Good Neighborhood Research Articles

Variable neighbourhood structures for cycle location problems

Variable neighbourhood search is a metaheuristic used mainly to tackle combinatorial optimization problems. Its performance depends on having a good variable neighbourhood structure: that is, a sequence of neighbourhoods that are ideally pairwise disjoint and contain feasible solutions further and further from a given feasible solution. This article defines a variable neighbourhood structure with these properties that is new for cycle location problems. It find bounds for the neighbourhood sizes and shows how to iterate over then when the cycle is a circuit. It tests the structure and iteration method using variable neighbourhood search on a range of median cycle problems and finds a neighbourhood size beyond which there is, on average, no benefit in applying local search. This neighbourhood size is found not to depend on problem size or bound on circuit length.

The Color of Change in Continental Feminist Philosophy

journal of speculative philosophy, vol. 26, no. 2, 2012 Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA The Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) was the first philosophy conference I attended along with my graduate peers. I gave thanks to the universe that at least everyone dressed better than what I had seen at the American Philosophical Association (APA) as a terrified undergraduate guest during a hire—and that the maleness of the philosophical milieu called the APA would recede for a few days. As silly as these two factors may sound in engendering an increased comfort level with philosophical spaces, it really made a difference. There was a uniform that appeared to pervade the philosophical milieu against which my presence in fashion, comportment, and body fell short. It was at SPEP that I found myself able to take up becoming a philosopher; it was among the feminist here that I could begin to think and take up the question of race. For me, it was always easier to talk about race among the Continental feminists than in the larger population of SPEP. But it was also during this time, as it seems to me now, that race as a relevant and important philosophical topic was beginning to flourish in Continental circles, and thus SPEP as a whole appeared much less hostile than the APA venue, though not wholly without hostility to the exploration of race. The Color of Change in Continental Feminist Philosophy

The importance of a good neighborhood: dispersal decisions in juvenile common lizards are based on social environment

Within a population, dispersers are likely to differ in their motivation and adaptations to disperse; yet individual heterogeneity in dispersal decisions is still poorly documented. In the common lizard, females can be classified into 3 types of ventral color (yellow, orange, and mixed) that signal alternative strategies in reproduction and behavior. The reproductive success of these alternative strategies depends on the frequency of each color type in their local environment. Therefore, we predicted that adaptive emigration and settlement decisions should differ between color types and respond to the social composition of the environment. To test this prediction, we analyzed juvenile local dispersal decisions in response to an experimental manipulation of the local color type frequencies. Offspring from orange or mixed females showed decreased dispersal rate in populations where the frequency of yellow females was increased, and those who dispersed chose to settle in environments with lower female density but higher frequency of yellow females. Our results demonstrate that the composition of the social environment is used as a direct cue for dispersal decisions that provides information on resource competition and environment quality. The frequency of female color types is thus a key parameter of the social environment that influences habitat choice decisions. However, the pattern of spatial autocorrelation of adult females was not consistent with these color-related dispersal patterns, which suggest that other processes also participate in shaping the distribution of individuals at the population scale.

Good Health is Not the Same as a Good Life: Survey Results from Brandon, Manitoba

The aim of this investigation was to obtain some baseline self-reported data on the health status and overall quality of life of a sample of residents of the city of Brandon, Manitoba aged 18 years or older, and to measure the impact of a set of designated health determinants, comparison standards and satisfaction with diverse domains of life on their health and quality of life. In May and June 2010, 2,500 households from the city of Brandon, Manitoba were randomly selected to receive a mailed out questionnaire and 518 useable, completed questionnaires were returned. Baseline health status data were obtained using the 8 SF-36 dimensions of health and 13 items from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Determinants of health and overall quality of life included measures of socializing activities, a Good Neighbourhood Index, Social Support Index, Community Health Index, a measure of free-time exercise levels, health-related behaviours, use of drugs, health care issues, a set of domain-specific quality of life items, a set of measures concerning criminal victimization, worries and behaviours concerning victimization and the basic postulates of Multiple Discrepancies Theory. Overall life assessment, dependent variables included Average Health, happiness, a single item measure of satisfaction with life as a whole, a single item measure of satisfaction with the overall quality of life, the Satisfaction With Life Scale, Contentment with Life Assessment Scale and a Subjective Wellbeing Index. Using multiple regression, we explained as much as 75% of the variance in Subjective Wellbeing scores and as little as 45% in happiness scores. Four clusters of health determinants explained from 20% (Happiness) to 44% (Average Health) of the variance in the dependent variables. Adding comparison standards and domain satisfaction scores to the set of health determinants increased our total explanatory power by only 2% points for Average Health (from 44 to 46%), but more than doubled our explanatory power for Happiness (from 20 to 45%) and for satisfaction with the overall quality of life (from 31 to 67%). As well, our explanatory power for the single item of Life Satisfaction increased from 34 to 66%, for the Satisfaction With Life Scale from 39 to 74%, for the Contentment With Life Assessment Scale from 36 to 60%, and for Subjective Wellbeing from 42 to 75%. This provided very clear evidence that self-perceived good health is not equivalent to perceived quality of life, confirming evidence reported in our earlier studies. The three most important take-home messages from this investigation are (1) in assessing the relative influence of any alleged determinants of health and the quality of life, different sets of alleged determinants will appear to be more or less influential for different dependent variables. Therefore, (2) researchers should use diverse sets of determinants and dependent variables and (3) it is a big mistake to use measures of health status as if they were measures of the perceived quality of life.

