Exploring how Anglican clergy approach rural ministry in England : employing the Glowinkowski Predisposition Indicator

This study complements recent work employing personality theories among clergy by exploring the insights afforded by the Glowinkowski Predisposition Indicator (GPI), an instrument designed to assess engagement with professional work across six domains styled as emotionality, extraversion, cognition, agreeableness, attainment, and drive. Data provided by 99 Anglican clergy from one rural diocese in the Church of England identified an introverted approach to leadership that manages change cautiously, preferring to remain with tried and tested methods rather than to experiment with novel approaches. Two-fifths of the clergy would find it hard to express their feelings openly, leading to a potentially unhealthy suppression and internalisation of personal negative emotions

Linking clergy psychological type profile and church growth in the Diocese of Chester : a pilot study

Two recent studies (one in England and one in Australia) have linked church growth and church decline with the psychological type profile of church leaders. The present study, conducted within the Diocese of Chester, compares the psychological type profile of two groups of clergy who had served in the same parishes for five years or more: 29 leading declining churches and 19 leading growing churches. The data found a significantly higher preference for perceiving among those leading growing churches, although there were no significant differences in terms of the orientations, the perceiving process, or the judging process

Psychological type profile and work-related psychological health of clergy serving in the Diocese of Chester

This study examines the psychological type profile and work-related psychological health of ninety-nine clergy serving the Diocese of Chester alongside normative data for the Church of England published in previous studies. The data demonstrated that these clergy share the general psychological type profile of Church of England clergy, with preferences for introversion (60%), intuition (55%), feeling (57%), and judging (76%). Compared with the normative data they show slightly better work related psychological health, with lower levels of emotional exhaustion in ministry and higher levels of satisfaction in ministry. The relevance of such profiling is discussed for the wider Church

Between tinkering and transformation: A contemporary appraisal of climate change adaptation research on the world's islands

Islands are at the center of discourses on climate change. Yet despite extensive work on diverse island systems in a changing climate, we still lack an understanding of climate change-related responses amongst islands and what shifting from what might be called “tinkering” (perhaps heat warnings) to “transformational” adaptation (perhaps relocation) means for these vastly different landmasses which are often grouped together by default. Through a systematic review of the climate change adaptation scientific literature, this paper critically reflects on how considering islands as a homogenous ensemble and the use of buzzwords such as “transformational adaptation” may be problematic for diverse island realities under climate change. Our findings show that the adaptation evidence base actually provides literature on contrasting island types and cultural and political contexts, including Small Island Developing States as well as other island territories. This study finds research gaps with respect to regions (e.g., South America, Africa, and Mediterranean) and that there is overall both little evidence of and a lack of context-specific definitions of transformational adaptation in island contexts. The adaptation literature does not yet fully reflect the experiences or needs of islands regarding transitions and transformations throughout history

Flora da fazenda Nhumirim, Nhecolandia, Pantanal: relacao preliminar.

Com o objetivo de contribuir ao conhecimento da flora do Pantanal, ainda pouco conhecida, e para servir de base a estudos ecologicos fez-se a relacao preliminar da fazenda Nhumirim, considerada representativa da Nhecolandia em termos de solo (arenoso) e flora. As plantas arroladas pertencem a 606 especies, 377 generos e 116 familias. As familias mais numerosas sao: Gramineae (91 especies), Leguminosae (85), Compositae (28), Euphorbiaceae (26) e Cyperaceae (25). Os generos mais representados sao: Cassia (senso amplo), Paspalum, Panicum, Aeschynomene, Axonopus, Croton, Desmodium, Digitaria, Eleocharis, Eupatorium, Ludwigia, Polygala e Tabebuia. Cerca de 12% sao ruderais.bitstream/item/41132/1/PA05.pd

