Les retenues collinaires font-elles ressource ? Réflexions à partir de la Tunisie Centrale

International audienceWater is often referred to as “a vital resource”. This “resource” is however not a “gift” from nature but rather a social and political construction. Societies, individuals or social groups, turn water into a resource through the value they place upon this element, and through the practices employed to mobilise, own, misappropriate and exploit it. Anthropological research carried out around oases notably contributed in documenting and understanding this process. Over several centuries, social groups turned water into a productive and social resource, leading observers to consider that water founds a community. However, these works focussed on areas where water has been harnessed since ancient times, through practices which evolved with society. Water then becomes a mirror, and perhaps the memory, of a society. What happens though when water has recently “arrived” in a territory, as occurs after the construction of a dam or borehole? How is this “new resource” involved in the structuring of the local society? Does water found the community in this case? Is it valued as a resource by the social group? And if so, what kind of resource?To examine this question, we chose to focus on the small hillside reservoirs built since the 1960s in Central Tunisia. Developed through a series of government initiatives, these reservoirs, which fulfil multiple though sometimes contradictory objectives, collect water in places where it previously did not accumulate. What effect does this have on a territory? How do the local social groups take ownership of this water? How do they exploit it?Through the detailed study of four small reservoirs situated close to the Merguellil wadi (Kairouan region), we show that the reservoirs are viewed as a resource by riparian communities, but not in the common sense of the word. Water supplies and access are indeed too scarce and unreliable to constitute a hydrological resource, capable of supporting income generating agricultural activities. Nevertheless, water mobilised and the reservoir itself (be it full or empty) play an active role in structuring and maintaining local social groups. As such, small reservoirs constitute a resource; a memorial, political and anthropological resource.« L’eau est une ressource vitale », dit-on souvent. Or, cette « ressource » n’est pas un « donné » de la nature, mais bien un construit social et politique. Ce sont les sociétés, individus ou groupes sociaux, qui font de l’eau une ressource à travers le regard qu’elles portent sur cet élément et les pratiques qu’elles mettent en œuvre pour le mobiliser, se l’approprier, le détourner et le valoriser. Les travaux anthropologiques menés notamment dans les régions oasiennes ont contribué à documenter et comprendre ce processus. Au cours de centaines d’années, des groupes sociaux ont fait de l’eau une ressource à la fois productive et sociale, amenant les observateurs à considérer que l’eau fonde la communauté. Or, ces travaux portent tous sur des lieux où l’eau circule et est appropriée depuis des temps anciens, à travers des pratiques qui évoluent en même temps que la société. L’eau est alors miroir, et peut-être mémoire, de la société. Qu’en est-il lorsque l’eau est « arrivée » récemment sur un territoire, comme c’est le cas lors de la construction d’un barrage ou d’un forage ? Comment cette « nouvelle ressource » entre-t-elle dans le processus de construction de la société locale ? L’eau fonde-t-elle la communauté dans ces cas là ? Est-elle érigée en ressource par le groupe social ? Si oui, de quel type de ressource s’agit-il ?Pour examiner cette question, nous proposons d’étudier le cas des retenues collinaires construites depuis les années 1960 en Tunisie Centrale. Créées à l’initiative de l’État, ces retenues aux objectifs multiples et parfois contradictoires permettent de stocker l’eau à un endroit où elle ne s’accumulait pas dans le passé. Qu’est-ce que cela produit sur le territoire ? Comment les groupes sociaux en présence se saisissent-ils de cette eau ? Qu’en font-ils ? À travers l’étude approfondie de quatre retenues collinaires situées à proximité de l’oued Merguellil (région du kairouannais), nous montrons que ces retenues sont érigées en ressources par les riverains de ces ouvrages, mais pas dans le sens le plus commun de la notion de ressource. En effet, les stocks d’eau ainsi constitués sont souvent trop incertains en quantité, en accessibilité et/ou en fréquence pour constituer des ressources hydrologiques potentiellement génératrices de revenus. Par contre, l’eau ainsi mobilisée entre dans le processus de construction sociale et de maintien du groupe, tout autant, d’ailleurs que l’ouvrage technique lui-même, qu’il soit plein ou vide. En ce sens, les retenues collinaires « font ressources », des ressources mémorielles, politiques et anthropologiques

Combining Academics and Social Engagement: A Major-Specific Early Alert Method to Counter Student Attrition in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

Students are most likely to leave science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors during their first year of college. We developed an analytic approach using random forests to identify at-risk students. This method is deployable midway through the first semester and accounts for academic preparation, early engagement in university life, and performance on midterm exams. By accounting for cognitive and noncognitive factors, our method achieves stronger predictive performance than would be possible using cognitive or noncognitive factors alone. We show that it is more difficult to predict whether students will leave STEM than whether they will leave the institution. More factors contribute to STEM retention than to institutional retention. Early academic performance is the strongest predictor of STEM and institution retention. Social engagement is more predictive of institutional retention, while standardized test scores, goals, and interests are stronger predictors of STEM retention. Our approach assists universities to efficiently identify at-risk students and boost STEM retention

Are GIS-modelled routes a useful proxy for the actual routes followed by commuters?

