Lagging rural areas: detection, diagnosis and planning development

The overall objective of the present paper is to identify and analyse the territorial factors that influence the economy and demography of rural areas in Catalonia. The paper begins with a definition of the different rural typologies, and then proposes an innovative methodology combining tools from different disciplines, such as economics, statistics, geography and sociology. The methodology is applied to the 946 municipalities existing in Catalonia today, which visually results in a map of the region. The map obtained allows us to identify rural spaces throughout the territory – including metropolitan and peri-urban rural areas. The next step has been the analysis of the indicators of their socio-economic development contexts in order to identify their similarities and differences in terms of socioeconomic and territorial characteristics. As a result of applying this methodology, we can deepen our understanding of the factors behind lagging agricultural activity in rural spaces, as well as make progress in the identification of sustainable policies aimed at preventing the environmental, sociological and cultural losses linked to the abandonment of rural activities.Rural space, rural development, lagging rural economy, Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Reforms and infrastructure efficiency in Spain's container ports

This paper quantifies the evolution of technical efficiency in port infrastructure service provision in the major Spanish port authorities involved in container traffic. The paper also analyzes the extent to which port reforms that took place in the 1990's had an impact on the efficiency of the Spanish container ports. Because of the multi-output nature of port activities, we have estimated a distance function, which is a novel methodology in the study of the port industry. The results show that the reforms resulted in significant improvements in technological change, but that technical efficiency has in fact changed little on average. However, there is a significant movement of the efficiency within ports over time as a result of these reforms.Ports&Waterways,Transport and Trade Logistics,Environmental Economics&Policies,Common Carriers Industry,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Ports&Waterways,Transport Security,Common Carriers Industry,Transport and Trade Logistics,Public Sector Economics&Finance

Voice-Onset-Time in the Perception of Foreign Accent by Native Listeners of Spanish

This is the publisher's version, also found at http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=9ddd0be6-f332-41ea-a28f-e3b250c0cf59%40sessionmgr110&vid=2&hid=110&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ufh&AN=249562Determines the extent to which the variation of temporal characteristics of stops in a particular Spanish utterance spoken by an English speaker had a noticeable effect on the perception of foreignness of speech. Range in duration of the voice onset time of velar voiceless stop that would be perceived as native by Spanish; Manipulation of utterance with special computer program

Is behavioral ecology important for understanding and predicting population dynamics?

Population ecology is a discipline that studies changes in the number and composition (age, sex) of the individuals that form a population. Many of the mechanisms that generate these changes are associated with individual behavior, for example how individuals defend their territories, find mates or disperse. Therefore, it is important to model population dynamics considering the potential influence of behavior on the modeled dynamics. This study illustrates the diversity of behaviors that influence population dynamics describing several methods that allow integrating behavior into population models and range from simpler models that only consider the number of individuals to complex individual-based models that capture great levels of detail. A series of examples shows the importance of explicitly considering behavior in population modeling to avoid reaching erroneous conclusions. This integration is particularly relevant for conservation, as incorrect predictions regarding the dynamics of populations of conservation interest can lead to inadequate assessment and management. Improved predictions can favor effective protection of species and better use of the limited financial and human conservation resources

Generalized drivers in the mammalian endangerment process

An important challenge for conservation today is to understand the endangerment process and identify any generalized patterns in how threats occur and aggregate across taxa. Here we use a global database describing main current external threats in mammals to evaluate the prevalence of distinct threatening processes, primarily of anthropogenic origin, and to identify generalized drivers of extinction and their association with vulnerability status and intrinsic species' traits. We detect several primary threat combinations that are generally associated with distinct species. In particular, large and widely distributed mammals are affected by combinations of direct exploitation and threats associated with increasing landscape modification that go from logging to intense human land-use. Meanwhile, small, narrowly distributed species are affected by intensifying levels of landscape modification but are not directly exploited. In general more vulnerable species are affected by a greater number of threats, suggesting increased extinction risk is associated with the accumulation of external threats. Overall, our findings show that endangerment in mammals is strongly associated with increasing habitat loss and degradation caused by human land-use intensification. For large and widely distributed mammals there is the additional risk of being hunted

From conference abstract to publication in the conservation science literature

Every two years, the conservation community comes together at The Society for Conservation Biology's International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB) to share new developments in conservation science and practice. Publication of content presented at conferences in scientific journals adds to a permanent record and helps increase its potential impact. However, quantitative research on publication rates for meetings relevant to conservation is lacking. We provide a data-driven exploration of the presentations at the 25th ICCB held in Auckland, New Zealand in 2011. To study publication rates and presenter demographics, we recorded titles, number of authors, presenter affiliations, gender, country of study region, publication status, and the elapsed time between presentation and publication. Of the 980 contributions (782 talks and 198 posters), 587 (60%) became publications. We found a mean time to publication of 13.7 months for all published abstracts, and 21.3 months when excluding abstracts published before the meeting. The gender breakdown of presenters was almost even (53% male, 47% female), but the representation of the countries where the presenting authors were based at was biased. The political units with the most contributions were by far the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. Presenters based in English-speaking countries made up 74% of the total sample, but this did not influence the likelihood of their abstract becoming a publication. Understanding the presentation to publication process in conservation is useful to identify biases and potential challenges that need to be addressed to make conference communications permanent and increase their reach beyond those in attendance

