Search

The Policing in Chicago Research Group (PCRG) is an activist research collective composed of faculty and graduate students at the University of Illinois at Chicago. We conduct useful and accessible research on policing in support of campaigns organized by abolitionist social movements in Chicago. Beginning as a two-semester graduate research practicum, the PCRG has transitioned to an activist research collective. In this roundtable discussion, six members of the PCRG and four of our community partners reflect on the project's challenges and successes. We consider the pedagogical power and limitations of an activist research practicum, the power dynamics within the research group and between the PCRG and our community partners, and the ability of the PCRG to remain accountable to our partners and the communities they represent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: U.S.–Mexico border communities bear a disproportionate burden of adolescent pregnancy. Binational community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships can help to remediate identified health disparities. Objectives: The purpose of this article is to share the experiences and lessons learned from the development of a binational CBPR partnership. Methods: Mexican and U.S. academics, community members, and promotoras used the Community Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) Guiding Principles of Partnership to form a binational CBPR partnership to remediate adolescent pregnancy on the U.S.–Mexico border. Lessons Learned: We learned how to use existing networks to form the partnership and leverage resources to address an existing health disparity. We learned the importance of engaging in effective communication with partners and the necessity of flexibility when working within a different governmental culture. We learned how to leverage critical partnerships to bridge national, cultural, and linguistic differences to conduct binational partnership research, and to be responsive to unforeseen situations when working in low-resource communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nicholas De Genova (2002) suggests that undocumented status is primarily experienced through consciousness of being deportable. Interviews with undocumented Mexican migrant women living in Arizona show that they experience deportability not just in workplaces, which have been the focus of much scholarship, but also when seeking healthcare benefits for their U.S. citizen children. This article therefore expands the scholarship on deportability by exploring how state strategies for constituting migrants as deportable work through, and reconfigure, intimate ties, in this case, ties to children. Furthermore, it shows that migrant mothers draw on diverse intimate ties, beyond those that are recognized by the state, to manage the impact of their deportability. The article concludes by calling for expanded scholarly engagement with the complex relationship between state regulation, intimate ties, migrant lives, and political possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Decades of acid rain have acidified forest soils and freshwaters throughout montane forests of the northeastern United States; the resulting loss of soil base cations is hypothesized to be responsible for limiting rates of forest growth throughout the region. In 1999, an experiment was conducted that reversed the long-term trend of soil base cation depletion and tested the hypothesis that calcium limits forest growth in acidified soils. Researchers added 1,189 kg Ca2+ ha-1 as the pelletized mineral wollastonite (CaSiO3) to a 12-ha forested watershed within the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Significant increases in the pH and acid-neutralizing capacity of soils and streamwater resulted, and the predicted increase in forest growth occurred. An unanticipated consequence of this acidification mitigation experiment began to emerge a decade later, with marked increases in dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) exports in streamwater from the treated watershed. By 2013, 30-times greater DIN was exported from this base-treated watershed than fromadjacent reference watersheds, and DIN exports resulting from this experiment match or exceed earlier reports of inorganic N losses after severe ice-storm damage within the study watershed. The discovery that CaSiO3 enrichment can convert a watershed from a sink to a source of N suggests that numerous potential mechanisms drive watershed N dynamics and provides new insights into the influence of acid deposition mitigation strategies for both carbon cycling and watershed N export. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a comprehensive data set of gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER) in open-canopy, nutrient-rich streams draining row-crop agriculture in the midwestern United States. We used two approaches to characterize temporal and spatial variation in whole-stream metabolism: continuous measurements in one agricultural stream for 1 yr, and periodic daily measurements in six agricultural streams on six dates spanning summer, autumn, and winter. Continuous measurements revealed high rates of GPP (range: 0.1 to 22.0 g O2 m-2 d-1) and ER (range: -0.9 to -34.8 g O2 m-2 d-1) that varied seasonally with light availability and temperature. GPP and ER were correlated during periods of high autotrophic production, suggesting that autotrophic respiration comprised a large portion of ER; however, the GPP : ER ratio exceeded 1 for only 4% of the year. While there were distinct temporal patterns in metabolism in one agricultural stream, rates of GPP and ER were similar among six streams when assessed via periodic daily measurements, and 26% of all periodic daily measurements were autotrophic with GPP : ER > 1. However, these periodic measurements were collected under baseflow conditions and may have overestimated the extent of autotrophy in agricultural streams. Overall, the open canopy and elevated nutrients of agricultural streams resulted in higher rates of GPP and ER compared with more pristine systems. Estimates of metabolism are needed from underrepresented systems to accurately quantify carbon fluxes from fluvial ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the character of Esther in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, this essay investigates the struggle of middle-class white women coming of age in 1950s America to achieve personalized identities. It argues that the Cold War era led to the creation of an ideology of cultural containment, enforcing prescriptive roles on women within an American suburban, conservative, and conformist setting. Investigated here are methods by which this model of domesticity was promoted. Also, examined here is the fracturing of identity those methods caused in women, who were unable to fully assimilate themselves into this role. Butler's theory of performativity is employed to assess strategies of female identity formation. Furthermore, it indicates how functionalist approaches arising from popular Freudianism defined gender roles as principally biologically determined and saw differing models of sexuality and female dissatisfaction as illnesses treatable by psychology. In this context, Esther's search for a self with whom she can identify becomes the novel's principal quest and is, by drawing on the concept of hyper-realism, explored through the processes of observation, reflection, and image reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corn (Zea mays L.) that has been genetically engineered to produce the Cry1Ab protein (Bt corn) is resistant to lepidopteran pests. Bt corn is widely planted in the midwestern United States, often adjacent to headwater streams. We show that corn byproducts, such as pollen and detritus, enter headwater streams and are subject to storage, consumption, and transport to downstream water bodies. Laboratory feeding trials showed that consumption of Bt corn byproducts reduced growth and increased mortality of nontarget stream insects. Stream insects are important prey for aquatic and riparian predators, and widespread planting of Bt crops has unexpected ecosystem-scale consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on women's graduate education programs in Canada and in the U.S. And the programs were compared with the existing doctorate programs in Europe. It was believed that in the last ten to fifteen years, there has been many changes in graduate school in Europe. And one important change is the tendency of graduate students to spend their time in coursework, whereas previously they spend time entirely on researching and writing the dissertations. The article also cites the different schools that offer graduate gender studies in Europe and in the U.S.

