This article asks whether increasing corn prices has a higher detrimental effect on the environment than steady prices, specifically if the increase in corn production harms the Gulf of Mexico. They compared the increase in prices with increases in production of corn in Kansas (using satellite images and GIS), and also with the changes of crop rotation from corn to soy to strictly growing corn. They found higher amounts of fertilizers are necessary when growing strictly corn, and this increase in nitrogen triggered an increase in the concentrations of nitrogen in runoff into the Mississippi. This increase in nitrogen subsequently caused an expansion of the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico by an average of 30 square Miles. The data needed were acts and events, they needed to know the average increase in prices of corn, the average increases of corn production, the average increases in nitrogen runoff, and the average increase in the hypoxic area of the Gulf of Mexico. They gathered the data in literature reviews, and direct observations in collection of runoff, and analysis the spatial variation in satellite images from the Department of Agriculture. They used comparative analytics, T-Tests and ANOVA tests, to determine the correlation with the increases in prices and the in increase in the hypoxic zone using the data collected as variables. Overall I think it was interesting research, but even the authors stated there was considerable uncertainty in the estimates. They only looked at Kansas, while ignoring other states along the Mississippi. It was too simplified to contribute any real changes in price of corn to the changes in the Gulf. I did however find the use of Satellite Imagery effective, and if they were to include other crops further south of Kansas it may have been far more accurate in the study’s results.

Hendricks, Nathan P., et al. “The Environmental Effects of Crop Price Increases: Nitrogen Losses in the U.S. Corn Belt.” Journal of Environmental Economics & Management, vol. 68, no. 3, Nov. 2014, pp. 507-526. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.jeem.2014.09.002.

This study focuses on the welfare reform in the mid 1990s, collecting data from 50 states. They seek to find out if representation has an effect on welfare policymaking. The researchers have two hypotheses that are tested with two different approaches. The first hypothesis is a single axis hypothesis, “The greater the incorporation of women in the state legislature, the more generous, accessible, flexible, and lenient the state welfare policy.” They control for all of the Black and Latino legislators. They test this with an additive model and the findings reveal contradictions. The presence and power of all legislators appear to have no impact at all on TANF policies.

However when tested with an intersectional approach we see different results The second hypothesis tests to see the potential impact of three different groups- gender and race/ethnicity: women of color, other “white” women, and men of color. The findings reveal that legislative women of color do play a distinct role in welfare policymaking. When examining TANF cash benefits, white women’s projected cash benefit decreases from $531 to $497 compared to women of color, predicted cash benefits increase from $501 to $527. In conclusion, the intersectional model is crucial in understanding women of color role in welfare policymaking. While the additive model when testing all hides the impact of the state legislator’s gender and race/ethnicity.

Beth Reingold and Adrienne R. Smith, “Welfare Policymaking and Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in U.S. State Legislatures,” American Journal of Political Science 56, no. 1 (2011): , doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00569.x.

This project examined the greenhouse gas emissions associated with various types of food. “Food-miles” refers to how far a product has traveled from its source to the consumer, including through processing stages. Their research question can be summarized as: What are the “GHG emissions associated with the production, transportation, and distribution of food consumed by American households”? The results of this study come from a model that is based on economic demands and the kilometers traveled through chains of custody for various types of food. Data on food demand came from the USDA. The second type of data was obtained from public records from the U.S. Commodity Flow Survey, and roughly converted to carbon dioxide emissions per dollar spent, based on fuels and transportation type used (truck versus ship, for example). Their models yielded results for several aspects of production and consumption, such as the amount of a product consumed per household per year, and the emissions of carbon dioxide per dollar spent. To put it simply, grains, fruits and vegetables were consumed in greater quantities overall, so require more transportation per household, but red meat and dairy products show extremely high emissions per unit consumed. Even though their models made some very broad assumptions concerning nationwide consumption, the results show such intense differences for certain food groups that the researchers concluded that choice in types of food has just as much of a climate impact as choice to buy locally produced food.

