Increasing Happiness in the Workplace

This paper suggests ways for employees to find happiness in their jobs, especially through being engaged with and finding meaning in their work

Promoting innovative stormwater solutions for coastal plain communities

In 2008, the Center for Watershed Protection (CWP) surveyed seventy-three coastal plain communities to determine their current practices and need for watershed planning and low impact development (LID). The survey found that communities had varying watershed planning effectiveness and need better stormwater management, land use planning, and watershed management communication. While technical capacity is improving, stormwater programs are under staffed and innovative site designs may be prohibited under current regulations. In addition, the unique site constraints (e.g., sandy soils, low relief, tidal influence, vulnerability to coastal hazards, etc.) and lack of local examples are common LID obstacles along the coast (Vandiver and Hernandez, 2009). LID stormwater practices are an innovative approach to stormwater management that provide an alternative to structural stormwater practices, reduce runoff, and maintain or restores hydrology. The term LID is typically used to refer to the systematic application of small, distributed practices that replicate pre-development hydrologic functions. Examples of LID practices include: downspout disconnection, rain gardens, bioretention areas, dry wells, and vegetated filter strips. In coastal communities, LID practices have not yet become widely accepted or applied. The geographic focus for the project is the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plain province which includes nearly 250,000 square miles in portions of fifteen states from New Jersey to Texas (Figure 1). This project builds on CWP’s “Coastal Plain Watershed Network: Adapting, Testing, and Transferring Effective Tools to Protect Coastal Plain Watersheds” that developed a coastal land cover model, conducted a coastal plain community needs survey (results are online here: http://www.cwp.org/#survey), created a coastal watershed Network, and adapted the 8 Tools for Watershed Protection Framework for coastal areas. (PDF contains 4 pages

Trust-Based Prayer Expectancies, Attachment to God, and Perceived Stress

The current study analyzed the impact of trust-based prayer expectancies on the relationship between attachment to God and perceived stress levels. High trust-based prayer expectancies indicate a high trust in God to answer prayers in His time and in His way. It was hypothesized that trust-based prayer expectancies would mediate the relationship between attachment to God and perceived stress, since prayer expectancies are heavily reliant on trust in and a belief that God is a secure base. Three-hundred fifteen college students were surveyed on their trust-based prayer beliefs, perceived stress, and attachment to God. Results of the study indicated a significant indirect effect in which avoidance in one’s attachment to God predicted perceived stress by way of trust-based prayer expectancies. However, there was not a significant indirect effect linking anxiety in one’s attachment to God and perceived stress by way of trust-based prayer expectancies. Implications of the research suggest that trust-based prayer expectancies may be useful in reducing stress for individuals with avoidant attachment styles. Other possible mediators of the relationship between attachment to God and perceived stress may exist

Troubled men: ageing, dementia and masculinity in contemporary British crime drama

Focussing on three recent British film and television crime dramas, Mr Holmes, The Fear and the English language version of Wallander, this article argues that older men in these texts are a site through which contemporary social and cultural anxieties about ageing and dementia are played out in highly gendered ways that link to social and philosophical reflections on power, autonomy and selfhood. The dramas, while very different in affective orientation and tone, nonetheless all produce reflections on the meanings of memory loss within figurations of masculinity in the crime genre which have a broader significance for thinking through the representational dilemmas of dementia

Addressing Literacy: Speech-Language Pathologists’ Use of Literacy-Related Materials

