Search

The introduction focuses on the work of sociologist and economic theorist, Talcott Parsons, who is featured in this issue of "The American Journal of Economics and Sociology," and the development of economic sociology. The taping of Parsons' March 1973 seminar at Brown University was directed by Alan Sondheim of the Rhode Island School of Design; a follow-up seminar was also videotaped. An edited transcript of the event is published in this issue. The archived copy is in the Parsons Papers collection which is housed at Harvard University.

The speed‐up of glaciers following ice shelf collapse can accelerate ice mass loss dramatically. Investigating the deformation of landfast sea ice enables studying its resistive (buttressing) stresses and mechanisms driving ice collapse. Here, we apply offset tracking to Sentinel‐1A/B synthetic aperture radar data to obtain a 2014–2022 time‐series of horizontal velocity and strain rate fields of landfast ice filling the embayment formerly covered by the Larsen B Ice Shelf, Antarctic Peninsula until 2002. The landfast ice disintegrated in 2022, and we find that it was precipitated by a few large opening rifts. Grounded glaciers did not accelerate instantaneously after the collapse, which implies little buttressing effect from landfast ice, a conclusion also supported by the near‐zero correlation between glacier velocity and landfast ice area. Our observations suggest that buttressing stresses are unlikely to be recovered by landfast sea ice over sub‐decadal timescales following the collapse of an ice shelf. Plain Language Summary: The Antarctic Ice Sheet is a potentially major contributor to sea‐level rise due to glaciers' dynamic response to changing oceanic and atmospheric conditions. Its floating extensions, ice shelves, play a critical role in stabilizing the ice sheet by resisting the flow of glaciers that feed into them. However, ice shelves can collapse rapidly. In 2002, a Rhode Island‐sized section of the Larsen B Ice Shelf disintegrated, causing adjacent glaciers to speed up. In 2011, landfast sea ice replaced the ice shelf in the Larsen B embayment, but it broke up in 2022. We use remote sensing data to investigate why the landfast ice collapsed and whether it resisted glacier flow as the ice shelf did. We show that opening rifts may be responsible for ice disintegration. We find no detectable buttressing effect from the landfast ice because glaciers did not speed up after removing landfast ice, and seasonal change of landfast ice extent did not affect the grounded glacier velocities. It may be because landfast ice is thinner and easier to deform than the ice shelf. Our observations suggest a possible precursor to ice collapse and highlight the limited role that landfast ice plays in slowing down ice mass loss. Key Points: We produce time‐dependent velocity and strain rate fields over Larsen B landfast sea ice from 2014 to 2022Opening rifts within the landfast sea ice may contribute to its disintegration in 2022Landfast sea ice provides no apparent buttressing to the upstream grounded glaciers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on three themes related to Jewish family structure: (1) family structure differences of Jews and non-Jews, (2) generational changes in the Jewish family, and (3) differential family structure within the Jewish population. Data on four aspects of the family were obtained from a random sample of the Providence metropolitan area Jewish community. The analyses revealed the overall stability, as well as generational changes, in the Jewish family. It appears that assimilation in terms of family structure has occurred for the Jewish group, although slowly, and with the retention of the value of family cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The oceanic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) plays a key role in the climate system, and monitoring its evolution is a scientific priority. Monitoring arrays have been established at several latitudes in the Atlantic Ocean, but other latitudes and oceans remain unmonitored for logistical reasons. This study explores the possibility of inferring the MOC from globally‐available satellite measurements via machine learning (ML) techniques, using the ECCOV4 state estimate as a test bed. The methodological advantages of the present approach include the use purely of available satellite data, its applicability to multiple basins within a single ML framework, and the ML model simplicity (a feed‐forward fully connected neural network (NN) with small number of neurons). The ML model exhibits high skill in MOC reconstruction in the Atlantic, Indo‐Pacific, and Southern Oceans. The approach achieves a higher skill in predicting the model Southern Ocean abyssal MOC than has previously been achieved via a dynamically‐based approach. The skill of the model is quantified as a function of latitude in each ocean basin, and of the time scale of MOC variability. We find that ocean bottom pressure generally has the highest reconstruction skill potential, followed by zonal wind stress. We additionally test which combinations of variables are optimal. Furthermore, ML interpretability techniques are used to show that high reconstruction skill in the Southern Ocean is mainly due to (NN processing of) bottom pressure variability at a few prominent bathymetric ridges. Finally, the potential for reconstructing MOC strength estimates from real satellite measurements is discussed. Plain Language Summary: The Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) plays a key role in the exchange of heat and chemical constituents between oceans globally, and between the atmosphere and the deep ocean. However, it is currently directly monitored only at