HTR Centennial Celebration: Words of Welcome

Other Research Uni

Book Review:The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad by Gordon Darnell Newby

Other Research Uni

The Qurʾān: An Introduction by Anna M. Gade.

Other Research Uni

Review of The Making of the Last Prophet: A Reconstruction of the Earliest Biography of Muhammad

Near Eastern Languages and Civilization

Gendered Paths to Formal and Informal Resources in Post-Disaster Development in the Ecuadorian Andes

The devastating eruptions of Mount Tungurahua in the Ecuadorian highlands in 1999 and 2006 left many communities struggling to rebuild their homes and others permanently displaced to settlements built by state and nongovernmental organizations. For several years afterward, households diversified their economic strategies to compensate for losses, communities organized to promote local development, and the state and nongovernmental organizations sponsored many economic recovery programs in the affected communities. Our study examined the ways in which gender and gender roles were associated with different levels and paths of access to scarce resources in these communities. Specifically, this article contrasts the experiences of men and women in accessing household necessities and project assistance through formal institutions and informal networks. We found that women and men used different types of informal social support networks, with men receiving significantly more material, emotional, and informational support than women. We also found that men and women experienced different challenges and advantages when pursuing support through local and extralocal institutions and that these institutions often coordinated in ways that reified their biases. We present a methodology that is replicable in a wide variety of disaster, resettlement, and development settings, and we advocate an inductive, evidence-based approach to policy, built upon an understanding of local gender, class, and ethnic dynamics affecting access to formal and informal resources. This evidence should be used to build more robust local institutions that can resist wider social and cultural pressures for male dominance and gendered exclusion

The Role of Children's Education for the Mental Health of Aging Migrants in Europe

This paper uses data from SHARE Wave 1 (release 2.6.0, DOI: 10.6103/SHARE.w1.260). The SHARE data collection was funded primarily by the European Commission through its 5th , 6th and 7th framework programmes (project numbers QLK6-CT-2001-00360, RII-CT-2006-062193, CIT5-CT-2005-028857, 211909, 227822 and 261982). Additional funding from the U.S. National Institute on Aging (U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, R21 AG025169, Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG BSR06-11 and OGHA 04-064) as well as by various national sources is gratefully acknowledged (see http://www.share-project.org for a full list of funding institutions).In this study, using SHARE data we examined whether adult children’s education is associated with depressive symptoms (EURO-D caseness) for older immigrants and non-immigrants in Europe. After controlling for possible confounders, we found that the education of adult children has independent effects on the mental health of their parents, and that having children with upper secondary or tertiary levels of education significantly lessen the odds of immigrants experiencing depressive symptoms. Furthermore, regular contact between parents and their adult children exerts a positive influence as well as amplifying the relationship between children’s education and mental health. Taken together, the results demonstrate that, were it not for family social capital, older immigrants might experience much worse mental health outcomes.PostprintPeer reviewe

Directed cycles and related structures in random graphs: II--Dynamic properties

We study directed random graphs (random graphs whose edges are directed) as they evolve in discrete time by the addition of nodes and edges. For two distinct evolution strategies, one that forces the graph to a condition of near acyclicity at all times and another that allows the appearance of nontrivial directed cycles, we provide analytic and simulation results related to the distributions of degrees. Within the latter strategy, in particular, we investigate the appearance and behavior of the strong components that were our subject in the first part of this study.Comment: submitted to Physica

The spatialities of ageing : evidencing increasing spatial polarisation between older and younger adults in England and Wales

Background : With the proportion of older adults in Europe expected to grow significantly over the next few decades, a number of pertinent questions are raised about the socio-spatial processes that underlie residential age segregation, especially in circumstances where it may be increasing. Objective : We present evidence on whether, and to what degree, residential age segregation has changed across neighbourhoods in England and Wales since the 1990s. Methods : We examine the residential patterns of older adults (aged 65 and over) compared to those of younger adults (aged 25-40) for neighbourhoods across the country, for neighbourhoods within districts, and for neighbourhoods within districts classified by type. The analyses use harmonised population data for small areas (Output Areas) from the 1991, 2001, and 2011 Censuses of England and Wales. Results : The results reveal increasing segregation over time (1991-2011) between older and younger groups across neighbourhoods nationally. Although the index values of segregation tend to be higher in less urban areas, highlighting a strong age and life course dimension of the rural-urban divide, a rapid increase in age segregation is found in urban areas. Moreover, our findings suggest the existence of convergent clusters of increasing age segregation, particularly in urban settings (from small to large cities) and former industrial areas in the North of England, thus providing evidence suggesting a further dimension of the North-South divide. Conclusions : The findings demonstrate a growing age bifurcation over time and space, as both older and younger age groups are increasingly living apart. Although the drivers and consequences of these trends in residential age segregation remain unclear, the potential challenge to policies of social cohesion underlines the importance of further research.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe