Men and Communities: African-American Males and the Well Being of Children, Families, and Neighborhoods

This paper views men as an entry point for development of low-income, minority communities. It addresses the question of why men matter to community well-being and presents a framework for seeing the connections between societal expectations, opportunity structures, behavior and choices, and community well-being

A new perspective on GCRT J1745-3009

Two WSRT observations were performed and five archival VLA data were reduced in order to redetect the enigmatic radio transient GCRT J1745-3009. The source was not redetected. We were, however, able to extract important new information from the discovery dataset. Our reanalysis excludes models that predict symmetric bursts, but the transient white dwarf pulsar is favoured. Although we now have more contraints on the properties of this source, we are still unsure about its basic model.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Staggered grids discretization in three-dimensional Darcy convection

We consider three-dimensional convection of an incompressible fluid saturated in a parallelepiped with a porous medium. A mimetic finite-difference scheme for the Darcy convection problem in the primitive variables is developed. It consists of staggered nonuniform grids with five types of nodes, differencing and averaging operators on a two-nodes stencil. The nonlinear terms are approximated using special schemes. Two problems with different boundary conditions are considered to study scenarios of instability of the state of rest. Branching off of a continuous family of steady states was detected for the problem with zero heat fluxes on two opposite lateral planes.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

"Community Development Banking, A Proposal to Establish a Nationwide System of Community Development Banks"

This brief proposes that the establishment of a nationwide system of community development banks (CDBs) would advance the capital development of the economy. The proposal is based on the notion that a critical function of the financial system is not being adequately performed by existing institutions for low-income citizens, inner-city minorities, and entrepreneurs who seek modest financing for small businesses. The primary goals of the CDBs are to deliver credit, payment, and savings opportunities to communities not well served by banks and to provide financing throughout a designated area for businesses too small to attract the interest of the investment banking and normal commercial banking communities.

The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

The Legal Challenge of Protecting Animal Migrations as Phenomena of Abundance

Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of migration would represent significant broadening of the current framework for biodiversity protection policy. This article begins by describing animal migrations and explaining the common threats that raise conservation concerns. Any successful strategy for protecting migration will need to address habitat destruction, human-created obstacles, overexploitation (i.e., hunting and fishing), and climate change. The article examines the four key legal elements of a conservation strategy. The first is the establishment of differential thresholds of action responsive to different abundance goals for a migration. Second is transboundary coordination, which may involve international or interstate agreements, depending on the scale of the migration. Third is the protection of migration connectivity. Effective connectivity requires designation of corridors. Within the corridors, legal activity should concentrate on acquisition of habitat as well as activity-based regulation of habitat-disturbing practices. Fourth is controlling commercial and recreational harvests of migrating animals or the species on which the migrations rely. Finally, the article presents a theoretical model that tailors a place-based legal response to both migratory population abundance and the ecological importance of habitat. Application of the model would result in variable levels of legal protection to minimize unnecessary costs and optimize the benefit of conservation efforts. Existing attempts to conserve migrations using variable levels of protection compose a mixed record from which we extract lessons

Mediating Medical Malpractice Lawsuits: The Need for Plaintiff and Physician Participation

At this moment in history, tort reform and new approaches to resolving medical malpractice claims are part of the national debate about how to improve health care. Federal funding is available for pilot projects to test new approaches to medical malpractice litigation. There is increased pressure from health care regulators to disclose adverse events and communicate better with patients and their families. These all present opportunities to increase the use of mediation, particularly to address medical malpractice lawsuits and to improve patient safety. For the past seven years, we have been studying ways in which mediation and mediation skills can resolve health care disputes in a way that enhances patient safety and quality of care. We have discovered that conventional ways of thinking, unjustified fear, and institutional and professional culture are all barriers to realizing the full benefit of mediation. Hospital leaders and lawyers need to rethink conventional ways of responding when a patient is harmed by medical care. In particular, attention should be given to ways to bring not only lawyers but also patients, family members, and especially physicians to the mediation table. As the use of mediation in health care increases mediators have a special opportunity, and therefore a responsibility, to educate participants about the full range of benefits available through mediation and to encourage participants to think about how what they earn during mediation can contribute to patient safety