a handful of different latitudes in the Atlantic Ocean. Using an ocean simulation constrained by available measurements, we examine the feasibility of monitoring the MOC indirectly using measurements made by satellites. We train a so‐called "neural network" to learn relations between the MOC and satellite‐observable ocean properties, such as pressure at the sea floor. These relations are used to produce reconstructions of the simulated MOC derived from the satellite‐observable ocean properties alone, and to test which satellite‐observable ocean properties and regions may be most impactful in MOC reconstruction. We find that this approach yields high skill in reconstructing the MOC over much of the ocean, suggesting that this approach could be transferred to indirectly monitor the MOC in nature. Key Points: The Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) is a key ocean circulation pattern, which is under‐observedWe use an ocean state estimate to test the feasibility of inferring the MOC based solely on satellite observationsA unified machine learning methodology shows high skill in MOC reconstruction as a function of latitude and basin [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because spatio‐temporal variations in ocean heat content (OHC) are strongly predicted by ocean conductivity content (OCC) over most of the global ocean, we analyze the dynamical budget and behavior of the electrical conductivity of seawater. To perform these analyses, we use an ocean‐model state estimate designed to accurately represent long‐term variations in ocean properties in a dynamically and kinematically consistent way. We show that this model accurately reproduces the spatio‐temporal variations in electrical conductivity seen in satellite‐derived data and in a seasonal climatology product derived from in‐situ data, justifying use of the model data to perform further analyses. An empirical orthogonal function analysis suggests that the vast majority of the variance in OHC and OCC can be explained by similar mechanisms. The electrical conductivity budget's most important term is the temperature forcing tendency term, suggesting that ocean heat uptake is the mechanism responsible for the strong relationship between OCC and OHC. Plain Language Summary: The ocean conducts electricity because it contains charged particles. While the dynamical budget and behavior of ocean temperature and salinity have been well studied, similar basic analyses have not been conducted for ocean conductivity. The goal of this study is to provide this using realistic ocean conductivity data describing spatial and temporal variations. Providing a realistic description of conductivity and its dynamical variability is motivated by recent interest in using in‐situ and remote estimates of ocean conductivity content (OCC) to infer ocean heat content (OHC). The latter is both highly important in understanding climate change and inadequately observed using traditional methods. The primary result of this study is that, in most of the global ocean, both spatial and temporal variability in OHC are strongly predicted by OCC through ocean heat uptake, raising the importance of developing electric and magnetic methods for monitoring OCC and thereby OHC by proxy. Key Points: Close agreement between observationally derived and Estimating the Circulation & Climate of the Ocean‐calculated conductivityTemperature forcing tendency term dominates electrical conductivity budgetConductivity can be locally influenced by advection of temperature (low‐latitudes) and salinity (high‐latitudes) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Random parameters logit models have emerged as a standard approach in estimating public preferences for a range of goods and services. However, to simplify calculation of welfare measures, the marginal utility of income is often assumed to be constant across the population. We show that by shifting distributional assumptions from marginal utilities to the welfare measures themselves, a random parameters version of a censored logistic regression model (Cameron 1988) yields distributions of welfare measures more directly and without imposing any unnecessary assumption on the marginal utility of income. We develop the theoretical framework for the model and apply it to contingent choice survey data for siting a noxious facility in Rhode Island. In this application, our proposed model and random parameters logit yield similar mean willingness to pay, but welfare measures are more readily interpretable in the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of the many interesting pieces of information that can be found in Parsons's March 10, 1973 seminar at Brown University, one concerns his relationship to Schumpeter, and it is to this that this brief note is devoted. Parsons and Schumpeter knew each other for some 20 years, and one of the many things that Schumpeter taught Parsons was that one can read the texts of economists for the sociological insights that they contain. In Parsons's formulation from the seminar: “economists must have some sociological ideas.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2004 North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society will be hosted by the Department of Economics, Brown University. It will be held on the Brown University campus in Providence, Rhode Island, from Thursday, June 17 to Sunday, June 20, 2004. The meeting is open to all economists and econometricians, including those that are not currently members of the Econometric Society. The program will include contributed and invited papers. Registration will take place no later than May 31, 2004; there will be an early registration period that will end on May 10, 2004.

