How to improve urban greenspace for woodland birds: site and local-scale determinants of bird species richness

Wooded habitats represent hotspots of urban biodiversity, however, urban development imposes pressure on biota in these refuges. Identification of the most influential habitat attributes and the role of local urban characteristics is crucial for proper decisions on management practices supporting biodiversity. We aimed to identify well manageable fine-scale habitat attributes to suggest specific, feasible and affordable management recommendations for green space in cities. We analysed species richness of woodland-associated bird communities and incidence of individual species at 290 sites in a wide variety of green areas scattered across the city of Prague, Czech Republic. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) and regression tree analyses were used to identify site-scale (100 m radius sampling sites) and local-scale (200 m and 500 m radius plots) habitat attributes shaping the bird communities at individual sites. Logistic regression was used to assess the responses of individual species to habitat characteristics. Our results imply that at the site scale, management practices should focus on maintenance and promoting species-diverse and older tree stands, with a mixture of coniferous and deciduous trees. Water-bodies and accompanying riparian habitats should be maintained and carefully managed to preserve high-quality remnants of natural vegetation. Presence of a few old trees (about 12 % of tree cover with DBH?>?50 cm) or small urban standing water and watercourses enrich the bird community by at least two species. Species richness of woodland avifauna at particular sites is further supported by the total amount of tree cover in the surroundings, including scattered greenery of public spaces and private gardens. We conclude that proper management at site scale has the potential to increase biodiversity of the urban environment.     

Politics of geographic exclusion: deinstitutionalization,hegemony and persons with intellectual disability in Israel

Deinstitutionalization is a core policy for the development of services for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) in western countries. Nonetheless, although a western country, deinstitutionalization is not well advanced in Israel. In order to shed light on this phenomenon, we explore the hegemony of ID as reflected in Israeli legislation. The analysis shows a biomedical hegemony; ID is depicted as a form of medical and social deviance. Israel’s legislation reflects paternalistic views of persons with ID, who are largely seen as vulnerable objects of pity, to be cared for and protected.     

Assessing the impact of measurement error in modeling change in the absence of auxiliary data

Measurement error is well known to cause bias in estimated regression coefficients and a loss of power for detecting associations. Methods commonly used to correct for bias often require auxiliary data. We develop a solution for investigating associations between the change in an imprecisely measured outcome and precisely measured predictors, adjusting for the baseline value of the outcome when auxiliary data are not available. We require the specification of ranges for the reliability or the measurement error variance. The solution allows one to investigate the associations for change and to assess the impact of the measurement error.     

Fashioning Futures: Life Coaching and the Self‐Made Identity Paradox

Contemporary processes of individualization push people to construct single‐handedly their own identities. This urge runs counter to a fundament of sociology, which proposes that identities are social products that must be validated through social relations. Based on participant observation and in‐depth interviews with life coaches and their clients, I investigate life coaching as a social institution that aims to resolve the paradoxical nature of the desire for self‐creation. Locating life coaching in the larger identity‐fashioning market, this article illustrates how the artificial nature of outsourced social relations reconciles two apparently contradictory desires: the “need for help” and “wanting to find it on my own.” Three mechanisms are involved: creating an independent social space where identities can be crafted away from significant others; deliberately deemphasizing the coach and intentionally underwriting personal authorship; and encouraging clients to root identities in the social world while promoting an instrumental view of sociality. The article discusses the blurring of boundaries between intimate social relations and utilitarian market logic, and the implications of the ongoing outsourcing of identity support that reinforces the privileged ideal of self‐made identities.     

Complete characterization of functions satisfying the conditions of Arrow’s theorem

Arrow??s theorem implies that a social welfare function satisfying Transitivity, the Weak Pareto Principle (Unanimity), and Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) must be dictatorial. When non-strict preferences are also allowed, a dictatorial social welfare function is defined as a function for which there exists a single voter whose strict preferences are followed. This definition allows for many different dictatorial functions, since non-strict preferences of the dictator are not necessarily followed. In particular, we construct examples of dictatorial functions which do not satisfy Transitivity and IIA. Thus Arrow??s theorem, in the case of non-strict preferences, does not provide a complete characterization of all social welfare functions satisfying Transitivity, the Weak Pareto Principle, and IIA. The main results of this article provide such a characterization for Arrow??s theorem, as well as for follow up results by Wilson. In particular, we strengthen Arrow??s and Wilson??s result by giving an exact if and only if condition for a function to satisfy Transitivity and IIA (and the Weak Pareto Principle). Additionally, we derive formulae for the number of functions satisfying these conditions.     

