From Markets to Tech: Governmental Initiatives,Solutions, and Responses to Food Insecurity

Food security, or lack thereof, is a global issue, affecting millions of people worldwide. Although it has been determined that there is enough food on the planet to feed everyone, nearly one‐third suffer from some form of malnutrition. The purpose of this paper is to bring awareness to this global crisis. The introduction defines food security and food deserts, supported by global and U.S. statistics. Next, the paper discusses the federal and regional initiatives within the U.S. to eliminate food insecurity, including federal laws and individual state laws. The paper highlights the “Right to Farm” initiative promulgated by New York state, as well as the Farmers' Market of Troy, New York, as attempts to combat food insecurity. The paper then discusses another large metropolitan area in the U.S., Seattle, Washington, and its response to food insecurity: Seattle's “Farm‐To‐Table Initiative” and “Fresh Bucks” program. Next, the discussion turns to advancing technology and its ability to bridge gaps in food accessibility. For example, Sweden has implemented an unstaffed twenty‐four‐hour grocery store using technology to complete the transactions. Smiliar solutions are being tested in communities in China. Furthermore, Amazon GO, launched in 2016 in Seattle, Washington, is one of the most recent innovations, allowing shoppers to use an Amazon account to track their purchases. The paper concludes by calling on the more economically influential countries to prioritize food security in their respective nations.     

Intimate Partner Violence and Parenting: Examining the Roles of Parenting Stress,Timing, and Maternal Abuse History

Maternal intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure has been linked to negative parenting outcomes. Studies suggest that parenting stress is an intermediary between IPV exposure and parenting, though past work has relied on small, clinically- referred samples. Moreover, it is unclear if parenting is differentially affected by a mother’s recent versus past history of IPV exposure, or whether a mother’s childhood abuse history moderates the associations of IPV with parenting stress and parenting behaviors. The current study examines whether recent IPV, versus past IPV, has stronger associations with parenting stress and parenting behaviors and tests whether maternal abuse history moderates these associations. Using structural equation modeling, we tested relations between IPV (frequency and recency), parenting stress, and parenting behaviors cross-sectionally and longitudinally in a large community sample of IPV-exposed low-income Hispanic and African American mothers of children aged 0–14 years (N?=?1159). We found that mothers who reported IPV exposure in the past year reported higher negative and lower positive parenting behaviors than mothers who reported less recent exposure. Further, we found that the frequency and timing of IPV exposure affected parenting indirectly through increased parenting stress. However, a childhood history of abuse did not appear to sensitize women to these effects. These findings suggest that psychological interventions aimed at reducing the subjective experience of parenting stress, as well as increased access to resources that reduce objective childcare burden, are important for promoting resilience among families exposed to violence.

     

But Can She Make America Great Again? Threat,Stability, and Support for Female Candidates in the United States

Political Behavior - Drawing on the literature on system justification, I argue that the fate of female candidates in the U.S. is tied to whether the election is occurring in relatively good or bad...     

Towards a Feminization of Agricultural Labour in Northwest Syria

Smallholdings in the rural areas of northwest Syria are a result of land fragmentation that is due to inheritance. Because of rapid population growth combined with land fragmentation, these smallholdings are increasing and cannot sustain the rural households whose sizes and needs are also increasing rapidly This situation has led to increasing numbers of males migrating to urban areas in Syria and to neighbouring countries looking for work opportunities. In addition, recent agricultural intensification trends seem to have led to the emergence of a waged labour force which, in the absence of male workers owing to significant rates of migration, is now predominantly female. Agricultural labour use depends upon household characteristics and resources (type of labour used, gender of labour waged/exchanged/familial). The article attempts to present a comprehensive analysis of household labour use in distinctive farming systems in one region of Syria that has undergone great change in recent decades, and examines the changes in the composition of the agricultural labour force. Secondary information, rapid ural appraisals and formal farm surveys were used to gather information on the households in a study area where different farming systems coexist. The results show that the decrease in landholding size, the resulting male migration, and land intensification have resulted in the expansion offemale labour in agriculturalproduction, which has been termed in this research a 'feminization of agricultural labour'. This suggests that agricultural research and extension services will have to work more with women farmers and farm workers, seek their wisdom and involve them in technology and transfer. This is not easy in conservative societies but requires research and extension institutions to take this reality into consideration in their programmes.     

Multinational-firm responses to an Asian-crisis comeback: evidence from European transnationals

Abstract

Despite many predictions to the contrary, the Republic of Korea (ROK) is currently one of the countries with most pro-American attitudes. We investigate what is behind the extraordinary resilience in US popular standing in an allegedly least likely setting. Using survey data from 2002 and 2007 and a novel methodology, Classification and Regression Tree models, we test whether US standing is: (1) a matter of interests, i.e. a reward that the USA receives because it either provides security or international public goods; or (2) whether it is a matter of image, i.e. the recognition that the USA is a role model to emulate. We find that across a large number of predictors, the Korean public mostly liked the USA because they liked American ways of doing business, which gives support to the image hypothesis. Security interests played a secondary role in shaping US standing, while the provision of international public goods had no impact in the popular assessment of the USA in the ROK.     

Cohabitation Contracts and the Democratization of Personal Relations

Feminist opposition to the use of cohabitationcontracts for the private regulation of personalrelations has been predicated on the classical readingof contract as commerce. On this reading,cohabitation contracts construct cohabitants'obligations as commercial and typically detrimental towomen because of their weaker bargaining power. Butthe premisses of classical contract theory are beingundermined by radical critiques which emphasize theimportance of relationality in the reading ofcontract. On such critiques, the obligationsconstructed by cohabitation contracts need no longerexclude considerations of the parties' differentfinancial status and social circumstances. Theconstruction of cohabitants' obligations canaccordingly foreground fairness and equality, both indrafting and in enforcing cohabitation contracts. Inthis way, the conceptualization of contract asrelationality encourages the use of cohabitationcontracts as progressive mechanisms for thedemocratization of personal relations.