The article focuses on a code of ethics for Hispanic American women scholars. A discussion of how the lessons of upbringing of Hispanic American women shape professional ethics in them is absent in most academic discourse on Hispanic Americans. Yet, as the authors have reflected on the contributions of their female relatives, they have begun to appreciate the emotional and intellectual work of the women in their lives. The authors wish to vindicate and validate the knowledge and expertise of these women whose contributions have so often been ignored. This paper seeks to explore the ways in which ethical lessons of mothers of Hispanic American women, affect their professional lives and choices. The authors find that objectifying the Hispanic American communities for purposes of research agendas goes against the very ethics informing our practice. Historically, research on these communities has sought to document their downward slide, pointing to innumerable deficits or reporting the latest rates of incidence of teen pregnancy, educational failure, one-parent homes, teen mortality and domestic violence.

Efforts to describe and assess relationships between government and public opinion are becoming more frequent. In this study the author focusses attention on the roles played by general public opinion and attentive public opinion in relation to public policy in the United States regarding nuclear weapons tests and fallout from 1954 to 1963. His five main conclusions are arresting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the use of metal poles attached on both sides of the bridge at Sebastian Inlet in Melbourne Beach, Florida in late 1994 as a means of reducing the incidence of collisions between birds and vehicles. Methods used to reduce road-kills of wildlife; Information on royal terns; Cost of the pole installation project in 1994.

The article focuses on the production of genetically engineered (GE) crops in the U.S. A billion acres have been planted with GE crops to meet the food demands in the country due to the increasing human population. However, a full accounting of the ecological costs and benefits accrued from the widespread planting of GE plants is still unavailable. Uncertainties about the long-term effects of GE crops are fueling a polarized debate. Furthermore, the widespread planting of GE crops in the country represents a grand experiment which could provide the information necessary to resolve much of this debate.

Background: Promoting healthy and sustainable diets is increasingly important and the Mediterranean Diet (MD) has been recognized as an appropriate example that can be adapted to different countries. Considering that the college years are the time when US young adults are most likely to adopt unhealthy eating habits, the present study assessed adherence to the MD and the sustainability of dietary behaviors in a nationally representative sample of US university students, aiming to identify crucial levers for improving their eating behaviors., Methods: MD adherence and the adoption of healthy and sustainable dietary patterns were assessed through the KIDMED and the Sustainable-HEalthy-Diet (SHED Index questionnaires, respectively, administered through an online survey that also included sociodemographic and behavioral questions. Non-parametric and logistic regression analyses were performed., Results: A sample of 1485 participants (median (IQR) age 21.0 (19.0-22.0); 59% women) correctly completed the survey. A medium adherence to the MD was the most prevalent (47%). According to multivariate logistic regression analysis, the likelihood of being more compliant with the MD increased when meeting physical activity recommendations, having a high SHED Index score, having the willingness to purchase and eat healthy and sustainable dishes, eating ultra-processed plant-based meat alternatives foods daily, and regularly attending the university canteen., Conclusions: Encouraging dietary patterns rich in plant-based foods and with a moderate intake of animal products is crucial to increasing the adoption of healthy and sustainable diets, and university dining services represent a suitable setting to build a supportive environment that educates students on human and planetary health., (© 2024. The Author(s).)