574 research outputs found

    Understanding patterns of contraceptive use among never married Mexican American women

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    Background: Non-marital fertility differs considerably by race, ethnicity, and nativity. These differences arise largely from racial and ethnic disparities in contraceptive practices. Empirical work has not assessed the relative importance of the various mechanisms proposed to account for racial, ethnic, and nativity differences in contraceptive behavior among never married women. Objective: Our objective is to describe racial, ethnic, and nativity disparities in contraceptive practices and determine the relative importance of the various mechanisms proposed to explain those disparities among never married, non-cohabiting women. Methods: Pooling data from the 2006‒2010 and 2011‒2013 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), we compare the age- and parity-standardized patterns of contraceptive use among never married, non-cohabiting Mexican immigrants, US-born Mexican Americans, Blacks, and Whites. We also examine the extent to which socioeconomic characteristics, access to family planning, and attitudes towards family life give rise to group differences in patterns of contraceptive use. Results: Never married, non-cohabiting Whites are more likely than their minority counterparts to use very effective methods of contraception. Socioeconomic disparities explain some of the group differences in contraceptive practice. Differing levels of access to family planning also explain a significant portion of the difference in contraceptive practice between Whites and Mexican immigrants. Conclusions: Policies aimed at alleviating socioeconomic inequality and differential access to family planning services may be effective at reducing disparities in contraceptive use between White and non-White never married, non-cohabiting women, especially White/Mexican-immigrant differences

    Funny walking : the rise, fall and rise of the Anglo-American comic eccentric dancer

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    This article will attempt to reposition comic eccentric dance as a metamorphic form that still, surprisingly, exists, and is to be found with reasonable ubiquity, in renewed incarna-tions within twenty first century media. Tracing the origins of comic eccentric dance through examples of earlier comedy performance, and drawing from Bergson’s comic theory of body misalliance, this article will dis-cuss this particularly ludic fusion of music and comedy. Further changes to the form affected by modernist preoccupations during the new Jazz Age at the turn of the twentieth century will be suggested. Finally, ways in which the formulation lives on in twenty-first century in-carnations in the comedy work of, for instance, Jimmy Fallon and Ricky Gervase, and in popular television shows such as Strictly Come Dancing (BBC 2004 - ) and Britain’s Got Talent (ITV 2006 - ) will be posited

    Anisotropy studies around the galactic centre at EeV energies with the Auger Observatory

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    Data from the Pierre Auger Observatory are analyzed to search for anisotropies near the direction of the Galactic Centre at EeV energies. The exposure of the surface array in this part of the sky is already significantly larger than that of the fore-runner experiments. Our results do not support previous findings of localized excesses in the AGASA and SUGAR data. We set an upper bound on a point-like flux of cosmic rays arriving from the Galactic Centre which excludes several scenarios predicting sources of EeV neutrons from Sagittarius AA. Also the events detected simultaneously by the surface and fluorescence detectors (the `hybrid' data set), which have better pointing accuracy but are less numerous than those of the surface array alone, do not show any significant localized excess from this direction.Comment: Matches published versio

    Three-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Temperature Analysis

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    We present new full-sky temperature maps in five frequency bands from 23 to 94 GHz, based on the first three years of the WMAP sky survey. The new maps, which are consistent with the first-year maps and more sensitive, incorporate improvements in data processing made possible by the additional years of data and by a more complete analysis of the polarization signal. These include refinements in the gain calibration and beam response models. We employ two forms of multi-frequency analysis to separate astrophysical foreground signals from the CMB, each of which improves on our first-year analyses. First, we form an improved 'Internal Linear Combination' map, based solely on WMAP data, by adding a bias correction step and by quantifying residual uncertainties in the resulting map. Second, we fit and subtract new spatial templates that trace Galactic emission; in particular, we now use low-frequency WMAP data to trace synchrotron emission. The WMAP point source catalog is updated to include 115 new sources. We derive the angular power spectrum of the temperature anisotropy using a hybrid approach that combines a maximum likelihood estimate at low l (large angular scales) with a quadratic cross-power estimate for l>30. Our best estimate of the CMB power spectrum is derived by averaging cross-power spectra from 153 statistically independent channel pairs. The combined spectrum is cosmic variance limited to l=400, and the signal-to-noise ratio per l-mode exceeds unity up to l=850. The first two acoustic peaks are seen at l=220.8 +- 0.7 and l=530.9 +- 3.8, respectively, while the first two troughs are seen at l=412.4 +- 1.9 and l=675.1 +- 11.1, respectively. The rise to the third peak is unambiguous; when the WMAP data are combined with higher resolution CMB measurements, the existence of a third acoustic peak is well established.Comment: 116 pgs, 24 figs. Accepted version of the 3-year paper as posted to http://lambda.gsfc.nasa.gov/product/map/dr2/map_bibliography.cfm in January 200

    Social Networking Technology, Social Network Composition, and Reductions in Substance Use Among Homeless Adolescents

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    Peer-based prevention programs for homeless youth are complicated by the potential for reinforcing high-risk behaviors among participants. The goal of this study is to understand how homeless youth could be linked to positive peers in prevention programming by understanding where in social and physical space positive peers for homeless youth are located, how these ties are associated with substance use, and the role of social networking technologies (e.g., internet and cell phones) in this process. Personal social network data were collected from 136 homeless adolescents in Los Angeles, CA. Respondents reported on composition of their social networks with respect to: home-based peers and parents (accessed via social networking technology; e.g., the internet, cell phone, texting), homeless peers and agency staff (accessed face-to-face) and whether or not network members were substance-using or non-substance-using. Associations between respondent’s lifetime cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine use and recent (previous 30 days) alcohol and marijuana use were assessed by the number of non-substance-using versus substance-using ties in multivariate linear regression models. 43% of adolescents reported a non-substance-using home-based tie. More of these ties were associated with less recent alcohol use. 62% of adolescents reported a substance-using homeless tie. More of these ties were associated with more recent marijuana use as well as more lifetime heroin and methamphetamine use. For homeless youth, who are physically disconnected from positive peers, social networking technologies can be used to facilitate the sorts of positive social ties that effective peer-based prevention programs require
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