Nature provides numerous ecosystem services to people, yet the prioritization of these services often depends on the goals of various stakeholder groups. The eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is an ecologically important species along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States, where it provides essential fish habitat and may mitigate against climatic variations in urban areas. The eastern oyster also supports a multimillion dollar aquaculture industry in coastal communities. Recent declines in eastern oyster populations, however, have spurred widespread restoration activities. Here, we look at three expert stakeholder groups (academics, nongovernmental organizations, and governmental agencies) in Rhode Island (United States) to understand how stakeholder perceptions of oyster ecosystem services differ. Stakeholders' mental models showed differences among the groups' topologies and components, although the terms "Water Quality" and "Habitat/Structural Complexity" were prioritized in all the groups. Our results suggest that there is substantial intergroup variation, but that there are common threads around which future oyster restoration and management programs can be designed. By making these mental models of ecosystem services explicit, we illuminate tacit assumptions held by different stakeholders of the oyster stakeholder community in Rhode Island. In doing so, we highlight opportunities for more efficient collaboration around commonly shared goals for sustainable social and ecological management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing anthropogenic impacts on aquatic ecosystems is a focus of lake management. Controlling phosphorus and nitrogen can mitigate these impacts, but determining management effectiveness requires long‐term datasets. Recent analysis of the LAke multi‐scaled GeOSpatial and temporal database for the Northeast (LAGOS‐NE) United States found stable water quality in the northeastern and midwestern United States; however, sub‐regional trends may be obscured. We used the University of Rhode Island's Watershed Watch Volunteer Monitoring Program (URIWW) dataset to determine if there were sub‐regional (i.e., 3000 km2) water quality trends. URIWW has collected water quality data on Rhode Island lakes and reservoirs for over 25 yr. The LAGOS‐NE and URIWW datasets allowed for comparison of water quality trends at regional and sub‐regional scales, respectively. We assessed regional (LAGOS‐NE) and sub‐regional (URIWW) trends with yearly median anomalies calculated on a per‐station basis. Sub‐regionally, temperature and chlorophyll a increased from 1993 to 2016. Total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and the nitrogen:phosphorus ratio (N:P) were stable. At the regional scale, the LAGOS‐NE dataset showed similar trends to prior studies of the LAGOS‐NE with chlorophyll a, total nitrogen, and N:P all stable over time. Total phosphorus did show a very slight increase. In short, algal biomass, as measured by chlorophyll a in Rhode Island lakes and reservoirs increased, despite stability in total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and the nitrogen to phosphorus ratio. Additionally, we demonstrated both the value of long‐term monitoring programs, like URIWW, for identifying trends in environmental condition, and the utility of site‐specific anomalies for analyzing for long‐term water quality trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate magnitude and sources of discrepancy in quality metrics using claims versus electronic health record (EHR) data.Study Design: Assessment of proportions of HbA1c and LDL testing for people ascertained as diabetic from the respective sources. Qualitative interviews and review of EHRs of discrepant cases.Data Collection/extraction: Claims submitted to Rhode Island Medicaid by three practice sites in 2013; program-coded EHR extraction; manual review of selected EHRs.Principal Findings: Of 21,030 adult Medicaid beneficiaries attributed to a primary care patient at a site by claims or EHR data, concordance on assignment ranged from 0.30 to 0.41. Of patients with concordant assignment, the ratio of patients ascertained as diabetic by EHR versus claims ranged from 1.06 to 1.14. For patients with concordant assignment and diagnosis, the ratio based on EHR versus claims ranged from 1.08 to 18.34 for HbA1c testing, and from 1.29 to 14.18 for lipid testing. Manual record review of 264 patients discrepant on diagnosis or testing identified problems such as misuse of ICD-9 codes, failure to submit claims, and others.Conclusions: Claims data underestimate performance on these metrics compared to EHR documentation, by varying amounts. Use of claims data for these metrics is problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two plenary sessions featuring big names in the digital world will highlight a conference program focusing on Managing