Entertainment media have a long history of using health issues in storylines. Soap operas, television dramas, movies, and even comedies integrate health issues in a variety of ways with varying impact on viewer responses to information about the health-related topics. This study is an audience analysis of discussion about Sex and the City’s breast cancer storyline on HBO’s online message board....

Using data from a survey of rural-urban migrants in X City, China, this paper investigates the relationships between migrant-resident ties and migrant integration. Migrant integration is assessed with respect to three dimensions: acculturation, socioeconomic integration, and psychological integration. We divide migrant networks into three categories: kin resident ties, non-kin resident ties, an...

This study conducts a content analysis with the use of NVivo software of the local news outlet, Idaho Statesman, and its articles from 1999-2012. This research focuses on two specific sexual orientation policy debates: hate crime prevention and the Boise city ordinance. These issues highlight examples of framing. The findings from this analysis highlight how a media can play a supporting role f...

Th ree contemporary leadership challenges face local governments today. Th e fi rst encourages department heads to more actively work the intersection between political and administrative arenas. Th e second promotes collaborative work, synchronizing city and county boundaries with problems that have no jurisdictional homes. Th e third argues that citizen engagement is no longer optional—it is ...

Using ubiquitous devices such as multifunctional cellular phones and PDAs, we can build a large-scale navigation system for evacuation in the metropolis. Although current navigation systems simply broadcast the same instructions over a large area, the required function is to provide individualized instructions to each user. Our approach is to build a navigation system based on multiagent system...

The communities living on the dangerous hillslopes in Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) in Bangladesh recurrently experience landslide hazards during the monsoon season. The frequency and intensity of landslides are increasing over time because of heavy rainfall occurring over a few days. Furthermore, rapid urbanization through hill-cutting is another factor, which is believed to have a signifi...

Australian cities face several critical problems related to climate change and social/environmental equity. The emerging Australian scholarship on ‘climate justice’ helps to explain the inequitable impacts of climate change upon marginalised and disadvantaged communities (Fritz and Wiseman 2009; Moss 2009; Steele et al 2012). Vulnerable social groups will be hardest hit by climate change whethe...

Traffic evacuation is one of the most challenging problems in a mega city due to crowded road conditions. This study focuses on developing a traffic evacuation model with decision-making capability. The model basically consists of two modules. The first one is a decision-making support module which runs very fast and provides short-forecast. The second one is a simulation module, which is used ...

We succeed in writing 2-dimensional conformally invariant nonlinear elliptic PDE (harmonic map equation, prescribed mean curvature equations...etc) in divergence form. This divergence free quantities generalize to target manifolds without symmetries the well known conservation laws for harmonic maps into homogeneous spaces. From this form we can recover, without the use of moving frame, all the...

Objectives: To assess referee bias with respect to fouls and penalty kicks awarded by taking explanatory factors into consideration. Design: We present a novel Bayesian network model for assessing referee bias with respect to fouls and penalty kicks awarded. The model is applied to the 2011-12 English Premier League season. Method: Unlike previous studies, the model takes into consideration exp...