Digital Commons Network^™

Working With Embroideries And Counter-Maps: Engaging Memory And Imagination Within Decolonizing Frameworks, Puleng Segalo, Einat Manoff, Michelle Fine

Publications and Research

As people around the world continue to have their voices, desires, and movements restricted, and their pasts and futures told on their behalf, we are interested in the critical project of decolonizing, which involves contesting dominant narratives and hegemonic representations. Ignacio Martín - Baró called these the “collective lies” told about people and politics. This essay reflects within and across two sites of injustice, located in Israel/Palestine and in South Africa, to excavate the circuits of structural violence, internalized colonization and possible reworking of those toward resistance that can be revealed within the stubborn particulars of place, history, and culture. …

Physical Activity Design Guidelines For School Architecture, Jeri Brittin, Dina Sorensen, Matthew Trowbridge, Karen K. Lee, Dieter Breithecker, Leah Frerichs, Terry Huang

Publications and Research

Increasing children’s physical activity at school is a national focus in the U.S. to address childhood obesity. While research has demonstrated associations between aspects of school environments and students’ physical activity, the literature currently lacks a synthesis of evidence to serve as a practical, spatially-organized resource for school designers and decision-makers, as well as to point to pertinent research opportunities. This paper describes the development of a new practical tool: Physical Activity Design Guidelines for School Architecture. Its aims are to provide architects and designers, as well as school planners, educators, and public health professionals, with strategies for making K-12 …

Independent Demographic Responses To Climate Change Among Temperate And Tropical Milksnakes (Colubridae: Genus Lampropeltis), Sara Ruane, Omar Torres-Carvajal, Frank T. Burbrink

Publications and Research

The effects of Late Quaternary climate change have been examined for many temperate New World taxa, but the impact of Pleistocene glacial cycles on Neotropical taxa is less well understood, specifically with respect to changes in population demography. Here, we examine historical demographic trends for six species of milksnake with representatives in both the temperate and tropical Americas to determine if species share responses to climate change as a taxon or by area (i.e., temperate versus tropical environments). Using a multilocus dataset, we test for the demographic signature of population expansion and decline using non-genealogical summary statistics, as well as …

Mobilisation Of Public Support For Policy Actions To Prevent Obesity, Terry T-K Huang, John H. Cawley, Marice Ashe, Sergio Costa, Leah M. Frerichs, Lindsey Zwicker, Juan A. Rivera, David Levy, Ross A. Hammond, Estelle V. Lambert, Shiriki K. Kumanyika

Publications and Research

Public mobilisation is needed to enact obesity prevention policies and to mitigate backlash against their implementation. However, current approaches in public health focus primarily on dialogue between public health professionals and political leaders. Strategies to increase popular demand for obesity prevention policies include refining and streamlining public information, identifying effective frames for each population, enhancing media advocacy, building citizen protest and engagement, and developing a receptive political environment with change agents embedded across organisations and sectors. Long-term support and investment in collaboration among diverse stakeholders to create shared value is also important. Each actor in an expanded coalition for obesity …

Place Matters: New Social Indicators, Mimi Abramovitz, Jochen Albrecht

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Evaluation Of Alos Palsar Data For High-Resolution Mapping Of Vegetated Wetlands In Alaska, Daniel Clewley, Jane Whitcomb, Mahta Moghaddam, Kyle Macdonald, Bruce Chapman, Peter Bunting

Publications and Research

As the largest natural source of methane, wetlands play an important role in the carbon cycle. High-resolution maps of wetland type and extent are required to quantify wetland responses to climate change. Mapping northern wetlands is particularly important because of a disproportionate increase in temperatures at higher latitudes. Synthetic aperture radar data from a spaceborne platform can be used to map wetland types and dynamics over large areas. Following from earlier work by Whitcomb et al. (2009) using Japanese Earth Resources Satellite (JERS-1) data, we applied the “random forests” classification algorithm to variables from L-band ALOS PALSAR data for 2007, …

Emerging Roles Of Health Care Providers To Mitigate Climate Change Impacts: A Perspective From East Harlem, New York, Perry E. Sheffield, Kathleen T. Durante, Elena Rahona, Christina Zarcadoolas

Publications and Research

Professional associations of health care workers are issuing policy statements on climate change and health with greater frequency, calling on their members to act in their duty to protect and fulfill the right to health. These health care providers’ perceptions of their roles in the intersection of climate and health, however, have not been well-studied. This article presents results from a qualitative study using focus groups conducted with health care providers serving the low-income, ethnic minority population in East Harlem, New York. The focus groups sought to identify and explore providers’ perceived health threats of climate change, as well as …

