Fire and restoration of the largest urban forest of the world in Rio de Janeiro City,Brazil

National Park of Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) is about 3,300 ha and considered the largest urban forest in the world. Its floristic composition is typical of Atlantic Rain Forest. The reserve is being altered because of fire occurrences and urban expansion. This study identified locations and causes of forest fires, and makes management recommendations to restore damaged areas. From 1991 to 2000, forest firefighters recorded an average of 75-fire occurrences/year. Identified causes included hot air balloons (24%), intentional (24%), rubbish burning (21%) and religious practices (17%). Primary fuels included invasive grasses and ferns. Although hot air balloons destroyed larger areas of forest in each occurrence, a greater number of fires started in the invasive vegetation along roads that bisect the forest. In response to recurrent forests, invasive vegetation has spread gradually into the forest increasing forest degradation. To decrease fire damage, sites with high fire frequencies and density of invasive vegetation were planted with less flammable species. Results indicate that fire frequency decreased and density of invasive vegetation declined. This approach appears to prevent fire incidence, reduce the need for fire fighting, and preserve existing biodiversity.     

Challenges to Connecting Sociology and Service Learning

Service-learning programs are not free from challenges brought about by lack of financial support, lack of widespread commitment from professors, community agencies, and recipients of service, and lack of knowledge and insight in students directly involved in such programs. While service-learning initiatives and programs serve positive functions for organizations and individuals, rhetorical accolades for service learning can distort or omit the realities of program implementation and sustained delivery. This paper specifically explores the following challenges connected to service-learning programs: (1) pedagogical difficulties; (2) student limitations; (3) time constraints; and (4) community cooperation.     

A NOTE ON EVANESCENT PROCESSES

This note examines the connection between μ-invariant measures for the transition function of a continuous-time Markov chain and those of its q-matrix, Q. The major result establishes a necessary and aufficient condition for a convergent μ-invariant measure for Q to be μ-inhant for the minimal transition function, P, under the assumption that P is honest. This corrects Theorem 6 of Vere-Jones (1969) and the first part of Corollary 1 of Pollett (1986), both of which assert that the above conclusion holds in the absence of this condition. The error was pointed out by E.A. van Doom (1991) and the counterexample which be presented provides the basis for the present arguments. In determining where the error occurred in the original proof, we are able to identify a simple sufficient condition for μ-invariance.     

A role-reversal in the mother-daughter relationship

Psychoanalytic theorists have noted a particular dynamic in the mother-infant relationship in which the emotional needs of the mother predominate. When this situation occurs, the emotional needs of the infant may go unmet, resulting in impaired self-development. Through an integration of the ideas of mainstream psychoanalytic theorists and feminist psychoanalytic thinkers, this paper proposes the idea that, because of the intensity of the mother-daughter relationship, this dynamic may be more prevalent between mothers and daughters than between mothers and sons. A mother-daughter relationship is described in which the mother comes to depend on her daughter for emotional attunement and response, and the mother's selfobject needs predominate. As a consequence, the daughter is unable to develop a cohesive sense of self and experiences difficulty in achieving separation. Two clinical reports are presented to illustrate the way in which this mother-daughter dynamic manifests itself in the patient's life and in the therapeutic relationship. A negative transference dynamic is described resulting from these patient's fear of duplicating their relationship with their mothers in the therapeutic relationship by having to meet the selfobject needs of the therapist.     

A continuous sampling plan using CUSUMs

A Continuous Sampling Plan, CSP-CUSUM, is proposed based on the use of Cumulative Sums (CUSUMs) for deciding when to switch between the phases of sampling inspection and 100% inspection. The Geometric CUSUM, also termed the Run-length CUSUM, is chosen for this purpose, and two separate CUSUMs are to be operated, one for each inspection phase. The conventional measures of performance for CSPs such as average outgoing quality, average fraction inspected, and average proportion passed under sampling inspection are evaluated for CSP-CUSUM, and comparisons with some standard CSPs are presented. An additional performance-measure, Average Cycle Length, is proposed. A table is provided to aid the choice of parameters for the operation of CSP-CUSUM. It is recommended that a Geometric CUSUM control chart be maintained in parallel with CSP-CUSUM to detect significant upward shifts in the incoming fraction defective.