Local and landscape drivers of arthropod abundance,richness, and trophic composition in urban habitats

Urban green spaces, such as forest fragments, vacant lots, and community gardens, are increasingly highlighted as biodiversity refuges and are of growing interest to conservation. At the same time, the burgeoning urban garden movement partially seeks to ameliorate problems of food security. Arthropods link these two issues (conservation and food security) given their abundance, diversity, and role as providers of ecosystem services like pollination and pest control. Many previous studies of urban arthropods focused on a single taxon (e.g. order or family), and examined either local habitat drivers or effects of landscape characteristics. In contrast, we examined both local and landscape drivers of community patterns, and examined differences in abundance, richness, and trophic structure of arthropod communities in urban forest fragments, vacant lots, and community gardens. We sampled ground-foraging arthropods, collected data on 24 local habitat features (e.g., vegetation, ground cover, concrete), and examined land-cover types within 2 km of 12 study sites in Toledo, Ohio. We found that abundance and richness of urban arthropods differed by habitat type and that richness of ants and spiders, in particular, varied among lots, gardens, and forests. Several local and landscape factors correlated with changes in abundance, richness, and trophic composition of arthropods, and different factors were important for specific arthropod groups. Overwhelmingly, local factors were the predominant (80 % of interactions) driver of arthropods in this urban environment. These results indicate that park managers and gardeners alike may be able to manage forests and gardens to promote biodiversity of desired organisms and potentially improve ecosystem services within the urban landscape.     

Middle Childhood Feelings Toward Mothers: Predictions From Maternal Directiveness at the Age of Two and Respect for Autonomy Currently

The goals of this study were to examine (1) stability of maternal directiveness during interactions with their children from toddlerhood to late middle childhood, (2) direct and mediated relations between mothers' directiveness when children were two years old, mothers' respect for autonomy and children's positivity and negativity toward their mothers when children were in late middle childhood, and (3) differences in these paths by ethnoracial group. Participants included 876 European‐American, 789 African‐American, and 411 Mexican‐American mothers and their children from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project. Maternal respect for autonomy at Time 2 partially mediated an association between Time 1 directiveness and observed child positivity toward mothers at Time 2. There was also a direct inverse link between Time 1 maternal directiveness and children's observed positivity toward mothers at Time 2. Relations were similar across ethnoracial groups and for boys and girls. The discussion focuses on heterotypic stability in directive parenting and its implications for children's feelings toward their mothers.     

Public relations and business responses to the civil rights movement

During the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. civil rights protesters targeted businesses with demands for service, jobs, and equality. Employing historical method, this study considers the role of public relations by examining magazine, newspaper, and public relations trade press coverage of business responses to the civil rights movement. The analysis shows that, although all five motivations for the adoption of the formal public relations function—profit, legitimacy, recruitment, agitation, and advocacy—were present, business was slow to respond; that riots and concerns about corporate image drove business to take a public stand; and that professional public relations participation appeared to be minimal even as it was cited in press stories as a reason for the failure of many business initiatives. In addition, the analysis demonstrates the existence of a sixth motivation: fear.     

A Crisis-Driven Migration? Aspirations and Experiences of the Post-2008 South European Migrants in London

Since the 1990s young South Europeans have been attracted to London by the dynamic labour market and cultural radiance of the city, but also pushed by unfavourable conditions in the labour markets of their origin countries. Subsequently, the Eurozone crisis, austerity politics and their socio-political consequences have markedly intensified migration rates. But did they also signify a rupture in terms of the motivations, experiences and aspirations of the migrants? Drawing on in-depth interviews with Greek, Italian and Spanish migrants of different educational levels, we find that post-materialist motivations and pro-migration dispositions prevail among the “crisis-migrants”. Migration is seen and experienced as a step forward, rather than a disruptive force, signalling a positive message in defence of intra-EU free mobility. Yet at times of neoliberal deregulation and economic and political uncertainty, aspirations for socio-economic stability and settlement are also of growing importance, questioning mobility as the normative way of contemporary life.     

Labour Market and Human Capital Behaviour of Immigrant Couples: Evidence from Australia

We examine the labour market and human capital investment behaviour of immigrant couples in Australia. The family investment hypothesis (FIH) states that immigrant husbands, whom the FIH assumes to be the primary earners in the family, will invest more in their human capital than immigrant wives, whom the FIH assumes to be secondary earners. Using longitudinal data from Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) for the period 2001 to 2014, we do not find support for the FIH. Instead, we find that foreign-born husbands and wives share similar labour market assimilation patterns with respect to hours of work and wages. Our estimates suggest that immigrant wives' labour market behaviour can be better explained by their own long-term career progression and labour market assimilation, than through supporting their husbands' labour market assimilation.     

BAD NEWS FROM THE FRONT AND FROM ABOVE: BOMBING RAIDS,MILITARY FATALITIES AND THE DEATH PENALTY IN NAZI GERMANY

We examine how the decision-making of political elites respond to an imminent external threat to the existence of the state in times of war. To do so, we exploit exogeneous variation in exposure to battle deaths and bombing raids to estimate the effect of variation in the intensity of war on the probability that individuals charged with treason and/or high treason in Nazi Germany received the death sentence. A doubling of the number of military fatalities as well as bombing raids in the same week in which a defendant was sentenced increased the likelihood of receiving the death penalty by about 10 percentage points. (JEL K14, N44)     

The semiparametric accelerated trend-renewal process for recurrent event data

Lifetime Data Analysis - Recurrent event data arise in many biomedical longitudinal studies when health-related events can occur repeatedly for each subject during the follow-up time. In this...