Mobility and Professional Networks in Academia: An Exploration of the Obligations of Presence

This article explores the obligations of presence behind work-related mobility for academics in internationalizing higher education systems. By further developing John Urry’s concept of ‘meetingness’, the article reveals how academics depend on corporeal and virtual mobility to create and maintain a networked professional life outside their own institution, which is crucial in the context of changing work conditions. Our insights are drawn from original qualitative research (42 interviews) in a Flemish and Danish context. The data reveal obligations of presence associated with an interrelated mix of functionality, and the construction of dense and sparse social networks that together support career success and work at the frontiers of academic knowledge. Despite the now well-recognized costs of corporeal mobility, obligations of presence result in virtual and corporeal mobility coexisting, rather than the former substituting for the latter. Virtual mobility is mainly used when conflicting obligations of presence exist, and as a means of sustaining networks over time given the processual nature of meetingness, rather than as a means to reduce levels of corporeal mobility.     

Contributions and Challenges to Clinical Practice from Buddhist Psychology

Psychotherapy is considered to belong to a branch of medicine, and adheres to many conventions of the medical model. As psychotherapists continue to embrace mindfulness (a foundational practice derived from Buddhist psychology), the way we understand suffering and what is to be done about it may be informed by the insights gained in mindfulness practice. Some of these insights depart in degree and in type from the assumptions underlying the medical model, as well as from prevalent ideas of suffering, treatment, and most challenging, the idea of the self who is assumed to be at the center of suffering. By examining a number of influences of mindfulness on clinical practice, the author suggests subtle and potentially radical influences on the way we think of the healing process. It is hypothesized that the Buddhist model may offer a transtheoretical and transcultural model of suffering and its treatment.     

An Ecological Model for Quantitative Risk Assessment for Schistosomiasis: The Case of a Patchy Environment in the Coastal Tropical Area of Northeastern Brazil

We developed a stochastic model for quantitative risk assessment for the Schistosoma mansoni (SM) parasite, which causes an endemic disease of public concern. The model provides answers in a useful format for public health decisions, uses data and expert opinion, and can be applied to any landscape where the snail Biomphalaria glabrata is the main intermediate host (South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa). It incorporates several realistic and case‐specific features: stage‐structured parasite populations, periodic praziquantel (PZQ) drug treatment for humans, density dependence, extreme events (prolonged rainfall), site‐specific sanitation quality, environmental stochasticity, monthly rainfall variation, uncertainty in parameters, and spatial dynamics. We parameterize the model through a real‐world application in the district of Porto de Galinhas (PG), one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil, where previous studies identified four parasite populations within the metapopulation. The results provide a good approximation of the dynamics of the system and are in agreement with our field observations, i.e., the lack of basic infrastructure (sanitation level and health programs) makes PG a suitable habitat for the persistence and growth of a parasite metapopulation. We quantify the risk of SM metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction and the time to metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction. We evaluate the sensitivity of the results under varying scenarios of future periodic PZQ treatment (based on the Brazilian Ministry of Health's plan) and sanitation quality. We conclude that the plan might be useful to slow SM metapopulation growth but not to control it. Additional investments in better sanitation are necessary.     

Does transformational leadership predict group emotional intelligence in work settings? / ¿Es el liderazgo transformacional un predictor de la inteligencia emocional grupal en los contextos laborales?

Contagion of emotions is a widely accepted characteristic of transformational leaders. However, the impact they may have on the Emotional Intelligence of their subordinates is an open question. In this paper, we analyse whether Transformational Leadership (LTF) perceptions influence the Emotional Intelligence of their groups (GEI). This is a novel approach within the actual interest on emotional intelligence and its role in group results. The participants were 272 subordinates from 52 groups that belonged to different private and public organizations in Spain. They completed a questionnaire including the variables of interest. Our study helps to clarify the relations between TFL perceptions and GEI, showing that TFL and GEI relate at the group level and that TFL is one of the predictors of the perception of GEI in work settings. Thus, the development of emotionally competent transformational leaders will produce emotionally competent groups that might increase their performance, efficiency and other processes (i.e., engagement).     

