Estimating population size of the cave shrimp Troglocaris anophthalmus (Crustacea, Decapoda, Caridea) using mark–release–recapture data

Estimación del tamaño de la población del camarón cavernícola Troglocaris anophthalmus (Crustacea, Decapoda, Caridea) mediante la utilización de datos de marcaje, liberación y recaptura Se desconoce el tamaño de la población de numerosos invertebrados acuáticos cavernícolas que son vulnerables a la contaminación de las aguas subterráneas provocada por las actividades antropogénicas. En este estudio estimamos el tamaño de la población del camarón de agua dulce Troglocaris anophthalmus sontica (Crustacea, Decapoda, Caridea) mediante las técnicas de marcaje, liberación y recaptura. La subespecie se estudió en la Vipavaska jama (cueva de Vipava), en Eslovenia, y se calcularon la proporción de sexos y la distribución por edad. Incluso tras considerar el límite inferior de los intervalos de confianza, se halló un gran abundancia de camarones. No obstante, no se encontraron indicios de que haya diferencias en cuanto a la abundancia de camarón entre verano e invierno. La población estaba formada predominantemente por hembras. La facilidad de la captura y las elevadas cifras de población indican que estos camarones podrían utilizarse como bioindicadores en los ecosistemas cavernícolas.Population size estimates are lacking for many small cave–dwelling aquatic invertebrates that are vulnerable to groundwater contamination from anthropogenic activities. Here we estimated the population size of freshwater shrimp Troglocaris anophthalmus sontica (Crustacea, Decapoda, Caridea) based on mark–release–recapture techniques. The subspecies was investigated in Vipavska jama (Vipava cave), Slovenia, with estimates of sex ratio and age distribution. A high abundance of shrimps was found even after considering the lower limit of the confidence intervals. However, we found no evidence of differences in shrimp abundances between summer and winter. The population was dominated by females. Ease of capture and abundant population numbers indicate that these cave shrimps may be useful as a bioindicator in cave ecosystems.Estimación del tamaño de la población del camarón cavernícola Troglocaris anophthalmus (Crustacea, Decapoda, Caridea) mediante la utilización de datos de marcaje, liberación y recaptura Se desconoce el tamaño de la población de numerosos invertebrados acuáticos cavernícolas que son vulnerables a la contaminación de las aguas subterráneas provocada por las actividades antropogénicas. En este estudio estimamos el tamaño de la población del camarón de agua dulce Troglocaris anophthalmus sontica (Crustacea, Decapoda, Caridea) mediante las técnicas de marcaje, liberación y recaptura. La subespecie se estudió en la Vipavaska jama (cueva de Vipava), en Eslovenia, y se calcularon la proporción de sexos y la distribución por edad. Incluso tras considerar el límite inferior de los intervalos de confianza, se halló un gran abundancia de camarones. No obstante, no se encontraron indicios de que haya diferencias en cuanto a la abundancia de camarón entre verano e invierno. La población estaba formada predominantemente por hembras. La facilidad de la captura y las elevadas cifras de población indican que estos camarones podrían utilizarse como bioindicadores en los ecosistemas cavernícolas

Reclaiming the political : emancipation and critique in security studies

The critical security studies literature has been marked by a shared commitment towards the politicization of security – that is, the analysis of its assumptions, implications and the practices through which it is (re)produced. In recent years, however, politicization has been accompanied by a tendency to conceive security as connected with a logic of exclusion, totalization and even violence. This has resulted in an imbalanced politicization that weakens critique. Seeking to tackle this situation, the present article engages with contributions that have advanced emancipatory versions of security. Starting with, but going beyond, the so-called Aberystwyth School of security studies, the argument reconsiders the meaning of security as emancipation by making the case for a systematic engagement with the notions of reality and power. This revised version of security as emancipation strengthens critique by addressing political dimensions that have been underplayed in the critical security literature

Cues and knowledge structures used by mental-health professionals when making risk assessments

Background: Research into mental-health risks has tended to focus on epidemiological approaches and to consider pieces of evidence in isolation. Less is known about the particular factors and their patterns of occurrence that influence clinicians’ risk judgements in practice. Aims: To identify the cues used by clinicians to make risk judgements and to explore how these combine within clinicians’ psychological representations of suicide, self-harm, self-neglect, and harm to others. Method: Content analysis was applied to semi-structured interviews conducted with 46 practitioners from various mental-health disciplines, using mind maps to represent the hierarchical relationships of data and concepts. Results: Strong consensus between experts meant their knowledge could be integrated into a single hierarchical structure for each risk. This revealed contrasting emphases between data and concepts underpinning risks, including: reflection and forethought for suicide; motivation for self-harm; situation and context for harm to others; and current presentation for self-neglect. Conclusions: Analysis of experts’ risk-assessment knowledge identified influential cues and their relationships to risks. It can inform development of valid risk-screening decision support systems that combine actuarial evidence with clinical expertise

