The impact of relationship wellness checkups on LGBTQ couples

Relationship health has many benefits, from physical and emotional health of the partners to their children’s wellbeing. Early intervention programs protect relationships from decline. These programs represent growing public health initiatives. However, most studies on wellness or early intervention overlook lesbian and gay male couples. Research that assumes lesbian and gay relationships are the same as heterosexual cisgender relationships, or that ignores lesbian and gay couples completely, leaves practitioners in the dark on how to intervene successfully. Programs that seek to promote wellness and prevent decline for diverse groups must be able to attune to critical differences, appropriately adapt materials, combat social prejudice, and encourage practitioners to manage unintentional personal bias. Research sheds light on which direction to go to accomplish these tasks. Intervention research with sexual and gender minority couples also encourages existing programs to effectively open and adapt their programs to include lesbian and gay couples in the populations they serve. This study fills this gap in the research on lesbian and gay couples and wellness checkups, offering information about these often-overlooked couples and promoting their inclusion. The study examines the question, “What is the impact of a relationship wellness checkup on gay and lesbian couples’ satisfaction?” The two arms of the study capture different groups – one group is lesbian couples and one group is gay male couples. The method employs a multiple probe, nonconcurrent multiple baseline design. The independent variable is an established relationship health intervention based on motivational interviewing principles, The Marriage Checkup (MC). The dependent variable is relationship satisfaction measured by the Couple Satisfaction Index. Three lesbian couples and three gay male couples participate in the study. The findings show the checkup has a moderate effect on satisfaction for both lesbian couples (NAP =.66) and for gay male couples (NAP = .73). Visual analysis of the data supports these results. The outcome shows a relationship wellness checkup, based on the MC, had a positive benefit for these six couples. The results confirm a relationship checkup for gay and lesbian couples can improve their satisfaction, just as it improves heterosexual couples’ satisfaction. In addition, these results suggest offering an MC to gay and lesbian couples specifically could be beneficial for these couples as wellness support operates in contrast to social stigma, discrimination, and prejudice.Keywords: Lesbian, Relationship Wellness Checkup, Motivational Interviewing, Brief Intervention, Gay Male, Couples, Marital Health, Marriage Checkup, Gay, Prevention, Same Se

Rice markets in Madagascar in disarray : Policy options for increased efficiency and price stabilization. Washington, World Bank.

Faced with a production shortfall in early 2004 and a sharp rise in the price of imported rice due to a depreciation of the Malagasy franc and a spike in international rice prices, Madagascar attempted to stabilize domestic rice prices through public tenders for rice imports and subsidized sales at official prices. This paper discusses the 2004 rice crisis, chronicling the events that triggered the crisis and the subsequent interventions by the government, and analyzes the impacts of the policies adopted and steps taken to spur development of the domestic rice market. Using a partial equilibrium model, the paper also quantifies the overall costs and benefits of a change in import duties for various household groups, and compares this intervention to a policy of targeted food transfers or security stocks. as well as other options for price stabilization, including a reduction in import duties and a security stock policy

Consumentenperceptie van nanotechnologieën in voedsel en landbouw: een eerste verkenning : eindrapportage

In 2010 is door Wageningen UR (beleidsondersteunend) onderzoek gedaan naar de percepties van Nederlandse consumenten ten aanzien van nanotechnologische toepassingen in voedsel en landbouw. De resultaten van dit onderzoek worden in dit rapport toegelicht

Search for CP Violation in the Decay Z -> b (b bar) g

About three million hadronic decays of the Z collected by ALEPH in the years 1991-1994 are used to search for anomalous CP violation beyond the Standard Model in the decay Z -> b \bar{b} g. The study is performed by analyzing angular correlations between the two quarks and the gluon in three-jet events and by measuring the differential two-jet rate. No signal of CP violation is found. For the combinations of anomalous CP violating couplings, ${\hat{h}}_b = {\hat{h}}_{Ab}g_{Vb}-{\hat{h}}_{Vb}g_{Ab}$ and $h^{\ast}_b = \sqrt{\hat{h}_{Vb}^{2}+\hat{h}_{Ab}^{2}}$, limits of \hat{h}_b < 0.59$and$h^{\ast}_{b} < 3.02$ are given at 95\% CL.Comment: 8 pages, 1 postscript figure, uses here.sty, epsfig.st

Search for the glueball candidates f0(1500) and fJ(1710) in gamma gamma collisions

Data taken with the ALEPH detector at LEP1 have been used to search for gamma gamma production of the glueball candidates f0(1500) and fJ(1710) via their decay to pi+pi-. No signal is observed and upper limits to the product of gamma gamma width and pi+pi- branching ratio of the f0(1500) and the fJ(1710) have been measured to be Gamma_(gamma gamma -> f0(1500)). BR(f0(1500)->pi+pi-) < 0.31 keV and Gamma_(gamma gamma -> fJ(1710)). BR(fJ(1710)->pi+pi-) < 0.55 keV at 95% confidence level.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Search for supersymmetry with a dominant R-parity violating LQDbar couplings in e+e- collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 130GeV to 172 GeV

A search for pair-production of supersymmetric particles under the assumption that R-parity is violated via a dominant LQDbar coupling has been performed using the data collected by ALEPH at centre-of-mass energies of 130-172 GeV. The observed candidate events in the data are in agreement with the Standard Model expectation. This result is translated into lower limits on the masses of charginos, neutralinos, sleptons, sneutrinos and squarks. For instance, for m_0=500 GeV/c^2 and tan(beta)=sqrt(2) charginos with masses smaller than 81 GeV/c^2 and neutralinos with masses smaller than 29 GeV/c^2 are excluded at the 95% confidence level for any generation structure of the LQDbar coupling.Comment: 32 pages, 30 figure