Factors affecting the structure of horticulture in the Vale of Evesham,U.K.: a behavioural interpretation

Horticulture in the Vale of Evesham is examined in relation to a set of grower and structural characteristics. Adopting a behavioural perspective, the relative importance of decision-making factors is assessed. Whilst physical factors dominate the ranking, socio-personal factors came first and third, with experience and such personal values as independence and doing the work you like influencing the decision behaviour of the horticulturists. The average ranking of economic factors reflects the problems facing the industry today. The importance of satisfaction is demonstrated and attention is drawn to the role of ‘opportunity cost’ and ‘social inertia’ in preventing a more rapid rate of decline.     

Workload Management Evaluation System within a Hospital Social Work Department

This article describes an instrument to evaluate the workload of a social worker in a hospital job. It has been adapted from an original idea developed in London, and has the elements to be further adapted in different work settings. It is simple to use. Dialogue from other social workers regarding the weighting of the case loads would be most welcome.     

Workload of Social Work Academics and Factors That Contribute to Time Spent on Research

This study delineated academic work type and time by examining data from a cross-sectional survey of social work academics (N=392) in relation to their perception of universities’ expectations of workload, actual workload, and factors that contribute to time spent on research. Findings revealed a disconnect between what academics perceived universities expected of them and the actual amount of time they spent on teaching, service, and research. Holding a PhD, teaching fewer classes, and being employed by a university with a PhD program explained 32% of the variance in academics’ time spent on research. The findings point to the need to rebalance the workload expectations across teaching, service, and research. Strategies for supporting workload requirements are provided.     

The sex composition of the Japanese American population

While both aversion therapy and psychotherapy can claim considerable success, they also fail occasionally. In view of this experience an attempt has been made to intergrate these therapies. Two cases are discussed in which such collaboration of representatives of both schools was achieved. After successful termination of the treatment, the patients filled out questionnaires in which they evaluated the contribution of each of these therapies.     

Daily Spillover of Low‐Income Mothers' Perceived Workload to Mood and Mother–Child Interactions

This study investigated associations of low‐income working mothers' daily perceived workload and their reports of their own mood and their interactions with their young children. Sixty‐one mothers were asked to report on their workload, mood, and interactions with their preschool‐age children every day for 2 weeks (N = 520 work days). Low‐income mothers reported significant day‐to‐day variability in workload. The results revealed a curvilinear pattern of negative work‐to‐family spillover: Both lower‐than‐average and higher‐than‐average workload days were associated with increased negative and tired mood, decreased positive mood, and increased harsh mother–child interactions. Although both younger and older mothers experienced a curvilinear pattern of spillover to daily mood, younger mothers in the period of emerging adulthood also experienced spillover to mother–child interactions, perhaps because they are still learning how to balance work and family demands. Both high and low workload are salient stressors in the daily lives of low‐wage working mothers.     

Governing the transnational organic cotton network from Benin

In this article, we attempt to conceptualize the historical development and the governance structure of the transnational organic cotton network from Benin. We aim to discover how the organic cotton production‐consumption network is governed locally and internationally. Existing bodies of literature on international agricultural production networks, in particular the Global Value Chains (GVC) perspective, focus on economic dimensions, but find it difficult to incorporate the sustainability dimension. We favour widening the concept of GVCs beyond economics by acknowledging and including environmental rationalities and the representatives of their interests, not as external elements, but rather as co‐governing or co‐structuring factors (or actors) of sustainable value chains. Our findings reveal that beyond the traditional producer versus buyer dualism, intermediate stakeholders, namely transnational and local environmental NGO networks, are instrumental in the construction, maintenance and transformation of the organic cotton network. It is also apparent that farmers' leaders play an important role in mediating and (re)building trust among organic farmers, though they exert insufficient vertical power in the organic cotton network to control it.     

A composition on organizing

The Music of Management: Applying Organizational Theory, by Dennis R. Young. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004. 173 pp., $89.95 cloth.     