La Souffrance Animale À Distance: Des Vétérinaires Dans L’Action Humanitaire, Frédéric Keck, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

Résumé

Cet article étudie le rôle des vétérinaires dans l’humanitaire à partir de deux types de pratique : la défense des animaux contre la cruauté et la surveillance des animaux touchés par les épidémies. En suivant l’extension de l’action humanitaire aux animaux comme nouvelles figures de victimes innocentes, nous cherchons à dépasser l’approche compassionnelle de l’humanitaire pour étudier les nouvelles formes scientifiques impliquant des non-humains, comme la médecine vétérinaire légale, les neurosciences et l’immunologie. Nous soutenons finalement que ces sciences produisent de nouveaux collectifs d’humains et de non-humains.

Abstract

This article traces the role of veterinarians in humanitarian action, focusing …

Adolescent Girls, Human Rights And The Expanding Climate Emergency, Holly G. Atkinson, Judith Bruce

Publications and Research

Many adolescent girls—the poorest girls in the poorest communities—already live in an “emergency.” Humanitarian crises only amplify the call on their coping and caring capacities, while exacerbating their vulnerabilities. The frequency and intensity of emergencies, including natural disasters, conflicts, and infectious disease outbreaks such as Ebola, appear to be growing.¹ These emergencies threaten entire communities and whole countries, often with global implications. Many become virtually permanent. The authors urge key actors responding to both the threats and opportunities that climate change poses to understand adolescent girls as exceptionally at risk on the one hand, and as exceptionally resilient and …

Resistance, Acquiescence Or Incorporation? An Introduction To Land Grabbing And Political Reactions ‘From Below’, Marc Edelman, Ruth Hall, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Ian Scoones, Ben White, Wendy Wolford

Publications and Research

Political reactions ‘from below’ to global land grabbing have been vastly more varied and complex than is usually assumed. This essay introduces a collection of ground- breaking studies that discuss responses that range from various types of organized and everyday resistance to demands for incorporation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals. Initiatives ‘from below’ in response to land deals have involved local and transnational alliances and the use of legal and extra-legal methods, and have brought victories and defeats. The relevance of political reactions to land grabbing is discussed in light of theories of social movements and …

Parity Of Indigenous And Non-Indigenous Women In Brazil: Does The Reported Number Of Children Born Depend Upon Who Answers National Census Questions?, Ricardo Ventura Santos, João Luiz Bastos, Oswaldo Gonçalves Cruz, Luciene Aparecida Ferreira De Barros Longo, Nancy May Flowers, Nilza De Oliveira Martins Pereira

Publications and Research

Taking parity as the main analytic variable, the objective of this study is to investigate whether the patterns of response to national census questions in Brazil differ when Indigenous and non-Indigenous women are compared, taking into consideration whether the information was provided by the women directly or by a proxy respondent (another household member or a non-resident). We use data on children ever born to Indigenous and non-Indigenous women from two Brazilian regions, the Northeast and the North. Data on the number of household members, total household rooms, interviewee’s color/race, educational attainment, age, parity, and type of respondent were obtained …

Collaborative Power: Graduate Students Creating And Implementing Faculty Development Workshops On Multilingual Writing, Brooke R. Schreiber, Dorothy Worden, Eunjeong Lee

Publications and Research

A description of how a group of graduate students was able to coordinate institutional resources and connections to put on faculty development sessions for working with multilingual writers (often called ESL students) across the curriculum.

At Home In The Bronx: Children At The New York Catholic Protectory 1865-1938, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

The N.Y.C.-based New York Catholic Protectory was established in 1865 as the home of destitute or truant children. This article deals with such topics as the protectory's establishment, operation and management, education and industrial training, as well as societal factors leading to its changing mission and closing in the Bronx in 1938-- after serving the needs of over 140,000 boys and girls.

Wsq: Child Editor's Note, Cynthia Chris, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

This Editor's Note introduces the WSQ issue "Child," co-edited by Sarah Chinn and Anna Mae Duane, which takes a kaleidoscopically interdisciplinary approach to childhood studies, focusing on the legibility and autonomy of children.

Effect Of Massachusetts Healthcare Reform On Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Admissions To Hospital For Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions: Retrospective Analysis Of Hospital Episode Statistics, Danny Mccormick, Amresh D. Hanchate, Karen E. Lasser, Meredith G. Manze, Mengyun Lin, Chieh Chu, Nancy R. Kressin

Publications and Research

Objectives To examine the impact of Massachusetts healthcare reform on changes in rates of admission to hospital for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs), which are potentially preventable with good access to outpatient medical care, and racial and ethnic disparities in such rates, using complete inpatient discharge data (hospital episode statistics) from Massachusetts and three control states.