Active commuting offers the potential to increase physical activity among adults by being built into daily routines. Characteristics of the route to work may influence propensity to walk or cycle. Geographic information system (GIS) software is often used to explore this by modelling routes between home and work. However, if the validity of modelled routes depends on the mode of travel used, studies of environmental determinants of travel may be biased. We aimed to understand how well modelled routes reflect those actually taken, and what characteristics explain these differences. We compared modelled GIS shortest path routes with actual routes measured using QStarz BT-Q1000X Global Positioning System (GPS) devices in a free-living sample of adults working in Cambridge and using varying travel modes. Predictors of differences, according to length and percentage overlap, between the two route sets were assessed using multilevel regression models and concordance coefficients. The 276 trips, made by 51 participants, were on average 27% further than modelled routes, with an average geographical overlap of 39%. However, predictability of the route depended on travel mode. For route length, there was moderate-to-substantial agreement for journeys made on foot and by bicycle. Route overlap was lowest for trips made by car plus walk (22%). The magnitude of difference depended on other journey characteristics, including travelling via intermediate destinations, distance, and use of busy roads. In conclusion, GIS routes may be acceptable for distance estimation and to explore potential routes, particularly active commuting. However, GPS should be used to obtain accurate estimates of environmental contexts in which commuting behaviour actually occurs. Public health researchers should bear these considerations in mind when studying the geographical determinants and health implications of commuting behaviour, and when recommending policy changes to encourage active travel.The Commuting and Health in Cambridge study was developed by David Ogilvie, Simon Griffin, Andy Jones and Roger Mackett and initially funded under the auspices of the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence (087636/Z/08/Z and ES/G007462/1). Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged. The study is now funded by the National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research programme (project number 09/3001/06: see http://www.phr.nihr.ac.uk/funded_projects). David Ogilvie is supported by the Medical Research Council (Unit Programme number MC_UU_12015/6). Jenna Panter is supported by an NIHR post-doctoral fellowship (NIHR-PDF-2012-05-157). The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NIHR PHR programme or the Department of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, the decision to publish, or the preparation of the manuscript. We thank all staff from the MRC Epidemiology Unit Functional Group Team, in particular for study coordination and data collection (led by Cheryl Chapman), physical activity data processing and data management.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2014.10.00

Correlates of time spent walking and cycling to and from work: baseline results from the commuting and health in Cambridge study.

PURPOSE: Environmental perceptions and psychological measures appear to be associated with walking and cycling behaviour; however, their influence is still unclear. We assessed these associations using baseline data from a quasi-experimental cohort study of the effects of major transport infrastructural developments in Cambridge, UK. METHODS: Postal surveys were sent to adults who travel to work in Cambridge (n = 1582). Questions asked about travel modes and time spent travelling to and from work in the last week, perceptions of the route, psychological measures regarding car use and socio-demographic characteristics. Participants were classified into one of two categories according to time spent walking for commuting ('no walking' or 'some walking') and one of three categories for cycling ('no cycling', '1-149 min/wk' and ' ≥ 150 min/wk'). RESULTS: Of the 1164 respondents (68% female, mean (SD) age: 42.3 (11.4) years) 30% reported any walking and 53% reported any cycling to or from work. In multiple regression models, short distance to work and not having access to a car showed strong positive associations with both walking and cycling. Furthermore, those who reported that it was pleasant to walk were more likely to walk to or from work (OR = 4.18, 95% CI 3.02 to 5.78) and those who reported that it was convenient to cycle on the route between home and work were more likely to do so (1-149 min/wk: OR = 4.60, 95% CI 2.88 to 7.34; ≥ 150 min/wk: OR = 3.14, 95% CI 2.11 to 4.66). Positive attitudes in favour of car use were positively associated with time spent walking to or from work but negatively associated with cycling to or from work. Strong perceived behavioural control for car use was negatively associated with walking. CONCLUSIONS: In this relatively affluent sample of commuters, a range of individual and household characteristics, perceptions of the route environment and psychological measures relating to car use were associated with walking or cycling to and from work. Taken together, these findings suggest that social and physical contexts of travel decision-making should be considered and that a range of influences may require to be addressed to bring about behaviour change.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