Proximal predictors of change in quality of life at older ages

ObjectiveTo investigate whether changes in health, social and economic circumstances predict change in quality of life (QoL) at older ages.DesignSecondary analysis, using multiple regression analyses, of waves 1 and 3...

‘Any place to raise children is a good place’: children, housing and neighbourhoods in inner Newcastle, Australia

Neighbourhoods are important spaces of interaction for children. This paper explores the perceptions of residents from seven suburbs in the inner area of Newcastle, Australia concerning what makes a good neighbourhood for children. Key factors identified by residents include the types of dwellings found in the neighbourhood (with detached houses being seen as preferable for children) and the quality of neighbourhood resources. Another important feature was social interactions within the neighbourhood, including interactions between children and adults and interactions between groups of children. The paper examines how different features of neighbourhoods interact to create adult perceptions about whether a neighbourhood is appropriate for children. The paper also points to the ways that children are seen to actively produce the neighbourhood in which they live.

Investigation on quality of life of retired workers from a medical college and policy suggestion

Objectives Appraise the quality of retired workers' life of a medical college according to their income, livelihood, neighborhood relations, health condition and other related factors. Methods Fill in the Quality of Life Investigation Questionnaire when the retired workers are taking routine physical examination. Results 776 pieces of questionnaire were collected, making up 64.7% of the retired workers, which may represent the people of this kind. Out of the 776 retired workers, 597 are suffering from chronic diseases, making up 76.9%. Among them, 37.5% have one type of chronic disease, while 39.5% have two types and more. Among them, heart cerebrovascular diseases and hypertension sufferers occupy 80.6%, 63.3% of the overall prevalence rate. 42.2% are satisfied with their health condition, 9.6% are not, 48.2% with fair contentment. Those with positive view towards income take up only 41.4%, while negative 6.6%. As to the way of living, 375 are living either with a spouse or by oneself, making up 50.6% ,while 46.2% living by a core family with children and grandchildren or with a big family. 64.0% are able to take care of themselves. Among the 236 in need, 88.0% are taken care of by relatives, only 12% by social aids. About 82.5% enjoy a harmonious family life;only 0.5% are not. 83.0% keep a good neighborhood relationship, only 0.6% of them doesnt. Conclusion The overwhelming majority of the retired workers of senior teachers and scientific and technical personnel are living in a harmonious family or community. When they are in need, relatives are the main forces to help, social forces does not work much on it. Two items that below 50% of the satisfaction are income and health condition. So, we are looking forward to the improvement of these two aspects by the reform on social and medical insurance. Key words: Retired workers; Quality of life; Degree of satisfaction; Questionnaires; University

Complex Neighbor Relations: Spain and Europe from the Cold War to General Franco’s Death

Between Spain and Europe there were complex and changing neighbor relations between 1947 and 1975, with alternating periods of dialogue and tension. The lack of balance and the dissymmetry of those relations as well as the authoritarianism of Franco’s regime prevented good neighborhood relationships from taking shape. This article nuances the question of Spain’s maginalization, taking into account the fact that Spain was associated with Western defense as early as 1953; was integrated into the capitalist system beginning in 1957 and was tied to the EEC by a commercial agreement signed in 1970. The neighbor relations between Franco’s Spain and Europe was not lacking in ambiguity. But since that period, pro-European sentiment in Spain, a product of the political culture of the antiFranco opposition and of Spanish administrative, intellectual and economic elites - progressively took shape in the 1950s-60s and it explains in part the strong wishes of the Spanish people to become a full member of the EEC after 1975.