and Enhancing Information: Cultures and Conflicts, at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, from November 12-17, in Providence, Rhode Island. The first of the two plenary sessions is Sunday, November 14, when J.C. Hen, principal of Joystick Nation and a noted journalist and lecturer, will discuss the application of complex systems and game design to products, services and learning systems. The second plenary session at the 2004 Annual Meeting features keynoter Tim Berners-Lee, widely regarded as the inventor of the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee currently serves as director of the World Wide Web Consortium. While the two general sessions provide a great deal of sizzle and substance to the meeting, the real meat and potatoes is contained in the six dozen or so contributed paper and panel sessions covering virtually every aspect of information science. These sessions have been sorted into seven major tracks: disciplinary issues, digital libraries, user behavior, system design. information organization, knowledge management and use, and resources and services.

This article offers a test of the normative explanation of collective behavior by examining the fire at the Station nightclub in Rhode Island that killed 100 and injured nearly 200 persons. Information on all persons at the club comes from content analysis of documents from the Rhode Island Police Department, the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General, and The Providence Journal. We use negative binomial regression to test hypotheses about the effects of group-level predictors of the counts of dead and injured in 179 groups at the nightclub. Results indicate that group-level factors such as distance of group members at the start of the fire, the number of intimate relations among them, the extent to which they had visited the nightclub prior to the incident, and the average length of the evacuation route they used predict counts of injured and dead. The research also looks at what behavioral differences exist between survivors and victims, ascertains the existence of role extension among employees of the nightclub, and provides support for the affirmation that dangerous contexts negate the protective influence of intimate relations in groups. We argue for the abandonment of current emphasis on irrationality and herd-like imitative behavior in studies of evacuation from structural fires in buildings and for the inclusion of group-level processes in social psychological explanations of these incidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the epidemic of obesity, approaches to weight loss that can be applied on a community, state, or national level are needed. We report results from Shape Up Rhode Island 2007 (SURI), a statewide Internet-based program involving team-based competition to increase physical activity and achieve weight loss. A total of 4,717 adults (84% women; mean BMI = 29.6 kg/m2) enrolled in the 16-week weight loss competition of SURI and 3,311 completed at least 12 weeks. Completers reported losing 3.2 ± 3.4 kg, and 30% achieved a clinically significant weight loss of ≥5%. Although modest, these weight losses shifted the BMI distribution from a mean BMI of 29.4 to a mean of 28.2 kg/m2 and reduced the population that was obese from 39 to 31%. More conservative intent-to-treat analyses and analysis of 132 participants with objective weights still showed a significant reduction in BMI of −0.8 units. These findings suggest that statewide weight loss campaigns can produce modest weight losses in large numbers of participants. These data provide a benchmark that can be used for comparisons with other statewide campaigns. Research on ways to improve such campaigns is needed.Obesity (2009) 17 5, 991–995. doi:10.1038/oby.2008.655 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and currently director of the W3C, will deliver one of two keynote addresses at the 2004 American Society for Information Science & Technology Annual Meeting in Providence, Rhode Island on November 13-18, 2004. J.C. Hen, author of "Joystick Nation: How Video Games Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds" and "Surfing on the Internet" is also slated for a keynote address at the conference. Berners-Lee, the son of computer scientists, studied physics at Queen's College at Oxford University, graduating in 1976. By 1980, he was working as a software consultant at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, where he created Enquire, a system to help him remember connections between various people and projects at the lab. In its early years, Enquire was expanded into a system that his colleagues could use to share information from one computer to the next without a central database. In 1989, he proposed taking Enquire to the next level by creating a network based on his memory project. INSET: SIG/III Announces 5th International Paper Contest..