When Time is Sales: The Impact of Sales Manager Time Allocation Decisions on Sales Team Performance

Sales managers often take on the dual responsibilities of managing a sales team and selling to customers. This practice raises questions about how sales managers\u27 time allocation to managing and selling activities affects sales team performance. Building on qualitative findings, this research first highlights and categorizes activities that are regularly competing for the limited time resources of today\u27s sales managers. Our qualitative results reveal a prevalence of sales managers taking a hybrid approach to managing their sales teams by regularly allocating time toward both managing and selling activities. Through a resource allocation lens, we investigate how the time allocation decisions of these hybrid sales managers influence sales team performance. Our findings underscore the importance of effective time management for sales managers across a core set of leader behaviors, including managing people, managing information (planning and analysis), customer interaction, and administrative tasks. Ultimately, boundary conditions suggest counterintuitive implications of team experience on the value derived from various manager activities. Findings suggest that when managing more (less) experienced teams, managers should focus on spending more time on managing people (customer interaction)

The factors influencing car use in a cycle-friendly city: the case of Cambridge.

Encouraging people out of their cars and into other modes of transport, which has major advantages for health, the environment and urban development, has proved difficult. Greater understanding of the influences that lead people to use the car, particularly for shorter journeys, may help to achieve this. This paper examines the predictors of car use compared with the bicycle to explore how it may be possible to persuade more people to use the bicycle instead of the car. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the socio-demographic, transport and health-related correlates of mode choice for work, shopping and leisure trips in Cambridge, a city with high levels of cycling by UK standards. The key findings are that commuting distance and free workplace parking were strongly associated with use of the car for work trips, and car availability and lower levels of education were associated with car use for leisure, shopping and short-distanced commuting trips. The case of Cambridge shows that more policies could be adopted, particularly a reduction in free car parking, to increase cycling and reduce the use of the car, especially over short distances

Using spatial equity analysis in the process evaluation of environmental interventions to tackle obesity: the healthy towns programme in England.

INTRODUCTION: Process evaluations of environmental public health interventions tend not to consider issues of spatial equity in programme delivery. However, an intervention is unlikely to be effective if it is not accessible to those in need. Methods are required to enable these considerations to be integrated into evaluations. Using the Healthy Towns programme in England, we demonstrate the potential of spatial equity analysis in the evaluation of environmental interventions for diet and physical activity, examining whether the programme was delivered to those in greatest need. METHODS: Locations of new physical infrastructure, such as cycle lanes, gyms and allotments, were mapped using a geographic information system. A targeting ratio was computed to indicate how well-located the infrastructure was in relation to those at whom it was specifically aimed, as detailed in the relevant project documentation, as well as to generally disadvantaged populations defined in terms of U.K. Census data on deprivation, age and ethnicity. Differences in targeting were examined using Kruskal-Wallis and t-tests. RESULTS: The 183 separate intervention components identified were generally well located, with estimated targeting ratios above unity for all population groups of need, except for black and ethnic minorities and children aged 5-19 years. There was no evidence that clustering of population groups influenced targeting, or that trade-offs existed when components were specifically targeted at more than one group. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of spatial equity is a valuable initial stage in assessing the provision of environmental interventions. The Healthy Towns programme can be described as well targeted in that interventions were for the most part located near populations of need.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between active commuting and patterns of movement behaviour during discretionary time: A compositional data analysis.

BACKGROUND: Active living approaches seek to promote physical activity and reduce sedentary time across different domains, including through active travel. However, there is little information on how movement behaviours in different domains relate to each other. We used compositional data analysis to explore associations between active commuting and patterns of movement behaviour during discretionary time. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We analysed cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the UK Biobank study. At baseline (2006-2010) and follow up (2009-2013) participants reported their mode of travel to work, dichotomised as active (walking, cycling or public transport) or inactive (car). Participants also reported activities performed during discretionary time, categorised as (i) screen time; (ii) walking for pleasure; and (iii) sport and do-it-yourself (DIY) activities, summed to produce a total. We applied compositional data analysis to test for associations between active commuting and the composition and total amount of discretionary time, using linear regression models adjusted for covariates. Adverse events were not investigated in this observational analysis. The survey response rate was 5.5%. In the cross-sectional analysis (n = 182,406; mean age = 52 years; 51% female), active commuters engaged in relatively less screen time than those who used inactive modes (coefficient -0.12, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.13 to -0.11), equating to approximately 60 minutes less screen time per week. Similarly, in the longitudinal analysis (n = 4,323; mean age = 51 years; 49% female) there were relative reductions in screen time in those who used active modes at both time points compared with those who used inactive modes at both time points (coefficient -0.15, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.24 to -0.06), equating to a difference between these commute groups of approximately 30 minutes per week at follow up. However, as exposures and outcomes were measured concurrently, reverse causation is possible. CONCLUSIONS: Active commuting was associated with a more favourable pattern of movement behaviour during discretionary time. Active commuters accumulated 30-60 minutes less screen time per week than those using inactive modes. Though modest, this could have a cumulative effect on health over time.LF was funded by the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), a UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research, and the Wellcome Trust, under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged (087636/Z/08/Z, ES/G007462/1, MR/K023187/1). DO (MC_UU_12015/6) and KW (MC_UU_12015/3) were supported by the Medical Research Council