Tendências e dilemas da antropologia norte-americana: sobre a história do Instituto de Antropologia Social da Smithsonian Institution e sua presença no Brasil

This paper is about the history of Smithsonian Institution's Institute of Social Anthropology, which was an agency in charge of the cooperation involving North-American researchers and Latin-American institutions in the social sciences, between 1943 and 1952. Taking into account the geopolitical context - marked by the war efforts, Good Neighborhood Policy and Technical Assistance and Development Programs - the Institute's trajectory expresses the interfaces between science and politics and also discloses the tensions between basic and applied research. Besides, the activities, positions and negotiations taken by Institute's staff illustrate some of American Anthropology's trends and dilemmas in the post-Second World War. The research program pursued in that moment tells us about the anthropological agenda in the continent. Smithsonian's anthropologists and sociologists were involved in teaching and researching in Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Brazil, yet this present work focuses on the bilateral agreement with Escola de Sociologia e Politica de Sao Paulo.

International Real Estate Review

This study investigates the factors that prospective buyers consider when purchasing residential property in Queensland, Australia. A drop-off survey is used, with 376 property buyers and a response rate of 62.7 percent. Affordability, maintenance and interior design, and a good neighbourhood are considered as most important. Of least importance are the affluence and quality of the area, water, views and roads, and features, such as a pool or air-conditioning. Therefore, location is important in the sense of neighbourhood and community, rather than prestige. Affordability should receive more attention in the literature and real estate marketing. Different market segments consider a number of factors when purchasing residential property. Since the factors vary according to the purpose (live in or investment) and the property type (house or unit), these variables provide a basis for identifying market segments. Agents can use the findings to better understand buyers. Researchers can further analyse buyer considerations and property characteristics to condense a large number of factors into a small number of coherent dimensions. The study may be limited by its focus on a geographical section of the Australian real estate market and some difficulties in identifying and operationalising property characteristics.

Perceptions of Neighborhood Disorder: The Role of Individual and Neighborhood Characteristics*

OBJECTIVES: The study of neighborhood effects on health and wellbeing has regained prominence in recent years. Most authors have relied on Census data and other administrative data sources to assess neighborhood characteristics. Less commonly employed, but gaining in popularity, are measures from surveys which ask neighborhood residents about various aspects of their neighborhood environment. Such surveys are a potentially attractive alternative or augmentation to administrative data sources. METHODS: Using data from a study of neighborhood effects on pregnancy outcomes among low income, inner city women in Philadelphia, PA (N=3,988), we examined psychometric and ecometric properties of scales used to assess perceptions of crime and safety, physical disorder and social disorder, and estimated effects of individual and neighborhood level predictors on perceptions. RESULTS: The three perceived neighborhood disorder scales had high internal consistency and good neighborhood level reliability. Several individual attributes of the women predicted perceptions of neighborhood disorder controlling for neighborhood level characteristics (within census tract, fixed-effect estimates). In addition, our objective indicators of neighborhood crime, physical and social disorder were highly significant predictors of women's perceptions, explaining over 70% of the between neighborhood variation in perceptions. CONCLUSIONS: When data on objective neighborhood characteristics are unavailable the inclusion of questions about residents' perceptions of neighborhood conditions in surveys of inner city residents provides a useful alternative to characterize neighborhood conditions.

From Local to Global: One Hundred Years of Neighborhood Planning

Problem: Over the past 100 years, city planners have used neighborhood planning to address a variety of vexing social problems such as community disintegration, economic marginalization, and environmental degradation. To date, there has been no comprehensive review and critique of these planning initiatives and how they have influenced the profession. Purpose: This article traces the history of neighborhood planning in the United States to learn from past experience and to identify its contributions to the planning profession. Methods: I review the literature on the various forms of neighborhood planning, which I define as planning initiatives that focus on altering the physical environment of one or more neighborhoods in pursuit of larger social objectives. Results and conclusions: Each of the six forms of neighborhood planning discussed in this article has made important contributions to the planning profession. Perry's neighborhood unit formula provided planners with a template for good neighborhood design and introduced the idea that neighborhood design could affect the sense of community. Urban renewal taught the profession about the limits of physical solutions to social problems, the precious nature of neighborhood social networks and the importance of involving citizens. The community action programs created a new norm for citizen participation and showed its limits, as well as introducing truly comprehensive redevelopment planning. Community economic development showed that some planning and implementation activities can be successfully delegated to community-based organizations. Municipal neighborhood planning provided a mechanism for ongoing citizen involvement. The most recent forms of neighborhood planning create neighborhoods that encourage walking, use of mass transit, social interaction, and a sense of community. Takeaway for practice: Neighborhood planning programs have made a number of important contributions to the planning profession, including focusing attention on how neighborhood design influences urban livability and social behaviors, institutionalizing citizen participation in plan making, and going beyond physical development to address social, economic, political, and environmental issues. Neighborhood planning is currently more important than ever, as it now addresses global issues such as energy conservation and greenhouse gas emissions in addition to its historic focus on social equity issues such as poverty and social alienation. Research support: None.