Idea: Electronic Writing in L2: Accuracy Vs Other Outcomes

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://www.jstor.org/.This article describes the effects of dialogue journaling through e-mail on the language produced by two groups (experimental and control) of first-semester-Spanish college students. The independent variable was the use of electronic mail while the dependent variables were accuracy and number of words per message. Quantitative results showed that the control group significantly outperformed the experimental group regarding grammatical accuracy. Nonsignificant differences for either lexical accuracy or number of words were found. For qualitative analysis, a questionnaire administered to both groups requested their opinions on the effectiveness and attitude towards the journaling technique. The authors concluded that, although the e-mail medium promoted a more positive attitude towards the language, dialogue journals via e-mail did not improve grammar skills. Thus, suggestions are offered to modify instruction to enhance other positive results from the use of electronic writing in L2, thereby providing a way to incorporate authentic, real-life writing tasks, develop better classroom rapport, and allow advantages to students otherwise reluctant to speak in class

Socioeconomic correlates of global mammalian conservation status

The main causes of biodiversity decline are related to human use of resources, which is ultimately triggered by the socioeconomic decisions made by individuals and nations. Characterizing the socioeconomic attributes of areas in which biodiversity is most threatened can help us identify decisions and conditions that promote the presence or absence of threats and potentially suggest more sustainable strategies. In this study we explored how diverse indicators of social and economic development correlate with the conservation status of terrestrial mammals within countries explicitly exploring hypothesized linear and quadratic relationships. First, comparing countries with and without threatened mammals we found that those without threatened species are a disparate group formed by European countries and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) with little in common besides their slow population growth and a past of human impacts. Second, focusing on countries with threatened mammals we found that those with a more threatened mammalian biota have mainly rural populations, are predominantly exporters of goods and services, receive low to intermediate economic benefits from international tourism, and have medium to high human life expectancy. Overall, these results provide a comprehensive characterization of the socioeconomic profiles linked to mammalian conservation status of the world's nations, highlighting the importance of transborder impacts reflected by the international flux of goods, services and people. Further studies would be necessary to unravel the actual mechanisms and threats that link these socioeconomic profiles and indicators with mammalian conservation. Nevertheless, this study presents a broad and complete characterization that offers testable hypotheses regarding how socioeconomic development associates with biodiversity

Juegos y ejercicios prácticos para las materias del área de gestión de la producción y logística en ingeniería de producción.

En el trabajo de grado “Juegos y ejercicios para la administración de operaciones” presentado en el año 2004 por los estudiantes Tomas Arango y José Ignacio Garcés se recopilaron algunas actividades lúdicas que facilitan el aprendizaje de diferentes temas vistos en el programa de Ingeniería de Producción. La nueva metodología del aprendizaje requiere que los estudiantes cuenten con las herramientas adecuadas para realizar por sí solos las actividades o laboratorios con un acompañamiento mínimo de los docentes; por tal motivo los juegos existentes deben ser revisados y mejorados. Además es necesaria la creación de nuevos juegos que complementen el aprendizaje y comprendan los temas más relevantes de cada materia. Los juegos son experiencias que los estudiantes viven, que les permiten evaluar diferentes escenarios, situaciones y experimentar realmente las consecuencias para adquirir el criterio suficiente para la posterior toma de decisiones y la interiorización de conceptos. (Paul Gee, 2008

Which intrinsic traits predict vulnerability to extinction depends on the actual threatening processes

Understanding what makes some species more vulnerable to extinction than others is an important challenge for conservation. Many comparative analyses have addressed this issue exploring how intrinsic and extrinsic traits associate with general estimates of vulnerability. However, these general estimates do not consider the actual threats that drive species to extinction and hence, are more difficult to translate into effective management. We provide an updated description of the types and spatial distribution of threats that affect mammals globally using data from the IUCN for 5941 species of mammals. Using these data we explore the links between intrinsic species traits and specific threats in order to identify key intrinsic features associated with particular drivers of extinction. We find that families formed by small-size habitat specialists are more likely to be threatened by habitat-modifying processes; whereas, families formed by larger mammals with small litter sizes are more likely to be threatened by processes that directly affect survival. These results highlight the importance of considering the actual threatening process in comparative studies. We also discuss the need to standardize and rank threat importance in global assessments such as the IUCN Red List to improve our ability to understand what makes some species more vulnerable to extinction than others