Rural workers have less access to paid sick days

This brief, using data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) survey, analyzes paid sick time rates of workers by place and type of work. Paid sick days provide job protection to workers and a steady paycheck when they need to care for themselves or family members. Paid sick days also help workers with more limited resources who cannot otherwise afford to take a day off. Authors Kristin Smith and Andrew Schaefer report that a greater proportion of rural workers than urban workers (both suburban and central-city) lack access to at least five paid sick days per year. Their analysis suggests that where one works matters, both geographically and by sector, and the quality of the job also matters. The rural disadvantage is particularly pronounced among rural private-sector workers and part-time workers, but even rural full-time workers have less access to paid sick days than their urban counterparts

Who cares for the sick kids? parents’ access to paid time to care for a sick child

This brief analyzes employed parents’ access to five or more paid sick days annually to care for a sick child in 2008. Using data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce collected by the Families and Work Institute (the most recent data available in the series), authors Kristin Smith and Andrew Schaefer analyze differences in access between employed mothers and fathers by demographic and work-related characteristics. They report that, in 2008, more than one-half—52 percent—of employed parents lacked access to at least five paid sick days to care for a sick child, and lower-earning parents had the least access. Although employed mothers and fathers have similar access to paid sick days to care for their sick children, mothers more often miss work to care for a sick child. Employed parents with paid sick days to care for a sick child are 1.9 times more likely to be very satisfied with their job than those without this access

Families Continue to Rely on Wives As Breadwinners Post-Recession

This brief uses data from the 2013 Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey to examine how President Obama’s proposed expanded eligibility and higher credit values might affect tax filers in both rural and urban America. Authors Jessica Carson and Marybeth Mattingly report that proposed changes to the earned income tax credit (EITC) will increase the share of workers without a qualifying child eligible for the EITC equally in rural and urban places, although rural residents are more likely to be eligible under both current and proposed policies. The average increase in the credit is $476, more than double the average current credit, and would be similar for married and single filers without qualifying children in both rural and urban places. The number of unmarried filers who would become eligible for the credit is significantly higher than the number of married filers, in both urban and rural places

Spirituality and Religiosity in Adolescents Living with Sickle Cell Disease

This study purports to address paucity in the literature regarding how adolescents with sickle cell disease (SCD) describe and experience spirituality and religiosity (S/R). This was a qualitative descriptive study. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine adolescents (Mage = 16.2 years). Data were analyzed using a template analysis style and a concurrent analysis process of data reduction. Three major themes encompassed the participants’ descriptions of the relationships between S/R, health and illness in their lives including S/R as sources for coping, influence of S/R beliefs on health and illness, and sharing S/R with Health Care Providers (HCPs). S/R as coping mechanisms included six threads: interconnecting with God, interconnecting with others, interconnecting with creative arts, scriptural metanarratives, transcendent experiences, and acceptance and finding meaning. Expectations of health providers included two threads: Religiosity is private/personal and sharing spiritual and religious beliefs is risky. S/R are particularly salient for adolescents with SCD

Beschreibung anorganischer Bodenbelastungen mit multivariater Statistik & Geostatistik

In dieser Arbeit werden die Auswertemöglichkeiten von Bodendaten mit multivariater Statistik vorgestellt. Neben den klassischen Methoden Clusteranalyse und -imaging sowie Faktorenanalyse, liegt der Fokus auf den Quellenmodellierungsmethoden. Die Quellenmodellierung ist im Umweltkompartiment Luft bereits seit Jahren etabliert, im Umweltbereich Boden fehlen jedoch grundlegende Arbeiten. In dieser Arbeit werden die Methoden multivariate Kurvenauflösung mit alternierender Fehlerquadratsummenminimierung (MCR-ALS) und absolute Hauptkomponentenwerte kombiniert mit multipler linearer Regression (APCS-MLR) ausführlich anhand zweier Fallbeispiele vorgestellt. Bei beiden Beispielen wird der Boden durch die Emissionen der Eisenindustrie geprägt und ist somit durch verschiedene Schwermetalle belastet. Es wurden jeweils 60 Bodenproben genommen, getrocknet und kleiner 2 mm gesiebt. Im Königswasseraufschluss dieser Proben konnte mit verschiedenen Methoden der instrumentellen Analytik die Konzentration 15 verschiedener Metalle bestimmt werden. Das Clusterimaging ermöglicht bereits erste Interpretationen, mit den Methoden der Quellenmodellierung sind genauere Aussagen möglich. Die Belastung des Bodens durch die Metalle wird vier verschiedenen Quellen zugeordnet. Die Kombination von Quellenmodellierung mit Geostatik ermöglicht die Interpolation zwischen den Probennahmestellen. Dadurch ist es möglich, den Einfluss der einzelnen Quellen auf das Untersuchungsgebiet genau zu veranschaulichen. Die quellenspezifische Elementverteilung kann somit mittels Isolinien- oder auch Konturplots dargestellt werden und der quantitative Einfluss der Quelle für jedes Element wird dadurch veranschaulicht. Insgesamt hat sich gezeigt, dass Quellenmodellierungsmethoden sehr gut geeignet sind, Elementgehalte im Boden zu beschreiben. Die Kombination mit der Geostatistik ermöglicht eine umfassende Beschreibung des Bodenzustandes und sollte bei umfangreichen Untersuchungen stets Verwendung finden

