Who does not cut down? Comparing characteristics and drinking motives of drinkers and abstainers during the exam periods

Objective: Drinking alcohol during the exams can affect academic performance and future career options, but is rarely investigated. Drinking motives, sociodemographics and personality characteristics are investigated in nonabstainers and weekly drinkers during the exams. Participants: 7,181 Belgian university students who anonymously responded to an email invitation to an online survey. Methods: Logistic regressions and mixed design analysis of variance on cross-sectional data. Results: One-third of the students continued drinking during the exams, with 40% drinking weekly. Nonabstainers were mainly men, elder, internally motivated when drinking, and housed with parents or independently. Weekly drinkers were similar, except mainly housed in student apartments or independently. Personality characteristics were nonsignificant. All drinking motives were less pronounced during the exams, with smaller differences for internal motives. Conclusions: Mainly linked to internal drinking motives, drinking during the exams in higher education is underestimated. The characteristics and motives of students doing so can be used in future interventions.     

A Systems Approach to Social Entrepreneurship

Currently, disabilities organizations are increasingly being challenged by the requirement for individualized service, expectations to show personal outcomes, and the need to base their services on evidence-based practices. Social entrepreneurship (SE) is being put forward as an innovative approach for dealing with these challenges. This article presents a systems approach to SE based on a program logic model. This model identifies the input factors (a strong social vision, exploiting opportunities, maximizing resources), throughput strategies (entrepreneurial orientation, critical thinking skills, networking, capacity building), and outcome components (improving people’s lives, community-building, improving society) of SE at the micro, meso, and macro level. Also, the importance of planning for contextual changes as a social entrepreneur is discussed. The article concludes with presenting three inspiring practices regarding SE in the field of disabilities organizations.     

Surplus Food Recovery and Food Aid: The Pivotal Role of Non-profit Organisations. Insights From Italy and Germany

Food security and food waste are unanimously recognised as relevant issues affecting the whole society and should be therefore acknowledged as a priority on the public agenda. Nonetheless, in many countries the third sector stands in for public actors and operates to tackle both these issues. This paper explores the role of public and third sector in tackling food poverty and food waste, particularly analysing the role of the non-profit organisations involved in the food recovery and redistribution processes in two European regions: Lombardy (Italy) and Baden-Württemberg (Germany). By comparing the two different policy framework and the organisations’ actions, the study recognises the ability of the non-profit sector to create new relationships among different actors (private for-profit, private non-profit as well as public actors) while answering various unmet needs. The paper draws on a mix of secondary and primary data including observations and interviews in the two regions carried out in 2014 and focuses on two relevant case studies (the “Associazione Banco Alimentare” and the “Tafel”).     

A socio-ecological perspective of urban green networks: the Stockholm case

Landscape fragmentation threatens habitats, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. In tackling this threat, the dynamic processes of social-ecological systems should be recognised and understood. Although network analysis based on graph theory has been recognised as an efficient way of spatially understanding landscape or habitat connectivity, only few studies have offered specific approaches or suggestions for integrating detailed social-ecological values into geographical distributions. As a contribution to bridging this gap, this paper introduces a social-ecological network model for the issue of landscape or habitat fragmentation applied to the case of Stockholm, Sweden. Graph theory was used in combination with sociotope and biotope maps for simple visualisation of network situations in two-dimensional maps. The European crested tit (Lophophanes cristatus), European common toad (Bufo bufo) and human beings were selected as indicator species, based on a landscape ecology analysis in Stockholm Municipality in 2009. Slope, land use and human disturbance maps were assessed in order to decide cost values of travelling from node to node. Lease-cost-path accumulation was used to create ideal reference maps of green networks. Three separate maps were then developed for suggesting efficient routes for three indicators in city scale that mainly connect from the Royal National City Park to the other parts of the city. The model in Hjorthagen neighbourhood to highlight two practical paths that link this fragmented community to its neighbouring park areas. Findings make it possible to address two scales of network improvement strategies, namely first for the city-scale green network that connects geographical habitats (nodes) and the regional green wedges of the city, and the second that of neighbourhood links between habitats in detailed layers of green networks. Strategic improvement potentials are presented based on ideal reference maps of green networks correspondingly.     

