Memories of Dubrovnik’s Global Citizen—Kathy Wilkes

This is a personal memoir about the life, work and courage of Professor Kathleen Wilkes, a Fellow in Philosophy for 30 years at St Hilda’s College, Oxford University. The article traces—and sets out to explain— particularly her links to Dubrovnik and Croatia and the Inter–University Centre since 1981, and supported strongly through the 1980s and even during the 1990s, remaining on-site during the cruel siege of the city when the IUC suffered a devastating fi re. Three key aspects of her life are explored—her work as a significant philosopher of science, her outstanding courage and work in defending academic freedom widely over the East Central European region, and her warm personality and generous friendship. This is why she can be regarded as Dubrovnik’s Global Citizen, the IUC was only too ready and willing to host this conference in her honour

A global assessment of the drivers of threatened terrestrial species richness

High numbers of threatened species might be expected to occur where overall species richness is also high; however, this explains only a proportion of the global variation in threatened species richness. Understanding why many areas have more or fewer threatened species than would be expected given their species richness, and whether that is consistent across taxa, is essential for identifying global conservation priorities. Here, we show that, after controlling for species richness, environmental factors, such as temperature and insularity, are typically more important than human impacts for explaining spatial variation in global threatened species richness. Human impacts, nevertheless, have an important role, with relationships varying between vertebrate groups and zoogeographic regions. Understanding this variation provides a framework for establishing global conservation priorities, identifying those regions where species are inherently more vulnerable to the effects of threatening human processes, and forecasting how threatened species might be distributed in a changing world

Marrying Business Activity Modeling with Activity-Based Costing for Measuring Systems’ Cost Savings

The motivation for business change is either to improve the quality of products or services or decrease the costs of current operations that create those products or services. Since implementation of an information system causes business change, that implementation should demonstrate some explicit value in improvement of quality or decreased costs (or both). Quantifying the value provides justification for information systems implementation. Through a case study of four real-world examples, this article shows how activity-based costing determines costs associated with a set of business activities prior to a business change and then again after the implemented system. Four separate municipal organizations’ business activity models were built prior to implementation of web-based electronic payment systems and then after the implementation. Activity-based costing analysis demonstrated benefits of reduced costs in a range from 15% to 28% in three cases. However, costs actually increased by 7% in a fourth case

Population and Harvest Trends of Big Game and Small Game Species

This technical document supports the Forest Service’s requirement to assess the status of renewable natural resources as mandated by the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 (RPA). It updates past reports on national and regional trends in population and harvest estimates for species classified as big game and small game. The trends reported here were derived from State Wildlife Agency biologists and supplemented with data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey for those bird species that are commonly sought by upland game hunters. Big game populations and harvests have generally increased over the 1975-2000 period. Small game populations and harvests, particularly those associated with grassland and agricultural systems, show strong patterns of decline. However, population and harvest trends for both groups need to be interpreted with caution because: (1) not all state agencies reported both population and harvest statistics for all species that are commonly sought by recreational hunters, and (2) there were cases of inconsistent reporting at the species level within RPA reporting regions that necessitated aggregating across species. The trends documented here are consistent with trends documented in past RPA reports completed in 1989 and 1999, although those data were also qualified by the same interpretational caveats that apply to the current report. Trends observed generally among big game species were encouraging, but the continual decline in small game populations and harvest remains an important wildlife resource management issue. Until population and harvest monitoring is improved among institutions that share the stewardship responsibility for recreationally important wildlife, national and regional trends will have to be interpreted carefully

