129 research outputs found
Preventing Chronic Disease (PCD)
No full textIntroductionThe objective of this study was to characterize population-level trajectories in the probability of food insecurity in the US during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and to examine sociodemographic correlates associated with identified trajectories.MethodsWe analyzed data from the Understanding America Study survey, a nationally representative panel (N = 7,944) that assessed food insecurity every 2 weeks from April 1, 2020, through March 16, 2021. We used latent class growth analysis to determine patterns (or classes) of pandemic-related food insecurity during a 1-year period.ResultsWe found 10 classes of trajectories of food insecurity, including 1 class of consistent food security (64.7%), 1 class of consistent food insecurity (3.4%), 5 classes of decreasing food insecurity (15.8%), 2 classes of increasing food insecurity (4.6%), and 1 class of stable but elevated food insecurity (11.6%). Relative to the class that remained food secure, other classes were younger, had a greater proportion of women, and tended to identify with a racial or ethnic minority group.ConclusionWe found heterogeneous longitudinal patterns in the development, resolution, or persistence of food insecurity during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experiences of food insecurity were highly variable across the US population, with one-third experiencing some form of food insecurity risk. Findings have implications for identifying population groups who are at increased risk of food insecurity and related health disparities beyond the first year of the pandemic.K01 DA043659/DA/NIDA NIH HHSUnited States/U01 AG054580/AG/NIA NIH HHSUnited States
The Voodoo Spiritual Temple: A Case Study of New Orleans' Spiritual Churches
No full textabstract: This dissertation takes the material culture of New Orleans’ Spiritual Churches as its point of the construction and application of academic categories in studies of religions of the African diaspora. Because I am interested in what emic explanations reveal about scholarly categories and methods, a dialogic approach in which I consult practitioners’ explanations to test the appropriateness of academic categories is central to this work. Thus, this study is grounded in an ethnographic study of the Voodoo Spiritual Temple, which was founded and is operated by Priestess Miriam Chamani, a bishop in the Spiritual Churches. The Spiritual Churches first emerged in the early twentieth century under the leadership of Mother Leafy Anderson. Voodoo, Pentecostalism, Spiritualism, and Roman Catholicism have been acknowledged as their primary tributary traditions. This study examines the material culture, such as statues and mojo bags, at the Voodoo Spiritual Temple as it reflects and reveals aspects of Temple attendees’ world views. In particular, material culture begins to illuminate attendees’ understandings of non-human beings, such as Spirit and spirits of the dead, as they are embodied in a variety of ways. Conceptions of Spirit and spirits are revealed to be interconnected with views on physical and spiritual well-being. Additionally, despite previous scholarly treatments of the Spiritual Churches as geographically, socially, and culturally isolated, the material culture of the Voodoo Spiritual Temple reveals them to be embedded in transnational and translocal cultural networks.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Religious Studies 201
Creating New Orleans: Race, Religion, Rhetoric, and the Louisiana Purchase
No full textabstract: Though some scholars have written about place and history, few have pursued the use of place theory in length in relation to the connections between race, religion, and national identity. Using the writings in the United States and Louisiana in the years surrounding the Louisiana Purchase, I explore place-making and othering processes. U.S. leaders influenced by the Second Great Awakening viewed New Orleans as un-American in its religion and seemingly ambiguous race relations. New Orleanian Catholics viewed the U.S. as an aggressively Protestant place that threatened the stability of the Catholic Church in the Louisiana Territory. Both Americans and New Orleanians constructed the place identities of the other in relation to events in Europe and the Caribbean, demonstrating that places are constructed in relation to one another. In order to elucidate these dynamics, I draw on place theory, literary analysis, and historical anthropology in analyzing the letters of W.C.C. Claiborne, the first U.S. governor of the Louisiana Territory, in conjunction with sermons of prominent Protestant ministers Samuel Hopkins and Jedidiah Morse, a letter written by Ursuline nun Sister Marie Therese de St. Xavior Farjon to Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington Cable's Reconstruction era novel The Grandissimes. All of these parties used the notion of place to create social fact that was bound up with debates about race and anti-Catholic sentiments. Furthermore, their treatments of place demonstrate concerns for creating, or resisting absorption by, a New Republic that was white and Protestant. Place theory proves useful in clarifying how Americans and New Orleanians viewed the Louisiana Purchase as well as the legacy of those ideas. It demonstrates the ways in which the U.S. defined itself in contradistinction to religious others. Limitations arise, however, depending on the types of sources historians use. While official government letters reveal much when put into the context of the trends in American religion at the turn of the nineteenth century, they are not as clearly illuminating as journals and novels. In these genres, authors provide richer detail from which historians can try to reconstruct senses of place.Dissertation/ThesisM.A. Religious Studies 201
Optimal monetary policy rules : theory and estimation for OECD countries
No full textZhang W. Optimal monetary policy rules : theory and estimation for OECD countries. Bielefeld (Germany): Bielefeld University; 2004.This dissertation focuses on monetary policy rules in the OECD countries at both theoretical and empirical levels. It is divided into seven chapters.
