Hurricane driven changes in vegetation structure and ecosystem services in tropical urban yards: a study case in San Juan,Puerto Rico

Urban forests are valuable spaces for species conservation, protection of local biodiversity and provision of ecosystem services. However, they are also vulnerable to the impact of extreme climate events like hurricanes. Understanding how urban forests are responding to hurricane disturbances is crucial to improve their design, management, and resilience. Here we analyzed pre-and post-hurricane vegetation surveys in 52 residential yards in San Juan to assess urban forest responses after Hurricanes Irma and María impacted Puerto Rico in 2017. We used these surveys to compare vegetation structure and composition (including species-specific mortality and damage rates) and to quantify changes in the ecosystem services provided by these yards. We found that hurricane disturbances significantly altered the structure but not the composition of yard vegetation. We detected a 27% reduction and 31% mortality of standing stems, and a significant reduction in plants health. Yard species composition was dominated by non-native species and this trend did not change with hurricane disturbance. Changes in vegetation structure translated into substantial reductions in ecosystem services. Food provision, an important service provided by a large proportion of yards before the hurricane, reported the highest reduction (41.9%) while carbon storage was the service that changed the least (9%). Our combined results emphasize the key role played by residential yards providing ecosystem services in tropical cities and call for further efforts to manage private and public urban forests in ways that may ensure their resilience to mitigate extreme climate events, provide multiple ecosystem services, and promote long-term urban sustainability.

     

重大突发公共卫生事件背景下人道主义供应链管理研究进展

重大突发公共卫生事件发生后，为了降低病毒传播风险，减轻事件带来的负面影响，如何设计高效的人道主义供应链显得尤为重要。首先，从生活物资、医疗物资和疫苗三个维度，梳理了重大突发公共卫生事件背景下应急物资管理研究进展。其次，从路径规划、选址-运输两个方面，总结了重大突发公共卫生事件背景下灾害垃圾管理研究现状。再次，根据任务类别，剖析了重大突发公共卫生事件背景下人力资源管理研究现状。最后，从顶层设计、应急物资、灾害垃圾、人力资源管理四个方面，给出了人道主义供应链管理未来的研究方向。结果表明：在重大突发公共卫生事件背景下，人道主义供应链管理顶层设计、应急物资管理体系数字化转型升级路径、基于全局与多主体视角的灾害垃圾管理问题、基于多维度的社会力量管理问题都是未来值得研究的主题。     

“I'm going to do battle… I'm going to do some good”. Biographical trajectories,moral politics,and public engagement among highly religious young Catholics in Spain and Mexico

Public debates and controversies on moral issues have gained visibility in recent decades in both Spain and Mexico. Conservative Catholic groups and networks are increasingly playing a crucial role in raising and framing highly morally charged themes in the public arena, especially on intimacy-related policies, including sexual and reproductive freedoms. A new generation of young Catholic leaders becoming key political agents has emerged in this scenario. They are fostering new mobilisation repertoires in the public sphere (e.g., digital activism and public performances) and promoting new political narratives merging moral, cultural, and religious elements. These highly religious and conservative young Catholics consider themselves part of a cultural/cognitive minority and feel entitled to become what Howard Becker termed “moral entrepreneurs.” Most have been educated in Catholic schools and belong to Catholic movements. Still, they can also navigate secular politics and strategically use different regimes of justification and action. Within this context, the article aims to examine and compare the intersection of historical trends and the relevance of individual biographies to understand the role of these young Catholics in the public space in both countries.     

Special issue: Child protection in the digital age. Latent profiles in cyberbullying and the relationship with self-concept and achievement goals in preadolescence

In recent years, the scientific community has taken an interest in cyberbullying research due to the emotional and educational impact on all those involved. However, the scant evidence on samples from primary education is derived from statistical methodologies focusing on the individual, which generate specific profiles rather than acting roles. The present study focuses on the profiles of cyberbullying and its variability with the levels of self-concept and academic goals, using a sample of 548 Spanish primary education students aged 10–13 (M = 10.95, SD = 0.7). After analysing the data using Latent Class Analysis and MANOVA, the profiles developed were ‘not-involved’ (38.82%), ‘moderate victimization’ (37.17%), ‘high bully-victimization’ (19.29%) and ‘low victimization’ (4.7%). In addition, the group of students with the not-involved profile scored higher on the self-concept of their relationship with their parents, in language, in mathematics and their general self-concept than the group with moderate victimization. The same pattern was also observed for learning goals. The findings have significant implications for the creation of person-centred cyberbullying prevention programmes that permit a more targeted approach to cyberbullying behaviours in order to halt its progress.     

New configurations of labour insertion processes. The case of secondary technical and vocational education and training students in Chile

This article presents the results of a longitudinal study that followed a sample of 1011 young people who completed their secondary technical and vocational education and training studies in Chile between 2011 and 2016. It adopts a mixed design that combines both quantitative and qualitative methodological strategies to analyse transitions and post-study trajectories. Analysis has helped to identify the prevalence of non-linear and unstructured transitions to the labour market. It has also shown the existence of education-work links and employment alternatives that are generated in certain sectors as well as identified how these give rise to specific opportunity structures that affect on aspirations and career pathways. Results indicate that graduates of the industrial area of study experience more substantive educational integration and labour links following course completion due to greater levels of alignment between their training and the productive demands of the industrial sectors. However, their experiences over the medium term are fragmented and, thus, reflect those of their peers from other areas.     

Classification Algorithm for Skin Color (CASCo): A new tool to measure skin color in social science research

Objective

A growing body of literature reveals that skin color has significant effects on people's income, health, education, and employment. However, the ways in which skin color has been measured in empirical research have been criticized for being inaccurate, if not subjective and biased.

Objective

Introduce an objective, automatic, accessible and customizable Classification Algorithm for Skin Color (CASCo).

Methods

We review the methods traditionally used to measure skin color (verbal scales, visual aids or color palettes, photo elicitation, spectrometers and image-based algorithms), noting their shortcomings. We highlight the need for a different tool to measure skin color

Results

We present CASCo, a (social researcher-friendly) Python library that uses face detection, skin segmentation and k-means clustering algorithms to determine the skin tone category of portraits.

Conclusion

After assessing the merits and shortcomings of all the methods available, we argue CASCo is well equipped to overcome most challenges and objections posed against its alternatives. While acknowledging its limitations, we contend that CASCo should complement researchers. toolkit in this area.     

The sexual division of labour: A qualitative analysis of social organisations in Peru

This is a study on participation in civil society organisations in Peru, which adopts a gender perspective to understand the dynamics of social welfare production in a family model, and in which there is also a preponderance of community intervention in the field of social protection. The study uses a qualitative methodology and an ethnographic analysis based on 21 organisations. The results indicate polarity of discourses between those who recognise gender differentiation and those who consider that there is gender equality. Despite the polarity, differences in roles, quantity and quality of services, leadership, involvement and motivation are shown. The differences identified vary according to the type of organisation, which shows the relationship between the organisations and the intervention in territories-regions.