A cultivated environment: Exploring the global distribution of plants in gardens, parks and streetscapes

Plants cultivated in gardens, parks and streetscapes are becoming increasingly important to peoples?? experience of biological life, and have been the recent focus of research in ecology, invasion biology, human geography and sociology. However patterns of distribution have not previously been explored at a global scale. In this study, global patterns in the distribution of cultivated floras were explored to determine the significance of biophysical and social factors driving species distributions. The taxonomic similarity of 72 published species lists was examined, covering a wide geographic and climatic range and a variety of land uses. Cultivated floras across urban and rural settlements were found to be very different and unsurprisingly to be strongly filtered by temperature. However we found that human behaviour may overcome other physical drivers of plant distribution such as rainfall in some instances. Social factors were also found to be important. Having a different dominant language (a proxy for cultural background) and difference in GDP per person (a proxy for household income) were also related to the dissimilarity of cultivated floras. Differences in both the social and physical environment are related to floristic differences between cities. However, we recognise that other factors identified in the literature but unsuited to meta-analysis, may also influence the composition of cultivated landscapes. These include changes in policy relating to the provision of street and park vegetation, the availability of plants from nurseries and the preferences of influential gardeners and landscape designers. The significance of the relationship between temperature and species composition suggests that cultivated floras are likely to change in response to climate change. The high level of dissimilarity observed between settlements suggests that patterns of potential naturalisation of cultivated plants are likely to be more complex than currently accepted.     

Is Materialism All That Bad? Effects on Satisfaction with Material Life, Life Satisfaction, and Economic Motivation

The literature in economic psychology and quality-of-life studies alludes to a negative relationship between materialism and life satisfaction. In contrast, the macroeconomic literature implies a positive relationship between material consumption and economic growth. That is, materialism may be both good and bad. We develop a model that reconciles these two contrasting viewpoints by asserting that materialism may lead to life dissatisfaction when materialistic people evaluate their standard of living using fantasy-based expectations (e.g., ideal expectations), which increases the likelihood that they would evaluate their standard of living negatively. In turn, dissatisfaction with standard of living increases the likelihood that they would evaluate their life negatively. However, materialistic people who evaluate their standard of living using reality-based expectations (e.g., ability expectations) are likely to feel more economically motivated than their non-materialistic counterparts, and this economic motivation is likely to contribute significantly and positively to life satisfaction. Survey data were collected from seven major cities each in a different country (Australia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Germany, Egypt, Korea, Turkey, and the USA) using a probability sample (cluster sampling method involving income stratification). The results provide support for the model. The economic public policy implications concerning how people evaluate their standard of living using ability-based expectations are discussed in the context of the ideals of meritocracy.     

Linking Advertising,Materialism, and Life Satisfaction

This paper develops theory related to advertising, materialism, and life satisfaction by formally testing explanations related to the antecedents and consequences of materialism. Survey data were collected from seven major cities each in a different country (Australia, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Germany, Egypt, Korea, Turkey, and the USA) using a probability sample (cluster sampling method involving income stratification). The results showed that the extent to which advertising is perceived to be materialistic contributes to materialism. Materialism, in turn, leads to the frequent use of various standards of comparison in making judgments about standard of living. As judgments about standard of living increase, standard of living is evaluated more negatively. In turn, negative self-evaluations contribute significantly to dissatisfaction with life.     

Diaspora and cultural heritage: the case of Indians in Canada

The present paper examines the historical and contemporary context of Indian communities in Canada from a cultural heritage perspective and analyses the processes of migration, settlement and cultural identity. It also examines the challenges of developing museum exhibits which depict the Indian diaspora in Canada. Despite its colourful history and its growing size and prominence in Canadian society, the Indian diaspora has not been the subject of much interest by Canadian museums. While recognising the necessity of working with local communities and thereby reflecting local concerns, it is submitted that any museum exhibit attempting to portray the complex set of experiences of the Indian diaspora in Canada should include some portrayal of the highly marginalised position which the Indian community faced when it first established themselves in the early 1900s. In addition to this historical focus, any attempt to portray the contemporary Indian diaspora needs to portray its growing diversity and its efforts to maintain, and in many cases modify and ‘hybridise’, cultural practices. Such a display would also have to reflect the influence of transnational forces on the contemporary Indian diaspora. Ultimately, efforts by museums to develop exhibits reflecting the Indian presence in Canada will only further the aims of its widely praised state policy of multiculturalism.     