Chapter 1 presents some recent literature on monetary policy rules and introduces the goal and organization of this dissertation.
Chapter 2 explores some empirical evidence of IS and Phillips curves, because these two equations have become baseline framework of monetary policy. Both backward- and forward-looking behaviors are considered. A time-varying Phillips curve is also estimated.
Chapter 3 discusses two important monetary policy rules: the money supply rule and the interest rate rule. Advantages and disadvantages of these two rules are explored.
Chapter 4 explores time-varying monetary policy rules with Chow break-point test and Kalman filter. The estimation results indicate that there are some structural changes in the monetary policy in the countries studied. The author also simulates the Euro-area economy under the assumption that the Euro-area had followed the time-varying US monetary policy in the 1990s and concludes that the monetary policy seems to be too tight in the Euro-area in the 1990s.
Chapter 5 explores monetary policy rules under uncertainty. The author first explores empirical evidence of model uncertainty with a state-space model with Markov-switching. Based on this evidence, the author then explores monetary policy under uncertainty with two approaches: the adaptive learning and the robust control. The results indicate that uncertainty does not necessarily require caution and that state variables do not necessarily converge even in a deterministic model with the adaptive learning.
Chapter 6 then explores monetary policy with financial markets. The author endogenizes the probability for the asset price bubble to increase or decrease in the next period and derives a nonlinear policy rule. The author also simulates the economy with financial asset in the presence of the zero-interest-rate bound and concludes that monetary policy should not ignore financial markets.
Chapter 7 presents some concluding remarks of the dissertation
Three Women/Three Margins: Political Engagement and the Art of Claude Cahun, Jeanne Mammen, and Paraskeva Clark
No full textEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Polymer-based treatments to control runoff, leachate and erosion from engineered slopes at Simfer Mine, Guinea, Africa
No full textIt is necessary to understand the erodibility and hydrological response of mine-site slope forming materials (SFMs), because of increasing awareness of the environmental impacts of mining. Steep engineered slopes in high intensity rainfall environments present a serious erosion risk. Temporary surface stabilisers, such as polyacrylamides (PAMs) and polyvinylacrylic latex (PVALs) are potentially cost effective erosion control solutions. In this study PAM and PVAL efficacy to reduce runoff, leachate and erosion was assessed at two application rates, with and without gypsum on SFMs from an iron ore mine in Guinea (West Africa). NSPASS (near-surface photogrammetry assessment of slope forming materials’ surface roughness) is a novel method that integrates digital image capture and GIS. It is shown to detect and quantify surface micro-relief changes of 2-3 mm, not visible to the naked eye.
As expected, soil and non-soil SFMs were significantly different in terms of their physical and chemical properties. Phase I of the study investigated the erodibility of ten SFMs, including soil, ore and waste-rock. The results indicate that the hydrological response to rainfall of most SFMs is to generate leachate. Weathered phyllite (PHY-WEA) is the most erodible SFM by both runoff and leachate. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that magnetic susceptibility, mineralogy and dry aggregate distribution; parameters not commonly assessed in erosion studies, are important in explaining SFM erodibility and hydrological response.
Phase II evaluated critically the effectiveness of three commercially available polymer solutions (two PAMs and one PVAL) at reducing runoff, leachate and erosion from four of the most erodible SFMs identified in Phase I. The results indicate that some PAM and PVAL treatments significantly reduce runoff, leachate and erosion. Polymer efficacy is highly dependent on the physical and chemical properties of the SFM, as well as the mechanism of polymer to SFM adsorption. Increasing the application rate of select treatments lowered leachate volumes, runoff and leachate total sediment loads. Contrary to previous studies, gypsum amendments did not significantly improve polymer efficiency.