Is the Labour Market Adjustment in Poland Surprising?

Abstract. On the basis of the brief review of developments in employment and wages in Poland during the stabilization program in 1990, this paper tries to provide critical comments on the two often expressed opinions: that the fall in employment was surprisingly small compared to the fall in output, and that the tax-based incomes policy played a major role in forcing a huge drop in real earnings. It is argued that the actual proportions of the fall in output and employment were in line with specific features of the “overheated” shortage economy, which existed prior to the stabilization program. Since wages were not a “nominal anchor” for most of 1990, other reasons for the astonishing downward flexibility of real wages are analyzed. It is suggested that during the labour market adjustment, the rational strategy of employees was to accept a large, real wage cut in exchange for keeping their employment. Contrary to widespread opinion, it might also be argued that incomes policy, in a short and medium run, will play a much more important role in containing wage pressure than it has until now.     

The Changing Quality of Life in a Post-Communist Country: The Case of Czech Republic

Societal transformation which followed the fall of Communism in Czech Republic has affected many aspects of people's lives. In this paper, we describe the main institutional and structural transformations which induced changes in life-quality after 1989 and sketch thereafter some of the changes themselves. It is mostly the changing living conditions which we cover in the contribution: 1. democracy and civil rights, 2. employment and unemployment, 3. incomes, earnings and the quality of consumption, 4. poverty, 5. housing, 6. environment, 7. health, 8. crime, corruption and social pathology. Some tentative conclusions are proposed: the changes have been contradictory – positive on some dimensions of life-quality (democracy, civil rights, environment, health), negative on another set (crime and social pathology, housing) and inconclusive in the rest (incomes, wages, employment). It is, however, premature to draw definite conclusions, as the process of transformation has not yet reached its end. Judging from subjective evaluation of the overall life quality, the recent picture was encouraging: in 1996, the majority of Czech population said they were satisfied wit how they live. Not only life-quality has changed after 1989, but also the understanding of what good life means.     

Investment, resolution of risk, and the role of affect

This experimental study is concerned with the impact of the timing of the resolution of risk on investment behavior, with a special focus on the role of affect. In a between-subjects design, we observe the impact of a substantial delay of risk resolution (2 days) on investment choices. Besides the resolution timing all other factors, including the timing of payout, are held constant across treatments. In addition, state-of-the-art experimental techniques from experimental economics and psychology are used for eliciting preferences and to explicitly measure emotions and personality traits. Participants put their own money at stake. Our main finding is that the timing of the resolution of risk matters for investment, modulated by the probability of investment success. Emotions are found to play a significant role in this respect and explain our main finding. Our results support recent models of decision making under risk trying to incorporate anticipatory emotions but also uncover some important shortcomings related to the dynamics of emotions.     

Applying critical social work in direct practice with families

This paper seeks to further discourse concerning the implications of critical social work for direct practice with families and children. It presents and discusses a hypothetical example of how a social worker in a social care agency in Israel can incorporate critical social work notions into an official social work report. The paper begins by presenting key concepts in critical social work, their manifestations in practice and their implications for official social work reports. It then presents a mock report informed by critical social work ideas and discusses its structure and contents. The mock report provides an example of how abstract notions central to critical social work can be actualized. The paper thus offers practitioners the opportunity for a richer discourse on the contribution of critical social work to direct practice with families and children.     

Varieties in developing sustainability: the case of the Israeli kibbutz

Kibbutz communities and organizations were originally structured to be egalitarian and democratic. The last two decades proved to be a major challenge for their sustainability due to a serious economic crisis. Many scholars have lamented the end of the kibbutz, some of them claiming that there is no place for utopias in the twenty-first century. Kibbutz communities were trying to survive within a turbulent economic and social environment. This article will attempt to analyse varieties in developing sustainability that were adopted by kibbutz communities. Focusing on the impact of the economic crisis, we will investigate processes of value change within the kibbutz, taking into consideration that the kibbutz does not exist in a vacuum but is rather embedded within a society that has undergone transformation processes from a socialistic to a capitalistic orientation. The article will look at different solutions that kibbutz communities have adopted and strategies that kibbutz members used in order to cope with this crisis. We will explain how these solutions and strategies are reflected in members' values and attitudes as well as taking into consideration in which areas value change was fast and in which it was slower. Our analysis will lead to a reflection on the different communitarian and non-communitarian models that might evolve in the kibbutz communities and their possible outcome. The discussion will focus on three dimensions of sustainability methods adopted by kibbutz communities that integrate value change, organizational change, and community processes.