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. Using data from the child supplement of the US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and fitting three-level random-effects models of child health and cognitive development, we test whether left-handed children have different outcomes from those of their right-handed counterparts. The health measures cover both physical health and mental health, and the cognitive development test scores span vocabulary, mathematics, reading and comprehension. Overall we find little evidence to suggest that left-handed children have a significantly higher probability of experiencing injury, illness or behavioural problems. In contrast, we find that left-handed children have significantly lower cognitive development test scores than right-handed children for all areas of development with the exception of reading. Moreover, we find no strong evidence that the left-handedness effect differs by gender or age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of the Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Administrative Committee (AdCom) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Summer Meeting held in Charleston, South Carolina on May 31, 2009. The financial performance of the IEEE in 2008 was tackled. Other issues addressed were the need to improve membership outside the U.S., the IEEE budget for 2009 and 2010 and future conferences.

The article presents the highlights for the administrative committee meeting of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers organization that was held on July 3-4, 2005 in the U.S. The several attendees of the event include C. E. Baum, J. Bernhard, G. Brown, N. Engheta and S. Hagness. It noted that Stuart Long will be substituting for Robert Nevels as society president and he presented the committee report.

Presents the minutes of AP-S AdCom Meeting for the electric and electronic industry, which was held on January 4, 2004 in Boulder, Colorado. Resource speakers; Topics to be discussed; Programs and activities.

Presents the minutes of the meeting discussed during the Antennas and Propagation Society's (APS) AdCom Meeting held June 22, 2003 in Columbus, Ohio. Attendance; Introductions; Approval of February 23 minutes; Report on the fiscal picture citing a drop in membership and bankruptcy; Plan by all societies to pursue balanced budgets; Approval for the AP-S constitution and by-laws; Organization appointments; Plans to purse electronic publications.

Analyzes preemptive claim under the U.S. Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act in the case, Nathan Kimmel Inc. v. DowElanco LLC. Federal regulation of pesticides; Judicial interpretation of the act's preemption clause; Facts of the case.

Presents minutes of the meeting of the Antennas and Propagation Society held in Boulder, Colorado on January 12, 2002. Discussion of agenda; Reports submitted by officers; Report submitted by society president Magdy Iskander.

Surveys of business firms in the U.S.A. indicate that standard-based compensation contracts are common in practice. Analytical studies of this form of contract have suggested that under conditions of state risk, an employee's contract and effort choice are significantly affected by how pay relates to measured performance, and whether the compensation contract filters out the effects on measured performance of factors beyond the employee's control. This paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment indicating that in the presence of state risk, an individual's choice of compensation contract depends jointly on these two contract attributes and his/her risk preference as well as performance capability. The findings also indicate that actual effort is a function of the realized state, the presence/absence of a controllability filter, and the level at which the individual had expected to perform at the time of his/her contract selection. When an adverse state was realized, subjects without a controllability filter still exerted the level of effort that they had expected at contract selection, even though their marginal return to effort had been substantially reduced. On the other hand, when the controllability filter was absent, subjects who had a favourable realized state increased their effort in response to the increased marginal return to effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unfortunately, the interpretation of these four themes in describing fertility through time is lost in the current literature because they either concentrate on one or two themes, or include so many extraneous variables that it becomes impossible to examine their interaction.[4] In this paper, an examination is made of how these themes have combined to describe U.S. fertility since 1920. In order to obtain an unambiguous picture each theme will be represented by only one variable. After selecting the variables and estimating a model, an examination of the changing role these variables have had in explaining changes in fertility (the total fertility rate) throughout much of this century will be made. Finally, the implications these themes have for future fertility will be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, healthcare delivery has faced two major disruptions: the mapping of the human genome and the rise of evidence-based practice. Sociologists have documented the paradigmatic shift towards evidence-based practice in medicine, but have yet to examine its effect on other health professions or the broader healthcare arena. This article shows how evidence-based practice is transforming public health in the United States. We present an in-depth qualitative analysis of interview, ethnographic, and archival data to show how Michigan's state public health agency has navigated the turn to evidence-based practice, as they have integrated scientific advances in genomics into their chronic disease prevention programming. Drawing on organizational theory, we demonstrate how they managed ambiguity through a combination of sensegiving and sensemaking activities. Specifically, they linked novel developments in genomics to a long-accepted public health planning model, the Core Public Health Functions. This made cutting edge advances in genomics more familiar to their peers in the state health agency. They also marshaled state-specific surveillance data to illustrate the public health burden of hereditary cancers in Michigan, and to make expert panel recommendations for genetic screening more locally relevant. Finally, they mobilized expertise to help their internal colleagues and external partners modernize conventional public health activities in chronic disease prevention. Our findings show that tools and concepts from organizational sociology can help medical sociologists understand how evidence-based practice is shaping institutions and interprofessional relations in the healthcare arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There is considerable policy interest in the impact of macroeconomic conditions on health-related behaviours and outcomes. This paper sheds new light on this issue by exploring the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and an indicator of problem drinking derived from state-level data on alcoholism-related Google searches conducted in the US over the period 2004–2011. We find the current recessionary period coincided with an almost 20% increase in alcoholism-related searches. Controlling for state and time-effects, a 5% rise in unemployment is followed in the next 12 months by an approximate 15% increase in searches. The use of Internet searches to inform on health-related behaviours and outcomes is in its infancy; but we suggest that the data provides important real-time information for policy-makers and can help to overcome the under-reporting in surveys of sensitive information. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Do parents invest more or less in their high-ability children? We provide new evidence on this question by comparing observed ability differences and observed investment differences between siblings living in the United States. To overcome endogeneity issues, we use sibling differences in handedness as an instrument for cognitive ability differences. We find that parents invest more in high-ability children, with a 1 standard deviation increase in child cognitive ability increasing parental investments by approximately one-third of a standard deviation. Consequently, differences in child cognitive ability are enhanced by differential parental investments.