COLONIZATION OF NORTHERN LOUISIANA BY THE MEDITERRANEAN GECKO, HEMIDACTYLUS TURCICUS

The Mediterranean Gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus, is known to have colonized nearly every state in the southern United States. In Louisiana, the Mediterranean Gecko has been documented in many of the southern parishes, but records for the northern portion of the state are limited. We sampled northern Louisiana parishes to document the presence of the Mediterranean Gecko. We sampled a total of 21 parishes in northern Louisiana and found geckos in 17 of those parishes, 16 of which represent new distribution records for the species. This indicates a significant range expansion of this introduced species throughout northern Louisiana. Geckos were found across a temperature range of 14.0–28.0°C and had a strong association with buildings. The species’ affinity for anthropogenic association and the continual nature of anthropogenic expansion facilitate the high vagility of this species. The result is a successful colonization throughout much of Louisiana and likely continued range expansion throughout the southern United States

RESTAURANT CONCENTRATION IN LOUISIANA

Growth of the franchise restaurant industry and merger activity among restaurants raise questions concerning concentration in the Louisiana restaurant industry. Firm employment data from the Louisiana Department of Labor for selected urban and rural parishes for 1975-86 and the concentration ratio, herfindahl index and the entropy measure were used for these concentration estimates. Concentration was, in general, low in urban parishes and higher in rural parishes. Concentration decreased from 1975 to 1986 in five of the seven urban parishes and increased or was unchanged in five of the eight rural parishes. Ceteris paribus, this would imply higher profits in rural as opposed to urban parishes. The correlation between the concentration ratio and a customer density measure was positive indicating competition for business was lower in the more concentrated markets.Agribusiness,

Consanguinity in the Maltese Islands

Consanguineous marriages may increase the risk of some medical conditions and may be useful to examine social and other aspects. There were few such marriages in the Maltese islands until late in the 19th C when they increased until they began to decline in the new century. These marriages were twice as common in Gozo as in Malta, but the proportion varied in parishes. In some parishes, such marriages were mainly among a few related families; some families had many consanguinities over several generations. These marriages probably reflected the social standing of the families and the lack of mixing of young people with others of lower status. Families of polio cases showed many consanguineous marriages.peer-reviewe

Evaluating the impact of the report "Faithful Cities" on the Church of England's role in urban regeneration: case study in two Dioceses (Birmingham and Worcester)

The Church of England's approach to urban regeneration has been shaped by government-led regeneration and its own social, political and financial situation, rather than its theology. The encouragement towards partnership working as a means of financing parishes in deprived areas in its 2006 report Faithful Cities is a result of the Church's inability to finance its work in deprived areas using its own resources. This thesis evaluates the impact of Faithful Cities within the dioceses of Worcester and Birmingham. It does this through geographical mapping of deprivation in each parish; review of diocesan policies on urban regeneration; the assessment of resource allocation to parishes with differing degrees of deprivation, and through in-depth interviews with key stakeholders (Bishops, Archdeacons, Diocesan Staff, Parish Clergy) in each diocese. Barriers to resourcing parishes in deprived areas through redistribution of internal resources are noted in both dioceses. However, partnership working is found to be impractical for overworked and untrained parish clergy to manage, and volunteers from churches lack the skills and interest to deliver projects which have partnership funding attached. Partnership funding is therefore potentially as problematic as the reallocation of internal resource as a way to fund Church presence in deprived areas

'Hence the name': Berwickshire parishes along the Anglo-Scottish Border as described in the Ordnance Survey Name Books

No abstract available

A spatial model based on the endogenous growth theory for Portugal. Another approach

We built a model analyzing, through cross-section estimation methods, the influence of spatial effects in the conditional product convergence in the parishes’ economies of mainland Portugal between 1991 and 2001 (the last year with data available for this spatial disaggregation level). Taking into account the estimation results, it is stated that there are not indications of convergence (the population is in the littoral of Portugal) and it can be seen that spatial spillover effects, spatial lag (capturing spatial autocorrelation through a spatially lagged dependent variable) and spatial error (capturing spatial autocorrelation through a spatially lagged error term) condition the convergence of product of Portuguese parishes in the period under consideration.endogenous growth theory; spatial econometrics; Portuguese context