Associations Between Neighborhoods and Summer Meals Sites: Measuring Access to Federal Summer Meals Programs

While the challenge of access to healthy food features prominently in the literature, access to federal nutrition programs, specifically USDA’s Summer Meals Program, is relatively undocumented. Participation in the program depends on a number of complex variables, including site availability, neighborhood dynamics, and community investment. The purpose of this study is to determine neighborhood indicators that correlate with the coverage and density of summer meals sites in Texas. Attributes of the community and the number of meal sites were collected at the census tract level, and paired t-tests revealed the statistical significance of differences between tracts with and without meal sites. We also implemented a regression model to predict the number of sites within a tract as a function of neighborhood variables. Urban areas have the greatest access to summer meals sites, while access is limited in suburban and rural areas. In general, method of transportation proved significant. We find that the site coverage and density in areas of different urbanicity depends on the availability of transportation

The representative concentration pathways: An overview

This paper summarizes the development process and main characteristics of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), a set of four new pathways developed for the climate modeling community as a basis for long-term and near-term modeling experiments. The four RCPs together span the range of year 2100 radiative forcing values found in the open literature, i.e. from 2.6 to 8.5 W/m2. The RCPs are the product of an innovative collaboration between integrated assessment modelers, climate modelers, terrestrial ecosystem modelers and emission inventory experts. The resulting product forms a comprehensive data set with high spatial and sectoral resolutions for the period extending to 2100. Land use and emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases are reported mostly at a 0.5 × 0.5 degree spatial resolution, with air pollutants also provided per sector (for well-mixed gases, a coarser resolution is used). The underlying integrated assessment model outputs for land use, atmospheric emissions and concentration data were harmonized across models and scenarios to ensure consistency with historical observations while preserving individual scenario trends. For most variables, the RCPs cover a wide range of the existing literature. The RCPs are supplemented with extensions (Extended Concentration Pathways, ECPs), which allow climate modeling experiments through the year 2300. The RCPs are an important development in climate research and provide a potential foundation for further research and assessment, including emissions mitigation and impact analysis

The significance of place: a multilevel analysis situating trust in a community context.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-91).The alleged decline of social capital is a source of considerable debate and research within the social sciences. Defined loosely as the intrinsic value of networks, social capital connects citizens and promotes a healthy society. This emphasis on the value of social capital helped launch trust to the forefront of national attention and concern. Trust is essential to social capital as the process of building relationships and maintaining connections would not be possible without it. Research has yet to fully investigate and establish the sources of social trust leaving inadequate knowledge of the circumstances under which it may exist. This study of a large recent social capital survey demonstrates that, controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle and location factors, being involved in society is positively associated with social trust. However, by considering community level variables like poverty, education, urbanization and violent crime, it is clear that involvement’s effect on social trust is mediated at the group level. Therefore, community level characteristics cannot be ignored as important factors that have the power to influence an individual’s social trust levels.by Kathy W. Krey.Ph.D

The representative concentration pathways: an overview

This paper summarizes the development process and main characteristics of the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), a set of four new pathways developed for the climate modeling community as a basis for long-term and near-term modeling experiments. The four RCPs together span the range of year 2100 radiative forcing values found in the open literature, i.e. from 2.6 to 8.5 W/m2. The RCPs are the product of an innovative collaboration between integrated assessment modelers, climate modelers, terrestrial ecosystem modelers and emission inventory experts. The resulting product forms a comprehensive data set with high spatial and sectoral resolutions for the period extending to 2100. Land use and emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases are reported mostly at a 0.5 × 0.5 degree spatial resolution, with air pollutants also provided per sector (for well-mixed gases, a coarser resolution is used). The underlying integrated assessment model outputs for land use, atmospheric emissions and concentration data were harmonized across models and scenarios to ensure consistency with historical observations while preserving individual scenario trends. For most variables, the RCPs cover a wide range of the existing literature. The RCPs are supplemented with extensions (Extended Concentration Pathways, ECPs), which allow climate modeling experiments through the year 2300. The RCPs are an important development in climate research and provide a potential foundation for further research and assessment, including emissions mitigation and impact analysis