The journal of International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics published this article in 2009, two years before the APP (Asia-Pacific Partnership) was disbanded. The APP linked Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, Canada and the United States with the aim “to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions through voluntary public-private partnerships and a focus on cleaner technology” (302). The abstract summarizes that China’s main concern is maintaining the same level of economic output with climate agreements, thus bringing to the fore the importance of APP over United Nations guidelines. According to the article China’s foreign policy is dominated by its domestic policy, which stresses economic development, poverty allocation, and social stability. With the goal of quadrupling China’s GDP by the year 2020, China also hopes to only double its energy consumption, which will rely heavily on fossil fuel consumption. However as GDP increases with increased fossil fuel consumption, China circa 2009 was beginning to feel the heavy effects of industrial effects on climate. A possible one-meter rise in sea level may threaten the eastern Chinese coast, which the article highlights could threaten 60% of China’s economic output. Thus climate change and pollution have become direct factors to Chinese domestic policy, and must be balanced when considering future economic growth.

Overall the article sought to explain whether or not the APP is beneficial to UN goals or detrimental—thus whether or not the APP will work in conjunction with the United Nations. To answer this question the article needed economic, environmental and organizational data, from public and private records. The author mixed a multitude of empirical data into his prose; however, I believe if he had chosen fewer sources and gone with more depth and conveyed this data in a numerical, the data would be more understandable (i.e. beyond stating facts). Overall the article discussed a lot of data but was shallow in its analysis of the data. This is not to say the article wasn’t well written, but the data that it produced was presented in a sporadic fashion. Without much context this article is difficult to understand, and I needed to research a couple of its sources to clarify where it came from.

Heggelund, Gørild M., and Inga Fritzen Buan. “China in the Asia–Pacific Partnership: consequences for UN climate change mitigation efforts?” International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics 9, no. 3 (2009): 301-17. doi:10.1007/s10784-009-9099-5.

The article “Risk analysis reveals global hotspots for marine debris ingestion by sea turtles” by Schuyler, Qamar A. et al. is about the global marine plastic distributions and sea turtle habitat. They are trying to predict how much exposure sea turtles will get to plastic pollution. They took sea turtles that had died and measured all the possible issues that exposure to plastics could have on sea turtles. The scientists also modelled what risks ingestion of debris could have on turtles depending on the age, life history and what type of turtle consumed the plastics. According to Schuyler et al., “The regions of highest risk to global sea turtle populations are off the east coasts of the USA, Australia and South Africa; the east Indian Ocean, and Southeast Asia”. They have calculated that as much as 52% of sea turtles have ingested debris in the oceans.

The topic of this article is about where in the world sea turtles are at the most risk for marine debris ingestion.

The type of data needed to answer this question are acts, behaviors or events. The data collection method that was used is detached observations. The scientists also used the turtles for research along with observing their behaviors and where they live. The data analysis method was quantitative data, this is because they counted the sea turtles and found percentages and amounts of plastic in sea turtles.

I thought that this research article was very interesting and it made me want to focus my research on these hot spots of plastic pollutions to turtles. It made me ask more question about possibly what age are turtles affected the most and I didn’t even think that different species of turtles could be affected in different ways. I thought that it was very honest and non-bias and brought many good point to attention. One thing that I found particularly interesting is that loggerhead turtles have a higher probability of ingesting debris than other species.

Schuyler, Qamar A., Chris Wilcox, Kathy A. Townsend, Kathryn R. Wedemeyer-Strombel,, George Balazs, Erik Van Sebille, and Britta Denise Hardesty. “Risk Analysis Reveals Global Hotspots for Marine Debris Ingestion by Sea Turtles.” Citation Finder. Global Change Biology, Feb. 2016. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. <http://np9fq3va3u.search.serialssolutions.com/?genre=article&issn=13541013&title=Global%2BChange%2BBiology&volume=22&issue=2&date=20160201&atitle=Risk%2Banalysis%2Breveals%2Bglobal%2Bhotspots%2Bfor%2Bmarine%2Bdebris%2Bingestion%2Bby%2Bsea%2Bturtles.&spage=567&pages=567-576&sid=EBSCO%3AGreenFILE&au=Schuyler%2C%2BQamar%2BA.>.

