Standing on Shaky Ground: Americans' Experiences With Economic Insecurity

Based on 2009 Surveys of Economic Risk Perceptions and Insecurity, examines Americans' experience of economic insecurity, such as frequency and duration, buffers against hardship, and concerns by income, family structure, race/ethnicity, and education

Predispositions and the Political Behavior of American Economic Elites: Evidence from Technology Entrepreneurs

Economic elites regularly seek to exert political influence. But what policies do they support? Many accounts implicitly assume economic elites are homogeneous and that increases in their political power will increase inequality. We shed new light on heterogeneity in economic elites' political preferences, arguing that economic elites from an industry can share distinctive preferences due in part to sharing distinctive predispositions. Consequently, how increases in economic elites' influence affect inequality depends on which industry's elites are gaining influence and which policy issues are at stake. We demonstrate our argument with four original surveys, including the two largest political surveys of American economic elites to date: one of technology entrepreneurs—whose influence is burgeoning—and another of campaign donors. We show that technology entrepreneurs support liberal redistributive, social, and globalistic policies but conservative regulatory policies—a bundle of preferences rare among other economic elites. These differences appear to arise partly from their distinctive predispositions

Comparison of printed glycan array, suspension array and ELISA in the detection of human anti-glycan antibodies

Anti-glycan antibodies represent a vast and yet insufficiently investigated subpopulation of naturally occurring and adaptive antibodies in humans. Recently, a variety of glycan-based microarrays emerged, allowing high-throughput profiling of a large repertoire of antibodies. As there are no direct approaches for comparison and evaluation of multi-glycan assays we compared three glycan-based immunoassays, namely printed glycan array (PGA), fluorescent microsphere-based suspension array (SA) and ELISA for their efficacy and selectivity in profiling anti-glycan antibodies in a cohort of 48 patients with and without ovarian cancer. The ABO blood group glycan antigens were selected as well recognized ligands for sensitivity and specificity assessments. As another ligand we selected P1, a member of the P blood group system recently identified by PGA as a potential ovarian cancer biomarker. All three glyco-immunoassays reflected the known ABO blood groups with high performance. In contrast, anti-P1 antibody binding profiles displayed much lower concordance. Whilst anti-P1 antibody levels between benign controls and ovarian cancer patients were significantly discriminated using PGA (p = 0.004), we got only similar results using SA (p = 0.03) but not for ELISA. Our findings demonstrate that whilst assays were largely positively correlated, each presents unique characteristic features and should be validated by an independent patient cohort rather than another array technique. The variety between methods presumably reflects the differences in glycan presentation and the antigen/antibody ratio, assay conditions and detection technique. This indicates that the glycan-antibody interaction of interest has to guide the assay selectio

ASSESSMENT OF MUSCLE ACTIVATION RATIONS DURING LOWER EXTREMITY RESISTANCE EXERCISES

The purpose of this study was to examine muscular activation ratios during lower extremity resistance training exercises. The literature implicates muscular activation ratios, such as quadricep-hamstring and insufficient semitendonosis activation as possible factors regarding ACL injuries. Twenty one subjects performed a series of 6 exercises. EMG activity was measured in the following muscles: Rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, biceps femoris and semitendinosis. Data indicate that most of those exercises show favorable quadricep-hamsrting ratios and most of them also showed favorable medial-lateral hamstring ratios.It is possible that performing exercises that target the muscles that help against injury or produce favorable activation ratios could also help us avoid injuries in sports situations

How Not to Think About Managed Care

The claim of this Article is that the concept of managed care, like many concepts now prominent in commentary about medical care finance and delivery in the United States, is incoherent and thus a barrier to useful analysis. To demonstrate this conclusion, we first discuss the managerial context in which managed care claims have arisen and outline the diverse trends to which the category is regularly and confusingly applied. We then suggest an alternative approach to characterizing recent changes in medical care and show how this approach alters and deepens our understanding of recent economic and political developments. We conclude by arguing for more neutral categories to make sense of past and projected developments in methods of reimbursement, techniques of management, and organizational structures

The Impact of Animal Companions on Neurodivergent College Students

The Neurodivergent community has different social and mental processes due to genetic and/or environmental factors that impact interaction with neurotypical settings. There is a disparate number of college students with neurodiversity, possibly due to struggles to a new social environment and classes, often built for neurotypical students. Numerous studies have shown that animals boost social, mental, and physical health within challenged communities, such as children with autism. However, there is little research on animal companionship assisting on the transitioning process into the new settings of higher education for neurodiverse college students. The purpose of this research is to explore the impact of animal companions on the mental and social health attitudes of neurodiverse college students. Our research question is How do pets affect the social health, mental health of neurodiverse college students and the transition of first year neurodiverse college students? Mixed methodology was used within a survey containing both quantitative and open-ended questions to uncover the benefits of companion animals on neurodiverse students. Data will be collected from both those who do and do not own animals. Questions are based on social and mental health and the first year of college. Students who own pets can answer questions based on their pets and how they helped them through their first year of school. Practical Implications: The benefits of companion animals have not been thoroughly researched on neurodiverse college students, and therefore they may not be aware of the valuable possibilities this resource brings. Using the data collected from other resources that use pet therapy; could show improvements for college students who have Neurodiversity and possibly increase students' numbers to go to college. After collecting 36(n) participants' data, a t-test was run to compare the impact of animals on neurodiverse college students and those who did not own animal companions. Overall, we determined if neurodiverse students with companion owners had a lower Likert means than those who did not own companion animals. In doing this, for each section, including the mental health, social health, and the transition to college, a t-test was run for each variable created by the CFA to determine the likelihood that their sections had a smaller Likert scale for animal companion owners than those who did not own animal companions. Using the results of each section helped to conclude that overall that neurodiverse college students who owned pets had a higher or similar Likert means compared to those who did not have animal companions. We also collected data from those who owned animal companions through a qualitative survey section. With the responses, we concluded that all participants had a positive reaction that animal companions do decrease stress and anxiety level. Overall, the Likert scales of the survey show that animal companions did not have a lower Likert means than non-animal owners, and they do not have an impact on the social and mental health of college students. However, the free-response survey showed that animals could impact their social and mental health. The results could play into many factors, including having a small sample size. Overall, 65 participants do not have enough data to finalize the results, so further collections will need to collect accurate conclusions. Another issue is that the data collected does not correlate between the qualitative section and the quantitative section of the survey; further research will need to be done to close these gaps

Mystify me: Coke, terror and the symbolic immortality boost

A panel on “Marketing as Mystification” convened at the 2011 Academy of Marketing conference in Liverpool. Ideas from the Liverpool event were supplemented by commentaries from selected other authors. Each commentary explores the aspects of “mystification” observable in marketing discourses and practices. In what follows, Laufer interprets marketing mystification as modern form of sophism, Dholakia and Firat discuss mystifying ways that inequality is marketed, Varman analyzes the perversion and mystification of “development” via neoliberal marketing of “social entrepreneurship,” Mikkonen explores mystifying marketing representations of gays and lesbians, and Freund and Jacobi present a fascinating interpretation of how Coca-Cola advertising mystically reassures us that our difficult, dangerous lifeworld is actually quite hunky-dory. </jats:p