Development of an Index of Subsidized Housing Availability and its Relationship to Housing Insecurity

Housing insecurity is a known threat to child health understanding predictors of housing insecurity can help inform policies to protect the health of young children in low-income households. This study sheds light on the relationship between housing insecurity and availability of housing that is affordable to low-income households.

We developed a county-level index of availability of subsidized housing needed to meet the demand of low-income households. Our results estimate that if subsidized units are made available to an additional 5% of the eligible population, the odds of overcrowding decrease by 26% and the odds of families making multiple moves decrease by 31%. Both of these are known predictors of poor child health outcomes. Thus, these results suggest that state and federal investments in expanding the stock of subsidized housing could reduce housing insecurity and thereby also improve the health and well-being of young children, including their families' food security status.     

Where Does Location Affordability Drive Residential Mobility? An Analysis of Origin and Destination Communities

Abstract

Despite an overall decrease in residential mobility after the 2007 housing crisis, many households, particularly those that are low income, continue to move in pursuit of a better life. Traditional theories of residential mobility suggest that mobility will occur when housing and transportation costs are cumulatively greater than the cost of moving to a new location. At the same time, the influence of these factors is not likely to be uniform across geographic contexts or for moves up or down the metropolitan hierarchy. Our analysis examines how well affordability measures explain patterns of county-level residential mobility. Specifically, we contrast conventional measures of affordability focused on the ratio of income to housing expense with measures of location affordability that factor in both housing and transportation costs. We find that whereas households tend to move from lower to higher cost locations, transit affordability at the destination plays an important role in mobility decisions.     

Is Public Management Neglecting the State?

Public management is a domain of research that is now roughly three decades old. Researchers in this area have made important advances in understanding about the performance of public organizations. But questions have been raised about the scope and methods of public management research (PMR). Does it neglect important questions about the development of major institutions of the modern state? Has it focused unduly on problems of the advanced democracies? Has it made itself irrelevant to public debates about the role and design of government, and the capacity of public institutions to deal with emerging challenges? This set of eight short essays were prepared for a roundtable held at the research conference of the PMR Association at the University of Aarhus in June 2016. Contributors were asked to consider the question: Is PMR neglecting the state?     

Contested Governance: Understanding Justice Interventions in Post-Qadhafi Libya

ABSTRACT

This contribution reflects upon the nexus between transitional justice and peacebuilding through a study of how transitional justice practices in post-Qadhafi Libya interacted with broader efforts to establish governance institutions in the aftermath of Libya’s 2011 armed conflict. It argues that dominant practices of transitional justice, promoted by external actors, prescribed narrow state-centric justice interventions that were ill-suited for a polity in which the state was highly contested. In fact, transitional justice proved divisive in Libya because attempts to project state-centric liberal justice practices were limited by their targeting of weak institutions that lacked local legitimacy and their inability to reconcile alternative normative frameworks that challenge the modern state. In addition, the weakness of Libya’s state institutions allowed thuwwar, or revolutionary armed groups, to dictate an exclusionary form of justice known as political isolation. Drawn from fieldwork conducted in Libya, this contribution provides lessons for both peacebuilding and transitional justice practice that call for a rethinking of teleological notions of transition and greater engagement with notions and concepts that fall outside dominant practices.     

Temperature‐Dependent Postmortem Changes in Human Cardiac Troponin‐T (cTnT): An Approach in Estimation of Time Since Death

Estimation of time of death is an indispensible requirement of every medico‐legal autopsy, but unfortunately, there is not a single method by which it could be determined accurately. This study focused on the temperature‐dependent postmortem degradation of cardiac troponin‐T and its association with postmortem interval (PMI) in human. The analysis involved extraction of the protein, separation by denaturing gel electrophoresis (SDS‐PAGE), and visualization by Western blot using cTnT‐specific monoclonal antibodies. The area of the bands within a lane was quantified by scanning and digitizing the image using Gel Doc (Universal Hood). The results indicate a characteristic banding pattern among human cadavers (n = 6) and a pseudo‐linear relationship between percentage of cTnT degradation and the log of the time since death (r > 0.95), which can be used to estimate the postmortem interval. The data presented demonstrate that this technique can provide an extended time range during which PMI can be more accurately estimated.     

The Reliability of Pattern Classification in Bloodstain Pattern Analysis,Part 1: Bloodstain Patterns on Rigid Non‐absorbent Surfaces

This study was designed to produce the first baseline measure of reliability in bloodstain pattern classification. A panel of experienced bloodstain pattern analysts examined over 400 spatter patterns on three rigid non‐absorbent surfaces. The patterns varied in spatter type and extent. A case summary accompanied each pattern that either contained neutral information, information to suggest the correct pattern (i.e., was positively biasing), or information to suggest an incorrect pattern (i.e., was negatively biasing). Across the variables under examination, 13% of classifications were erroneous. Generally speaking, where the pattern was more difficult to recognize (e.g., limited staining extent or a patterned substrate), analysts became more conservative in their judgment, opting to be inconclusive. Incorrect classifications increased as a function of the negatively biasing contextual information. The implications of the findings for practice are discussed.     

Fluorescence Imaging of Posterior Spiracles from Second and Third Instars of Forensically Important Chrysomya rufifacies (Diptera: Calliphoridae),

Entomological protocols for aging blowfly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae to estimate the time of colonization (TOC) are commonly used to assist in death investigations. While the methodologies for analyzing fly larvae differ, most rely on light microscopy, genetic analysis, or, more rarely, electron microscopy. This pilot study sought to improve resolution of larval stage in the forensically important blowfly Chrysomya rufifacies using high‐content fluorescence microscopy and biochemical measures of developmental marker proteins. We established fixation and mounting protocols, defined a set of measurable morphometric criteria and captured developmental transitions of 2nd instar to 3rd instar using both fluorescence microscopy and anti‐ecdysone receptor Western blot analysis. The data show that these instars can be distinguished on the basis of robust, nonbleaching, autofluorescence of larval posterior spiracles. High‐content imaging techniques using confocal microscopy, combined with morphometric and biochemical techniques, may therefore aid forensic entomologists in estimating TOC.