Population and Harvest Trends of Big Game and Small Game Species

This technical document supports the Forest Service’s requirement to assess the status of renewable natural resources as mandated by the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 (RPA). It updates past reports on national and regional trends in population and harvest estimates for species classified as big game and small game. The trends reported here were derived from State Wildlife Agency biologists and supplemented with data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey for those bird species that are commonly sought by upland game hunters. Big game populations and harvests have generally increased over the 1975-2000 period. Small game populations and harvests, particularly those associated with grassland and agricultural systems, show strong patterns of decline. However, population and harvest trends for both groups need to be interpreted with caution because: (1) not all state agencies reported both population and harvest statistics for all species that are commonly sought by recreational hunters, and (2) there were cases of inconsistent reporting at the species level within RPA reporting regions that necessitated aggregating across species. The trends documented here are consistent with trends documented in past RPA reports completed in 1989 and 1999, although those data were also qualified by the same interpretational caveats that apply to the current report. Trends observed generally among big game species were encouraging, but the continual decline in small game populations and harvest remains an important wildlife resource management issue. Until population and harvest monitoring is improved among institutions that share the stewardship responsibility for recreationally important wildlife, national and regional trends will have to be interpreted carefully

Utility of the SENIORS elderly heart failure risk model applied to the RICA registry of acute heart failure

Background: Heart failure (HF) is predominantly a disease of the elderly. Reliable risk stratification would help in the management of this population, but no model has been well evaluated in elderly HF patients in both acute and chronic settings and not being restricted by ejection fraction. To evaluate the utility of the SENIORS risk model, developed from a clinical trial of elderly patients with chronic HF, in an independent cohort (National Spanish Registry: RICA) of elderly acute HF patients. Methods: We applied the SENIORS risk model to 926 patients in RICA to estimate risk at one year of a) composite outcome of all-cause mortality or cardiovascular hospital admission and b) all-cause mortality. Results: In the RICA registry mean age was 78 years, mean ejection fraction 51% and 87% were in NYHA II and III. At one year death/CV hospitalization occurred in 31.9% and all-cause mortality in 19.5%. The risk model provided good separation of Kaplan Meier curves stratified by tertile for death/CV hospitalization and all-cause mortality. The observed versus expected rates of death/CV hospitalization in the lowest, middle and highest risk tertiles were (%) 34/24, 45/41 and 57/67, and for death 13/16, 32/38 and 44/70 respectively. C-statistic for all-cause mortality or CV hospitalization was 0.60 and for all-cause mortality 0.66. Conclusion: The SENIORS risk model was a reliable tool for relative risk stratification among acute heart failure patients in a “real world” registry, but predicted versus observed risk showed some variability. The model provides a useful basis for clinical risk prediction

Género, espacio y lugar: la experiencia del servicio en el hogar rural de la temprana Edad Moderna

This article examines the organisation and use of domestic space by servants for eating and sleeping, looking particularly at the seventeenth century and at middling sort households, broadly defined. It relates models of architectural and social change to the ways that individuals described their experience and use of domestic space in court records. It concludes that while there was a trend to separate the work and living spaces of servants from the rest of the family, an early modern house was not one where rigid and static social patterns were mapped upon its spaces. A number of social factors struggled to define the social character of a space, a struggle which largely pivoted around the concepts of control and use rather than separation or segregation according to status or gender. Spatial patterns were ephemeral. Nonetheless, it is possible to illustrate how some aspects of the social relations of the household were reflected in and reinforced by the way that domestic space was organised and used. Moreover, the implications of such use and organisation carry important messages about the nature of the household itself.Este artículo examina la organización y el uso del espacio doméstico de los sirvientes durante el siglo XVII y en hogares de clase media. Relaciona los modelos de cambio arquitectónico y social con las formas en que los individuos describieron su experiencia y uso del espacio doméstico en los registros judiciales. Concluye que, si bien existía una tendencia a separar el trabajo y los espacios de vida de los sirvientes del resto de la familia, una casa moderna temprana no era aquella en la que los patrones sociales rígidos y estáticos estaban mapeados. Una serie de factores sociales lucharon por definir el carácter social de un espacio, una lucha que giró en torno a los conceptos de control y uso en lugar de separación o segregación según el estatus o el género. Los patrones espaciales fueron efímeros, no obstante, es posible ilustrar cómo algunos aspectos de las relaciones sociales de la familia se reflejaron y se reforzaron por la forma en que se organizó y utilizó el espacio doméstico.Dossier: El trabajo doméstico y sirviente en la Europa rural (SS. XVI-XIX). Diversidad de modelos regionales y formas de dependencia.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació