Diverging Educational Aspirations Among Compulsory School-Leavers in Switzerland

Educational aspirations play an important role in shaping students’ educational trajectories and destinations. Drawing on longitudinal data from the TREE2 study, this paper investigates the effect of tracking on the formation and adjustment of the educational aspirations of Swiss students upon leaving compulsory school. We show that educational aspirations are highly responsive to the educational track attended in upper secondary education. While students in general education tend to stick to their aspirations, their counterparts in vocational programmes exhibit less stable aspirations

Projection operator approach to spin diffusion in the anisotropic Heisenberg chain at high temperatures

We investigate spin transport in the anisotropic Heisenberg chain in the limit of high temperatures ({\beta} \to 0). We particularly focus on diffusion and the quantitative evaluation of diffusion constants from current autocorrelations as a function of the anisotropy parameter {\Delta} and the spin quantum number s. Our approach is essentially based on an application of the time-convolutionless (TCL) projection operator technique. Within this perturbative approach the projection onto the current yields the decay of autocorrelations to lowest order of {\Delta}. The resulting diffusion constants scale as 1/{\Delta}^2 in the Markovian regime {\Delta}<<1 (s=1/2) and as 1/{\Delta} in the highly non-Markovian regime above {\Delta} \sim 1 (arbitrary s). In the latter regime the dependence on s appears approximately as an overall scaling factor \sqrt{s(s+1)} only. These results are in remarkably good agreement with diffusion constants for {\Delta}>1 which are obtained directly from the exact diagonalization of autocorrelations or have been obtained from non-equilibrium bath scenarios.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Intergenerationale Betreuung in Europa: über die Kompetenzverteilung von Staat und Familie in nationalen und regionalen Kontexten

Informelle Betreuungsleistungen durch Angehörige unterschiedlicher familialer Generationen nehmen einen zentralen Stellenwert bei der Sicherstellung des Wohlergehens des Einzelnen ein. Im Zuge des Ausbaus familienpolitischer Arrangements in den Ländern Europas während der letzten Jahrzehnte hat sich die Kompetenz bei der Sicherstellung der Betreuung jedoch immer mehr in Richtung des Wohlfahrtsstaats verlagert. Es stellt sich die Frage, wie Familien auf die veränderten Rahmenbedingungen reagieren und was dies für die Organisation intergenerationaler Betreuungsarrangements bedeutet. Kinderbetreuungsleistungen durch Grosseltern sowie die zeitliche Unterstützung betreuungsbedürftiger Eltern durch ihre erwachsenen Kinder stellen die beiden wichtigsten und verbreitetsten Formen der intergenerationalen Betreuung dar. Die vorliegende Masterarbeit nimmt diese beiden Unterstützungsformen in den Blick und verfolgt dabei die Frage, welche Faktoren das Auftreten regelmässiger intergenerationaler Betreuungsleistungen bedingen. Ausgehend von der Theorie der intergenerationalen Solidarität werden sowohl Bestimmungsgründe der Mikro-Ebene als auch der Makro-Ebene zur Erklärung miteinbezogen. Die Abbildung der kontextuellen Rahmenbedingungen erfolgt anhand spezifischer familienpolitischer Massnahmen sowie anhand kultureller Faktoren in Form vorherrschender Normen und Rollenerwartungen. Anders als bei früheren Untersuchungen werden nicht bloss nationale, sondern auch regionale Kontexte berücksichtigt. Die intergenerationalen Betreuungsleistungen werden mit komparativen Daten des Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) anhand deskriptiver Analysen und logistischer Mehrebenenmodelle empirisch untersucht. Die Verbreitung informeller Betreuungsleistungen durch Familienangehörige unterscheidet sich sowohl zwischen Ländern als auch innerhalb dieser Länder massgeblich. Es stellt sich heraus, dass beide Unterstützungsformen primär durch individuelle Bedarfslagen und Handlungsoptionen bedingt sind. Demgegenüber prägen die kontextuellen Rahmenbedingungen das Auftreten intergenerationaler Betreuung nur geringfügig. Die Befunde verweisen auf ein komplexes und vielschichtiges Zusammenwirken zwischen kulturellen Normen und familienpolitischen Massnahmen. Eine Schlussbetrachtung diskutiert die Implikationen der Befundlage, widmet sich kritisch dem methodischen Vorgehen und identifiziert diverse Anknüpfungspunkte für zukünftige Untersuchungen

\u3ci\u3eLevisunguis subaequalis\u3c/i\u3e n. g., n. sp., a Tongue Worm (Pentastomida: Porocephalida: Sebekidae) Infecting Softshell Turtles, \u3ci\u3eApalone\u3c/i\u3e spp. (Testudines: Trionychidae), in the Southeastern United States

