Walking, Cycling, and Obesity Rates in Europe, North America, and Australia

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 795-814 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Bassett ◽  
John Pucher ◽  
Ralph Buehler ◽  
Dixie L. Thompson ◽  
Scott E. Crouter
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Travel Behavior ◽  
Health Indicators ◽  
The United States ◽  
Active Transportation ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Summary Data

Purpose:This study was designed to examine the relationship between active transportation (defined as the percentage of trips taken by walking, bicycling, and public transit) and obesity rates (BMI ≥ 30 kg · m−2) in different countries.Methods:National surveys of travel behavior and health indicators in Europe, North America, and Australia were used in this study; the surveys were conducted in 1994 to 2006. In some cases raw data were obtained from national or federal agencies and then analyzed, and in other cases summary data were obtained from published reports.Results:Countries with the highest levels of active transportation generally had the lowest obesity rates. Europeans walked more than United States residents (382 versus 140 km per person per year) and bicycled more (188 versus 40 km per person per year) in 2000.Discussion:Walking and bicycling are far more common in European countries than in the United States, Australia, and Canada. Active transportation is inversely related to obesity in these countries. Although the results do not prove causality, they suggest that active transportation could be one of the factors that explain international differences in obesity rates.

Observations in Aid of Weather Prediction for North America: Report of Prospectus Development Team Seven

1997 ◽  
Vol 78 (12) ◽  
pp. 2859-2868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Emanuel ◽  
Eugenia Kalnay ◽  
Craig Bishop ◽  
Russell Elsberry ◽  
Ronald Gelaro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Rational Approach ◽  
Observation System ◽  
Development Team ◽  
Observing Systems

One of the most significant impediments to progress in forecasting weather over North America is the relative paucity of routine observations over data-sparse regions adjacent to the United States. Prospectus Development Team Seven was convened to consider ways to promote research that seeks to determine implementations of observing systems that are optimal for weather prediction in the United States. An “optimal” measurement system is considered to be one that maximizes the ratio of societal benefit to overall cost. The thrust of the conclusions is that existing means of estimating the value of current observing systems and the potential benefits of new or proposed observing systems are underutilized. At the same time, no rational way exists for comparing the cost of observations across the spectrum of federal agencies responsible for measuring the atmosphere and ocean. The authors suggest that a rational procedure for configuring an observation system that is optimal for weather prediction would consist of the following steps.Identify specific forecast problems arising from insufficient data. Examples might include hurricane landfall and intensity forecasts, 24-h forecasts of intense extratropical cyclones affecting the West Coast and Alaska, and medium-range forecasts of severe weather for all of North America.Use contemporary modeling techniques, such as observing system simulation experiments, ensemble forecasting, and model adjoint-derived sensitivities, to delineate measurement requirements for each specific forecasting problem and identify candidate observing systems and data assimilation techniques that could be brought to bear on each problem.Estimate the incremental forecast improvements that could plausibly result from the added or reconfigured data and the societal benefits that would accrue from such improvements.Estimate the overall cost (to the nation, not to specific federal agencies) of obtaining the data by the various candidate techniques and the benefits that are projected to result.Use standard cost–benefit analysis as a basis for deciding the optimal deployment of measuring systems. The authors believe that a rational approach to atmospheric measurement is critical to further improvements in weather prediction and that such improvements might very well be made within the current budget of routine observations, integrated across all of the responsible federal agencies. This document outlines a proposed strategy for rationalizing atmosphere observations in aid of weather prediction in the United States. The paper begins with a summary of recommendations.

‘Homesick for the North American Continent’: Elizabeth Bowen's Postwar Transatlantic Crossings

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-130
Author(s):  
Heather Corbally Bryant
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eudora Welty ◽  
Central Question ◽  
American Continent ◽  
North American Continent ◽  
The North ◽  
Mother And Child ◽  
The Relationship

This article investigates the influence of North America on Bowen's later work. After the war, Bowen traveled to America, at least once a year, until her last illness. Yet her time in the United States has often been overlooked. In the States, she lectured at colleges and universities across the country, and taught at several prestigious schools. She also wrote articles and essays for the more lucrative American journals and periodicals. In addition to touring the country, she was able to see her many American friends, such as Eudora Welty, and her publishers, the Knopfs, as well as her lover, Charles Ritchie. This new continent allowed Bowen to confront old traumas on new grounds, especially in the American element of Eva Trout, in which she displaces the central question of the relationship between mother and child onto American soil to interrogate the (literally, in Jeremy's case) unspeakable nature of trauma.

