This article analyzes the pollution and economic growth trends in China as it has industrialized exponentially in recent decades. The article claims that unless China changes its methods, it will become environmentally and socially unstable. Instead of analyzing city GDP or overall GDP, the article highlights the “city-clusters” that have been essential to rapid Chinese growth. Specifically, city-clusters are groups of large cities dotted across China. Instead of an interconnected whole, the author explains how large cities form in groups and clusters. This seems a lot like American urbanization/suburbia; however, China’s clusters are far smaller and more densely populated. These economic hubs, sometimes acting completely self-sufficiently, contribute a lot to Chinese growth but also utilize an extreme amount of resources. These city-clusters tend to form around the eastern coast, where access to local trade and more natural resources gives more economic output. Some of these city clusters are now struggling to maintain the same levels of output, as they have decimated the surrounding natural resources (natural gas, coal, etc.). China is also facing water shortages, which the city-clusters are worsening with over-consumption and pollution. Much of China’s little available surface water is already polluted. In the conclusion, the author explains how China’s aspirations are unrealistic for its reality. Urbanization cannot increase at the previous rate, and estimates that by 2020 (this was written in 2006) China will face resource shortage. This is a similar theme I have found in scholarly literature—that China is approaching a tradeoff point, and must decide if it will take care of its domestic issues or keep pushing for economic output. If they choose the latter, the economy could crumble in the long-run. The article used scholarly literature and aggregate data to support its claims. It used environmental data such as water quality and PPM (parts per million) and for economic data primarily relied on GDP of individual city-clusters.

Shao, Min, Xiaoyan Tang, Yuanhang Zhang, and Wenjun Li. “City clusters in China: air and surface water pollution.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 4, no. 7 (2006), 353-361. doi:10.1890/1540-9295(2006)004[0353:ccicaa]2.0.co;2.

In this research article by Sarah E. Bergen, Charles O. Gardner, and Kenneth S. Kendler, the researchers chose to explore genetic influences on people’s behavior during their adolescence and their young adult years. They examined primary research that minimized the age-to-age error variability.  They look at externalized behaviors, anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, IQ, and social attitudes and nonsignificant increases for alcohol consumption, and nicotine initiation. To help them distinguish between the possibilities they used longitudinal studies, all together helping them look at not just one point in a person’s life to find if environment makes significant changes to a person but looking at the differences across a lifespan. They also only studied phenotypes that have been repeatedly studied to, what I assume, maximize the accuracy of their findings. They focused on the ages between 13 and 25, they mention that during childhood children are affected by the environment that their parents may keep them but as we get older and have more freedom to change our surroundings this is where we might start seeing changes in heritability. They chose this because those are times in our lives where our dynamics and environment are most likely to change the most.

The researcher’s topic is of changes in adolescents and young adults is narrowed by their search to determine whether measures of heritability for a variety of phenotypic domains manifest increases over time. They used meta-analysis, through their collections of different forms of research to study, to get their data which was reports of acts, behaviors, or events. They gathered their data using public records and once everything was collected thematic analysis would have been best used for this information because they were looking for themes or relationships between their data.

I thought this research was very interesting, it was different data that I have been seeing on my topic which I really enjoyed. What I found most interesting I think was that in their results they found that there was actually significant heritability differences between males and females in terms of their externalized behaviors. I thought it was interesting because so far in class we haven’t seen much significant differences between the sexes so I was a bit shocked to see it was detected in this research.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2f07/49f79825120fb6296cdd97bcd7273a99ae51.pdf

This report is from a World Bank project to learn more about sustainable global food production. The topic of this extensive research is how urban farming contributes to health, food security, and economic standing in poor neighborhoods and/or poor countries. This research takes the form of case studies of urban agriculture in four cities: Accra, Ghana; Bangalore, India; Lima, Peru, and Nairobi, Kenya. This report seeks to answer several research questions, including, generally speaking, what do residents of selected neighborhoods report eating, what effect do “producers” (people working for urban farms) report their farm has on the surrounding community, and what can be done to better serve these communities. The data-gathering aspect of this research consisted mainly of interviews with people, as well as demographic data obtained from surveys or previous census years if applicable. For each city they tried to find patterns, especially in the responses of producers, in order to see if there were any common factors that are limiting food production in these areas, such as inadequate access to clean water or simply not having enough space. They also found that urban agriculture as a source of employment had a significant effect on communities. While this an organizational report and not from the usual type of publication we’ve been reviewing, it follows much of the same research structure, although it aims to assess a much more complex research topic.