A new tongue worm (Pentastomida) belonging to the Sebekidae Sambon, 1922 (Porocephaloidea Sambon, 1922) is described based on exemplars collected from softshell terrapins Apalone spinifera aspera (Agassiz) and Apalone ferox (Schneider) in the southeastern United States; a new genus is erected to accommodate the new species. The new species belongs in the Sebekidae because adults possess four simple hooks arranged in a trapezoid pattern on the ventral surface of the cephalothorax, a mouth opening between the anterior and posterior pairs of hooks, a terminal anus, an elongated uterus with preanal uterine pore, and a Y-shaped seminal vesicle. Nymphs possess geminate hooks, and the new species has an aquatic life cycle in which nymphs become encapsulated in the body cavity of a freshwater fish and mature in the lungs of a terrapin. The new genus is distinct from other genera in the Sebekidae primarily by differences in hook morphology and the fact that representatives use a terrapin as a definitive host. Nymphs infecting fish and presumed to be the new species matured as postlarval juveniles conspecific with the new species when they were fed to the eastern mud turtle, Kinosternon subrubrum (Lacépède). Nymphs of the new species are anatomically similar to but larger than nymphs of Sebekia mississippiensis Overstreet, Self & Vliet, 1985 found in the mesentery of fishes captured in Florida, USA. Adults of the new species differ from those of S. mississippiensis based on hook features, chloride cell pore pattern on annuli, body size, and use of a turtle rather than crocodilian definitive host. The new species is the third North American member of the Sebekidae

Integrating biodiversity: a longitudinal and cross-sectoral analysis of Swiss politics

The effective conservation and promotion of biodiversity requires its integration into a wide range of sectoral policies. For this to happen, the issue must receive attention across policy sectors. Yet, we know little about how attention to the issue evolves over time and across sectors. Drawing from the literature on environmental policy integration/mainstreaming and policy process theories, we develop competing hypotheses, expecting either increasing or fluctuating attention to the biodiversity issue. We tested the hypotheses using the case of Swiss politics between 1999 and 2018. Applying a combination of computational methods, we analyze the content of a comprehensive collection of policy documents (n ≈ 440,000) attributed to 20 policy sectors. Comparing the sectors, we find that (1) a persistent increase in attention is the exception, (2) if there is an increase in attention, it is likely to be temporary, and (3) the most common pattern is that of invariant attention over time. Biodiversity integration—if it does happen at all—tends to occur in cycles rather than in steady long-term shifts. This implies that the conservation of biodiversity does not follow the cross-sectoral nature of the problem, but is subject to the dynamics of "politics," where actors, because of limited resources, engage with (aspects of) an issue only for a certain amount of time

Synergies for Improving Oil Palm Production and Forest Conservation in Floodplain Landscapes

Lowland tropical forests are increasingly threatened with conversion to oil palm as global demand and high profit drives crop expansion throughout the world’s tropical regions. Yet, landscapes are not homogeneous and regional constraints dictate land suitability for this crop. We conducted a regional study to investigate spatial and economic components of forest conversion to oil palm within a tropical floodplain in the Lower Kinabatangan, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The Kinabatangan ecosystem harbours significant biodiversity with globally threatened species but has suffered forest loss and fragmentation. We mapped the oil palm and forested landscapes (using object-based-image analysis, classification and regression tree analysis and on-screen digitising of high-resolution imagery) and undertook economic modelling. Within the study region (520,269 ha), 250,617 ha is cultivated with oil palm with 77% having high Net-Present-Value (NPV) estimates ($413/ha?yr–$637/ha?yr); but 20.5% is under-producing. In fact 6.3% (15,810 ha) of oil palm is commercially redundant (with negative NPV of $-299/ha?yr-$-65/ha?yr) due to palm mortality from flood inundation. These areas would have been important riparian or flooded forest types. Moreover, 30,173 ha of unprotected forest remain and despite its value for connectivity and biodiversity 64% is allocated for future oil palm. However, we estimate that at minimum 54% of these forests are unsuitable for this crop due to inundation events. If conversion to oil palm occurs, we predict a further 16,207 ha will become commercially redundant. This means that over 32,000 ha of forest within the floodplain would have been converted for little or no financial gain yet with significant cost to the ecosystem. Our findings have globally relevant implications for similar floodplain landscapes undergoing forest transformation to agriculture such as oil palm. Understanding landscape level constraints to this crop, and transferring these into policy and practice, may provide conservation and economic opportunities within these seemingly high opportunity cost landscapes