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Crime, economic conditions, social interactions and family heritage

This paper tests whether factors referring to socio-economic aspects, family heritage, social interaction, habits and customs explain differences among violent and non-violent prisoners. Some of the results of the probit estimation show that economic issues are the main factors that stimulate the practice of non-violent crime. On the other hand, violent crimes results suggest that factors related to family heritage reduce this kind of crime. In relation to variables of social interaction, prisoners who were brought up in a good neighborhood have a lower probability of committing violent crimes.

Migrants at School: Educational Inequality and Social Interaction in the UK and Germany

We test potential social costs of educational inequality by analysing the influence of spatial and social segregation on educational achievements. In particular, based on recent PISA data sets from the UK and Germany, we investigate whether good neighbourhoods with a relatively high stock of social capital lead to larger 'social multipliers' than neighbourhoods with low social capital. Estimated 'social multipliers' are higher for the German early tracking schooling system than for comprehensive schools in the UK. After aggregating data and employing the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, the results suggest that the educational gap between natives and migrants is mainly due to the 'endowment effect' provided by the socioeconomic background of parents and cultural capital at home. Some adverse 'integration effects' do exist for female migrants in Germany who lose ground on other groups.

Transition from Enmity to ‘Common Fate’ Rhetoric: Water Issue in Turkish-Iraqi-Syrian Relations

Starting from the fact that the water issues are the ones which challenge traditional security understanding, this article tries to analyze the basic reason s why Turkey, Syria and Iraq have not come to an agreement over the fair distribution of Euphrates-Tigris waters so far. The study presupposes that despite the rapprochement between Turkey, Iraq and Syria on the basis of ‘common fate’ rhetoric and good neighborhood strategy, water still exists as a dormant issue due to the security oriented priorities of the three countries. In addition, the ambitious plans of each country to divert the waters of the Euphrates-Tigris waters, and the lack of legally binding agreement are among the other reasons. The argument of the study is that the current problem of water between three countries is more than a resource problem; therefore, the GAP project is one of the concerns of the article. In addition, the article will focus on the fact that, unlike the 1990s, the three neighboring countries’ previous negative rhetoric and attitude in dealing with their problems regarding water shortage have changed, to a large extent, into a positive one

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Racial Residential Segregation in Urban America

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Racial Residential Segregation in Urban America

Residential Experiences and the Culture of Suburbanization: A Case Study of Portuguese Homebuyers in Mississauga

This paper examines the housing experiences of immigrants to Canada through a survey of first-generation Portuguese homebuyers in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. The survey focused on the push/pull factors leading to their decision to live in the suburbs, their housing search strategies, and their use of services in Mississauga and in the initial area of Portuguese immigrant settlement in downtown Toronto. This study uses data from a questionnaire administered to 110 Portuguese homebuyers in 1990, shortly after their first move to suburban Mississauga; a sample of those respondents were re-interviewed in 2003. The evidence indicates that these immigrants were ‘pulled’ into relocating to Mississauga because of their desire to live in a single-family dwelling in a good neighbourhood. Their housing search relied extensively on ethnic sources of information, particularly Portuguese real estate agents. In general, this group of immigrants expressed satisfaction with their move. The Portuguese community in Mississauga is characterized by a form of voluntary segregation, which seems to be partly a result of their reliance on their own ethnic community for information, language barriers to participating in non-Portuguese activities, and a cultural preference for living near people of the same ethnic background. One consequence of this re-segregation process, by which Portuguese people recreate a Portuguese ‘homeland’ in the suburbs, has been the limitation of their social contacts with members of other ethnic communities that have also settled in suburban Mississauga.

Corporate Social Responsibility: The Case of Chilean Forest Enterprise and Original (Mapuche) Community (Responsabilidad Social Empresarial: El Caso de Forestal Mininco S.A. y Comunidades Mapuches)

Analysis of forest business development in zones of potential conflict with Mapuche native communities.Plan of Good Neighborhood as strategy of linking between the forest enterprise and the neighboring native communities.

The Metamorphosis of Marginality: Four Generations in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro

This article is based on a four-generational study of residents in three squatter communities (favelas) in Rio de Janeiro from 1968 to 2003. It shows how the marginalization of the urban poor has deepened over the past thirty-five years through drug-related violence, the failure of democracy to deliver on its promise of voice for the disenfranchised, the stigma of place and race, the increase in unemployment, and the inability to translate educational gains into concomitant income or occupational gains. Despite significant improvements in consumption of collective urban services, household goods, and schooling, few have been successful enough to move into “good neighborhoods” or into professional jobs. Gang violence creates a pervasive sense of fear and diminishes the social capital of the communities. Despite the promise of the end of the dictatorship in 1984, favela residents feel they are more excluded. Yet they still have hope that their lives will improve in the future.