Reference: World Bank, Urban Development and Resilience Unit. (2013). Urban Agriculture: Findings From Four Case Studies. Urban Development Series Knowledge Papers, 18. Retrieved at https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/16273/807590NWP0UDS00Box0379817B00PUBLIC0.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Values, Environmental Concern, and Environmental Behavior: A Study into Household Energy Use

Wouter Poortinga, Linda Steg, Charles Vlek

Poortinga, Wouter, Linda Steg, and Charles Vlek. “Values, environmental concern, and environmental behavior: A study into household energy use.” Environment and behavior 36.1 (2004): 70-93.

This research example examines the influence of specific world values on environmental behavior and concern related to the field of household energy use. It was conducted in 2004 by 3 researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and University of East Anglia in the UK. Instead of proposing a defined research question (which could not be found in the article), the authors decided to state the aim of the study in the form of a declarative sentence. This stated that their investigation examines whether values, general environmental concern, and specific environmental beliefs are related to household energy use, the acceptability of specific energy-saving measures, and support for environmental policies. The type of data needed to answer the question includes reports of acts, behaviors or events, economic data, demographic data, self-identity data, deeply–held opinions and attitudes as well as personal feelings data. These data are all used to measure different scales of worldviews, quality of life, different beliefs regarding global warming, energy saving measures the respondents say that they participate in their daily life.

Data for this study were collected though a carefully designed questionnaire that was sent to 2,000 randomly selected addresses in the Netherlands, and in-depth interviews were conducted as a follow-up for some of the participants that wanted to go deeper with this study. Since the aim of the study is to determine specific correlations between certain variables, several regression analyses were conducted, with model variables being regressed with all preceding model variables as predictors. Analysis of the results revealed that home and transport energy use were especially related to socio-demographic variables like income and household size.

The overall structure of this research is very straightforward and understandable, however I did notice a few minor flaws in some of the specifics of the study. First, there was no defined research question, which I find quite odd. It was easy to interpret what question the authors were asking, but it should be given despite how easy the topic of study is. Second, the sample respondent’s answers used in the study didn’t accurately represent the entire population of the Netherlands. Lastly, the authors used the old New Environmental Paradigm scale, which contains questions that are considered to be outdated, so that may have caused some discrepancies in the results section of their paper. Something I think is interesting is that these authors found that using a purely attitudinal motivational model to explain environmental behavior may be too limited because environmental concern can be influenced by a great variety of factors. Therefor, concern for the environment may go deeper than we all initially think.

Robert S. Brown’s article “Sport and Healing America” discusses how role that sports played in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11^th, 2001 and specifically the 2001 MLB playoffs and the Super Bowl. However following the MLB playoffs and Super Bowl it was seen that “sport must be recognized for the powerful influence it can have, especially in the light of the messages of healing and inspiration for millions of Americans provided after September 11^th” and it’s an important and valuable part of our country and society. In the days following the attack sporting events across the country were cancelled and there was an unknown as to when they would resume. They eventually did but it wasn’t without debate as to when and who should decide. This was not the first-time sport carried on in the midst of tragedy. President Roosevelt recommended that baseball carry on following Pearl Harbor and the US’ involvement in WWII, as did NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle following the assassination of JFK. Sports matter and following 9/11 “it was clear that they understood their potential role in the healing of society” and baseball starting that process when it resumed play ten days after the attacks. And the continuing healing of our nation culminated with the 2001 World Series which featured the New York Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks. Prior to game three, President Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium where he showed no fear and signaled thumbs up to a roaring crowd that chanted U-S-A, U-S-A! Baseball was back and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said Bush’s appearance “‘shows we’re undeterred and life is moving on the way it should.’”

When it came to the NFL, the Super Bowl was “altered the format to address social issues brought about by 9/11” and during pre-game ceremonies there were tributes made for those who helped America get through what had happened and back to a sense of normalcy. Every aspect of the game had symbols that represented patriotism and love for America. And at halftime U2 performed “Where the Streets Have No Name,” the author states “while the names of those lost on 9/11 scrolled behind them on a giant screen.”

Brown, Robert S. 2004.  “Sport and Healing America”. Springer Science & Business Media. 42 (1): 37-41.  Accessed March 19, 2017. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02687298.

Lei Sun and other researchers took cloud samples from an area of high elevation in Southern China to examine the chemical characteristics. In total, 141 cloud samples were collected during 44 cloud events over the observation period. (Sun 2015) The primary acidifying factors were sulfate and nitrate, like the many other tests for acid rain though there were some neutralizing elements like calcium and ammonium. They also detected many other very dangerous chemicals in high concentrations in these samples like Pb, Ba, As, and Cr –lead, barium, arsenic, and chromium respectively. The overall pH level came out around 3.79. The variation in cloud chemistry indicated that temperature, sandstorms, and long-range transport could affect the concentrations of species and the lives of many people. (Sun 2015) The data collection method used in this study would have been detached observation of the rainwater and various cloud samples taken from the area of study. Then the researchers needed to compare those findings with measurements taken in other regions of China and east Asia in general. This group studied southern China because it has been identified as the third largest region to be experiencing acid rain pollution after Europe and North America. The research question for this topic was how the chemicals effect the make up of clouds and why acidic clouds behave differently from a more neutral one.

