Jo-Jo Koo

Joseph Rouse is one of the most distinctive and innovative proponents of practice theory today. This article focuses in section I on two extended elaborations with systematic intent from Rouse’s corpus over the last two decades regarding the nature of practices, highlighting in particular the concept of normativity. Toward this end, this article explains why Rouse argues that we need to bring about something like a Copernican revolution in our understanding of the intrinsic normativity of practices as an essentially interactive, temporal, contestable, and open-ended process. In section II, this article then examines some commonalities and apparent divergences of Rouse’s practice theory from the existential phenomenology of the early Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. The article draws to a close by considering two apparent divergences between Rouse’s conception of practices and existential phenomenology: (1) the degree of compatibility between the claim of existential phenomenology to reveal necessary enabling background conditions of our lived experience and Rouse’s normative conception of practices; and (2) the compatibility of “quasi-transcendental” constitution, as this is at work according to existential phenomenology, and Rouse’s argument that it is wrong to understand practices as exclusively centered on the activities of human beings.

Knowing where, when, and how much rice is planted and harvested is crucial information for understanding the effects of policy, trade, and global and technological change on food security. We developed RiceAtlas, a spatial database on the seasonal distribution of the world's rice production. It consists of data on rice planting and harvesting dates by growing season and estimates of monthly production for all rice-producing countries. Sources used for planting and harvesting dates include global and regional databases, national publications, online reports, and expert knowledge. Monthly production data were estimated based on annual or seasonal production statistics, and planting and harvesting dates. RiceAtlas has 2,725 spatial units. Compared with available global crop calendars, RiceAtlas is nearly ten times more spatially detailed and has nearly seven times more spatial units, with at least two seasons of calendar data, making RiceAtlas the most comprehensive and detailed spatial database on rice calendar and production.

Background: Research is limited on the independent and joint effects of individual- and neighborhood-level socioeconomic status on breast cancer survival across different racial/ethnic groups. Methods: We studied individual-level SES, measured by self-reported education, and a composite neighborhood SES measure in females, ages 18 to 79 years and diagnosed 1995 to 2008, in the San Francisco Bay Area. We evaluated all-cause and breast cancer-specific survival using stage-stratified Cox proportional hazards models with cluster adjustment for census block groups. Results: In models adjusting for education and nSES, lower nSES was associated with worse all-cause survival among African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans. Education was not associated with all-cause survival. For breast cancer-specific survival, lower nSES was associated with poorer survival only among Asian-Americans. When nSES and education were jointly considered, women with low education and low nSES had 1.4 to 2.7 times worse all-cause survival than women with high education and high nSES across all races/ethnicities. Among African-Americans and Asian- Americans, women with high education and low nSES had 1.6 to 1.9 times worse survival, respectively. For breast cancer-specific survival, joint associations were found only among Asian-Americans with worse survival for those with low nSES regardless of education. Conclusions: Both neighborhood and individual SES are associated with survival after breast cancer diagnosis, but these relationships vary by race/ethnicity. Impact: A better understanding of the relative contributions and interactions of SES with other factors will inform targeted interventions toward reducing long-standing disparities in breast cancer survival. © 2014 American Association for Cancer Research.