Bridget Jones, Prince Charming, and Happily Ever Afters: Chick Lit as an Extension of the Fairy Tale in a Postfeminist Society

unpublishednot peer reviewe

A Network representation of households by health exclusion, poverty, and unemployment

Social exclusion, emphasized in the European Social Agenda, presents an interesting case study on the discussion of universal vs. means-tested social policies. To understand the conditions under which universal policies may have an advantage over means-tested policies, we propose a method of network representation in which partitions are detected by background characteristics of the households. Using non-relational household level data from three countries, we map the association between exclusion from health care, unemployment and poverty. Our results show that households are less likely to form homogeneous partitioning by poverty and health care exclusion profiles, compared to the partitioning formed by poverty and unemployment characteristics. The results suggest that in cases where identifying beneficiaries is difficult, illustrated by heterogeneous partitioning, universal coverage offers an advantage over means-tested social policies.An earlier version of this paper was discussed at an Expert Group Meeting on Policies to Advance Social Integration for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division of Social Policy and Development in 2009; comments from participants are gratefully acknowledged. This work is partially supported by Isik University and Yeditepe UniversityPublisher's Versio

Introducing professional skills during unit operations laboratory

Unit operations laboratory (UOL) course is considered to be a crucial and integral part of the chemical engineering education. The primary objective of the course is to enable students to combine theory and practice. Problems in industry however entail more than finding technical solutions. Indeed professional life requires other skills such as an ability to propose ideas, develop practical solutions, participate in teamwork, meet deadlines, establish communication between technical support and suppliers, oversee financial issues, and finally reporting and presentation skills. This study describes how in three consecutive courses, we preserve academic rigor of the UOL course while incorporating components such as experimental design, project development and teamwork, which aim to meet the needs of professional careers. We follow up the course outcomes with a survey targeting the graduates of the program. The results show that graduates employed in industry frequently rely on these skills during job interviews, research and product development, whereas those who pursue advanced degrees in academia use these skills predominantly for their research, highlighting the need for adaptive approach for different graduate trajectories in designing the course. For both groups of graduates, the skills introduced during the UOL courses are reported to be valuable in their daily life, emphasizing life-long learning.Publisher's Versio

Written language skills of middle and high school students in an alternative program

The purpose of this study was to determine the written language skills of middle and high school students who were attending alternative programs in Southern California. The participants of this study were 114 students who were identified and served under Delinquency Prevention Program (DPP) and 83 students who were identified and served under Court Ordered Probation (COP). The Test of Written Language -3 (TOWL-3) (Hammill & Larsen, 1996) was administered to the participants in order to obtain written language measures. In addition, this study investigated whether any relationships exists between written language skills, academic measures and selected demographic characteristics of the participants. The descriptive findings of this study indicated a descriptive profile of participants enrolled in alternative programs: a majority of the participants were males; Hispanics and a large number of them were English Language Learners. In addition, the majority of the participants in group DPP were new to the program while the number of the participants who were re-enrolled was higher in group COP. Although, the findings of this study revealed no significant difference among groups on written language measures the majority of the participants in both groups performed far below the norms for their age. A moderate association was found between participants’ written language and reading measures (r=.30) which was significant at 0.01 level and written language and math performance(r=40) at 0.05 level for participants in group DPP. Findings of multiple regression analysis revealed some gender, ethnicity, language designation, group (DPP or COP) influence on participants’ written language and academic achievement measures

The Earning Power of Mothers and Children\u27s Time Allocation in Lao PDR

In this paper I explore the relationship between a mother’s contribution to household income and her children’s work and school outcomes. Using household data from Lao PDR, I find that as a mother’s share of total household earnings increases, her children shift time away from school and wage work to work under parental control. The findings demonstrate that a mother’s short-term needs and interests may not always align with her children’s long-term interests, and work may become a contested terrain between mothers and children

Behavioral resilience in the post-genomic era: emerging models linking genes with environment

One of the most important deliverables of the post-genomic era has been a new and nuanced appreciation of how the environment shapes—and holds potential to alter—the expression of susceptibility genes for behavioral dimensions and disorders. This paper will consider three themes that have emerged from cutting-edge research studies that utilize newer molecular genetic approaches as well as tried-and-true genetic epidemiological methodologies, with particular reference to evolving perspectives on resilience and plasticity. These themes are: (1) evidence for replicable and robust shared environmental effects on a number of clinically relevant behaviors in childhood and adolescence; (2) evolving research on gene-environment interaction; and (3) a newer focus on differential susceptibility and plasticity. The net sum of these themes is that consideration of genetic effects on behavioral dimensions and disorders needs to be connected to thinking about the role of environment as a potent source for promoting resilience and change

The earning power of mothers and children's time allocation in Lao PDR

In this paper I explore the relationship between a mother's contribution to household income and her children's work and school outcomes. Using household data from Lao PDR, I find that as a mother's share of total household earnings increases, her children shift time away from school and wage work to work under parental control. The findings demonstrate that a mother's short-term needs and interests may not always align with her children's long-term interests, and work may become a contested terrain between mothers and children.Publisher's Versio

Pharmaceutical Price Gouging: The Need For Direct Regulation on the Gray Market

(Excerpt) This Note proposes federal legislation that will ultimately shut down the Pharmaceuticals gray market. The federal government should directly regulate the gray market and the price gouging mechanisms used. Congress should pass the Fair Accountability and Innovative Research Drug Pricing Act of 2016, currently proposed. This Act will increase price transparency and provide a civil penalty for wrong doers. In addition to the passage of this Act, there needs to be a direct attack on the gray market by creating an act that does not allow companies to participate in these distributions and ultimately form monopolies. This act needs to prevent the bulk of the sale distributions of these lifesaving drugs going to specific entities; it could be a continuation of the provisions first drafted in the Gray Market Reform Act introduced in the 112th Congress. The companies that are involved in gray market activity should also be criminally punished for the lives they are affecting. In order for these new regulations to succeed and be enforceable, there should be a separate committee created that specifically addresses all gray market activities. A new committee solely focused on the pharmaceutical gray market will finally give the government a fighting chance to put an end to this social injustice. This committee could be given the power to enforce any new legislative provisions with necessary fines and punishments

Pairs trading with the persistence-based decomposition model

Recently, the persistence-based decomposition (PBD) model has been introduced to the scientific community by Rende et al. (2019). It decomposes a spread time series between two securities into three components capturing infinite, finite, and no shock persistence. The authors provide empirical evidence that the model adopts well to noisy high-frequency data in terms of model fitting and prediction. We put the PBD model to test on a large-scale high-frequency pairs trading application, using S&P 500 minute-by-minute data from 1998 to 2016. After accounting for execution limitations (waiting rule, volume constraints, and short-selling fees) the PBD model yields statistically significant and economically meaningful annual returns after transaction costs of 9.16 percent. These returns can only partially be explained by the exposure to common risk. In addition, the model is superior in terms of risk-return metrics. The model performs very well in bear markets. We quantify the impact of execution limitations on risk and return measures by relaxing backtesting restrictions step-by-step. If no restrictions are imposed, we find annual returns after costs of 138.6 percent

Letting Go of the Dream of Traffickers behind Bars: We can do better for exploited workers

Response to the ATR debate proposition ‘It is worth undermining the anti-trafficking cause in order to more directly challenge the systems producing everyday abuses within the global economy.