Using XML and XSLT for flexible elicitation of mental-health risk knowledge

Current tools for assessing risks associated with mental-health problems require assessors to make high-level judgements based on clinical experience. This paper describes how new technologies can enhance qualitative research methods to identify lower-level cues underlying these judgements, which can be collected by people without a specialist mental-health background. Methods and evolving results: Content analysis of interviews with 46 multidisciplinary mental-health experts exposed the cues and their interrelationships, which were represented by a mind map using software that stores maps as XML. All 46 mind maps were integrated into a single XML knowledge structure and analysed by a Lisp program to generate quantitative information about the numbers of experts associated with each part of it. The knowledge was refined by the experts, using software developed in Flash to record their collective views within the XML itself. These views specified how the XML should be transformed by XSLT, a technology for rendering XML, which resulted in a validated hierarchical knowledge structure associating patient cues with risks. Conclusions: Changing knowledge elicitation requirements were accommodated by flexible transformations of XML data using XSLT, which also facilitated generation of multiple data-gathering tools suiting different assessment circumstances and levels of mental-health knowledge

Re-imagining the Borders of US Security after 9/11: Securitisation, Risk, and the Creation of the Department of Homeland Security

The articulation of international and transnational terrorism as a key issue in US security policy, as a result of the 9/11 attacks, has not only led to a policy rethink, it has also included a bureaucratic shift within the US, showing a re-thinking of the role of borders within US security policy. Drawing substantively on the 'securitisation' approach to security studies, the article analyses the discourse of US security in order to examine the founding of the Department of Homeland Security, noting that its mission provides a new way of conceptualising 'borders' for US national security. The securitisation of terrorism is, therefore, not only represented by marking terrorism as a security issue, it is also solidified in the organisation of security policy-making within the US state. As such, the impact of a 'war on terror' provides an important moment for analysing the re-articulation of what security is in the US, and, in theoretical terms, for reaffirming the importance of a relationship between the production of threat and the institutionalisation of threat response. © 2007 Taylor & Francis

Turkish Accession and Defining the Boundaries of Nationalism and Supranationalism: Discourses in the European Commission

The European Union in general and the European Commission in particular are characterised by supranational governance. The enlargement policy gives the Commission the opportunity to export and promote supranational norms and define the boundaries of Europe as a supranational polity through the conditionality of membership and intensive contact with the candidate countries. This article analyses the discourses of the Commission on Turkey and gives us insights into how well Turkey fits the supranational model in the eyes of Commission officials. It demonstrates how the boundaries of supranationalism are set and even challenged by the prospects of Turkey’s accession

Re-thinking Regionalism: Europe and East Asia in Comparative Historical Perspective

Regionally-based processes of political and economic integration, security cooperation, and even social identification have become increasingly important and prominent parts of the international system. Nowhere have such processes gone further than in Western Europe. Somewhat surprisingly, similar patterns of regional integration have been steadily developing in East Asia - a region many observers consider unlikely to replicate the European experience. What are the factors that encourage regional political cooperation and economic integration? Are there common forces encouraging such outcomes in very different geographical areas and at very different moments in history? This paper uses an historically grounded comparative approach to examine the historical pre-conditions that underpinned the formation of the European Union, and then contrasts them with the situation in East Asia today. While the overall geopolitical and specific national contexts are very different, the East Asian experience may ultimately generate relationships and structures that are more like the European Union's than some of the sceptics imagine

Social Work and Countering Violent Extremism in Sweden and the UK

Social Work in Europe, is now being tasked with managing the “problems” of terrorism, i.e supporting those affected by terrorist attacks, managing returnees affiliated with Terrorist groups in the Middle East, or, as will be discussed here, identifying those at risk from radicalisation and extremism. Both Britain and Sweden have Counter-Terrorism policies, but recent developments in both countries, have made it a statutory requirement for social workers, to work within such policies. This paper seeks to explore the policies in both countries utilising a comparative approach, to consider the similarities in not only policy and practice, but also in the ethical consequences such policies pose for social workers across Europe. The exploration considers; the extent to which anti-radicalisation policies influence social work practices in Sweden and the UK and how they might undermine social work as a human rights profession. The results indicate that anti-radicalisation policies run the risk of reducing social work to become a ‘policing profession’ practicing social control. This has substantial consequences for social work and its global ethics, which should be considered and struggled against by social workers committed to principles of social justice and human rights