Transnational organizing: a case study of contract workers in the Colombian mining industry

This article examines recent organizing successes in the Carbones del Cerrejón coal mine, reversing the organizational crisis of the Colombian mining union, Sintracarbon. Using Wever's concept of ‘field-enlarging strategies’, we argue that these events were facilitated by the dissemination of organizing experiences between affiliates of a Global Union Federation, International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), which recently merged to form IndustriALL. Additionally, we argue that this articulation between international and national unions, based on the principle of subsidiarity, was facilitated through sustained ICEM educational project activity, providing multiple entry points for Sintracarbon to operationalize its strategy and re-establish bargaining with multinational employers

Toreador : Waltz

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/3472/thumbnail.jp

Male burying beetles extend, not reduce, parental care duration when reproductive competition is high

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordThe published version is also available in ORE: http://hdl.handle.net/10871/22254Male parents spend less time caring than females in many species with biparental care. The traditional explanation for this pattern is that males have lower confidence of parentage, so they desert earlier in favour of pursuing other mating opportunities. However, one recent alternative hypothesis is that prolonged male parental care might also evolve if staying to care actively improves paternity. If this is the case, an increase in reproductive competition should be associated with increased paternal care. To test this prediction, we manipulated the level of reproductive competition experienced by burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides (Herbst, 1783). We found that caregiving males stayed for longer and mated more frequently with their partner when reproductive competition was greater. Reproductive productivity did not increase when males extended care. Our findings provide support for the increased paternity hypothesis. Extended duration of parental care may be a male tactic both protecting investment (in the current brood) and maximizing paternity (in subsequent brood(s) via female stored sperm) even if this fails to maximize current reproductive productivity and creates conflict of interest with their mate via costs associated with increased mating frequency

The diagnostic accuracy and cost-effectiveness of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and enhanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques in aiding the localisation of prostate abnormalities for biopsy : a systematic review and economic evaluation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Habitat‐dependent occupancy and movement in a migrant songbird highlights the importance of mangroves and forested lagoons in Panama and Colombia

Climate change is predicted to impact tropical mangrove forests due to decreased rainfall, sea‐level rise, and increased seasonality of flooding. Such changes are likely to influence habitat quality for migratory songbirds occupying mangrove wetlands during the tropical dry season. Overwintering habitat quality is known to be associated with fitness in migratory songbirds, yet studies have focused primarily on territorial species. Little is known about the ecology of nonterritorial species that may display more complex movement patterns within and among habitats of differing quality. In this study, we assess within‐season survival and movement at two spatio‐temporal scales of a nonterritorial overwintering bird, the prothonotary warbler (Protonotaria citrea), that depends on mangroves and tropical lowland forests. Specifically, we (a) estimated within‐patch survival and persistence over a six‐week period using radio‐tagged birds in central Panama and (b) modeled abundance and occupancy dynamics at survey points throughout eastern Panama and northern Colombia as the dry season progressed. We found that site persistence was highest in mangroves; however, the probability of survival did not differ among habitats. The probability of warbler occupancy increased with canopy cover, and wet habitats were least likely to experience local extinction as the dry season progressed. We also found that warbler abundance is highest in forests with the tallest canopies. This study is one of the first to demonstrate habitat‐dependent occupancy and movement in a nonterritorial overwintering migrant songbird, and our findings highlight the need to conserve intact, mature mangrove, and lowland forests

Fluence correction factor for graphite calorimetry in a clinical high-energy carbon-ion beam

The aim of this work is to develop and adapt a formalism to determine absorbed dose to water from graphite calorimetry measurements in carbon-ion beams. Fluence correction factors, kfl, needed when using a graphite calorimeter to derive dose to water, were determined in a clinical high-energy carbon-ion beam. Measurements were performed in a 290 MeV/n carbon-ion beam with a field size of 11 x 11 cm2, without modulation. In order to sample the beam, a plane-parallel Roos ionization chamber was chosen for its small collecting volume in comparison with the field size. Experimental information on fluence corrections was obtained from depth-dose measurements in water. This procedure was repeated with graphite plates in front of the water phantom. Fluence corrections were also obtained with Monte Carlo simulations through the implementation of three methods based on (i) the fluence distributions differential in energy, (ii) a ratio of calculated doses in water and graphite at equivalent depths and (iii) simulations of the experimental setup. The kfl term increased in depth from 1.00 at the entrance toward 1.02 at a depth near the Bragg peak, and the average difference between experimental and numerical simulations was about 0.13%. Compared to proton beams, there was no reduction of the kfl due to alpha particles because the secondary particle spectrum is dominated by projectile fragmentation. By developing a practical dose conversion technique, this work contributes to improving the determination of absolute dose to water from graphite calorimetry in carbon-ion beams

A Polya Tree Based Model for Unmarked Individuals in an Open Wildlife Population

Many ecological sampling schemes do not allow for unique marking of individuals. Instead, only counts of individuals detected on each sampling occasion are available. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for modelling count data in an open population where individuals can arrive and depart from the site during the sampling period. A Bayesian nonparametric prior, known as Polya Tree, is used for modelling the bivariate density of arrival and departure times. Thanks to this choice, we can easily incorporate prior information on arrival and departure density while still allowing the model to flexibly adjust the posterior inference according to the observed data. Moreover, the model provides great scalability as the complexity does not depend on the population size but just on the number of sampling occasions, making it particularly suitable for data-sets with high numbers of detections. We apply the new model to count data of newts collected by the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent

The effect of size and sex ratio experiences on reproductive competition in Nicrophorus vespilloides burying beetles in the wild.

PublishedJournal ArticleThis is an open access article.Male parents face a choice: should they invest more in caring for offspring or in attempting to mate with other females? The most profitable course depends on the intensity of competition for mates, which is likely to vary with the population sex ratio. However, the balance of pay-offs may vary among individual males depending on their competitive prowess or attractiveness. We tested the prediction that sex ratio and size of the resource holding male provide cues regarding the level of mating competition prior to breeding and therefore influence the duration of a male's biparental caring in association with a female. Male burying beetles, Nicrophorus vespilloides were reared, post-eclosion, in groups that differed in sex ratio. Experimental males were subsequently translocated to the wild, provided with a breeding resource (carcass) and filmed. We found no evidence that sex ratio cues prior to breeding affected future parental care behaviour but males that experienced male-biased sex ratios took longer to attract wild mating partners. Smaller males attracted a higher proportion of females than did larger males, securing significantly more monogamous breeding associations as a result. Smaller males thus avoided competitive male-male encounters more often than larger males. This has potential benefits for their female partners who avoid both intrasexual competition and direct costs of higher mating frequency associated with competing males.Natural Environment Research Council. NE/1528326/1, NE/1025468/