Arts and Sciences Honors Research GrantRecently, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has officially expanded the role of the school speech-language pathologist (SLP) to literacy interventionist, obligated to improve the reading and writing of students at risk of school failure. Although we can presume that explicit and individualized literacy instruction embedded into therapy with children would be useful, and is asserted as a role that SLPs should take, no studies have examined SLPs’ attention to literacy within the context of the therapies they provide. This study analyzes the percentage of therapy time that school-based SLPs are using literacy materials and the time spent targeting literacy during therapy for kindergarten and first grade students with language disorders. This research project involved 22 SLPs involved in a larger study investigating speech therapy practices in public schools. For the purposes of this study, each child within the SLP's caseload was ranked according to his/her fall scores on the Letter-Word Identification (LWI) subtest from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement. The child with the lowest score from each SLP's caseload was chosen for analysis (n=22). For this study, two video-taped sessions were analyzed for each participating child. The therapy sessions were coded using the Language Intervention Observation Scale (LIOS) to measure materials used and targets addressed (i.e., grammar, vocabulary, literacy) during therapy. Descriptive analysis of the total amount of therapy time spent using literacy materials and the total time spent targeting literacy issues was calculated within Noldus Pro software and then analyzed using SPSS statistical software. The findings suggest that SLPs are using literacy materials for 25.59% of total time and targeting literacy for 6.89% of total time. Further research is needed to fully understand where literacy is being targeted within the schools for children with language disorders and what the role of the SLP is in addressing literacy-related concerns.No embarg

Social disparities in heart disease risk and survivor bias among autoworkers: an examination based on survival models and g-estimation.

ObjectivesTo examine gender and racial disparities in ischaemic heart disease (IHD) mortality related to metalworking fluid exposures and in the healthy worker survivor effect.MethodsA cohort of white and black men and women autoworkers in the USA was followed from 1941 to 1995 with quantitative exposure to respirable particulate matter from water-based metalworking fluids. Separate analyses used proportional hazards models and g-estimation.ResultsThe HR for IHD among black men was 3.29 (95% CI 1.49 to 7.31) in the highest category of cumulative synthetic fluid exposure. The HR for IHD among white women exposed to soluble fluid reached 2.44 (95% CI 0.96 to 6.22). However, no increased risk was observed among white men until we corrected for the healthy worker survivor effect. Results from g-estimation indicate that if white male cases exposed to soluble or synthetic fluid had been unexposed to that fluid type, then 1.59 and 1.20 years of life would have been saved on average, respectively.ConclusionsWe leveraged the strengths of two different analytic approaches to examine the IHD risks of metalworking fluids. All workers may have the same aetiological risk; however, black and female workers may experience more IHD from water-based metalworking fluid exposure because of a steeper exposure-response or weaker healthy worker survivor effect

Courts as Information Intermediaries: A Case Study of Sovereign Debt Disputes

When foreign sovereigns default on their debt, creditors sometimes sue them. These creditors are sophisticated actors, and they know that if they sue, courts can do little to force a sovereign to satisfy a judgment. Why do they sue? This Article argues that these creditors sue because they use litigation to produce information about the debtor state or its government that induces third parties to sanction or refuse to deal with the state or the government. The ability to produce such information strengthens the litigating creditors’ bargaining position in settlement negotiations. Courts thus serve as information intermediaries that strengthen reputational enforcement in the international sovereign debt market. The Article presents a case study that includes interviews with market participants and their lawyers to show three ways in which courts play this informational role. First, courts publicly determine whether a sovereign debtor has violated its legal obligations to creditors. Second, through discovery and fact finding, courts mitigate information asymmetries concerning aspects of sovereign behavior related to default that are difficult to monitor. Third, they provide a forum in which creditors seek to recast the broader political and ethical dimensions of disputes by highlighting corruption by the debtor state government. The sovereign debt market thus relies on a hybrid of legal and nonlegal enforcement. Parties appeal to the law to determine rights, detect bad behavior, and provide a broad normative frame. At the same time, they depend on reputation to discourage violations. This finding has implications for the debate among contracts scholars about the extent to which nonlegal mechanisms such as reputation can support trade. Recognizing that courts can function as information intermediaries implies that courts can expand the range of markets that reputation can support. Under certain conditions, courts can supplement legal remedies by transmitting accurate and credible information about market participants’ expectations and behavior