Conventionalization, civic engagement, and the sustainability of organic agriculture

It is often assumed that organic farming is synonymous with sustainable agriculture. The broad goals of sustainable agriculture include economic profitability, environmental stewardship, and community vitality. However, the “question of sustainability” (Ikerd, 2008) can be asked of any type of farming, including organic production. One way to assess sustainability is to consider farmers’ perceptions of the sustainability of their operations. I draw on data from a survey of certified organic producers in Washington State to broaden our understanding of the sustainability of organic agriculture. Specifically, I consider certified organic producers’ perceptions of the degree to which their operations contribute to broad sustainable agriculture goals. Moreover, I use multiple regression to investigate how these perceived contributions are influenced by farm conventionalization variables (e.g., organic acreage, non-organic sales, and specialization) and civic engagement variables (e.g., direct marketing, community group membership, and participation in sustainable/organic agriculture organizations) while controlling for farmer demographics and farm location. Farm conventionalization appears to have a significant negative effect on perceived contributions to environmental and social sustainability, but a significant positive effect on perceived contribution to economic sustainability. Civic engagement appears to have a significant positive effect on perceived contributions to environmental and social sustainability, but no effect on perceived contribution to economic sustainability.     

Toward an organic policy sociology

According to many, sociology is facing a crisis of relevance. Of particular concern is sociology's inability to impact policy. Sociologists, who should be the go‐to on major policy issues have been sidelined as other social scientists take up roles as policy advisors. Recent efforts aimed at encouraging public engagement have focused on disseminating research and producing more policy‐relevant knowledge. These are welcome resources, but they reflect a deep ambivalence toward policy sociology and a tendency to conflate participation in public discussions with policy impact. In contrast, this essay draws on recent findings about the power of policy experts to develop an organic policy sociology. Organic policy sociology depends on co‐designing and carrying out research with policymakers with whom we share critical and professional commitments. By working collaboratively with policymakers, sociologists can foster equity‐promoting policy, change how policymakers understand social problems, and improve how citizens experience policy on the ground. To that end, I offer six orienting strategies for developing and maintaining organic policy sociology projects, from finding the right partner to assessing the impact of our work.     

小规模改造与有机更新--咸阳明城北大街23号街坊整治

一、背景 咸阳明城位于咸阳城市中心区内,主体包括13、16、17、21、22、23街坊,规划地段总面积17.11公顷.规划区内包含了"绝对保护区、一般保护区和风貌协调区"三种地段类型.     

城市技术创新系统的构成及技术创新能力的培养

当世界经济发展到知识经济时代,国际竞争力越来越依赖于创新,创新能力已成为解释高收入国家和地区经济繁荣程度差异的最重要因素.对于发展中国家来说,由于市场全球化降低了低成本投入的价值,因此获取和开发新技术已成为提高竞争力的一个基本驱动力.技术创新不仅仅是技术本身的发展问题,而是一系列相互关联的要素组成的有机协作系统,在技术创新系统各组成部分的协同作用下,培育一个城市的技术创新能力,也就意味着该城市获取了科技进步和经济繁荣的引擎.     

The spaces and ethics of organic food

Initial assessments of the potential for organic food systems have offered an optimistic interpretation of the progressive political and ethical characteristics involved. This positive gloss has prompted a stream of critique emphasising the need to explore the ambiguities and disconnections inherent therein. In this paper, we consider the case of Riverford Organic Vegetables,¹ arguably the largest supplier of organic vegetables in the UK, and suggest that existing debates assume too much about the “goods” and “rights” of organic food and leave important questions about the spaces and ethics of organic food. We argue that, in the case of Riverford, the space of organic food production and distribution is neither the small, local, counter-cultural farm nor the large, transnational, corporate firm. Rather, simultaneously, the spaces of organic food production and distribution are the national network, the regional distribution system and the local farm. In addition, in the case of Riverford, the ethics of organic food exhibit few grand designs (of environmental sustainability, for example). Rather, the ethics of organic food are best characterised as: ordinary, since they relate to concerns about taste, value for money, care within the family and so on; diverse, since multiple practices steer the production and distribution of organic food; and graspable, in that both vegetables and box have material and symbolic presence for consumers.     