I selected an article title The Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture in Africa. This article attempts to determine how drastically African agriculture will be affected as well as which regions will be the hardest hit. The author, John Asafu-Adjaye, gathered information from a variety of sources, specifically economic data as well as reports of events. He combined the two to develop a coherent evaluation. To begin, he noted that agriculture in Africa is rather vulnerable relative to other regions because as it stands it is already one of the warmest places on the planet. In addition, the economies in this region rely heavily on natural resources and rain-fed agriculture which are extremely sensitive to the variability accompanied by climate change. The model created showed that Southern Africa will suffer the greatest losses as a result of climate change followed by the remainder of sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and East Africa (in that order). Additionally he analyzed additional countries and came to the realization that Africa as a whole will experience the greatest impact from climate change in relation to economic growth and welfare losses. The research done was substantial in its results, and was done in a professional, ethical manner that presented what I believe to be an astounding conclusion.

John Asafu-Adjaye; The Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture in Africa. J Afr Econ 2014

The study conducted by Kouider Mokhtari , Carla A. Reichard, and Anne Gardner investigate how internet and television use impacts a college student in terms of their recreational reading and academic reading.  A hypothesis was that the internet created a change in how students would spend their time. The authors wanted to find if the trend in American reading less, having low reading skills, and that these declines impacted a negative civic, social, and economic implications was true for college students.  The questions that the authors asked included: How much time do college students spend on recreational and academic reading? What influences do internet and television use have on students’ reading habits and practices?  To find out these answers they performed a time-diary survey with a random sample of 4,500 undergraduate college students who attend a highly selective midwestern university.  The respondents received an email to voluntary participate in the survey.  Those who more likely to respond were female, full-time students, and their age was twenty-three or younger.  They found that students reported spending their time more on the internet than they did on academic reading, television watching, or recreational reading.  Also, found that a majority of respondents performed other activities while recreationally reading, academically reading, television watching, and using the internet.  An interesting find was that students spent significantly more time using the internet on Mondays and they did on Saturdays. Overall, I think the study showed a reality of how college students engage in recreational reading, academic reading, watching television, and Internet use.  I think it would have interesting to see if the study would have similar results if it was done in a public college rather than a highly selective midwestern university.

Mokhtari, Kouider, Carla A. Reichard, and Anne Gardner. “The Impact of Internet and Television Use on the Reading Habits and Practices of College Students.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.7 (2009): 609-19. Jstor . Web. 18 Feb. 2017. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20468414>.

The article titled “Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence” by Michael Kimmel and Matthew Mahler can be found in the American Behavioral Scientist journal. The article discusses the 28 random school shootings from 1982-2001 and describes the overall patterns the authors collected from the research. They discovered that most of the boys who opened fire were mercilessly and routinely teased and bullied, the violence was retaliatory against the threats of manhood, more white young boys opened fire, and the specific content of the teasing and bullying is homophobia. The topic of the article is the relationship between masculinity, bullying, and violence. The proposed research question by the authors is “How does gender and homophobia contribute to mass school shootings perpetrated by males?” Since the researchers wanted to discover the relationship between masculinity and homophobia to violent school shootings, the logical structure of this research is ex post facto. The researchers are seeking the causes of violent mass shootings and use existing data to answer their research question. The researchers use multiple types of data to demonstrate how bullying affects a young boy’s masculinity, such as demographic data and survey data. They use aggregate data to portray that school shootings do not occur uniformly or evenly in the U.S., proving that school shootings are not a national trend. The researchers use survey data to show that students suggest that peer harassment is the most significant cause of school shootings. To understand the causes, the researchers suggest that gun culture, local school culture, and local gender culture must be examined. To analyze culture, the type of data needed is hidden social patterns. An analysis of secondary media reports, such as weekly news magazines and daily newspapers was conducted to discover social and cultural patterns in the lives of the perpetrators. The data collection methods of content and discourse analysis are necessary to discover the pattern of bullying and the role masculinity plays in young boys’ lives. The data analysis method is thematic analysis and coding because the researchers analyze different forms of media to trace the relationships and tie them to wider social patterns. I think this research successfully supports the claim of the researchers that being constantly threatened, bullied, and the desire to regain their manhood, by using more than one type of data. An interesting aspect of this research is the identification that media influence, drugs and alcohol, Internet usage, father absence, and parental neglect show weak or no correlation to violent school shootings.

