Consumption soothing and vulnerability in the Zone Lacustre, Mali

"This paper explores risk sharing in the Zone Lacustre, Mali, as viewed through the lens of consumption smoothing. We find that idiosyncratic shocks appear to have little impact on consumption, and that households respond to these shocks in a variety of ways. In general, nonpoor households are more likely to enter into new income-generating activities while poor households are more likely to engage in credit or gift exchange or to ration consumption. When we construct a stronger test for consumption smoothing, we find that changes in household income lead to modest changes in consumption. Covariant shocks, as measured by village/round dummies, always lead to changes in consumption. These results are robust to concerns regarding bias resulting from measurement error or endogeneity of changes in income. Lastly, we find that households with access to improved water control infrastructure are less vulnerable than those that rely on rainfall or the flooding of the Niger River." Authors' AbstractVulnerability ,Consumption shocks ,

Consumption soothing and vulnerability in the Zone Lacustre, Mali

"This paper explores risk sharing in the Zone Lacustre, Mali, as viewed through the lens of consumption smoothing. We find that idiosyncratic shocks appear to have little impact on consumption, and that households respond to these shocks in a variety of ways. In general, nonpoor households are more likely to enter into new income-generating activities while poor households are more likely to engage in credit or gift exchange or to ration consumption. When we construct a stronger test for consumption smoothing, we find that changes in household income lead to modest changes in consumption. Covariant shocks, as measured by village/round dummies, always lead to changes in consumption. These results are robust to concerns regarding bias resulting from measurement error or endogeneity of changes in income. Lastly, we find that households with access to improved water control infrastructure are less vulnerable than those that rely on rainfall or the flooding of the Niger River." Authors' AbstractVulnerability ,Consumption shocks ,

Systematics and Biogeography of the \u3ci\u3eCortinarius violaceus\u3c/i\u3e group and Sequestrate Evolution in \u3ci\u3eCortinarius\u3c/i\u3e (Agaricales)

Phylogenetics is a powerful tool used for illuminating the diversity of life on Earth, their evolution and their ecology. I created a multi-gene phylogenetic tree of Cortinarius section Cortinarius and uncovered five previously overlooked species, increasing the number of species in the section from seven to twelve. All members of the clade possess both cheilocystidia and pleurocystidia and possess a pigment known as (R)-39,49-dihydroxybphenylalanine. Ancestral state reconstruction estimated that the ancestral host was most likely an angiosperm, switching hosts when encountering novel host species in new lands, and only C. violaceus associating with the Pinaceae in North America. Biogeographic analysis found it was most likely that the group originated in Australia, dispersed through long-distance dispersal to South America, where it switched hosts to certain members of the Fabaceae, diversified with Quercus in Central America, then migrated into North America. The test the ‘secotioid’ hypothesis, I performed a phylogenetic logistic regression correlating environmental variables with the state of being sequestrate. ‘Mean diurnal temperature’ and ‘mean maximum temperature in the hottest month’ were significant in estimating the probability of being sequestrate. None of the precipitation variables were significant. A world map of the distribution of sequestrate specimens included in this study show the sequestrate taxa being present in temperate areas and absent from the tropics, in concordance with the finding that sequestrate taxa are found in habitats variable temperatures. This study brings in doubt that moisture is the sole driving force for the evolution of sequestrate taxa

On reflexive and participatory approaches in digital preservation today (Interview with Samantha Lutz)

Digitisation brings new demands and new challenges to the realm of cultural heritage, particularly around voice and preservation. Natalie Harrower is Director of the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI), a national digital repository for archiving, preserving and providing access to Ireland’s cultural heritage, humanities and social sciences data. In the interview, Natalie Harrower examines current developments in digital preservation from a practical perspective, offering concrete examples that range from technical and legal challenges and participatory memory practices to future challenges of digital preservation such as creative practices of reuses, economies of sharing cultural heritage and preservation of digitally-born materials. Against this backdrop, she addresses ethical issues and the question of cultural sustainability, spanning the poles of remembering and forgetting and diverging preservation strategies in today’s digital universe.