The competitive price effect of Wal-Mart Supercenters on national brand and private label grocery prices in New England is examined. We use primary price data collected on several identical products from six Supercenters in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island and from conventional supermarkets. Taking into account demographics, store characteristics, and market conditions, we show that Wal-Mart decreases prices by 6 to 7% for national brand goods and by 3 to 8% for private label goods. Price decreases are most significant in the dry grocery and dairy departments. Moreover, Wal-Mart sets grocery prices significantly lower than its competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Conservation Biology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article is a transcript of a seminar presentation made by Talcott Parsons at Brown University in March 1973. Faculty, students, and technical persons credited with organizing or recording the event include Robert M. Marsh, George H. Borts, and Alan Sondheim. Sociology professor Martin U. Martel offer the welcoming remarks. Parsons answers several questions and mentions people who influenced his work. His gives his views on his undergraduate study at Amherst, his development of "The Structure of Social Action," the problem of self-interest in economic systems, and utilitarianism.

Professor Sciortino offers his impressions of the recently discovered transcriptions of the seminar Parsons participated in at Brown University on March 10, 1973. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theory suggests that scale-dependent interaction between facilitation and competition can generate spatial structure in ecological communities. The application of this hypothesis, however, has been limited to systems with little underlying heterogeneity. We evaluated this prediction in a plant community along an intertidal stress gradient on cobble beaches in Rhode Island, USA. Prior studies have shown that Spartina alterniflora facilitates a forb-dominated community higher in the intertidal by modifying the shoreline environment. We tested the hypothesis that, at a smaller scale, Spartina competitively excludes forb species, explaining their marked absence within the lower Spartina zone. Transplant experiments showed forb species grow significantly better in the Spartina zone when neighbours were removed. Removal of the Spartina canopy led to a massive emergence of annual forbs, showing that competition limits local occupation. These findings indicate that interaction of large-scale facilitation and small-scale competition drives plant zonation on cobble beaches. This study is the first to provide empirical evidence of scale-dependent interactions between facilitation and competition spatially structuring communities in heterogeneous environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A set of unique data collected in the Rhode Island Health Study indicates that differentials in never-pregnant status are similar to those in childlessness. The study makes possible the comparison of childlessness among three distinct birth cohorts--the depression cohorts having one of the lowest fertility, the "Baby Boom" mothers having one of the highest fertility, and the currently under 30 cohort, who are still in the midst of reproductive processes. Inter-cohort comparisons of differentials in childlessness and never-pregnant status indicate certain new insights into the phenomenon of childlessness. For example, there is an indication as judged from the 30-49-year age group, that the educational differentials in permanent childlessness have disappeared for those with more than eight years of schooling. This result probably suggests the general aversion to childlessness in the United States. Again, the 30-49 group points to a decline in the conventional white collar-blue collar differential in permanent childessness. The religious differentials in childlessness indicate that cohort variations in per cent childless among Catholics are similar to those of Protestants. They probably imply the significance of the general social and economic experience of the specific birth cohorts and suggest that in all cases religious preferences alone are not decisive. An approximate estimate of fetal loss taken as the difference between per cent childless and per cent having been never pregnant indicates that, except for the under 30 cohort, it has no systematic relationship with SES factors. For the under 30 cohort, however, the index is higher among the higher educated and the white collar occupations. It is important to emphasize that the differences in this index by SES factors are not statistically significant at the usual five per cent level of significance. Lastly, an attempt to estimate the prevalence of involuntary childlessness due to fertility impairments indicates that it is about four per cent in an American population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the results of a study in olfaction related to a general program of sensory and learning studies carried out in the neonate psychological laboratories of the Providence Lying-In Hospital in Rhode Island. Number of infants included in the study; Olfactory threshold of the subjects.

Focuses on the importance of pediatric, psychological and neurological examinations during the first year of life in determining the health of children in Rhode Island. Factors affecting the growth and development pattern of children; Causes of mental retardation; Accounts on the usefulness of quantitative mental and motor skills in the assessment of developmental deficits.