The association of current smoking behavior with the smoking behavior of parents, siblings, friends and spouses

Aims: To examine the association of current smoking behavior of adolescents and young adults with the smoking behavior of their parents, siblings, friends and spouses. Design: Using survey data from a large twin-family sample, the association between the smoking behavior of participants and that of their family members, friends and spouses was investigated by calculating the relative risk. To disentangle sex and age differences, calculations were carried out separately for males and females and for three different age groups: 12-15, 16-20 and 21-40 years old. Findings: The smoking behavior of the participants was significantly influenced by the smoking behavior of parents, siblings and friends, but all relative risks decreased with age. No differences in relative risk were found between having older or younger smoking siblings. Within each age group, the relative risk to smoke when having a smoking friend was comparable to the relative risk to smoke when having a smoking same-age and same-sex sibling. For the older participants, the relative risk to smoke was higher for monozygotic (MZ) twins with a smoking co-twin than for dizygotic (DZ) twins with a smoking co-twin. Most findings were sex-dependent: same-sex smoking family members influenced smoking behavior more than opposite-sex family members. The significant association of the smoking behavior of spouses decreased with age, which suggests that assortment for smoking is based on similarity at the time dating began. Conclusions: The results highlight the importance of both social and genetic influences on smoking behavior, with genetic influences increasing with the age of the participant

Gullah/Geechee Food Network: Using Culture as an Economic Development Tool

The following project presents the tools available in the state of Georgia, South Carolina, in the nonprofit sector, and on a federal level that make the creation of a food network along the Georgia coast, extending to the southern tip of South Carolina a feasible option for the collection of Rosenwald schools in the Gullah/Geechee Heritage Corridor (CHC). The application of various resources available through non-profit, federal, and state agencies has the potential to transform the Rosenwald school network in the CHC into a sustainable food network

Weight-balanced measures and free energy for one-dimensional dynamics

In this paper we consider Thermodynamic Formalism propcrties o fone dimensional maps. Wc consider the existence ofweight-balanced measures and large dcviation propcrtics o f the Frcc-Encrgy of the Jacobian of measures. We show that a wcight-balanced mcasure exists under the hypotheses that the map is piccewisc-homeomorphic and the weights picccwisc constant. We considcr also a certain class of measures with the property that thc Frce-Encrgy of the Jacobian is difTerentiable by parts. For measures in this class wc show that a certa in measure is the maximal entropy measurc i f and only ifthe Frcc-Energy of thc Jacobian i~ linear. Tite rcsult follows from general propcrtics of Large-Deviation Thcory and does not use the more classical approach of Thcrmodynamic Formalism

Weight-balanced measures and free energy for one-dimensional dynamics

In this paper we consider Thermodynamic Formalism propcrties o fone dimensional maps. Wc consider the existence ofweight-balanced measures and large dcviation propcrtics o f the Frcc-Encrgy of the Jacobian of measures. We show that a wcight-balanced mcasure exists under the hypotheses that the map is piccewisc-homeomorphic and the weights picccwisc constant. We considcr also a certain class of measures with the property that thc Frce-Encrgy of the Jacobian is difTerentiable by parts. For measures in this class wc show that a certa in measure is the maximal entropy measurc i f and only ifthe Frcc-Energy of thc Jacobian i~ linear. Tite rcsult follows from general propcrtics of Large-Deviation Thcory and does not use the more classical approach of Thcrmodynamic Formalism