Kinetic and Cyber

We compare and contrast situation awareness in cyber warfare and in conventional, kinetic warfare. Situation awareness (SA) has a far longer history of study and applications in such areas as control of complex enterprises and in conventional warfare, than in cyber warfare. Far more is known about the SA in conventional military conflicts, or adversarial engagements, than in cyber ones. By exploring what is known about SA in conventional, also commonly referred to as kinetic, battles, we may gain insights and research directions relevant to cyber conflicts. We discuss the nature of SA in conventional (often called kinetic) conflict, review what is known about this kinetic SA (KSA), and then offer a comparison with what is currently understood regarding the cyber SA (CSA). We find that challenges and opportunities of KSA and CSA are similar or at least parallel in several important ways. With respect to similarities, in both kinetic and cyber worlds, SA strongly impacts the outcome of the mission. Also similarly, cognitive biases are found in both KSA and CSA. As an example of differences, KSA often relies on commonly accepted, widely used organizing representation - map of the physical terrain of the battlefield. No such common representation has emerged in CSA, yet.Comment: A version of this paper appeared as a book chapter in Cyber Defense and Situational Awareness, Springer, 2014. Prepared by US Government employees in their official duties; approved for public release, distribution unlimited. Cyber Defense and Situational Awareness. Springer International Publishing, 2014. 29-4

Conscientiousness predicts greater recovery from negative emotion

Greater levels of conscientiousness have been associated with lower levels of negative affect. We focus on one mechanism through which conscientiousness may decrease negative affect: effective emotion regulation, as reflected by greater recovery from negative stimuli. In 273 adults who were 35 - 85 years old, we collected self-report measures of personality including conscientiousness and its self-control facet, followed on average 2 years later by psychophysiological measures of emotional reactivity and recovery. Among middle-aged adults (35 - 65 years old), the measures of conscientiousness and self-control predicted greater recovery from, but not reactivity to, negative emotional stimuli. The effect of conscientiousness and self-control on recovery was not driven by other personality variables or by greater task adherence on the part of high conscientiousness individuals. In addition, the effect was specific to negative emotional stimuli and did not hold for neutral or positive emotional stimuli

Use of the Spiritual Development Framework in Conducting Spirituality and Health Research with Adolescents

Spirituality is considered a universal phenomenon, but research addressing the spiritual needs of adolescents in the context of health and illness is limited. The aim of this article is to provide a description of how the spiritual development framework (SDF) was used in conducting research with adolescents. An exemplar of a qualitative descriptive study is provided to demonstrate applicability of the SDF. The SDF was used as a guiding theoretical framework in conducting research with adolescents living with sickle cell disease. The SDF is culturally applicable and methodologically appropriate. Additional research applying the SDF is warranted

Understanding socio-technological systems change through an indigenous community-based participatory framework

Moving toward a sustainable global society requires substantial change in both social and technological systems. This sustainability is dependent not only on addressing the environmental impacts of current social and technological systems, but also on addressing the social, economic and political harms that continue to be perpetuated through systematic forms of oppression and the exclusion of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities. To adequately identify and address these harms, we argue that scientists, practitioners, and communities need a transdis-ciplinary framework that integrates multiple types of knowledge, in particular, Indigenous and experiential knowledge. Indigenous knowledge systems embrace relationality and reciprocity rather than extraction and oppression, and experiential knowledge grounds transition priorities in lived experiences rather than expert assessments. Here, we demonstrate how an Indigenous, experiential, and community-based participatory framework for understanding and advancing socio-technolog-ical system transitions can facilitate the co-design and co-development of community-owned energy systems