ECOLOGICAL RELEASE OF AN EXOTIC SPECIES UPON SUPPRESSION OF ITS INVASIVE PREDATOR: A FIVE-YEAR CASE STUDY, WITH NOTES ON OTHER SPECIES, AND THE LIFE HISTORY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN GECKO, HEMIDACTYLUS TURCICUS

Ecological release allows a species to expand beyond its currently occupied niche upon removal of a limiting mechanism such as a predator or competitor. Unfortunately, these interactions between exotic and invasive organisms are relatively unknown. We examine how a small-scale, intensive Red Fire Ant (Solenopsis invicta) eradication program may influence the herpetological and formicid community on a 1.85 ha plot in northeast Texas. Red Fire Ant mounds were individually treated with a series of pesticides in 2005, with follow up treatments in 2006 and 2007. Populations of Red Fire Ants, other ant species, reptiles, and amphibians were monitored throughout the study. Other ant species showed signs of recovery after two years of Red Fire Ant suppression. Although reptile and amphibian diversity increased during the study, only populations of the Mediterranean Gecko (Hemidactylus turcicus) showed a dramatic response. The removal of Red Fire Ants provided this exotic Gecko with the opportunity to proliferate. The potential for these kinds of unexpected responses must be considered when removing introduced species from communities containing multiple exotic and potentially invasive organisms

Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing

[Excerpt] This book is about two parallel stories. First, it relates the account of the most aggressive campaign ever waged by a global union federation (GUF), a years-long effort of private security guard unions to organize against Group4 Securicor (G4S), the world\u27s largest private employer after Walmart. What began as an isolated battle in the United States blossomed into a worldwide struggle for global unionism impacting hundreds of thou­ sands of workers from over twenty countries. But the global effort also gave rise to deep local struggles. Consequently, the narrative moves among dif­ ferent scales of action, from the global arena, to the national-level context, to the local union office. Throughout the campaign, workers in different places won wage increases, union recognition, benefits, an end to abusive workplace discrimination, and, most importantly, a greater degree of control over their employer\u27s business model. In the United States, security guard union density (8 percent as of late 2012) is now slightly higher than the national private-sector average, and the campaign settlement provides the union with a dearer path to bring more workers into the fold. Rarely have global campaigns meant more than superficial changes in workers\u27 lives-this struggle set a new standard. The second story describes a transition to a new spirit of transnational labor activism. The word spirit implies a shifting idea about how labor should best confront the problems posed by global capital. In a context of rising corporate power and declining or unenforceable worker rights (publicly enforceable claims), many of labor\u27s tried and true strategies have proven wholly ineffective. In response, since the early 1970s unions have engaged in what I call governance struggles, a panoply of strategies to subordinate the rules-based logic of private companies to democratic oversight by workers and their unions. The significance of the fight against G4S is the complex and contradictory ways in which those gains at the global level were articulated onto the local context, enhancing worker mobilization and transforming local union movements. Most global union campaigns seek to assert universal labor standards and core values within a given company. But the inability to transfer any gains to the local context has often meant that workers\u27 lives remain unchanged. Rather than insist on the incompatibility of global and local levels of activism, the findings in this book suggest a paradox—effective global unionism requires reciprocity with local actors. The conclusions also permit cautious optimism about the prospects for authentic labor internationalism where others have asserted an overriding pessimism (see Burawoy 2010). The question therefore posed here is simple: How can global unions build local power

A Culture of Scarcity And a God of Abundance: Leading a Church into a Bigger, Better, More Beautiful Story

Christians live in the ever-present tension of two competing stories. The first is the story our culture promotes. It is one of scarcity. In this story, there is never enough money, resources, time, or love to go around. The other story is the one God tells in Scripture. It is a story of an abundant Creator who gives more than enough for life, love, purpose, and enjoyment in this world. This paper explores my journey in leading Belfair Community Church away from a mindset of scarcity and into a living theology of abundance. When we truly trust that God is willing and able to give God’s people more than enough for the living of these days, then we are free. We are free to give ourselves to authentic relationships in the Christian community, and we are free to take great risks on loving those outside of the faith. I have focused on the power of the stories we tell and how we tell them. If you want to change the culture, you must change the stories that shape that culture. Chapter One introduces the problem of scarcity and the God of abundance. Chapter Two traces the theme of abundance throughout scripture to help us consider how God defines abundance. Chapter Three looks to the worlds of business, psychology, and the church for different approaches to changing a culture. The remaining chapters focus on the power of story to change a culture. In Chapter Four, I propose that how we tell the story matters by encouraging a shift from monological to dialogical preaching. Chapter Five invites the church back to the table, where the story of belonging is enacted in community. Chapter Six invites us to participate in the story of God’s abundance by joining in risky mission together

First scientific VLBI observations using New Zealand 30 metre radio telescope WARK30M

We report the results of a successful 24 hour 6.7 GHz VLBI experiment using the 30 meter radio telescope WARK30M near Warkworth, New Zealand, recently converted from a radio telecommunications antenna, and two radio telescopes located in Australia: Hobart 26-m and Ceduna 30-m. The geocentric position of WARK30M is determined with a 100 mm uncertainty for the vertical component and 10 mm for the horizontal components. We report correlated flux densities at 6.7 GHz of 175 radio sources associated with Fermi gamma-ray sources. A parsec scale emission from the radio source 1031-837 is detected, and its association with the gamma-ray object 2FGL J1032.9-8401 is established with a high likelihood ratio. We conclude that the new Pacific area radio telescope WARK30M is ready to operate for scientific projects.Comment: Accepted for publication by the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific on April 8, 2015; 7 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables. Table 3 is machine-readable. It can be found in the source of this submissio

Time's Up: Homeless New Yorkers Demand Alternatives to Bloomberg's Failed Five-Year Plan

More people are living in homeless shelters now than when Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002. On June 24th, 2004, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled his Five Year Plan to reduce homelessness in New York City by two-thirds. The failure of Bloomberg's plan is evidence that what is needed are fundamental changes to housing policy in NYC, which is at the root of what is falsely portrayed as a homeless crisis.New York Magazine has said that his homeless policies are "the single biggest failure of the Bloomberg administration." The 2009 Mayor's Management Report found an across-the-board increase in the shelter census. As the five years of Bloomberg's plan comes to a close, this report focuses on the failures of one of its cornerstones, the Rental Subsidies Programs. Family and child homelessness have increased under these programs, even with thousands of households receiving vouchers, the rental subsidies have built-in obstacles to employment and self-sufficiency so crucial to making the transition out of the shelter system possible

Commentary: Culture of Poverty: Don\u27t Call it a Comeback!

Commentary on the culture of poverty argument

Scintillation in the Circinus Galaxy water megamasers

We present observations of the 22 GHz water vapor megamasers in the Circinus galaxy made with the Tidbinbilla 70m telescope. These observations confirm the rapid variability seen earlier by Greenhill et al (1997). We show that this rapid variability can be explained by interstellar scintillation, based on what is now known of the interstellar scintillation seen in a significant number of flat spectrum AGN. The observed variability cannot be fully described by a simple model of either weak or diffractive scintillation.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. AJ accepte