The mediated innovation model: A framework for researching media influence in language change

Linguistic innovations that arise contemporaneously in highly distant locations, such as quotative be like, have been termed ‘global linguistic variants’. This is not necessarily to suggest fully global usage, but to invoke more general themes of globalisation vis‐à‐vis space and time. This research area has grown steadily in the last twenty years, and by asserting a role for mass media, researchers have departed intrepidly from sociolinguistic convention. Yet they have largely relied on quite conventional sociolinguistic methodologies, only inferring media influence post hoc. This methodological conservatism has been overcome recently, but uncertainty remains about the overall shape of the new epistemological landscape. In this paper, I review existing research on global variants, and propose an epistemological model for researching media influence in language change: the mediated innovation model. I also analyse the way arguments are constructed in existing research, including the use of rhetorical devices to plug empirical gaps – a worthy sociolinguistic topic in its own right.     

Tracking national and regional spatial-temporal mortality risk associated with NO2 concentrations in Canada: a Bayesian hierarchical two-level model

The association between daily variations in urban air quality and mortality has been well documented using time series statistical methods. This approach assumes a constant association over time. We develop a space-time dynamic model that relaxes this assumption, thus more directly examining the hypothesis that improvements in air quality translate into improvements in public health. We postulate a Bayesian hierarchical two-level model to estimate annual mortality risks at regional and national levels and to track both risk and heterogeneity of risk within and between regions over time. We illustrate our methods using daily nitrogen dioxide concentrations (NO2) and nonaccidental mortality data collected for 1984-2004 in 24 Canadian cities. Estimates of risk and heterogeneity are compared by cause of mortality (cardio-pulmonary [CP] versus non-CP) and season, respectively. Over the entire period, the NO2 risk for CP mortality was slightly lower but with a narrower credible interval than that for non-CP mortality, mainly due to an unusually low risk for a single year (1998). Warm season NO2 risk was higher than cold season risk for both CP and non-CP mortality. For 21 years overall there were no significant differences detected among the four regional NO2 risks. We found overall that there was no strong evidence for time trends in NO2 risk at national or regional levels. However, an increasing linear time trend in the annual between-region heterogeneities was detected, which suggests the differences in risk among the four regions are getting larger, and further studies are necessary to understand the increasing heterogeneity.     

Sterilizing the "Feeble-minded": Eugenics in Alberta, Canada, 1929–1972

Abstract Between 1929 and 1972, the Alberta Eugenics Board recommended that 4739 residents of the province be sterilized. However, only 60% of these individuals, 2834 in total, were ultimately sterilized since the legislation under which the Eugenics Board operated required patient consent to be obtained unless the individual recommended for sterilization was diagnosed as "mentally defective." Women, teenagers and young adults, and Aboriginals were particularly targeted by the Alberta Eugenics Board. The Board pursued its sterilization mandate extremely aggressively and, because of a unique set of social, political and economic circumstances in the province, continued to operate long after other political jurisdictions in North America had set aside their involuntary sterilization programs.     

Plan Evaluation: Challenges and Directions for Future Research

Plan evaluation is a well-established part of the planning canon. While this subject has received considerable attention from planning scholars in recent years, plan evaluation methods are not commonly used in practice. This paper examines the factors that contribute to the underuse of plan outcome evaluation in local government planning practice. The concept of evaluation is explained, and the relationship that exists between program evaluation and plan evaluation is explored.