Urban Pressures and Innovations: Sustainability Commitment in the Face of Fragmentation and Inequality

Local government innovations occur within environments characterized by high service‐need complexity and risk. The question of how broader environmental conditions influence governmental willingness or ability to innovate has been a long‐standing concern within organizational, management, and policy scholarship. Although wealth and education are robust predictors of the propensity to engage in a wide range of local sustainability activities, the linkages among governmental fragmentation, social inequality, and sustainability policies are not well understood. This study focuses on the conditions both within and across city boundaries in urban regions which inhibit adoption of sustainable development innovations. We utilize a Bayesian item response theory approach to create a new scale measuring sustainability commitment by local governments in the United States. The analysis finds service‐need complexity and capacity within local governments' organizational task environments have nonlinear influences on innovation in terms of both green building and social inclusion policy tools.     

Trajectories of Discrimination across the College Years: Associations with Academic,Psychological, and Physical Adjustment Outcomes

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Despite growing evidence that racial-ethnic discrimination has a critical impact on college students of color, there is a shortage of longitudinal studies...     

Testing an Age-old Adage: Can Autopsy Findings be of Assistance in Differentiating Opioid Versus Cardiac Deaths?

Given the common occurrence of both opioid and cardiovascular deaths, and the concomitant use of opioids in those with cardiac disease, the present study was undertaken to see whether the old adage of using the triad of cerebral and pulmonary edema and bladder fullness to suggest an opioid death could be used to differentiate deaths due to opioid toxicity from deaths due to cardiac disease. Brain weight, lung weight, and bladder fullness were compared among opioid-related deaths, cardiac deaths, and a control population. It was found that opioid-related deaths were more likely to have heavy lungs, a heavy brain, and a full bladder, while cardiac-related deaths had smaller volumes of urine in the bladder and heavier hearts. In conjunction with a thorough investigation, these findings may be useful to forensic pathologists when determining whether a death is opioid-related, especially in the setting of concomitant cardiac disease.     

Optimization of Performance Validity Test (PVT) Cutoffs across Healthy and Non-Referred Clinical Research Samples

Performance validity tests (PVTs) effectively detect suboptimal test performance, but cutoff scores for a given test may differ between populations. This research examines how optimal PVT cutoffs differ in a collegiate research population when mental health and clinical conditions are considered. Healthy controls (n = 328) and non-referred students with self-reported clinical conditions (n = 42) were assigned to perform their best while others simulated ADHD symptoms (n = 123). PVT indices were derived from a stand-alone measure (Victoria Symptom Validity Test) and embedded measures (California Verbal Learning Test – Second Edition; Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Fourth Edition, Digit Span). PVT cutoffs with the highest sensitivity, while maintaining adequate specificity, were identified when the control groups were considered together, and when students with reported clinical conditions were considered separately. Mean differences in PVT performances were found between the simulation group and control groups, but not between clinical and nonclinical controls. The optimized cutoffs differed for five of eight PVT indices when all controls were considered together versus the clinical control group, only. When discordance was observed, cutoffs tended to be lower (less stringent) for the non-referred clinical control group. Together, these optimized cutoffs tended to be more stringent than previously established cutoffs. This study suggests that PVT cutoffs may be responsibly altered in a research context in the presence of a clinical condition. Future research should investigate if PVT classification accuracies can be improved in clinical and forensic samples while considering clinical conditions.     

Citation and marginalisation: the ethics of feminism in Medieval Studies

This article draws on my experience both as a medievalist and as a feminist working in a UK university today to discuss the challenges facing feminist academia more widely. Using Medieval Studies as a case study, this article argues that in times of austerity the pressure on young feminist academics to conform is greater as it is increasingly important to get one's work published in order to stay competitive. This pressure to publish limits intellectual curiosity and forces research down more conventional paths. This article lays out how this functions in Medieval Studies and attempts to suggest some ways in which it could be overcome. One strategy of resistance I suggest entails what I call an ‘ethics of source study’; a way of looking at and responding to both medieval and modern texts with an awareness of their potential effect on the world. I begin by discussing the pressing need to publish work forced upon us by the Research Excellence Framework, and how this drive towards publication can make our work less radical. I then illustrate this with examples from my own discipline. In Medieval Studies, the publication of more articles means that the production of editions is neglected, and this forces scholars to use out-of-date and misogynist editions. Finally, I suggest some ideas of how we can create alternative networks in which feminist academia can survive and flourish, including an outline of what an ethics of source study might look like.     