Design Difference in differences analysis to identify the change, overall and according to race/ethnicity, adjusted for secular changes unrelated to reform.

Setting Hospitals in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, United States.

Participants Adults aged 18-64 (those most likely to have been affected …

Interference Archive: A Free Space For Social Movement Culture, Alycia Sellie, Jesse Goldstein, Molly Fair, Jennifer Hoyer

Publications and Research

This paper discusses activist archives within the context of community archives and the practices of archiving activism. Interference Archive (IA), a volunteer-run independent archive in Brooklyn, New York, is presented as one example of an activist archive. We explain the manner in which IA functions as a transmovement and prefigurative “free space” under Francis Poletta’s typology of movement spaces. Through this explanation, we illustrate how the structures of free spaces can help us understand the way activist archives forge connections between communities and the ways that they create new networks of solidarity through the archival process.

“My Brain Database Doesn’T See Skin Color” Color-Blind Racism In The Technology Industry And In Theorizing The Web, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

In this article, I examine three interconnected notions about color-blind racism and the Internet. The first is the fantasy that the Internet as a technology is color-blind with regard to race; the second is the reality that color-blind racism operates in the tech industry. The third notion is the way color-blind racism shapes Internet studies of race and racism, in which race is contained as a “variable” or as an “identity” that inhere exclusively in people of color, but that leaves the way race is embedded in structures, industry, and the very idea of the Internet unexamined. To explore these …

First We Take Manhattan... Global Cities And Diasporic Networks In The Aftermath Of Syriza's Victory, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

From The Field To The Lab: Best Practices For Field Preservation Of Bat Specimens For Molecular Analyses, Angelique Corthals, Alynn Martin, Omar M. Warsi, Megan Woller-Skar, Winston Lancaster, Amy Russell, Liliana M. Dávalos

Publications and Research

Studies in molecular ecology depend on field-collected samples for genetic information, and the tissue sampled and preservation conditions strongly affect the quality of the DNA obtained. DNA yields from different tissue types have seldom been compared, and the relative performance of storage media has never been directly tested, even though these media may influence DNA degradation under field conditions. We analyzed DNA yield from buccal swabs and wing punches harvested from live bats using nucleic acid quantification as well as quantitative PCR for a single-copy nuclear locus. We also compared DNA yields from wing tissue preserved in three media: ethanol, …

Now You See It, Now You Don’T: Flushing Hosts Prior To Experimentation Can Predict Their Responses To Brood Parasitism, Daniel Hanley, Peter Samas, Josef Heryán, Mark E. Hauber, Tomáš Grim

Publications and Research

Brood parasitic birds lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, leaving hosts to raise their offspring. To understand parasite-host coevolutionary arms races, many studies have examined host responses to experimentally introduced eggs. However, attending parents often need to be flushed from their nests to add experimental eggs. If these birds witness parasitism events, they may recognize and reject foreign eggs more readily than parents who did not. We found that, after being flushed, female blackbirds, Turdus merula, remained close to their nests. Flushed females were more likely to eject foreign eggs and did so more quickly than females that …

Identifying Individual Risk Factors And Documenting The Pattern Of Heat-Related Illness Through Analyses Of Hospitalization And Patterns Of Household Cooling, Michael T. Schmeltz, Grace Sembajwe, Peter J. Marcotullio, Jean A. Grassman, David U. Himmelstein, Stephanie Woolhandler

Publications and Research

Background
As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of extreme heat events researchers and public health officials must work towards understanding the causes and outcomes of heat-related morbidity and mortality. While there have been many studies on both heatrelated illness (HRI), there are fewer on heat-related morbidity than on heatrelated mortality.

Objective
To identify individual and environmental risk factors for hospitalizations and document patterns of household cooling.

Methods
We performed a pooled cross-sectional analysis of secondary U.S. data, the Nationwide Inpatient Sample. Risk ratios were calculated from multivariable models to identify risk factors for hospitalizations. Hierarchical modeling was also …

The Incidence Of Upper And Lower Extremity Surgery For Rheumatoid Arthritis Among Medicare Beneficiaries, Jeniffer Waljee, Lin Zhong, Onur Baser, Huseyin Yuce, David A. Fox, Kevin C. Chung

Publications and Research

Background: For elderly patients with rheumatoid arthritis, aggressive immunosuppression can be difficult to tolerate, and surgery remains an important treatment option for joint pain and deformity. We sought to examine the epidemiology of surgical reconstruction for rheumatoid arthritis among older individuals who were newly diagnosed with the disorder.