Beyond bifurcation: Examining the conventions of organic agriculture in New Zealand

The last 10 years have witnessed numerous attempts to evaluate the merits of new theoretical approaches – ranging from Actor Network Theory to ‘post-structural’ Political Economy and inhabiting a ‘post-Political Economy’ theoretical space – to the explanation of global agricultural change. This article examines Convention Theory (CT) as one such alternative approach, assessing its potential in the context of ongoing change within commercial organic agriculture in New Zealand. More specifically, CT is used to expose the insufficiency of recent ideas of conventionalisation and bifurcation, both reflecting more traditional Political Economic approaches, as explanatory concepts for the emerging condition of the New Zealand organic sector. In this paper, the concept of worlds of justification as developed in CT is utilised to address the emerging complexity of organic production. While farmers supplying a more diversified domestic market can be distinguished from those supplying export markets, an exclusive focus on such distinctions ignores the influential role of extra-economic factors on the viability of organic production systems. Thus, in addition to what are classified as market and industrial worlds in CT, the paper addresses aspects of civic, green, domestic, inspired and renown worlds. Producers' selections of organic certification organisations are used to demonstrate the interaction of these worlds in the development of the organic sector in New Zealand. The article concludes with the imperative to move ‘beyond bifurcation’ and acknowledge the greater complexity of negotiated outcomes that might be achieved from a CT perspective than from existing political economy-derived models like conventionalisation and bifurcation.     

Size and composition of the Arab family: census and survey data

Family characteristics in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Egypt are examined using census data from the period 1965 to 1975. A distinction is made between rural and urban families. The results suggest that the prevalence of the extended family has been exaggerated in previous studies and that most households are predominantly nuclear in type.     

Variations in the gender composition of immigrant populations: how they matter

This paper estimates and interprets empirical shifts in the gender composition of immigrants to add to scholarship about the gendering of international migrations over time. We map shifts in gender ratios using micro-level data that permit us to create age-standardized estimates among adult foreign born stock living in the United States since 1850 and in 26 other nations worldwide since 1960. We examine regional and national variations in these shifts, and ask whether and how the gendered composition of foreigners from diverse origins in the United States – the nation that has received the largest populations of migrants for over a century – differs from other nations that receive large numbers of immigrants. We also examine recent variations in gender ratios among immigrants living in six regional destination countries. Results show substantial variation in the gender composition of foreign-born populations, and they offer a starting point for examining causes and consequences in future research.     

War and peace on the land: An analysis of the symbolism of organic farming

This paper examines the role of the theatre metaphor in both resolving and aggravating the tensions inherent in managing the modern zoo. As the mission of zoos has evolved from the point of view of management, from a “stamp collection” approach, through habitat design and education, to the breeding and preservation of endangered species, perceptions of the general public and more importantly, the municipal departments to which zoo directors report, have not kept up. This has resulted in a tension between inner mission and self-presentation, between marketing/fundraising activities and the animal management activities which shape the day to day work and future plans of zoo workers. This paper examines one case in particular . . . that of the Northern City Zoo, in Canada. It explores the significance of using organizational metaphor to explicitly manage diversity and transition. In particular it discusses the role of theatre metaphors as simultaneously signalling conflict within the organization and providing a “liminal” period for transformation.     

城市公共空间的构成与设计

城市中的公共空间是从自然中限定自然开始的,是人类有目的地创造的、能够满足人们精神需求和物质功能的善意空间。随着城市的大规模建设和快速发展,各式各样的高层建筑拔地而起,尽管大多是纵向发展,往空中寻找生路,但城市中的公共空间仍是与日俱减。