From the School Yard to the Squad Car: School Discipline,Truancy, and Arrest

Since the 1990’s, implementation of zero tolerance policies in schools has led to increased use of school suspension and expulsion as disciplinary techniques for students with varying degrees of infractions. An unintended consequence of zero tolerance policies is that school suspension or expulsion may increase risk for contact with the juvenile justice system. In the present study, we test how forced absence from school via suspension or expulsion and chosen absence from school (truancy) are associated with the likelihood of being arrested. Using month-level data from 6,636 months from a longitudinal study of delinquent adolescents (N = 1,354; 13.5 % female; 41.5 % Black, 33.5 % Hispanic-American, 20.2 % White), we compare the likelihood of being arrested, within individuals, for months when youth were and were not suspended or expelled from school and for months when youth were and were not truant. Finally, we test if these associations were moderated by stable demographic characteristics (sex, race, age, history of problem behaviors) and time-varying contextual factors (peer delinquency, parental monitoring, and commitment to school). Being suspended or expelled from school increased the likelihood of arrest in that same month and this effect was stronger among youth who did not have a history of behavior problems and when youth associated with less delinquent peers. Truancy independently contributed to the likelihood of arrest, but this association was explained by differences in parental monitoring and school commitment. Thus, school disciplinary action places youth at risk for involvement in the juvenile justice system and this may be especially true for less risky youth.     

Sovereignty in the Balance: Claims and Bargains at the UN Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women

States vary the content and subject matter of their claims to sovereignty. In an analysis of when states invoked sovereignty at recent UN World Conferences on the environment (1992), human rights (1993), and women (1995), the authors revise and extend Litfin's (1997) notion of bargains among components of sovereignty. At the conferences, states invoked sovereignty in debates over cultural and religious values, economics, and increased international accountability. The authors interpret the debates based on how four elements of sovereignty—autonomy, control, and legitimacy in the eyes of other states and nonstate actors—are traded by states through implicit or explicit bargaining. They identify patterns that vary by issue area. The authors argue that nongovernmental organizations as well as other states may legitimate or delegitimate states' sovereign claims. They find that countries of the global South made more sovereignty claims of all kinds than Northern states. And, sovereignty bargains may be struck more easily over power and economics than social values.     

New Labour's PPI Reforms: Patient and Public Involvement in Healthcare Governance?

Following a first wave of reform at the beginning of the decade, the system of patient and public involvement in healthcare governance is being further overhauled under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 and the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The current reforms reflect a significant shift in dominant political discourse from an earlier concern with patient and public involvement towards a more exclusive focus on consumer choice and economic regulation, with collective voice and citizen participation at best playing a subordinate part in the government's NHS modernisation agenda. While there is some potential for increased responsiveness in the new arrangements, the overall effect is likely to be a weakening of the foundations of democratic decision making in the governance of healthcare in England.     

An economic analysis of the in-prison therapeutic community model on prison management costs

This study estimated the impact of an in-prison, therapeutic community (TC) substance abuse treatment program on management costs in a California prison. A deconstruction method was developed to estimate the opportunity cost of staff time and other resources involved in various prison administrative tasks. Compared to “non-treatment” yards within the facility, the TC environment generated lower administrative costs for disciplinary actions, inmate grievances, and major disruptive incidents resulting in lockdowns. These findings suggest that, in addition to their intended rehabilitative outcomes, prison-based TCs may foster institutional environments that help to control prison management costs.     

Sustainable fiscal policies and budgetary risk under alternative monetary policy arrangements

Early work on the theory of economic policy stressed the importance of the interactions between fiscal and monetary policy. Tinbergen, and Cooper, showed us that there would be costs in instability and protracted imbalances, in particular fiscal imbalances, if this was not recognised. Yet most models we use today treat fiscal or monetary policies as if they operated alone. This paper reviews the advantages of recognising those interactions. We consider three possibilities: fiscal leadership (in the sense of acting first), monetary leadership, and simultaneous decision making, each underpinned by independence at the central bank. This temporal separation is important because it creates an opportunity for punishment by the follower (a result from asynchronous games). Making fiscal policy lead, and monetary follow, provides fiscal precommitment and the best results for output, inflation and fiscal balances. In particular, it ensures sustainable public finances without the need for arbitrary (and easily evaded) external restrictions. We show these results are proof against override by rational governments; and robust to changes in structure caused by flattening of the Phillips curve, globalisation, market reforms, and changes in savings.