Kimmel, M. S., & Mahler, M. (2003). Adolescent Masculinity, Homophobia, and Violence           Random School Shootings, 1982-2001. American Behavioral Scientist, 46(10), 1439 1458.

The research questions that the study analyzed were, “What are the different socio-demographic characteristics between TANF leavers who reach their lifetime limits and those who exit voluntarily?” and “What are the employment and family income differences between TANF leavers who reach their lifetime limits and those who exit voluntarily?The data was collected by the National Survey of America’s Family, they analyzed a total of 656 TANF leavers from the 50 states from 1999 to 2002. The results of the study demonstrates that TANF leavers who reached their lifetime limit were less likely to be employed and have high family income.  Due to these findings one can conclude that there should be an extension on the lifetime limit and to implement follow up services.

The method of data analysis was found with multiple regression results, chi square, and t test results. Through chi square and t test analysis they wanted to see if there was a difference in socio-demographic characteristics between TANF leavers and those who left voluntarily. The study also used correlation to determine the significance between the independent and dependent variables. The independent variables being lifetime limits, state household median income, high school degree/GED, child care assistance, health problems, and immigrants, married, female. The two dependent variables are employment and family income. While “the multiple regressions were used to find the employment and family income differences between TANF leavers who reached their lifetime limits and those who exited voluntarily.”

The results were telling, those who left TANF because of lifetime limits were found to have more mental health/physical problems, less employment, less family income,  and less EITC. Overall, this study revealed that TANF leavers who reached their lifetime limits had economic hardships due to high unemployment and low income. The study is significant in its findings because they compared TANF leavers and voluntary leavers at a national level. We need to implement follow up social services for TANF leavers which would shape the way we think about welfare public policy.

Lee, Kyoung Hag. “Effect of Lifetime Limits and Differences between TANF Leavers Who Had Reached Their Lifetime Limits and Those Who Had Exited Voluntarily.” Poverty & Public Policy 2.4 (2010): 689-710. Wiley Library. Web.

A complex habitat containing more rich and vast abiotic factors, such as sunlight, rain, water, and soil, has a much higher chance of successfully providing homes to different species of plants and animals than any homogeneous landscape would. This goal of researchers was to prove that the biodiversity of a homogeneous habitat is much lower than that of a heterogeneous area, meaning it only provides for very few species of plants and animals. Researchers sought to test this hypothesis in an ecosystem located in Northeastern US. They constructed an index consisting of organized study plots that sought to summarize differences in terrain and soil properties. Researchers then measured the species richness and diversity in several study plots with high geomorphological heterogeneity within their species and others with low geomorphological heterogeneity. The results of the study proved that areas that experienced more change in terrain and soil conditions (heterogeneous) were much more diverse when it came to shrub and tree species. They also concluded that the differences in aspects and soil drainage were particularly important predictors of biotic diversity. The results of the study showed a close relationship between abiotic and biotic diversity and thus have important implications to conservation strategies in the coming future. I found this research article to be informative and interesting. Some of the information on the study, including geomorphological heterogeneity, was for the most part new to me. I was generally aware of the effect of a habitats diversity on the niches it could provide for. I learned that the variation in soil and drainage was a major factor when it came to the diversity of a landscape. Think that this article would be interesting to others because it provides detailed explanations of an interesting topic most of us already know about. The hypothesis backed by persuasive data and eventually the conclusion of the study which i think will also be of interest to others.

Different steps were required to acquire the needed data. Variations in topographic aspects, slope, drainage, soil depth, and horizon textures were estimated separately and combined to produce an index of geomorphological heterogeneity for every 2 hectares. Each of these geomorphological features were combined into a single composite data set. Researchers used the Shannon-Weaver diversity index to create an index of geomorphological heterogeneity for all the cells.

Authors:

Michael R. Burnette; Pete V. August; James H. Brown Jr.; Keith T. Killingbeck

Link to Article:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.1998.96238.x/full

Citations:

Ali A. El-Keblawy, Abdel-Hamid A. Khedr, Tamer A. Khafaga, Mountainous landscape vegetation and species composition at Wadi Helo: A protected area in Hajar Mountains, UAE, Arid Land Research and Management, 2016, 30, 4, 389

