrostimulation by nanosecond electric pulses (nsEPs). This feature, known as “bipolar cancellation,” enables selective remote targeting with nsEPs and reduces the neuromuscular side effects of ablation therapies. We analyzed the biophysical mechanisms and measured how cancellation weakens and is replaced by facilitation when nsEPs are applied from different directions at angles from 0 to 180°. Monolayers of endothelial cells were electroporated by a train of five pulses (600 ns) or five paired pulses (600 + 600 ns) applied at 1 Hz or 833 kHz. Reversing the electric field in the pairs (180° direction change) caused 2-fold (1 Hz) or 20-fold (833 kHz) weaker electroporation than the train of single nsEPs. Reducing the angle between pulse directions in the pairs weakened cancellation and replaced it with facilitation at angles \u3c160° (1 Hz) and \u3c130° (833 kHz). Facilitation plateaued at about three-fold stronger electroporation compared to single pulses at 90–100° angle for both nsEP frequencies. The profound dependence of the efficiency on the angle enables novel protocols for highly selective focal electroporation at one electrode in a three-electrode array while avoiding effects at the other electrodes. Nanosecond-resolution imaging of cell membrane potential was used to link the selectivity to charging kinetics by co- and counter-directional nsEPs