Methods: We identified a 5% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries (sixty-six years of age and older) newly diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis from 2000 to 2005, and followed these patients longitudinally for a mean of 4.6 years. We used univariate analysis to compare the time from the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis to the …

Visions Of Public Space: Reproducing And Resisting Social Hierarchies In A Community Garden, Sofya Aptekar

Publications and Research

Urban public spaces are sites of struggles over gentrification. In increasingly diverse cities, these public spaces also host interactions among people of different class, race, ethnicity, and immigration status. How do people share public spaces in contexts of diversity and gentrification? I analyze the conflicting ways of imagining shared spaces by drawing on an ethnographic study of a community garden in a diverse and gentrifying neighborhood in New York City, conducted between 2011 and 2013. I examine how conflicts among gardeners about the aesthetics of the garden and norms of conduct reproduce larger gentrification struggles over culture and resources. Those …

Staying Connected: Keeping Justice-Involved Youth “Close To Home” In New York City, Jeffrey A. Butts, Laura Negredo, Evan Elkin

Publications and Research

When justice-involved youth are supervised by local agencies and placed with locally operated programs rather than being sent away to state facilities, they are better able to maintain community ties. They stay connected with their families, and they are more likely to remain in local schools. Policy reforms that localize the justice system are often called “realignment.” New York’s “Close to Home” (or C2H) initiative is a prominent example of youth justice realignment. Launched in 2012, it is the latest chapter in a decade-long commitment by New York State and New York City to improve the justice system for young …

Massachusetts Health Reform And Disparities In Joint Replacement Use: Difference In Differences Study, Amresh D. Hanchate, Alok Kapoor, Jeffrey N. Katz, Danny Mccormick, Karen E. Lasser, Chen Feng, Meredith G. Manze, Nancy R. Kressin

Publications and Research

Objective To estimate the impact of the insurance expansion in 2006 on use of knee and hip replacement procedures by race/ethnicity, area income, and the use of hospitals that predominantly serve poor people (“safety net hospitals”). Design Quasi-experimental difference in differences study examining change after reform in the share of procedures performed in safety net hospitals by race/ethnicity and area income, with adjustment for patients’ residence, demographics, and comorbidity. Setting State of Massachusetts, United States. Participants Massachusetts residents aged 40-64 as the target beneficiaries of reform and similarly aged residents of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania as the comparison …

The Use Of A Statistical Model Of Storm Surge As A Bias Correction For Dynamical Surge Models And Its Applicability Along The U.S. East Coast, Haydee Salmun, Andrea Molod

Publications and Research

The present study extends the applicability of a statistical model for prediction of storm surge originally developed for The Battery, NY in two ways: I. the statistical model is used as a biascorrection for operationally produced dynamical surge forecasts, and II. the statistical model is applied to the region of the east coast of the U.S. susceptible to winter extratropical storms. The statistical prediction is based on a regression relation between the “storm maximum” storm surge and the storm composite significant wave height predicted ata nearby location. The use of the statistical surge prediction as an alternative bias correction for …

Population Genomics Reveals Seahorses (Hippocampus Erectus) Of The Western Mid-Atlantic Coast To Be Residents Rather Than Vagrants, J. T. Boehm, John Waldman, John D. Robinson, Michael J. Hickerson

Publications and Research

Understanding population structure and areas of demographic persistence and transients is critical for effective species management. However, direct observational evidence to address the geographic scale and delineation of ephemeral or persistent populations for many marine fishes is limited. The Lined seahorse (Hippocampus erectus) can be commonly found in three western Atlantic zoogeographic provinces, though inhabitants of the temperate northern Virginia Province are often considered tropical vagrants that only arrive during warm seasons from the southern provinces and perish as temperatures decline. Although genetics can locate regions of historical population persistence and isolation, previous evidence of Virginia Province persistence is only …

Gang Policing: The Post Stop-And-Frisk Justification For Profile-Based Policing, K. Babe Howell

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Contractual Family: The Role Of The Market In Shaping Family Formulations And Rights, Deborah Zalesne

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Examination Of Geophysical Signatures Of Ethanol-Water Mixtures In A Homogeneous Sand Column Using Ground Penetrating Radar And Time-Domain Reflectometry, Angelo Lampousis, Neil Terry, Lee Slater

Publications and Research

In recent years there has been an increase in the frequency of incidents involving ethanol-blended gasoline affecting the groundwater. Near-surface geophysical methods hold promise for site characterization at ethanol contaminated sites. We attempted to record the broadband dielectric properties of ethanol at various concentrations as it was circulating through a closed tank containing either sand or a sand-clay mixture. Two high frequency GPR antennas were positioned symmetrically on either side of the sample holder to obtain transmission measurements. In the first part of the experiment we used a sample consisting of sand. In the second part of the experiment we …