Reporting Errors in Siblings’ Survival Histories and Their Impact on Adult Mortality Estimates: Results From a Record Linkage Study in Senegal

Estimates of adult mortality in countries with limited vital registration (e.g., sub-Saharan Africa) are often derived from information about the survival of a respondent’s siblings. We evaluated the completeness and accuracy of such data through a record linkage study conducted in Bandafassi, located in southeastern Senegal. We linked at the individual level retrospective siblings’ survival histories (SSH) reported by female respondents (n = 268) to prospective mortality data and genealogies collected through a health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS). Respondents often reported inaccurate lists of siblings. Additions to these lists were uncommon, but omissions were frequent: respondents omitted 3.8 % of their live sisters, 9.1 % of their deceased sisters, and 16.6 % of their sisters who had migrated out of the DSS area. Respondents underestimated the age at death of the siblings they reported during the interview, particularly among siblings who had died at older ages (≥45 years). Restricting SSH data to person-years and events having occurred during a recent reference period reduced list errors but not age and date errors. Overall, SSH data led to a 20 % underestimate of ₄₅ q ₁₅ relative to HDSS data. Our study suggests new quality improvement strategies for SSH data and demonstrates the potential use of HDSS data for the validation of “unconventional” demographic techniques.     

Who Gets Custody Now? Dramatic Changes in Children’s Living Arrangements After Divorce

This article reexamines the living arrangements of children following their parents’ divorce, using Wisconsin Court Records, updating an analysis that showed relatively small but significant increases in shared custody in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These changes have accelerated markedly in the intervening years: between 1988 and 2008, the proportion of mothers granted sole physical custody fell substantially, the proportion of parents sharing custody increased dramatically, and father–sole custody remained relatively stable. We explore changes in the correlates of alternative custody outcomes, showing that some results from the earlier analysis still hold (for example, cases with higher total family income are more likely to have shared custody), but other differences have lessened (shared-custody cases have become less distinctive as they have become more common). Despite the considerable changes in marriage and divorce patterns over this period, we do not find strong evidence that the changes in custody are related to changes in the characteristics of families experiencing a divorce; rather, changes in custody may be the result of changes in social norms and the process by which custody is determined.     

The Robustness of High Danish National Happiness: A Temporal Cross-Country Analysis of Population Subgroups

Denmark’s top position in various rankings of country happiness is well-documented. This study goes beyond the national average comparisons and investigates whether Denmark’s top position is also found when we disaggregate data in line with social categories often used within the social sciences. The central measure is the empirical probability that a given population subgroup in Denmark has significantly higher happiness compared to another country’s similar subgroup in a given year. All five rounds of the European Social Survey are used but only the sixteen countries that were surveyed in each of the five rounds are included in this study. The results show that Denmark’s position at the top of the happiness scale is also robust when we look at population subgroups, but not in the sense that Denmark dominates all countries for all years. Instead, a modified version of robustness is necessary; Denmark very often has significantly higher happiness levels than in other countries, only sometimes has the same happiness levels as in other countries, very rarely is it dominated by other countries, and finally it is never dominated by other countries in all 5 years for a given subpopulation characteristic. This conclusion is quite insensitive to the applied SWB measure and the applied significance level.

     

Estimating urban lawn cover in space and time: Case studies in three Swedish cities

Lawns are considered monocultures and lesser contributors to sustainability than diverse nature but are still a dominating green area feature and an important cultural phenomenon in cities. Lawns have esthetical values, provide playground, are potential habitat for species, contribute to carbon sequestration and water infiltration, but also increase pesticides, fertilization, are monocultures and costly to manage at the same time. To evaluate the potential impact of lawns, whether positive or negative, it is of interest to estimate the total lawn cover in cities and its change over time. This is not a straightforward process, e.g., because many lawns are small and covered by trees. In this study we review the existing literature of lawn cover in cities and the different methodologies used for cover estimation. We found both pros and cons with NDVI and LiDAR data as well as manually interpreted aerial photos. The total cover of lawns in three case study cities was estimated to 22.5%. By extrapolating these percentages to all Swedish cities lawn cover was estimated to 2589 km² (0.6% of the terrestrial surface). The approximated total municipal management cost of lawns in all Swedish cities was 910,000,000 USD/ year. During 50 years lawn area almost doubled in relative cover and 56% of them were continuously managed. Since lawns constitute large parts of the urban greenery and are costly to manage it is highly relevant to consider their social, ecological and cultural value compared to alternatives, e.g., meadows with less intensive management.