This research has added to our understanding of the erodibility and hydrological response of soil and non-soil SFMs. This is the first study to evaluate critically the efficacy of PVALs in controlling erosion from mine-site SFMs. Future studies should continue to optimise NSPASS performance in monitoring changes in surface micro-relief
Cardozo Law News Brief: February 23, 2018
No full textFeatured Faculty: Melanie Leslie Aaron Wright Felix Wu
Campus News: Richard W. Painter, Former Chief White House Ethics Lawyer, Visits Cardozo Compassion Through Fashion: Cardozo\u27s FAME Center Interviews Custom Suit Maker Who Donates Tailored Clothing to Marginalized Groups Cardozo\u27s Leadership in Law and Business Program Featured in The International Jurist Stephanie Alvarez-Jones \u2718 Selected as a Law Student of the Year by The National Jurist
Events: From DaSilva Moore to Microsoft: The Jurisprudence of Judge James Francis IV and Judge Andrew Peck Dean\u27s Speaker Series: An Inside Look with Jeff Marx \u2796 Documentary Screening of Workers Voices Subdividing Building Ownership to Meet Demands of the Modern Market Aggressive Tactics, Vulnerable Communities: Representing Noncitizen Clients in the Trump Era BYO Lawyer: Employment & Intellectual Property Issues in the Food & Restaurant Industry Judging Scalia: Richard L. Hasen, Author of The Justice of Contradictions in Conversation with Professor Kate Shaw Art as an Asset Class: Transactional Concerns for Art Market Participants The Show Must Go On: Navigating Rights for Broadway Productions The Israel Supreme Court at a Moment of Transition: Looking Back, and Looking Forward, with Justices Naor, Rubinstein, and Joubran Cardozo Law - Columbia Law Spring 2018 Colloquium: Citizenship, Religion, Identity 26th Annual Public Service Auction Cardozo Sports Law Symposium The Fair Housing Act After 50 Year
Availability and Characteristics of Hemp-Derived Psychoactive Cannabis Products: A Pilot Study in Cleveland, Ohio
No full textBackground: Hemp-derived psychoactive cannabis products (HDPCPs), such as delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), emerged onto the market as an alternative to cannabis following the 2018 US Farm Bill which legalized hemp. Research on HDPCPs remains limited. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the availability, placement, and consumption modality of HDPCPs as well as to identify potential defining characteristics of consumers.
Methods: Between October 2022 and January 2023, researchers visited a random sample of 82 tobacco retailers in Cleveland, Ohio, to evaluate the availability of HDPCPs marketed as delta THC (eg, delta-8 or delta-10). Information was captured on where the HDPCPs were placed (eg, behind the counter, on the counter, by candy, or elsewhere) as well as the consumption modality (eg, edible or inhaled). Among retailers who stocked these products, clerks were asked who typically buys these products and how often they are purchased.
Results: Over two-fifths (41.5%) of retailers carried HDPCPs. Most retailers (97.1%) carried delta THC products behind the counter and carried products as inhaled (82.4%), edible (70.6%). More than half of retailers (55.9%) carried both inhaled and edible forms of HDPCP. Retail clerks reported on a range of ages of consumers from younger to older or “everyone.”
Conclusion: Hemp-derived psychoactive cannabis products are prevalent in this pilot study sample. These findings necessitate additional research to better quantify the population health impact of these products to determine if regulatory action may be necessary to protect public health
Disability, access and design: a study of wheelchair access.
No full textThe aim of this study is to determine wheelchair user's views about access and ascertain whether designers are able to contribute to issues pertaining to inclusion through design solutions. Popular constructions of disability have established a relatively powerless and deviant status for the disabled population when compared to their able bodied peers. Regulatory controls and legislation require that builders and designers are sensitised to the needs of disabled people, but there is no legislative process to endorse disabled peoples request for a fully inclusive and accessible lifestyle. The enquiry is divided into two phases. The first phase considers access issues from a
sample of wheelchair users via the use of focus groups and individual interviews. The data attained and information collated for the literature review leads the author to
conclude that designers should consult with end users throughout the design process. During the second phase of the study the author proposes a model of inclusive design
and an associated design resource. The author advocates that this is to be used by designers and development professionals to ensure inclusion within society is attained
for all sectors of the community. The study concludes that, historically, society has responded to the needs of the disabled by providing separate and special services based on each individual's impairment, as opposed to the promotion of an equitable lifestyle for all. Inclusive design focuses on the design of the environment and not individual impairments. It is a process that promotes inclusivity for all sectors of society regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality or disability. Its principles consider diversity, and provides for an inclusive environment that can help break down barriers and exclusion as everyone will benefit from the end result
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