Longitudinal association between change in the neighbourhood built environment and the wellbeing of local residents in deprived areas: an observational study.

BACKGROUND: Features of the urban neighbourhood influence the physical, social and mental wellbeing of residents and communities. We explored the longitudinal association between change to the neighbourhood built environment and the wellbeing of local residents in deprived areas of Glasgow, Scotland. METHODS: A cohort of residents (n = 365; mean age 50 years; 44% male; 4.1% of the 9000 mailed surveys at baseline) responded to a postal survey in 2005 and 2013. Wellbeing was assessed with the mental (MCS-8) and physical (PCS-8) components of the SF-8 scale. We developed software to aid identification of visible changes in satellite imagery occurring over time. We then used a Geographical Information System to calculate the percentage change in the built environment occurring within an 800 m buffer of each participant's home. RESULTS: The median change in the neighbourhood built environment was 3% (interquartile range 6%). In the whole sample, physical wellbeing declined by 1.5 units on average, and mental wellbeing increased by 0.9 units, over time. In multivariable linear regression analyses, participants living in neighbourhoods with a greater amount of change in the built environment (unit change = 1%) experienced significantly reduced physical (PCS-8: -0.13, 95% CI -0.26 to 0.00) and mental (MCS-8: -0.16, 95% CI -0.31 to - 0.02) wellbeing over time compared to those living in neighbourhoods with less change. For mental wellbeing, a significant interaction by baseline perception of financial strain indicated a larger reduction in those experiencing greater financial strain (MCS-8: -0.22, 95% CI -0.39 to - 0.06). However, this relationship was reversed in those experiencing lower financial strain, whereby living in neighbourhoods with a greater amount of change was associated with significantly improved mental wellbeing over time (MCS-8: 0.38, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.72). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we found some evidence that living in neighbourhoods experiencing higher levels of physical change worsened wellbeing in local residents. However, we found a stronger negative relationship in those with lower financial security and a positive relationship in those with higher financial security. This is one of few studies exploring the longitudinal relationship between the environment and health

Medieval Iceland, Greenland, and the New Human Condition: A case study in integrated environmental humanities

This paper contributes to recent studies exploring the longue durée of human impacts on island landscapes, the impacts of climate and other environmental changes on human communities, and the interaction of human societies and their environments at different spatial and temporal scales. In particular, the paper addresses Iceland during the medieval period (with a secondary, comparative focus on Norse Greenland) and discusses episodes where environmental and climatic changes have appeared to cross key thresholds for agricultural productivity. The paper draws upon international, interdisciplinary research in the North Atlantic region led by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization (NABO) and the Nordic Network for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies (NIES) in the Circumpolar Networks program of the Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (IHOPE). By interlinking analyses of historically grounded literature with archaeological studies and environmental science, valuable new perspectives can emerge on how these past societies may have understood and coped with such impacts. As climate and other environmental changes do not operate in isolation, vulnerabilities created by socioeconomic factors also beg consideration. The paper illustrates the benefits of an integrated environmental-studies approach that draws on data, methodologies and analytical tools of environmental humanities, social sciences, and geosciences to better understand long-term human ecodynamics and changing human-landscape-environment interactions through time. One key goal is to apply previously unused data and concerted expertise to illuminate human responses to past changes; a secondary aim is to consider how lessons derived from these cases may be applicable to environmental threats and socioecological risks in the future, especially as understood in light of the New Human Condition, the concept transposed from Hannah Arendt's influential framing of the human condition that is foregrounded in the present special issue. This conception admits human agency's role in altering the conditions for life on earth, in large measure negatively, while acknowledging the potential of this self-same agency, if effectively harnessed and properly directed, to sustain essential planetary conditions through a salutary transformation of human perception, understanding and remedial action. The paper concludes that more long-term historical analyses of cultures and environments need to be undertaken at various scales. Past cases do not offer perfect analogues for the future, but they can contribute to a better understanding of how resilience and vulnerability occur, as well as how they may be compromised or mitigated