Predicting the Risk of Biological Invasions Using Environmental Similarity and Transport Network Connectedness

Understanding the risk of biological invasions associated with particular transport pathways and source regions is critical for implementing effective biosecurity management. This may require both a model for physical connectedness between regions, and a measure of environmental similarity, so as to quantify the potential for a species to be transported from a given region and to survive at a destination region. We present an analysis of integrated biosecurity risk into Australia, based on flights and shipping data from each global geopolitical region, and an adaptation of the “range bagging” method to determine environmental matching between regions. Here, we describe global patterns of environmental matching and highlight those regions with many physical connections. We classify patterns of global invasion risk (high to low) into Australian states and territories. We validate our analysis by comparison with global presence data for 844 phytophagous insect pest species, and produce a list of high‐risk species not previously known to be present in Australia. We determined that, of the insect pest species used for validation, the species most likely to be present in Australia were those also present in geopolitical regions with high transport connectivity to Australia, and those regions that were geographically close, and had similar environments.     

Considering Racial Attitudes and Empathic Concern as Predictors of Prosocial Behaviors Among Emerging Adults

Race and Social Problems - The goal of the current study was to examine the role of racial attitudes, empathic concern, and prosocial behaviors among emerging adults. Research linking racial...     

Surgical Identity Play: The Anatomy Lab Revisited

The anatomy lab has been studied by sociologists interested in professional socialization since the 1950s. This is because the act of dissecting a cadaver is thought to be foundational for both the student's medical knowledge and the development of the student's professional identity. In this paper, I revisit the anatomy lab both historically and ethnographically. Drawing on theoretical insights from the laboratory ethnography tradition within science and technology studies, I show that students use material artifacts in the lab to support their “surgical identity play.” This activity is structured by the laboratory's performative architecture even while it is unsupervised by anatomy faculty. While many analyses of professional socialization focus on how students learn to interact with patients during their training, I show that the anatomy lab experience is an important form of professional socialization because here students learn to employ surgical instruments, language, and dress, and begin to relate to each other as colleagues.     

Romanian social workers facing the challenges of neo-liberalism

ABSTRACT

With a history of almost 90 years, professional social work in Romania once flourished up until World War II. The Communist Party disbanded the profession in 1968 and it was reinstated after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. Within the context of the socio-economic transition from a centralised to a free-market economy, Romanian social policy and social work have evolved from a Marxist/socialist-type ideology, one that advocates for state intervention, to a libertarian/neo-liberal-type ideology, which promotes both state withdrawal from welfare provision and individuals taking responsibility for their own welfare. These two trends continue to co-exist subject to sometimes divergent forces such as international institutions and internal Romanian social pressures. Using a qualitative approach, we explore how Romanian social workers are adapting to the neo-liberal realities and identify three types of perceived challenges: 1. those related to regulation, 2. linked with collaboration in social work activity and 3. those related to the social worker-client relationship. Under neo-liberal pressures, the social worker's role of agent of social change becomes marginalised in daily practice, leaving little power to influence agency policies that negatively impact clients.     

Demand for gambling: development and assessment of a gambling purchase task

Self-report purchase tasks are a novel approach examining the reinforcing value of addictive behaviour relative to increasing monetary costs required to access the addictive behaviour (i.e. demand). These measures reveal a positive relationship between the indices of demand and addiction problem severity and can elucidate factors associated with motivation for substance use. Gambling is an addictive behaviour that has not been examined using this paradigm. This study seeks to adapt and examine the purchase task for gambling behaviour. A gambling purchase task was devised that asked individuals how often per month they would gamble at various cover charges. Participants were 73 adults from the community with either gambling disorder (n = 28) or alcohol use disorder (n = 24) or were a healthy control (n = 21). Both the alcohol and gambling purchase tasks were administered. Results demonstrate discriminant validity of the gambling purchase task, as individuals with gambling disorder have significantly greater demand for accessing gambling than other groups. The alcohol purchase task also evidenced discriminant validity in that individuals with alcohol use disorder have significantly greater demand for alcohol than other groups. These findings support the use of the gambling purchase task to assess the demand for gambling.     

The sociological landscape of youth confinement

This article examines key sociological questions that are raised by the confinement of children and young people. Globally, there are approximately one million children held in confinement, and there is an emerging body of qualitative sociological research in this area. This article examines the role that social constructions of childhood innocence and evil play in shaping the processes of protection and removal, and how these constructions play a role in mediating state strategies of punishment and rehabilitation. The article also draws from an emerging body of qualitative sociological research to examine the role of youth confinement institutions in socializing vulnerable young people.     

Distribution of exotic monk parakeets across an urban landscape

Monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) are the most abundant and widely distributed of the naturalized parrots in the United States. Their presence is simultaneously encouraged by some humans (through use of bird feeders) and discouraged by others (through removal of their nests) and, as a result, they show an interesting spatial distribution across urban areas. We used an online public survey and field surveys to examine the influence of human activities and land use on the distribution of this exotic species around Chicago, IL (USA). These efforts resulted in detection of 249 nesting structures and approximately 778 birds across the region. A CART analysis successfully separated nesting sites from random sites and correctly classified 90?% of the nesting sites. The most important factor in the model was land use, with nests typically found in areas with less than 84?% residential zoning. We found nests on a wide variety of substrates including trees, cell phone towers, and stadium lights. Spatial point pattern analysis indicated that nests in trees and nests in built substrates were significantly dissociated with each other at all scales. Nests on built substrates were closer to railroads and highways or in areas with lower human population density, suggesting either a difference in substrate availability or human tolerance between these settings. While humans may have a positive effect on distribution of monk parakeets at large spatial scales, at the scale of this study we see a potentially negative effect of too many humans on the distribution of monk parakeet nests.     

Attention to Threat as a Predictor of Shyness in the Context of Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior

The duration of children's attention to putative threat has been documented as a consistent predictor of later anxiety in inhibited children across childhood (Fox, New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 127, 2010, 33; Pérez‐Edgar & Fox, Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 14, 2005, 681). However, attention to threat has not been broadly examined within existing behavioral contexts and has seldom been studied in very early childhood. Whereas toddlers with high levels of internalizing behavior may view fear‐inducing stimuli as a threat, toddlers with high levels of externalizing behavior may demonstrate attention out of interest or sensation seeking. Thus, attention to threat was expected to predict increased toddler shyness in the context of either high internalizing problems or low externalizing behavior. We examined 117 twenty‐four‐month‐old toddlers to determine whether attention to threat interacted with internalizing and externalizing behavior at 24 months of age to predict toddler shyness one year later. Results indicated that attention to threat predicted toddlers' lower shyness at 36 months when toddlers’ externalizing behavior at age 24 months were high, but there was no significant interaction between toddlers’ internalizing behavior and their attention to threat in predicting later shyness. These results expand our understanding of the contexts in which attention to threat in early childhood is a viable predictor of later shyness.