The Effects of Cattle Enclosures on Small Mammals

An investigation to determine the effects of cattle exclosures on the habits and activities of small mammals within and surrounding these protected areas was conducted from September to November of 1958. Four exclosures located in a 750 acre moderately grazed mixed prairie near Hays, Kansas that were sampled included a shortgrass exclosure, a little bluestem exclosure, and two exclosures diagonally dissected by a transition area. Live-traps were placed inside each exclosure in a grid with 10 feet intervals. The species, sex, and approximate age of each individual were recorded. Each exclosure was live-trapped from 10 to 14 days. Snap-traps were used outside each exclosure to determine the distance the marked rodents travelled from within the exclosure. Four concentric rings of snap-traps were placed around each exclosure. The rings were 10 feet apart and the intervals between traps varied from five to 10 feet. The snap-traps were checked daily at each exclosure for a period of seven to 14 days. The point contact method was used to determine the percentage composition and basal cover of the vegetation within and surrounding each exclosure. The principle species of small mammals captured during the study were (Peromyscus maniculatus nebrascensis), (Microtus ochrogaster haydenii), (Sigmodon hispidus texianus), and (Onychomys leucogaster leucogaster). Peromyscus were the most commonly captured mammals at the four exclosures, and were generally taken in sparsely vegetated hillside areas. Microtus and Sigmodon were captured almost exclusively in the heavy vegetation within or adjacent to the protected areas. When Microtus and Sigmodon were found together, Sigmodon occupied the more favorably vegetated areas. Onychomys occurred in greatest numbers within or adjacent to sparsely vegetated hillside areas

Deaths from heart failure: using coarsened exact matching to correct cause-of-death statistics

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Incomplete information on death certificates makes recorded cause-of-death data less useful for public health monitoring and planning. Certifying physicians sometimes list only the mode of death without indicating the underlying disease or diseases that led to the death. Inconsistent cause-of-death assignment among cardiovascular causes of death is of particular concern. This can prevent valid epidemiologic comparisons across countries and over time.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We propose that coarsened exact matching be used to infer the underlying causes of death where only the mode of death is known. We focus on the case of heart failure in US, Mexican, and Brazilian death records.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Redistribution algorithms derived using this method assign the largest proportion of heart failure deaths to ischemic heart disease in all three countries (53%, 26%, and 22% respectively), with larger proportions assigned to hypertensive heart disease and diabetes in Mexico and Brazil (16% and 23% vs. 7% for hypertensive heart disease, and 13% and 9% vs. 6% for diabetes). Reassigning these heart failure deaths increases the US ischemic heart disease mortality rate by 6%.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The frequency with which physicians list heart failure in the causal chain for various underlying causes of death allows for inference about how physicians use heart failure on the death certificate in different settings. This easy-to-use method has the potential to reduce bias and increase comparability in cause-of-death data, thereby improving the public health utility of death records.</p

Culture and management control interdependence: An analysis of control choices that complement the delegation of authority in Western cultural regions

This study examines the influence of cultural regions on the interdependence between delegation of authority and other management control (MC) practices. In particular, we assess whether one of the central contentions of agency theory, that incentive contracting and delegation are jointly determined, holds in different cultural regions. Drawing on prior literature, we hypothesise that the MC practices that operate as a complement to delegation vary depending on societal values and preferences, and that MC practices other than incentive contracting will complement delegation in firms in non-Anglo cultural regions. Using data collected from 584 strategic business units across three Western cultural regions (Anglo, Germanic, Nordic), our results show that the interdependence between delegation and incentive contracting is confined to Anglo firms. In the Nordic and Germanic regions, we find that strategic and action planning participation operate as a complement to delegation, while delegation is also complemented by manager selection in Nordic firms. Overall, our study demonstrates that cultural values and preferences significantly influence MC interdependence, and suggests that caution needs to be taken in making cross-cultural generalisations about the complementarity of MC practices