Behavioral responses of rural and urban greater white-toothed shrews (Crocidura russula) to sound disturbance

Urban Ecosystems - The development of urban areas imposes challenges that wildlife must adapt to in order to persist in these new habitats. One of the greatest changes brought by urbanization has...     

Fertility and union formation during crisis and societal consolidation in the Western Balkans

Fertility decline in central and eastern Europe (CEE) since the fall of the communist regimes has been driven by both stopping and postponement of childbearing: two processes that have been related to crisis and economic development, respectively. In the Western Balkans these economic and political contexts followed each other in the form of a biphasic transition. I examine whether this sequence triggered fertility responses like those observed elsewhere. Relying on three independent data sources, I cross-validate the levels of, and describe the trends in, union formation and fertility (by birth order) between 1980 and 2010. Results do not reveal widespread declines in fertility to lowest-low levels during the most acute period of crisis. The subsequent postponement of marriage and first birth was also limited, and the two-child family remains the norm. This relative resilience of childbearing patterns compared with other CEE countries is discussed with reference to the institutional context.     

Criticism of the predictive distribution

The predictive distribution is a mixture of the original distribution model and is used for predicting a future observation. Therein, the mixing distribution is the posterior distribution of the distribution parameters in the Bayesian inference. The mixture can also be computed for the frequentist inference because the Bayesian posterior distribution has the same meaning as a frequentist confidence interval. I present arguments against the concept of predictive distribution. Examples illustrate these. The most important argument is that the predictive distribution can depend on the parameterization. An improvement of the theory of the predictive distribution is recommended.     

Contrasting strategies for tree species to cope with heat and dry conditions at urban sites

Street trees planted at tree pits with impermeable pavements are exposed to a high level of both, atmospheric and edaphic stress. For many species tree physiology, optimal growth, and consequently long-term vitality may be hampered under these harsh conditions. Therefore, maintaining the vitality and promoting the ecosystem services provided by urban trees, for example aesthetic values and microclimatic benefits, it is important to establish trees with a high tolerance to stressful urban environments. Measurements of leaf gas exchange, leaf water potential, leaf surface temperature and chlorophyll-fluorescence were used for identification of specific response of Corylus corluna L., Ginkgo biloba L., Liriodendron tulipifera L., and Tilia cordata Mill. ‘Greenspire’. The summer months in 2013 with a period of heat and drought over eight weeks only interrupted by two rainy days were appropriate to access tree’s strategies to cope with low water availability. During the measurement period, the influence of high temperatures, high values of vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and low soil water availability on stomatal conductance, water-use efficiency (WUE) and leaf water potential (Ψmin, Ψmax ) was highest for Liriodendron followed by Ginkgo. These species showed high reductions in WUE in case of higher air temperatures and high values of VPD. Results indicate an avoidance strategy under increasing heat and VPD. In contrast, Corylus and Tilia followed a tolerance strategy indicated by decreasing values of Ψmin and lower reductions of WUE. In conclusion, wide species-specific variation in response to high temperatures and high VPD indicates that substantial potential exists in the selection for dry and hot urban places.     

Opportunities of the minimum Anderson–Darling estimator as a variant of the maximum likelihood method

We reveal that the minimum Anderson–Darling (MAD) estimator is a variant of the maximum likelihood method. Furthermore, it is shown that the MAD estimator offers excellent opportunities for parameter estimation if there is no explicit formulation for the distribution model. The computation time for the MAD estimator with approximated cumulative distribution function is much shorter than that of the classical maximum likelihood method with approximated probability density function. Additionally, we research the performance of the MAD estimator for the generalized Pareto distribution and demonstrate a further advantage of the MAD estimator with an issue of seismic hazard analysis.     

TAX POLICY AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES, 1979–2007

This paper assesses the effects of U.S. tax policy reforms on inequality over around three decades, from 1979 to 2007. It applies a new method for decomposing changes in government redistribution into (1) a direct policy effect resulting from policy changes and (2) the effects of changing market incomes. Over the period as a whole, the tax policy changes increased income inequality by pushing up the income share of high‐income earners (the top 20%). (JEL H23, H31, H53, P16)     

Service robotics: do you know your new companion? Framing an interdisciplinary technology assessment

Service-Robotic—mainly defined as “non-industrial robotics”—is identified as the next economical success story to be expected after robots have been ubiquitously implemented into industrial production lines. Under the heading of service-robotic, we found a widespread area of applications reaching from robotics in agriculture and in the public transportation system to service robots applied in private homes. We propose for our interdisciplinary perspective of technology assessment to take the human user/worker as common focus. In some cases, the user/worker is the effective subject acting by means of and in cooperation with a service robot; in other cases, the user/worker might become a pure object of the respective robotic system, for example, as a patient in a hospital. In this paper, we present a comprehensive interdisciplinary framework, which allows us to scrutinize some of the most relevant applications of service robotics; we propose to combine technical, economical, legal, philosophical/ethical, and psychological perspectives in order to design a thorough and comprehensive expert-based technology assessment. This allows us to understand the potentials as well as the limits and even the threats connected with the ongoing and the planned implementation of service robots into human lifeworld—particularly of those technical systems displaying increasing grades of autonomy.     

Netzwerkberatung in Clustern

Inter-organizational networks increasingly become clients in consulting processes. At the same time inter-organizational relations and networks are essential components of regional clusters. On the basis of the differences between consulting organizations and consulting networks, it will be argued that network consulting in clusters requires at least a two level process approach that focuses on the level of inter-organizational networks in a cluster context and the level of the regional cluster itself. Based on a long-term and intensive involvement in researching and consulting an emergent regional cluster in the field of optics, we gained insights into the particularities of consulting networks in clusters. The paper contributes to the emergent research on network consulting in general and on consulting such networks in regional clusters in particular.     

Estimation of causal effects in observational studies with interference between units

Causal effects are usually estimated under the assumption of no interference between individuals. This assumption means that the potential outcomes for one individual are unaffected by the treatments received by other individuals. In many situations, this is not reasonable to assume. Moreover, not taking interference into account could result in misleading conclusions about the effect of a treatment. For two-stage observational studies, where treatment assigment is randomized in the first stage but not in the second stage, we propose IPW estimators of direct and indirect causal effects as defined by Hudgens and Halloran (J Am Stat Assoc 103(482):832–842, 2008) for two-stage randomized studies. We illustrate the use of these estimators in an evaluation study of an implementation of Triple P (a parenting support program) within preschools in Uppsala, Sweden.