In “It’s Not How Much You Play, But How Much You Enjoy The Game: The Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents’ Self-Esteem and the Frequency vs Enjoyment of Involvement In Sports”, authors Paul J.  C. Adachi and Teena Willoughby discuss the topic of the bidirectional associations in adolescent athletic involvement and self-esteem.  The two authors seek to answer two research questions:                                                     1) “Does self-esteem predict frequency in involvement in sports over time, or does the frequency of athletic involvement predict self-esteem?”.               2) “Is enjoyment of sports associated with self esteem?                                            To answer these questions, Adachi and Willoughby surveyed a group of 1492 high school aged adolescents repeatedly over the course of four years. The students would be given questionnaires by researchers in a classroom setting, and asked to respond to questions on their athletic involvement using a five-point scale. The results were then analyzed using an auto regressive cross-lagged model, which organized the data into a form from which conclusions could be drawn. Interestingly, the authors accounted for many factors in their research, including gender, parental education, and at risk backgrounds. Based on the results, Willoughby and Adachi came to the conclusion that higher self esteem results in higher involvement in sports, though the reverse is not true. They also found that higher self-esteem tends to result in greater enjoyment of athletic activity. Notably, neither of these results showed any significant variation by gender. The authors suggested that enjoyment may be more important than frequency when discussing involvement in sports.

I found the study to be interesting and well done. I especially appreciated the careful attention the researchers paid to the variables involved which might alter results. For example, when looking at the relationship between self-esteem and enjoyment, they were careful to control for frequency. My only complaint was that I would have appreciated if they looked more directly at the differences between frequency and enjoyment. Because the two ideas were evaluated in different questions, the comparison of the two seemed somewhat of an afterthought.

J. Youth Adolesence (2014) 43:137-145

In an article produced by Richard Burk and Kenneth Lenihan from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, they do a great job in explaining crime and poverty. Yes, crime and poverty is something that is linked and it has been noticed that crime occurs at a much higher rate in poverty stricken areas. This is pointed out at the very early on. However, there are certain issues that arise while trying to study such a topic such as collinearity the ecological fallacy, and defining different terms and boundaries. This looked at participants of the TARP program which stands for Transitional Aid Research Project. The project took felons and put them into four different groups after they were released from prison and this study analyzes these people for a 12-month period after they were released. They took a look at participants in each of four different groups. They analyzed the effects of different amounts of support over different period of time to try and figure out what worked best for reducing the rate of recidivism. With several variable they found that the data was insufficient to make any conclusions and that a longer analyzation time of possibly 24 months would have helped. The study focused predominately on unemployment benefits and what was found is that extending unemployment insurance benefits to released prisoners will not increase recidivism overall. This makes it possible to argue for policies of this nature but just like most studies there is no causal proof. This study took a more in depth look at the crime and poverty debate and focused more on issues of how to solve the problem.

Richard A. Berk, Kenneth J. Lenihan and Peter H. Rossi. “Crime and Poverty: Some                           Experimental Evidence From Ex-Offenders.” American Sociological Review, Vol. 45,                  No. 5 (Oct., 1980), pp. 766-786 http://www.jstor.org/stable/2094894

In the article, Student Mobility: A negligible and confounded influence on student achievement, researcher Dan Wright, “examined the effect of student mobility on achievement test scores” (Wright 1999, 347). Risk factors such as low family income, and ethnic minority status were reviewed and were found to have a great influence on the factors of mobility being tested. Wright perceived the effects of student mobility had, “broad implications beyond student achievement (Wright 1999, 348).

Participants for the study were third and fourth grade students in a total of 33 elementary schools, all of which were located in a large urban school district in the Midwest. All 33 of the schools have completed state and national standardized tests prior to the study. The student demographic included, 68% ethnic minority status, and 71% were eligible for free or reduced lunch programs.

Wrights objective in conducting the study was to, “examine and compare the influences of two distinct aspects of mobility; moving either into or out of the district (location mobility), and moving either before or after the spring assessments (temporal mobility) (Wright 1999, 348). The two types of mobilities being assessed were associated with different types of research question. In order to answer the first Wright conducted, “a series of univariate, two factor analyses of variance (ANOVA’s)” (Wright 1999, 349). He used location and temporal mobility as independent variables, and the four achievement measures were used as dependent variables.

I found the group of participants used in the study to be very beneficial. The age range Wright chose (third and fourth graders) was helpful to the study because in my mind these would be the students who would have been most affected by a change in mobility. They are at the age where they are old enough to realize what is going on and can easily be affected by a change. Especially a change in their schooling.