Weber, C. L., Mathews, S. (2008). Food-Miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States. Environmental science and technology, 10, (42) 3508–3513.             Retrieved at http://mmm.comuv.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Food-       Miles-and-the-relative-impacts-of-food-choices-Weber-and-Matthews-2008.pdf

The article, Age-Related Differences in Achievement Goal Differentiation, by Mimi Bong from Korea University, questioned whether achievement goals differ more in elementary aged children or middle school students. The study examined 1,196 Korean elementary and middle school students’ achievement goals based off of four distinct achievement goal factors. By use of self-reports the researchers gathered information from the elementary and middle school students’ perception of their achievement goals. Once the research was compiled it was found that the achievement goals of young students strongly correlated with one another but, the correlation became increasingly weak as the age of the respondents increased. With that being said, the type of data needed to answer this research question is self-identity, since the researcher only gathered data by self-reports from the students, off of how they describe their achievement goals, which is somewhat of a self-description. Therefore, the data gathering method would be by in-depth interview, since it is more than just a shallow opinion, but the interviews themselves took a lot less time than a typical in-depth interview would. The method of data analysis for this research question would be ordinal, since the students ‘ranked’ their achievement goals based off of the four distinct achievement goal factors given to them by the researcher. I found this research methodology to be very interesting, it seemed to be a lot more informal than I am used to reading about. Therefore, that aspect of it made this research example interesting to me since I have been correlating research solely with formal tactics instead of informal. I believe this would be interesting for the class as a whole as well since the research we look at in class is more formal and this shows that research can be done in a plethora of ways.

Bong, Mimi. (2009). Age-Related Differences in Achievement Goal Differentiation. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 101, No. 4, pp. 879-896.

The article Shoppers Like What They Know written by Peter M. Todd is about everyday shoppers who are influenced with what they purchase from the get-go. This article discusses how the more people buy of a product, and the more often they do so, the more likely them are to continue to buy it and not change to different brands. To study this, researchers examined 283,000 shoppers in the United Kingdom over a period of about two hundred fifty weeks. They focused on purchases of different household items such as beer, bread, coffee, toilet paper, washing detergent, and yogurt. Results showed that these shoppers became less likely to switch to other brands as the time they had been buying one particular product had increased. This pattern was still seen even when there were cost-saving opportunities. Shoppers continuously bought their same brand, even when presented with the option to buy a different one at a lower cost. Shoppers were sticking to what they had known best, even if that meant not taking the most cost-efficient route. Researchers explained that this way of shopping could be easily influenced. They gave the example of when shoppers are “in a hurry” and so they grab the closest item on the shelf. If this is repeated often enough, they will be accustomed to buying this product that was only an impulsive buy in the first place.

For this research, the topic was human behavior in relation to shoppers and their preferences. The research question asked if shoppers’ product choices were affected by how often they continued to purchase that item. To answer this question, the researchers needed acts, behaviors, and events to determine whether or not the amount of times they bought a particular product affected their decisions to purchase a different brand the next time around. To gather this data, researchers used detached observation, and to analyze it, they organized and compared time and likelihood to change brand purchase to determine whether they had any relation to each other.

Overall, I thought this research was well organized and an intriguing one to learn about. It makes you think about your own personal decisions when at the stores and what influences us to what we ultimately decide to purchase.

Todd, Peter M. “Human behaviour: Shoppers like what they know.” Nature 541.7637 (2017): 294-95. Web. 29 Mar. 2017.

Engber, Eamon A.,  J.M. Varner, III, Leonel A. Arguello, and Neil G. Sugihara

A study conducted in the Bald Hills of Redwood National Park, California, USA, looked at the influence of overstory structure on fire intensity and fuels in oak dominated woodlands and savannas. Three sites that were prioritized for prescribed burns in 2008 and 2009 were the burn sites for the study. Site one had been burned five times since 1991, while sites two and three had been burned three times since then. It is important to note that grazing has also taken place on this land, sites one and two were grazed up until 1980, and site three was grazed until the year 1991, the year that particular site was added to Redwood National Park. Burn units were systematically split up into five categories of grassland, oak savanna, oak cluster, oak woodland, and invaded woodland based on their probable fuel structure and composition. Plots were then randomly selected for analysis. Fuels were sampled in four grades of leaf litter, woody material, combined live and dead herbaceous material, and shrub surface fuels.

Sampling of sites one and two were done in August of 2008, while sampling for site three was done in August of 2009. No sites were re-sampled. Prescribed burns were administered by Redwood National Park managers in the autumn of 2008. Sites one and two were burned in the autumn of 2008, however site three, which was scheduled to be burned in the autumn of 2009, could not be burned due to poor weather conditions.