Sun, Lei, et al. “Evaluation of the Behavior of Clouds in a Region of SevereAcid Rain Pollution in Southern China: Species, Complexes, and Variations.” Environmental Science and Pollution Research 22.18 (2015): 14280-14290.

The article, Does Speech Rhythm Sensitivity Predict Children’s Reading Ability 1 Year Later? By Andrew Holliman, Clare Wood, and Kieron Sheehy, question whether speech rhythm sensitivity predicts the different components of reading over time. The study examined 69 five to eight year old English speaking children. The yearlong study started off by giving the children a speech rhythm assessment, along with a cognitive assessment and a variety of reading assessments, and ended exactly one year later by doing the same assessments for the children. After completing both of the assessments over the year long span, the researchers found that when controlling for individual differences in age, vocabulary, and phonological awareness, speech rhythm sensitivity was able to predict unique variances in word reading and the phrasing component of the reading fluency measure one year later. With that being said, the type of data needed to answer this research question would be organizational data because the researchers are looking for changes in reading ability. Subsequently, the data-gathering method would be surveys, but more so in a test-like form. Then, the method of data analysis would be ordinal since the children’s abilities would be rank ordered. I found this to be a very interesting research question and results. Something I believe others may find interesting is the conclusions this research brought. The researchers found that speech rhythm sensitivity should now be included in current models of children’s reading development.

Holliman, Andrew J., Wood, Clare, and Sheehy, Kieron. (2010). Does Speech Rhythm Sensitivity Predict Children’s Reading Ability 1 Year Later? Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 102, No. 2, pp. 257-530.

The study is seeking to answer four questions relating to finding out whether: children invest more mental effort in reading than watching television, books being perceived to have made higher demands than television, children thinking that are more capable of learning from television than from books, and looking at television and how the perceived self-efficacy is negatively correlated to mental effort. The study was conducted with sixth-graders from five middle-class elementary schools in the Netherlands. To test the amount of invested mental effort, the individuals being tested had a four-point scale to see how hard they try to understand nine books and television programs. Through this, they are utilizing reports of acts. To test perceived self-efficacy individuals used a four-point scale to test how easy it would be for them to learn ten topics from books and television programs. To test perceived demand characteristics individuals were tested in two ways. First, on a five-point scale, they had to report on how lifelike television and books are and how important it is to know who the producer or author is. Second, on a to a four-choice questionnaire, they were asked why a hypothetical child did or did not completely understand a book or television program. The questionnaires were done in each of the subjects classrooms. A result of this study was that unlike the Salomon study they did not find an alpha value for the questions about how real book and television are. An interesting find from this study was that there was a negative correlation when testing the perceived demand characteristics between books and television programs. Overall, since the study is collecting reports of acts, the study could have collected the data through interviews.

Beentjes, Johannes W. J. 1989. “Learning from Television and Books: A Dutch Replication Study Based on Salomon’s Model”. Educational Technology Research and Development. Vol. 37. No. 2. 47-58.  

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In her article “The Moment When It All Comes Together: Embodied Experiences In Ballet”, author Anna Aalten presents a critique of the one-sided analysis of the misogynist nature of ballet, in contrast to the history of research describing ballet as oppressive. She also attempts to make a contribution to a more embodied form of theory, discussing the ways in which ballet offers women the chance to transcend the discontinuity of body, mind, and emotions. To address these ideas, Aalten focuses on the topic of the “construction and representation of gender in social relations and body practices in ballet.” Her project attempts to answer the question “what is the relationship between the symbolic and material, between representations and embodiment in ballet?” To answer  this question, she collected a wide range of data, ranging from acta and reports of acts, to hidden social patterns. Aalten collected this data in a several ways. She observed different body practices during rehearsals and performances, and collected the life stories of female dancers through interviews. Though the specific type of data analysis method is not described in the article, Aalten clearly used some form of qualitative analysis to draw conclusions from her data. Her results were nuanced. Though the early data she collected seemed to confirm the idea of the stereotypical, oppressed role of women in ballet, her eventual conclusion was that the role of women was very complex, and while ballet did have oppressive elements it also provided a great number of opportunities for women. Personally, I found the research project to be interesting and thoughtful, but also felt it was less specific and detailed about the different parts of the project than i would have liked. Still I enjoyed reading about Aalten’s work, and appreciated her willingness to present her results as being complex, rather than attempting to demonstrate a clear-cut pattern.

The European Journal of Women’s Studies 11.3, August 2004, 263-276