Misrecognition in a Sustainability Capital: Race, Representation, and Transportation Survey Response Rates in the Portland Metropolitan Area

US household transportation surveys typically have limited coverage of and responses from people of color (POC), which may lead to inaccurate estimation of POC transportation access and behavior. We recast this technocratic understanding of representativeness as a problem of “racial misrecognition” in which racial group difference is obscured yet foundational for distributive transportation inequities and unsustainability. We linked 2008–2012 population and housing data to an apparent stratified random sample of 6107 household responses to the 2011 Oregon Household Activity Survey (OHAS) in a “sustainability capital”: the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. We detailed how the 2011 OHAS consistently overrepresented White households and underrepresented Latinx/Nonwhite households in aggregate and at the tract-level. We conducted tract-level spatial pattern and bivariate correlation analyses of our key variables of interest. As expected, our subsequent tract-level spatial error regression analysis demonstrated that the percent of Latinx/Nonwhite householders had a significant negative association with 2011 OHAS household response rates, net of other statistical controls. Further analyses revealed that the majority of the ten “typical” tracts that best represented the spatial error regression results and racial misrecognition in the OHAS exhibited historical and contemporary patterns of racial exclusion and socially unsustainable development in our study area

Are the Goals of Sustainability Interconnected? A Sociological Analysis of the Three E’s of Sustainable Development Using Cross-Lagged Models with Reciprocal Effects

Conceptual discussions of sustainability emphasize the interdependent relationship between relevant social and environmental factors. Yet, traditional quantitative analyses of the topic have tended to estimate the exogenous or direct/indirect effects a predictor variable has on a particular measure of sustainability. We examine the endogenous, interdependent relationship between the three E’s of sustainability (economy, equity, and ecology), incorporating country-level data for 1990 through 2015 into cross-lagged structural equation models with reciprocal and fixed effects. Results from these longitudinal models suggest that over time, at the country level, increasing economic inequality reduces renewable energy consumption, with no evidence of reciprocal feedback. Keeping in mind the limitations of the analysis, we tentatively argue that the modern form of development has constrained the potential for the sustainability goals to feed back into each other

Gender Inequality, Reproductive Justice, and Decoupling Economic Growth and Emissions: a Panel Analysis of the Moderating Association of Gender Equality on the Relationship between Economic Growth and CO2 Emissions

Understanding how carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) can be decoupled from economic growth is an important part of planning for climate change mitigation. A variety of critical environmental theories contend that the oppression of marginalized groups is interconnected with the mistreatment and destruction of nature. As a result, social equity, or the removal of barriers of structural inequality, often coincide with environmental quality and reduced environmental degradation. To date, there is limited research on the dialectical relationship between inequality, economic growth, and the environment. The present study seeks to further understand the relationship between social inequality and the environment by assessing how gender equality decouples economic growth from CO2 emissions. We construct a fixed-effects panel regression model with robust standard errors that accounts for clustering in 140 nations to assess how gender inequality interacts with GDP per capita to influence CO2 emissions per capita. Our findings indicate that in nations with more gender equality, the association between GDP per capita and CO2 emissions is much lower than in nations with higher levels of gender inequality

Patient-Specific Finite Element–Based Analysis of Ventricular Myofiber Stress After Coapsys: Importance of Residual Stress

BACKGROUND: We sought to determine regional myofiber stress after Coapsys device (Myocor, Inc., Maple Grove, Minnesota) implantation using a finite element (FE) model of the left ventricle (LV). Chronic ischemic mitral regurgitation (CIMR) is due to LV remodeling after postero-lateral myocardial infarction. The Coapsys device consists of a single trans-LV chord placed below the mitral valve such that when tensioned it alters LV shape and decreases CIMR. METHODS: FE models of the LV were based on magnetic resonance images (MRI) obtained before (PRE-OP) and after (POST-OP) CABG + Coapsys in a single patient. To determine the effect of Coapsys and LV pre-stress, virtual Coapsys (VIRTUAL-COAPSYS) was performed on the PRE-OP model. Diastolic and systolic material parameters in the PRE-OP, POST-OP and VIRTUAL-COAPSYS were adjusted so that model LV volume agreed with MRI data. CIMR was abolished in the post-op models. In each case, myofiber stress and pump function were calculated. RESULTS: Both POST-OP and VIRTUAL-COAPSYS shifted end-systolic (ES) and end diastolic (ED) pressure volume relationships (PVR) to the left. As a consequence and because CIMR was reduced after Coapsys, pump function was unchanged. Coapsys decreased myofiber stress at ED and ES in both the remote and infarct regions of the myocardium. However, knowledge of Coapsys and LV pre-stress was necessary for accurate calculation of LV myofiber stress especially in the remote zone. CONCLUSIONS: Coapsys decreases myofiber stress at ED and ES. The improvement in myofiber stress may contribute to the long term effect of Coapsys on LV remodeling