Data needed for this study was behavioral because the forest ecologists were determining how encroachment of conifers affected the forest floor. This is just observing the tree’s behavior. Data was analyzed by running ANOVA tests on all of the different elements of the study. The largest differences in fuelbed were between grasslands and invaded woodlands, at opposite ends of the spectrum. Grasslands had heavier herbaceous mass and lower fuel moisture, while invaded woodlands were just the opposite. The invaded woodland sites had much more woody fuel, and lower herbaceous mass, resulting in lower community flammability. This suggests greater overstory shading and development of forest floors with denser woody material is somewhat responsible for less frequent fire.
Engber, Eamon A.,  J.M. Varner, III, Leonel A. Arguello, and Neil G. Sugihara. “The Effects of Conifer Encroachment and Overstory Structure on Fuels and Fire in an Oak Woodland Landscape.” Fire Ecology 7.2 (2011): 32-50. Agricola. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

The article titled “Good Guys with Guns: Hegemonic Masculinity and Concealed Handguns” written by Angela Stroud is found in the Gender and Society journal. Stroud (2012) argues that relatively privileged men are most likely to have a license to carry a concealed handgun in public. Stroud (2012) found that men claim they are motivated to carry a concealed handgun by a desire to protect their family, compensate for lost strength as they age, and defend themselves against people and places they perceive as dangerous. These findings suggest that carrying a concealed firearm allows men to identify with masculinity through fantasies of violence and self-defense. The topic of the research is masculinity and its relationship to the reasons men carry concealed handguns. The proposed research questions are, “Why do predominantly males carry concealed handguns? “What do men in Texas state as reasons for carrying a concealed handgun?” and “How does a concealed carry weapon contribute to cultural constructions of masculinity?” The type of data needed to answer this research question are reports of acts, behaviors, events and deeply held opinions and attitudes. The data collection method for this research is in-depth interviews. Stroud (2012) conducted 20 in-depth interviews with men in Texas who currently have a concealed handgun license to understand the relationship between firearms, violence, and masculinity. To develop a sample, Stroud (2012) first contacted concealed handgun licensing instructors. Stroud (2012) utilized snowball sampling because those initial contacts referred her to others. Qualitative data analysis is implemented to discover common trends between the interviewees. Stroud (2012) uses the theory of hegemonic masculinity to guide her research and interview questions. I believe this research is successful because she identifies three common trends between the interviewees and ties it to the wider cultural gender expectation of exerting one’s manhood. However, I wish Stroud (2012) interviewed more than 20 people to ensure that all viewpoints are captured. An interesting aspect of this research is the choice to include an analysis of the NRA (National Rifle Association) to examine the ways in which the magazine relays stories of the avoidance of violent crime through a heroic private gun owner.

Stroud, A. (2012). Good Guys with Guns: Hegemonic Masculinity and Concealed  Handguns. Gender & Society, 26(2), 216-238.

By:

GREGORY DUNAWAY, FRANCIS T. CULLEN, VELMER S. BURTON JR., T. DAVID EVANS

In their article they realize that many empirical research questions conclude that crime is highest in the lower class.  They emphasize that empirical literature is “plagued” by limited measures of social class or of crime and that they fail to study the systematic effects of social class on crime in the general adult population. Their work was crafted in an attempt to correct much of the inadequacies of class-crime research. They collected reports of acts, behaviors, and events from a general population of adults that reside in a large Midwestern city and analyzed the data to assess the effects of a wide range of class measures on crime measures.  They sampled 555 adults who demonstrated that regardless of how class or crime was measured, social class always exerted little direct influence on adult criminality in the general population.  What they found was consistent with research findings from “non-self-report” studies that say social class is related to criminal involvement for nonwhites.  I appreciate their research as it is in effort to show that crime rates are not necessarily higher in lower classes but they covered more negatively in media.  Many people research to find out why the lower class is infested with crime instead of how does the middle to upper class avoid getting caught or publicized.

This study from October of 2014 looked at students from different economic standings and school districts within the Los Angeles county. The study uses the Early Care and Education (ECE) landscape in order to find the best possible solutions for kids in early education and early development. By using early education programs like ECE, the people of the study wanted to see if there was am increase in cognitive, physical, language and social development. Using past knowledge, it was determined that kids that participate in these after school education programs were able to gain an additional third of a school year of knowledge. This would range from all subject, including social studies and science. When the study was actually conducted, the people who ran the study saw an increase in the different type of developmental skills with those who had a low economic status and were of color. This group of students saw the biggest increase in learning and thus were able to vastly improve their developmental skills. The study also notes that the increase in developmental skills can see further increases due to their professional development system. This system teaches teachers how to effectively educate younger students, which could help further increase the data. This study further helps me understand the LA county area by looking at different educational improvement opportunities. By using the data given in this study, I can further improve my knowledge about the surrounding area. With the partnership with First 5 LA, the study makes sure not to exclude any districts, so this study is also good for equal representation.

Brownson, Kim Pattillo. “The Early Care and Education Landscape of Los Angeles County”. First Five La: Los Angeles. 2014.