The decentralization of public policy from the federal government to state and local governments offers increased opportunities for ordinary citizens to participate directly in public policymaking. Yet these opportunities may not be equally shared. Due to a variety of factors, low-income citizens have long been denied a meaningful role in the public life and governance of our country. By contrast, the essays in this volume explore how low-income citizens have successfully affected public policy. The book is built around six case studies, all from Texas, that cover education finance and reform, local infrastructure provision, environmental protection, and indigent health care. This research illuminates several issues of national importance, including how communities gain standing and recognition for themselves and their issues, how policy agendas are defined, how communities mobilize technical and institutional resources, and how they form coalitions and alliances to accomplish their goals.
The areas along the U.S.-Mexico border are commonly portrayed as a hot spot for gang activity, drug trafficking, and violence. Yet when Robert J. Durán conducted almost a decade’s worth of ethnographic research in border towns between El Paso, Texas, and southern New Mexico—a region notorious for gang activity, according to federal officials—he found significantly less gang membership and activity than common fearmongering claims would have us believe. Instead, he witnessed how the gang label was used to criminalize youth of Mexican descent—to justify the overrepresentation of Latinos in the justice system, the implementation of punitive practices in the school system, and the request for additional resources by law enforcement. In The Gang Paradox, Durán analyzes the impact of deportation, incarceration, and racialized perceptions of criminality on Latino families and youth along the border. He draws on ethnography, archival research, official data sources, and interviews with practitioners and community members to present a compelling portrait of Latino residents’ struggles amid deep structural disadvantages. Durán, himself a former gang member, offers keen insights into youth experience with schools, juvenile probation, and law enforcement. The Gang Paradox is a powerful community study that sheds new light on intertwined criminalization and racialization, with policy relevance toward issues of gangs, juvenile delinquency, and the lack of resources in border regions.
Airway smooth muscle plays a dominant role in bronchial asthma, as well as a significant role in various pulmonary diseases, such as chronic bronchitis, cystic fibrosis and emphysema. Myogenic, neurogenic, and humoral factors control airway smooth-muscle tone. This text provides a state-of-the-art summary and critical discussion of airway smooth muscle from a multidisciplinary point of view. Topics discussed include morphology, biochemical regulation, mechanical and electrophysiological behavior and reflex control of smooth muscle; the epithelium-derived relaxing factor; and methods to measure smooth muscle function in vivo in humans and experimental animals, as well as in vitro in isolated airway tissues. Also discussed are calcium and potassium channels and receptors for adrenergic, cholinergic and histaminergic systems in modulating receptor-response coupling in airway smooth muscle. Airway Smooth Muscle: Modulation of Receptors and Response provides essential information for researchers, teachers, pulmonary specialists and allergists, and students interested in learning about airway smooth muscle.
This book focuses on the initial biochemical and biophysical aspects of taste and olfaction. It is intended for a wide audience, both those already familiar with the chemical senses and those biochemists and neuro-biologists interested in gaining an appreciation of this rapidly expanding discipline.
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