Flood- and Weather-Damaged Homes and Mental Health: An Analysis Using England's Mental Health Survey

There is increasing evidence that exposure to weather-related hazards like storms and floods adversely affects mental health. However, evidence of treated and untreated mental disorders based on diagnostic criteria for the general population is limited. We analysed the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, a large probability sample survey of adults in England (n = 7525), that provides the only national data on the prevalence of mental disorders assessed to diagnostic criteria. The most recent survey (2014–2015) asked participants if they had experienced damage to their home (due to wind, rain, snow or flood) in the six months prior to interview, a period that included months of unprecedented population exposure to flooding, particularly in Southern England. One in twenty (4.5%) reported living in a storm- or flood-damaged home in the previous six months. Social advantage (home ownership, higher household income) increased the odds of exposure to storm or flood damage. Exposure predicted having a common mental disorder over and above the effects of other known predictors of poor mental health. With climate change increasing the frequency and severity of storms and flooding, improving community resilience and disaster preparedness is a priority. Evidence on the mental health of exposed populations is key to building this capacity

Recent Changes in the Structure and Value of African-American Male Occupations

The occupational structure of black men has undergone major changes in recent years, shifting from largely blue-collar to white-collar and service occupations. At the same time there has been a decline in both the relative and absolute value of black male occupations. Moreover, it appears that labor-market discrimination still plays a significant role in the disparity between black and white male occupational earnings

A Summary of Livestock Marketing in South Dakota

39 (41). For the five year period 1936-40 livestock sources were responsible for 78.7 percent of all farm cash income in South Dakota, exclusive of government payments. Of all the cash income from livestock sources the sales of the following species of animals accounted for specified percentages: Cattle, 32.7; hogs, 25.5; and sheep, 5.5 (See Figs. I and 2). The distribution of livestock in the state and the boundaries of the areas into which the state was divided for this study is shown by Figs. 3, 4 and 5. Cattle are distributed much more uniformly over the state, with the greatest concentration in the southeastern areas, 1 and 6 (See Fig. 3). Hog production has its greatest concentration in the southeast in Area 1 ( See Fig. 4). Sheep are grown all over the state, but by far in the largest numbers in the northwest in Area 7 (See Fig. 5). Of various services required in getting meat to the consumer, livestock marketing of slaughter animals alone ordinarily adsorbs from 3 to 6 percent of the retail meat price and from 7 to 17 percent of the farm value of the livestock.2 Of course for animals that are marketed first as feeders and then resold later for slaughter the marketing costs run considerably higher and consequently take a larger share of the retail meat dollar. Therefore, it is of significance to note that a high percentage of livestock in South Dakota is sold as feeders to be later resold for slaughter. Many Shifts in Livestock Marketing Methods During Last Two Decades. For a number of decades preceding World War I the majority of livestock was sold through terminal public markets. However, since that time numerous developments have taken place that have caused considerable change in marketing methods. In recent years there has been a growing tendency to establish slaughter plants at interior points. This, together with improvement of motor transportation facilities, has led to a great increase in direct marketing of slaughter animals, and a decline in marketings through shipping associations and terminal public markets. In still more recent times, in many states, there has been considerable development of livestock auction barns or agencies. These have diverted parts of the volume of livestock, particularly stocker and feeder animals, from older types of markets. All of these changes have created new problems in the marketing of livestock, causing shifts in methods and practices employed

Economic Prescriptions for Black Americans

The following is a policy statement issued October 12, 1989, by the Study Group on Employment, Income, and Occupations of the Assessment of the Status of African-Americans project conducted by the William Monroe Trotter Institute. The full report of the study group is published in an article entitled Race and Inequality in the Managerial Age, which appears in Social, Political, and Economic Issues in Black America. One of the major conclusions of this report on the relative economic status of blacks in the United States is that a substantial and persisting gap exists between the general circumstances of blacks and nonblacks in this country

Going nuclear: gene family evolution and vertebrate phylogeny reconciled

Gene duplications have been common throughout vertebrate evolution, introducing paralogy and so complicating phylogenctic inference from nuclear genes. Reconciled trees are one method capable of dealing with paralogy, using the relationship between a gene phylogeny and the phylogeny of the organisms containing those genes to identify gene duplication events. This allows us to infer phylogenies from gene families containing both orthologous and paralogous copies. Vertebrate phylogeny is well understood from morphological and palaeontological data, but studies using mitochondrial sequence data have failed to reproduce this classical view. Reconciled tree analysis of a database of 118 vertebrate gene families supports a largely classical vertebrate phylogeny

Treatment of Young Children with HIV Infection: Using Evidence to Inform Policymakers

PMCID: PMC3404108This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Japanese Landscapes: Where Land and Culture Merge

From the busy streets of Tokyo to the secluded shores of Kyushu, from the volcanoes of Hokkaido to the temples of Kyoto, the treasured landscapes of Japan are brought to life in this concise visual guide. Drawing upon years of observation, Cotton Mather, P.P. Karan, and Shigeru Iijima explore the complex interaction of culture, time, and space in the evolution of landscapes in Japan. The authors begin with a discussion of the landscape\u27s general characteristics, including paucity of idle land, scarcity of level land, and its meticulous organization and immaculate nature. They then apply those characteristics to such favorite subjects as home gardens, sculpted plants, and flower arrangements, but also to more mundane matters such as roadside shoulders, utility lines, and walled urban areas. This unique blending of physical and social sciences with humanities perspectives offers a unified analysis of the Japanese landscape. Cotton Mather is the author of Beyond the Great Divide. P.P. Karan, chair of the Japanese Studies committee and professor of geography at the University of Kentucky, is the co-editor of The Japanese City. Shigeru lijima is professor emeritus of cultural anthropology in the Tokyo Institute of Ethnology. The comparison of current landscapes with what might be called traditional landscapes is instructive in a much larger context. -- Allen G. Noble An elegantly produced short book, of which about half is taken up by a series of black and white photographs of the Japanese landscapes. -- Geographical Journal Puts Japan’s renowned urbanization within a broader cultural and national context. -- Journal of Urban Design Will provide a valuable starting point for the study of Japanese landscape. -- Landscape Research A large part of the enjoyment of this book comes from the chance to compare notes with the authors about what is essential in Japan’s landscape, and to engage them in a quiet, one-sided debate while reading. -- Pacific Affairs The book excels in explaining and categorizing the faces of Japan through physical environmental constraints interwoven with cultural attitudes. -- Todd Stradford The authors draw on years of observation and experience to explore the interaction of culture, time and space in the Japanese landscape. -- UK Newshttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_asian_history/1001/thumbnail.jp

Linking research and teaching: context, conflict and complementarity

Although research and teaching have often been regarded as complementary in enhancing the quality of student learning, little previous research has explored the conflicts associated with linking the two activities. This paper aims to examine specific issues arising within the environmental building disciplines at a UK university, and to explore strategies for achieving optimal research-teaching links. The results reveal that research-teaching linkages within these disciplines were interrelated and dynamic, but could be controversial, evidenced in coexisting multifaceted conflicts and complementarities. The research pointed towards a number of potential strategies for achieving optimal research-teaching linkages. In particular, it is critical to link research and teaching systematically right across an entire educational programme to address the progressive nature of learning and to maximise the potential of the research-teaching dynamic. © 2013 Taylor & Francis