Conservation strategies to mitigate impacts from climate change in Amazonia

Protected area systems and conservation corridors can help mitigate the impacts of climate change on Amazonian biodiversity. We propose conservation design criteria that will help species survive in situ or adjust range distributions in response to increased drought. The first priority is to protect the western Amazon, identified as the ‘Core Amazon’, due to stable rainfall regimes and macro-ecological phenomena that have led to the evolution of high levels of biodiversity. Ecotones can buffer the impact from climate change because populations are genetically adapted to climate extremes, particularly seasonality, because high levels of habitat diversity are associated with edaphic variability. Future climatic tension zones should be surveyed for geomorphological features that capture rain or conserve soil moisture to identify potential refugia for humid forest species. Conservation corridors should span environmental gradients to ensure that species can shift range distributions. Riparian corridors provide protection to both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Multiple potential altitudinal corridors exist in the Andes, but natural and anthropogenic bottlenecks will constrain the ability of species to shift their ranges and adapt to climate change. Planned infrastructure investments are a serious threat to the potential to consolidate corridors over the short and medium term

Framework Report as Guidance for Case Studies

The main goal of the ENHANCE project is to develop and analyse new ways to enhance society's resilience to catastrophic natural hazard impacts. Key for achieving this goal is to analyse new multi-sector partnerships (MSPs) that aim at reduce or redistribute risk, and increase resilience. This document introduces a working definition of partnership, where MSPs are understood as: "...voluntary but enforceable commitments between partners from different sectors (public authorities, private services/enterprise and civil society), which can be temporary or long-lasting. They are founded on sharing the same goal in order to gain mutual benefit, reduce risk and increase resilience." (Rhodes, 1997) New forms of MSPs are needed, since it appears that existing partnerships are often not effective in managing risk from natural hazards. For example, the different responses to heat-waves and floods in Europe demonstrate that the roles of public, private, and civil society actors (including individuals) in preparing for and responding to catastrophic impacts are often neither clear nor effective. Moreover, actors must often base their risk management strategies on scarce, limited, or inaccurate risk information. Together, these factors can lead to the development of ineffective (prevention and mitigation) and unacceptable measures and unexpectedly large impacts of natural disasters (financial, ecological, health, and social). Moreover, in preparing for and responding to natural hazard impacts, there is also often a lack of clarity on financial responsibilities about who pays what, how much, and when. Hence, knowing the challenge of managing risks resulting from natural hazards has increased, it becomes clear that these risks cannot be handled by either private sector of the government as single actors, and strategies to increase resilience should therefore incorporate all sectors of society (including closer cooperation between sectors)

Dromion solutions of noncommutative Davey-Stewartson equations

We consider a noncommutative version of the Davey-Stewartson equations and derive two families of quasideterminant solution via Darboux and binary Darboux transformations. These solutions can be verified by direct substitution. We then calculate the dromion solutions of the equations and obtain computer plots in a noncommutative setting.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

Edaphic, structural and physiological contrasts across Amazon Basin forest-savanna ecotones suggest a role for potassium as a key modulator of tropical woody vegetation structure and function

Sampling along a precipitation gradient in tropical South America extending from ca. 0.8 to 2.0 m ag-1, savanna soils had consistently lower exchangeable cation concentrations and higher C/N ratios than nearby forest plots. These soil differences were also reflected in canopy averaged leaf traits with savanna trees typically having higher leaf mass per unit area but lower mass-based nitrogen (Nm) and potassium (Km). Both Nm and Km also increased with declining mean annual precipitation (PA), but most area-based leaf traits such as leaf photosynthetic capacity showed no systematic variation with PA or vegetation type. Despite this invariance, when taken in conjunction with other measures such as mean canopy height, area-based soil exchangeable potassium content, [K]sa , proved to be an excellent predictor of several photosynthetic properties (including 13C isotope discrimination). Moreover, when considered in a multivariate context with PA and soil plant available water storage capacity (θP) as covariates, [K]sa also proved to be an excellent predictor of stand-level canopy area, providing drastically improved fits as compared to models considering just PA and/or θP. Neither calcium, nor magnesium, nor soil pH could substitute for potassium when tested as alternative model predictors (ΔAIC > 10). Nor for any model could simple soil texture metrics such as sand or clay content substitute for either [K]sa or θP. Taken in conjunction with recent work in Africa and the forests of the Amazon Basin, this suggests-in combination with some newly conceptualised interacting effects of PA and θP also presented here-a critical role for potassium as a modulator of tropical vegetation structure and function.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) TROBIT Consortium projectCNPqRoyal Society of London - Wolfson Research Merit Awar