Mangrove forests store high densities of carbon across the tropical urban landscape of Singapore

Tropical forested ecosystems provide multiple ecosystem services to rural and urban landscapes, with carbon storage gaining particular attention. Deforestation due to rural-urban transitions may lead to a reduction in carbon storage ability. Coastal mangrove forests are particularly at risk from deforestation due to their location in the rapidly urbanizing coastal zone, and the city state of Singapore is an extreme example, losing as much as 90 % of its original mangrove cover due to land reclamation and reservoir construction. Knowledge of mangrove ecosystem services may allow better conservation, restoration and incorporation of remaining mangrove patches into the urban landscape. Focusing on the regulating ecosystem service of carbon storage, mangrove carbon stocks have been estimated for Singapore using a combination of field and remote sensing techniques. Biomass carbon showed substantial spatial variation, with old, contiguous mangrove patches containing a higher density of biomass carbon than fragmented, river-fringing or restored mangroves. In total, national biomass carbon equated to 116,117.1 megagrams of carbon (Mg C), and a coarse estimate of the total carbon stock (including soil carbon) suggests that Singapore’s mangroves may store 450,571.7 Mg C. While lower than other regional estimates focused on natural, oceanic mangroves, this is a significant carbon stock for a disturbed, urban mangrove system, and may be equivalent to the average annual carbon emissions of 621,000 residents. This analysis, alongside a review of other urban forest studies, highlights the importance of forested ecosystems such as mangroves in providing a carbon storage ecosystem service to urban areas.     

Determining Differences in Expert Judgment: Implications for Knowledge Acquisition and Validation*

In knowledge acquisition, it is often desirable to aggregate the judgments of multiple experts into a single system. In some cases this takes the form of averaging the judgments of those experts. In these situations it is desirable to determine if the experts have different views of the world before their individual judgments are aggregated. In validation, multiple experts often are employed to compare the performance of expert systems and other human actors. Often those judgments are then averaged to establish performance quality of the expert system. An important part of the comparison process should be determining if the experts have a similar view of the world. If the experts do not have similar views, their evaluations of performance may differ, resulting in a meaningless average performance measure. Alternatively, if all the validating experts do have similar views of the world then the validation process may result in paradigm myopia.     

The Positive Effects of Easy Goals on Decision Quality and Risk Propensity in an MCPLP Task

In this study the potential performance benefits of easy goals were examined within the multiple cue probability learning paradigm (MCPLP). Specifically, the effects of varying levels of goal difficulty on performance and risk propensity (used to define a form of commitment) were investigated. With few exceptions, previous studies demonstrated support for difficult goals. In this study, contrary to the majority of past evidence, as goals became easier decision quality significantly improved. Moreover, risk propensity increased with easier goals and, as suggested by a post-hoc analysis, had more direct impact on decision makers’ behaviors than goal levels. Goal-related behavior in complex MCPLP tasks appears to significantly differ from the majority of goal evidence in other types of research due to the tendency for subjects to view complex task properties in the same context as goal levels.     

Vulnerabilities and risks in population and environment studies

In the study of risks , different sciences use the same category in different ways, each related to its own ontological assumptions. But many of these fields communicate very little with one another. This article seeks to approximate two of these areas of study that have shown similar concerns and that can mutually strengthen one another, namely, geography and demography. Geography was one of the first disciplines to include risk in its environmental dimension and has had broad experience in simultaneously focusing on social and natural dynamics. Demography, on the other hand, faces greater difficulties because only recently has it incorporated the environmental dimension into its scientific scope. Both have brought the concept of vulnerability into their conceptual framework as complementary to that of risk. Geographers understand vulnerability as a more symbiotic form of the relationship between society and nature, whereas demographers give it a strong socioeconomic component. In this regard, the conceptual discussion on risks and vulnerabilities, in its attempt at approximating these two fields, is a way of conceptually advancing and strengthening the different approaches to empirical work, especially in population–environment studies which is the common ground for the dialogue between the two disciplines.

Pediatric Chronic Illness Management: A Qualitative Dyadic Analysis of Adolescent Patient and Parent Illness Narratives

In pediatric chronic illness, little is known about the relational interactions between adolescent patients, parents, and illnesses and how they influence self-management of illness. We conducted interviews with 32 individuals (16 dyads) representing adolescents diagnosed with a chronic illness and their primary parent who had been referred to a psychosocial treatment program for challenges with illness management. Interviews were conducted individually and analyzed dyadically using grounded theory to better understand the relational processes that may be contributing to illness management difficulties. Results include a theory of patient–parent illness responses and how parental illness meanings play a role in adolescent self-management. Results can be used to better understand and treat family relational patterns that may be influencing pediatric illness management challenges.     

Urban vegetation cover correlates with environmental variables in a desert city: insights of mitigation measures to climate change

Urban Ecosystems - Green cover and air quality are important components of life quality and human ecology in arid lands. In the Sonoran Desert of Mexico, Hermosillo is the largest city with a...     

The Persistence of High Levels of Living Alone Among Adults with Disabilities in Sweden, 1993–2011

Population Research and Policy Review - This study investigates how the probability to live alone has developed among working age individuals with and without disabilities in Sweden during the...     

The Good Grandparent: Perspectives of Young Adults

As life expectancy increases, the role of grandparent has increased in duration and is continually adapting as families change in structure, function and form. Across the past several decades, researchers have examined grandparenting styles, finding some consistency as well as the emergence of newer styles, and evidence that grandparenting styles are related to the age and gender of both the grandparents and the grandchildren. In this study, we investigated young adults’ perceptions of grandparenting quality. University Students (N?=?470) from a Midwestern university responded to an online survey that asked them to evaluate the quality of their grandparents grandparenting now and at two retrospective points in time, childhood and adolescence. We hypothesized that the grandparents' performance of multiple styles of their role would be related to grandparenting quality. In addition, we expected that preferred grandparental roles would vary in relation to grandchildren's gender. The results of regression analysis indicated that, although grandparenting quality tended to decline across the respondents' developmental stages, higher ratings at an earlier stage were related to higher ratings at the latter two stages. Further, grandsons preferred grandparents who performed as supporters and advisors, whereas granddaughters preferred grandparents who functioned as supporter and friend. Overall, grandmothers were likely to be the more significant grandparent. Continual research on both grandchildren and grandparents will be needed to chronicle the development of the grandparental role in changing times.