The Dialogical Self Analogy for the Godhead: Recasting the “God is aPerson” Debate

May God may be understood and referred to as a“person”? This is alive debate in contemporary theological and philosophical circles. However, despite the attention this debate has received, the vital question of how to account for God’s trinitarian nature has been mostly overlooked. Due to trinitarian concerns about the unqualified use of “person” as an analogy for the Godhead, Iintervene in this debate with atwofold proposal. The first is that proponents of using aperson as an analogy for the Godhead will be better served by using apsychologically informed analogy of a“self” instead. In particular, the Dialogical Self model of aperson holds much promise. In what follows, Iargue that the “Dialogical Self Analogy” for the Godhead is more likely to uphold God’s trinitarian nature, avoid trinitarian confusion and related problems than “person” analogies do. The primary benefit of speaking of God as aDialogical Self is that it offers apsychologically modelled analogy for God, whilst avoiding the language of person, yet strongly taking into account God’s trinitarian nature. This has the important benefit of preserving the concept and language of “person” for the trinitarian persons (the prosopa/hypostases), and hence avoiding the linguistic, conceptual and ecumenical confusion that arises when referring to the Godhead as aperson. The strength of using the model and language of aDialogical Self as an analogy for the Godhead (instead of person) is demonstrated by showing its compatibility with Erickson’s criteria for describing the Trinity

The Effects of Organizational Culture on Marketing Programs: A Grounded Theory Study

Marketing is an essential functional component of business and is used by organizations to communicate their messages to the public marketplace. Many corporations employ additional assistance from external marketing agencies for developing and delivering marketing campaigns. Worldwide, the spending by the top 100 companies on marketing was in excess of $117.8 billion in 2008. Spending in marketing projects is intended to generate hundreds of billions dollars in the global economy. This study researched ten people in eight different organizations to understand their experiences have been working in partnership on marketing campaigns, and what impact organizational culture has their partnership. Using an interpretive, grounded theory methodology, this study sought answers to research questions regarding the elements of organizational culture that impact the implementation and success. The results have implications for organizations to improve their partnerships and results when working on marketing projects

A survey of standardized testing and authentic assessment in residential psychiatric facility schools

This study examines the role of standardized tests and authentic assessment in residential psychiatric facility schools. One hundred residential psychiatric facility in-house schools in thirty-eight states received a survey concerning the school\u27s demographics and opinions on educational testing and assessment. Based upon the information received by the 41% of returned surveys, the answers to the research questions are as follows: Authentic assessment is being used by 54% of the responding residential psychiatric facility schools. Based upon the opinions expressed by the survey responses, less than twenty-five percent of those responding perceive student opportunities being prohibited by standardized tests as the students transition into a public school. According to the responses gathered by this survey, educators are interested in authentic assessment. Yet, educators express concerns about authentic assessment and their lack of knowledge and understanding of its application. This survey proved both hypotheses to be not true. Those responding to the survey do not display a majority being anti-standardized test. Also, the survey demonstrated a lack of understanding and preference of authentic assessment in residential psychiatric facilities by the educational directors and/or principals. Future studies and collaborative efforts between interested schools and educators is recommended for the benefit of schools and the students whom they serve

Introduction to Citizen Journalism and Social Media Minitrack

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Dynamic maps: a visual-analytic methodology for exploring spatio-temporal disease patterns

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Epidemiologic studies are often confounded by the human and environmental interactions that are complex and dynamic spatio-temporal processes. Hence, it is difficult to discover nuances in the data and generate pertinent hypotheses. Dynamic mapping, a method to simultaneously visualize temporal and spatial information, was introduced to elucidate such complexities. A conceptual framework for dynamic mapping regarding principles and implementation methods was proposed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The spatio-temporal dynamics of <it>Salmonella </it>infections for 2002 in the U.S. elderly were depicted via dynamic mapping. Hospitalization records were obtained from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services. To visualize the spatial relationship, hospitalization rates were computed and superimposed onto maps of environmental exposure factors including livestock densities and ambient temperatures. To visualize the temporal relationship, the resultant maps were composed into a movie.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The dynamic maps revealed that the <it>Salmonella </it>infections peaked at specific spatio-temporal loci: more clusters were observed in the summer months and higher density of such clusters in the South. The peaks were reached when the average temperatures were greater than 83.4°F (28.6°C). Although the relationship of salmonellosis rates and occurrence of temperature anomalies was non-uniform, a strong synchronization was found between high broiler chicken sales and dense clusters of cases in the summer.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Dynamic mapping is a practical visual-analytic technique for public health practitioners and has an outstanding potential in providing insights into spatio-temporal processes such as revealing outbreak origins, percolation and travelling waves of the diseases, peak timing of seasonal outbreaks, and persistence of disease clusters.</p