Bat boxes in urban non-native forests: a popular practice that should be reconsidered

Impact mitigation practices are currently one of the hottest topics in conservation and regarded as priorities worldwide. Forest bat populations are known to provide important ecosystem services such as pest control and bat boxes have become one of the most popular management options for counteracting the loss of roosts. However, bat boxes tend to be employed in non-native forests near highly humanized areas where human disturbance is higher. The aim of this study was to evaluate how the surrounding landscape composition affects bat box occupancy in urban non-native forests along the Mediterranean corridor in the Northeastern Iberian Peninsula. Two hundred wooden bat boxes were monitored in young non-native forests in the period 2004–2012. The influence of land cover on occupancy rate of bat boxes was analysed at the landscape level in a 5 km buffer around bat-box stations. In total, 1659 inspections were carried out, in which a 15 % occupancy rate was detected. Bat boxes hosted three different species (Pipistrellus pygmaeus, Pipistrellus kuhlii and Nyctalus leisleri). More than 70 % of the occupancy can be explained by habitat and spatial composition. The presence of urban areas around bat boxes tends to have a negative impact on bat occupation rates; by contrast, forest coverage has a positive effect, especially for the tree-dwelling bats. These patterns could be associated with the large number of available roosts in buildings, microhabitat or phylopatry. Thus, to increase success, we suggest that landscape composition should be considered when using bat boxes for conservation.     

Social innovation and ICT in social services: European experiences compared

Innovation in social services and social policies in the European welfare systems is an evolving phenomenon stimulated by socio-demographic, cultural and economic changes. Many social service innovations are linked to disruptive technologies, especially the introduction of information and communication technology (ICT). To discuss the effects of disruptive technologies on health and social services, this article first proposes a framework consistent with the social innovation paradigm. Secondly, based on case-studies, it investigates different models of social and health service innovation driven by technology. The article shows advantages and disadvantages of service innovation driven by technology, and offers some final remarks about future challenges for ICT in health and social services. More evidences of effectiveness and efficiency are necessary to promote public and private investment to implement solutions on a wider scale. However, the impacts of technology-based solutions cannot be measured only in terms of economic aspects but also taking into account whether new technologies really provide the opportunity for citizens to have a better life and advocacy for their rights.     

The Pointing–Vocal Coupling Progression in the First Half of the Second Year of Life

This study investigated the development of the pointing–vocal coupling system. We were interested in the infants’ behavior to attune prosody with pointing intentions. Twenty‐five children were involved at 12, 15, and 18 months of age in an experimental procedure devised to elicit imperative and declarative pointing. Pointing, vocality associated with pointing, and the prosody of that vocality were analyzed. A significant increase in the coupling of pointing and vocality was observed from 12 to 15 months, and in the ability to differentiate prosody with respect to the intention of the gesture from 15 to 18 months. Also, the infants who pointed declaratively at 12 months were likely to couple declarative pointing with vocality at 15 months, and the infants who coupled at 15 months were likely to differentiate prosody by the pointing intention at 18 months. Results suggest that the match between prosody and pointing intentions emerges gradually during the first half of the second year of life. They also show a relationship between earlier and later pointing–vocal coupling, and a role for declarative communication in promoting that progression. Overall, our study supports the view of intentional communication as a time‐based and context‐based developmental process.     

Association between handgrip strength,walking, age-related illnesses and cognitive status in a sample of Portuguese centenarians

Background

Centenarians are a growing population in Europe and present significant variability in motor and cognitive functions. The aim of our study was to characterize health status, as well as cognitive and motor functions in a group of Portuguese centenarians. In addition, our study also aimed at analyzing the relationship between cognitive functions and the burden of diseases affecting the elderly.

Methods

Fifty-two centenarians were evaluated using the Mini-Mental State Examination, short version. Walking-related parameters (velocity and time spent in the 3 m walk test), grip strength and number of age-related illnesses were also measured. The relationship between cognitive scores and time spent in the three metre walk test, velocity, grip strength and number of diseases was analysed.

Results

Cognitive scores showed a positive correlation with both handgrip strength and time spent in the three metre walk. In contrast, no association was found between cognitive scores and the presence/absence of disease, walking velocity or number of diseases present.

Conclusions

These results suggest that in centenarians, cognitive functions may be related with motor functions.