One Step at a Time: A Latent Transitional Analysis on Changes in Substance Use,Exposure to Violence,and HIV/AIDS Risk Behaviors among Female Offenders

The aim of this analysis is to identify latent subgroups of women based on substance use, exposure to violence, and risky sexual behaviors and quantify discrete stages of behavior change over time. Data comes from 317 women recruited from a Municipal Drug Court System in the Midwest. All participants were interviewed regarding their substance use and sexual behaviors, as well as their exposure to violence at baseline, a 4th-month follow-up, and an 8th-month follow-up. A latent transitional analysis (LTA), a longitudinal extension of a latent class analysis (LCA), was used to quantify discrete stages of behavior change. The results of our analyses revealed 4 distinct behavioral profiles in our sample: 1) women with high probabilities of risky sexual behaviors, exposure to violence, and crack/cocaine use, 2) women with a high probability of exposure to violence, and moderate sexual risk taking, 3) women characterized solely by a high probability of crack/cocaine use, 4) women with low probabilities of all factors. The proportion of women in latent statuses characterized by a high probability of crack/cocaine use did not substantially decrease over time. Women who experienced child sexual abuse, had a greater number of lifetime arrests, were older, and believed they had risky drug using behavior that needed changing at baseline were significantly more likely to be in higher-risk latent statuses. Targeted interventions tailored to crack/cocaine users, as well as a wide-spread need for trauma-informed interventions among females involved in the criminal justice system, are needed.     

Some Features of Cultural Policies Applied in Belgium,Particularly in the French-Speaking Community

The training of arts and cultural administrators in Taiwan is related to the development of Taiwan's cultural sector and the centralized system of its government. In this top-down system, the government has long played a leading role in the development of the arts, cultural policies, and industries. The purpose of this article is to examine elements of historical events and factors causing change in the environment to discover the characteristics of arts/cultural administrators, the skills needed for arts/cultural administrators, and the development of curriculum. The researcher divided the historical development of Taiwanese arts administration into three waves. The first wave is from 1949 to 1980, the second wave is from 1981 to 1990, and the third wave is 1991 through the present. Through a discussion of various historical events, factors concerning arts administration and its training system are discovered. In conclusion, after reviewing Taiwan's development in the area of arts administration, one finds that viewing arts administration as a profession is a relatively recent phenomenon. The training of arts administrators and curators in the visual arts was the first area to develop. Training for performing arts administrators was not emphasized until the 1980s. Graduate programs of arts administration in universities have been promoted only since the middle of the 1990s.     

Fertility and migration in the heart of the industrial revolution

Using research into the formation of industrial populations in the nineteenth century, this article examines the relationships between immigration and natality in Tilleur, an exemplary locality for studying the industrial revolution in Belgium. The main purpose is to test the general hypothesis positing a distinction between a foundation phase and a maturation phase in the process through which an industrial population is formed. The results are a contribution to the debate about the beginning of the fertility transition in industrial cities, and its relations to differential nuptiality and fertility in light of spatial origins.     

Societal openness during the urban crisis. Partner selection in the 19th-century Belgian textile cities Ghent and Verviers

This paper examines the partner selection of the lower classes during an urban crisis period in early industrial Belgian cities. It was found that in this period characterized by an economic transition, overpopulation, migration and a low standard of living, social heterogamy was high, whereas social homogamy increased, or was ‘restored’, in the subsequent period. The urban crisis effect on partner selection contradicts the claims of modernization theory that there was a gradual increase in societal openness and that societal openness was typically modern, but it fits the idea of the informalization of marriage, a process marked by an increase in unmarried cohabitation and illegitimacy.     

The age at marriage of migrants during the industrial revolution in the region of liège

The articl7e examines the cities and towns in the Liège region during industrialization in the ninteenth century, focusing on the relationship between marriage, migration, and entry of people into urban areas. The average age at marriage was higher for in-migrants than for natives, but so was the intensity of nuptiality. Thus, the average age at marriage is not the sole statistic through which to approach questions about the socio-demographic consequences of arrival into town. Towns had several, seemingly closed, marriage markets, and it is important to pay attention to differential behaviors by taking this fact into account. Moreover, in-migration to an industrial city created opportunities to contract marriage, for women as well as men. Sometimes marriages occurred in the village, and were contracted to escape the old system and to prepare for the migration to the city of the young couple. Structural as well as life-course approaches must be combined for a thorough understanding of migration to industrializing cities.     

New economy housing markets: Fast and furious—but different?

Abstract

This article explores the effects of metropolitan industrial structure on housing market outcomes. Housing prices in new economy metropolitan areas are found to be higher, peakier, and more volatile than in old economy markets. Homeownership rates are found to be lower in new economy metropolitan areas, while crowding is higher. Although the distribution of housing values, costs, and rents was more equal in new economy markets, the cause would seem to be differences in area income levels, with poorer metropolitan statistical areas having greater inequalities.

Regression analysis is used to identify the contribution of traditional supply and demand factors, such as job growth, income, and residential construction, as well as new economy indicators, to housing market outcomes. Rather than being fundamentally different, new economy housing markets are found to be faster and more extreme versions of traditional housing markets.     

Equality and Postcolonial Claims of Discursive Injury

In Western Europe, individuals and groups increasingly claim that publicly enunciated denigrating racial discourse inflicts an injury upon them, and inscribe this claim under the rubric of equality. By adopting a method of claim‐centered critical theorizing, I discuss the possibilities and implications of reading “claims of racialized discursive injury” as claims to equality. A review of contemporary political theorists concerned with equality and injurious discourse establishes the democratic relevance of claims of discursive injury. A discussion of Judith Butler's theory of performativity then identifies the properties of the injurable subject and of discourse's power. Finally, I specify how a postcolonial stance enables us to grasp the actualization of discursive injury as it resonates between past colonial inequalities and threats of future exclusion or death. This equality‐focused reading sheds light on the transformative potential of claims of racialized discursive injury for resignifying equality in contexts marked by “race” and postcolonialism.     

Fetal Age Estimation Using Orbital Measurements: 3D CT-Scan Study Including the Effects of Trisomy 21

Abstract:  This study evaluates a new method of fetal age estimation based on orbital measurement and including the potential trisomy 21 of the fetus. Six orbital and one facial CT-scan measurements were taken on 71 fetuses ranging from 14 to 41 weeks of gestational age. Forty-eight fetuses were "normal" and 23 fetuses presented the Down syndrome (trisomy 21). The anatomy/imagery correspondence was evaluated comparing our results to those obtained by direct bone measurements on the same fetuses and revealed no significant differences between the two kinds of measurements. Moreover, a multiple linear stepwise regression was realized to estimate fetal age and showed that the "trisomy 21 parameter" is not conserved in the final determination model. Therefore, we conclude that the good radio-anatomical correspondence offers an interesting alternative to direct bone measurement (necessitating dissections) and allows a reliable fetal age determination, whatever is the trisomy 21 condition of the fetus.