Better Off Working? Work, Poverty And Benefit Cycling

A study of the work experiences of a group of low-skilled workers over five years. Concern has been growing about the extent to which paid work is an effective route out of poverty and the extent of churning between work and benefits that can result in recurrent poverty. Using both interview and survey data, this report examines work pathways, experiences of retention and progression, and feelings of financial strain among a group of lone parents and former long-term unemployed people who have entered work. The report covers: • people’s perceptions of poverty and financial strain and how this relates to their movements in and out of work; • people’s trajectories in work and the factors facilitating or constraining work retention; • the relationship between work trajectories and moving into ‘better work’; • what enables or constrains people in their attempts to progress in work; and • tensions and trade-offs between retention and progression

“The Whole Damn System is Guilty as Hell”: An Analysis of Social Movements, Social Media, and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice in America

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Case Study on Providing Telemental Health Video Counseling Services in a Sober Living Home

The purpose of this case study is to examine the process and report outcomes of providing telemental health video counseling to men who reside at Providence Home, a sober living facility located in Columbia, South Carolina. This case study is instrumental in design. The South Carolina Telehealth Alliance (SCTA) provided a $20,000 grant jointly, for Bright Side Counseling Center and Midlands Recovery Center to expand telehealth services into underserved populations. An extensive search, at the time of this writing, was conducted and we found no instances of telemental health video counseling services being provided to residents of sober living homes in the state of South Carolina. This study was limited to men living at Providence Home. Residents were asked to volunteer and receive, free of charge, four telemental health video counseling sessions via an internet broadband connection. A Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) conducted the four counseling sessions over four to six weeks in October and November 2019. Volunteer participants completed the Telemental Health Video Counseling Patient Satisfaction Survey after the four counseling sessions. The Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved resident interview questions were used to conduct interviews with the residents that completed the four counseling sessions. Three staff members at Providence Home were also interviewed after all counseling sessions were completed, using IRB approved staff interview questions

When The Southern Moon Is Swinging Low

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/2959/thumbnail.jp

The Long Wavelength Array Software Library

The Long Wavelength Array Software Library (LSL) is a Python module that provides a collection of utilities to analyze and export data collected at the first station of the Long Wavelength Array, LWA1. Due to the nature of the data format and large-N ($\gtrsim$100 inputs) challenges faced by the LWA, currently available software packages are not suited to process the data. Using tools provided by LSL, observers can read in the raw LWA1 data, synthesize a filter bank, and apply incoherent de-dispersion to the data. The extensible nature of LSL also makes it an ideal tool for building data analysis pipelines and applying the methods to other low frequency arrays.Comment: accepted to the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation; 24 pages, 4 figure

EMERGING AGRICULTURAL WATER CONSERVATION PRICE INCENTIVES

Recent Bureau of Reclamation policies encourage or require irrigation districts to adopt price conservation incentives. Using unpublished survey results and new district-level information, we examine the rate structures and incentives of district water pricing. Our findings reveal that the majority of districts use fixed charges independent of the quantity of water delivered and that most conservation rate structures recently implemented are designed so that the first tier quantity allocation satisfies most crop water needs. Although other district management objectives may be satisfied, price incentives are diminished or nonexistent. The question of whether conservation is being achieved is tautological and depends on how each district defines conservation.Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

IRRIGATION DISTRICT ADOPTION OF WATER CONSERVING RATE STRUCTURES

A binary choice model was used to identify the attributes that influence irrigation district adoption of conservation rate structures. Using principles of rate design and irrigation district administration as a framework, measures of irrigation district rate structure objectives and physical and economic conditions were developed. The factors investigated characterize the constraints under which districts operate, value and cost of water, quantity of water delivered and revenue risk for districts. Rate structure adoption was predicted with over 75% accuracy. Both significant and non-significant factors are key to understanding rate choice. Districts were more likely to adopt conservation rate pricing when the cost of water to farmers was greater, higher value crops were grown and in areas with warmer and longer growing seasons. These conditions may be interpreted as reflecting the presence of greater opportunity costs in allocating water between low and higher valued uses. Conservation rate pricing was less likely to be adopted by districts where the proportion of alfalfa to total acreage was higher and with higher per acre deliveries of water. Somewhat surprisingly, annual variation in water deliveries (which should increase the risk of revenue shortfalls) and size of the district (larger districts being more sophisticated) have little bearing on the type of rate structure adopted.Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,