scholarly journals L'Église et l'État aux États-Unis: la langue et l'éducation

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-379
Author(s):  
Edward G. Hudon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consistent Pattern ◽  
British North America ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Case Basis ◽  
Language Question ◽  
Easy Solution

In both Canada and the United States, the relationship between Church and State has caused problems which have had to be resolved by the courts on a case by case basis. In Canada, much more than in the United States, there have also been problems over the language question which also have had to be resolved by the courts. Indeed, in Canada the language issue can be considered to be the counterpart of the black versus white problem of the United States. In both Canada and the United States, the question is the protection of the rights of the minority, but the constitutional provisions of each that relate to these rights have a different approach. In Canada they take the form of permissions which are found in Sections 93 and 133 of the British North America Act. In the United States they are in the form of prohibitions found in the First and the Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. In Canada, the effect of the Constitutional provisions vary from Province to Province, depending on what the situation was in a Province at the time it became apart of the Dominion. In the United States, the Constitutional prohibitions apply to all of the States in the same manner. But whatever the nature of the Constitutional provision, in both countries there has not been a lack of cases. Moreover, in both countries a quick, easy solution to the problems presented will probably never be found. Meanwhile, about all that the courts of either country can do is to continue the case by case approach so that it will present a reasonably consistent pattern as new problems develop and passions erupt.

Translating José María Heredia

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Luciani
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Travel Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Translation Process ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The Relationship

The Cuban poet José María Heredia (1803–1839) spent twenty months exiled to the United States because of his involvement in pro-independence conspiracies. In that time, Heredia wrote a prodigious number of poems and letters, which are the subject of an ongoing scholarly project undertaken by Frederick Luciani of Colgate University. Luciani’s work involves more than translating these poems and letters into English—it examines Heredia’s stay in North America against the background of political and historical events, and traces the matrices of his connections with key figures, literary and otherwise, in Cuba and the United States. Questions that have surfaced through the translation process and scrutiny of this period of Heredia’s life include the relationship between Heredia’s poetry and his letters; the value of his letters as a form of travel literature; the contradictions inherent in his exilic condition; the ambiguity of his political sentiments; the nature of the networks that joined 19th-century Anglo-American and Hispanic writers, translators, and scholars; and the challenges and opportunities that Heredia’s life and work pose for readers, translators, and scholars today.

Abusive Men's Use of Children to Control Their Partners and Ex-Partners

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marisa L. Beeble ◽  
Deborah Bybee ◽  
Cris M. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Emotional Abuse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Anecdotal Evidence ◽  
Multiple Variables ◽  
The Relationship

While research has found that millions of children in the United States are exposed to their mothers being battered, and that many are themselves abused as well, little is known about the ways in which children are used by abusers to manipulate or harm their mothers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that perpetrators use children in a variety of ways to control and harm women; however, no studies to date have empirically examined the extent of this occurring. Therefore, the current study examined the extent to which survivors of abuse experienced this, as well as the conditions under which it occurred. Interviews were conducted with 156 women who had experienced recent intimate partner violence. Each of these women had at least one child between the ages of 5 and 12. Most women (88%) reported that their assailants had used their children against them in varying ways. Multiple variables were found to be related to this occurring, including the relationship between the assailant and the children, the extent of physical and emotional abuse used by the abuser against the woman, and the assailant's court-ordered visitation status. Findings point toward the complex situational conditions by which assailants use the children of their partners or ex-partners to continue the abuse, and the need for a great deal more research in this area.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

Magic and Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Sabina Magliocco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
North America ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Spirit World

This essay introduces a special issue of Nova Religio on magic and politics in the United States in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. The articles in this issue address a gap in the literature examining intersections of religion, magic, and politics in contemporary North America. They approach political magic as an essentially religious phenomenon, in that it deals with the spirit world and attempts to motivate human behavior through the use of symbols. Covering a range of practices from the far right to the far left, the articles argue against prevailing scholarly treatments of the use of esoteric technologies as a predominantly right-wing phenomenon, showing how they have also been operationalized by the left in recent history. They showcase the creativity of magic as a form of human cultural expression, and demonstrate how magic coexists with rationality in contemporary western settings.

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