Birds of a neotropical green city: an up-to-date review of the avifauna of the city of Xalapa with additional unpublished records

Although urbanization poses severe threats to biodiversity, some wildlife groups manage to thrive within urban areas. Among wildlife, birds are a highly diverse, charismatic and well-known group, establishing complex communities in human settlements around the world, making them suitable bioindicators. However, it is often difficult to have historical species lists that allow understanding current urban ecology trends. In this paper, we compile the available bird records, including unpublished information, for one of the best studied and well vegetated urban areas in México: the city of Xalapa. We gathered records for 329 species, representing ~30 % of the national avifauna in this medium-sized neotropical city. This important avian diversity in the city of Xalapa is mostly due to its environmental heterogeneity, underlining the relevance of its location, and the nature of its surroundings. The information provided in this paper will not only provide an environmental education baseline and represent a starting point for ornithologists, but will represent a reference document on the birds that have been recorded within the limits of Xalapa in the last three decades.     

Optimal voting rules for two-member tenure committees

A tenure committee first votes on whether to hire a candidate; if it does, it receives an informative performance signal, and then votes on whether to tenure the candidate; rejection at either stage returns the committee to a candidate pool, endogenising the value of the outside option. A candidate’s fate depends only on the behaviour of two ‘weather-vane’ committee members. Committee members may vote against favoured candidates if the weather-vane is opposed; enthusiastic assessments by one of these weather-vanes may harm a candidate’s chances by increasing others’ thresholds for hiring him; sunk time costs may lead voters who voted against hiring to vote for tenuring him, even after a poor probationary performance. For two member committees that are patient and perceptive, the optimal voting rule is a (weak) majority at the hiring stage and unanimity at the tenure stage; when such committees are impatient or imperceptive, the double (weak) majority rule is optimal. Perversely, the performance of a patient, imperceptive committee improves as its perceptiveness further declines. Consistent with practice, falling threshold rules are not optimal. Results on optimal voting rules are also presented in limit cases as committee members’ beliefs become more correlated. Finally, we compare the model to a discrete-time European options model.     

On the lookout for danger: House Sparrow alert distance in three cities

Urban Ecosystems - The House Sparrow Passer domesticus, closely associated with human presence along urban–agricultural landscapes and widely distributed outside its native range, has shown...     

Another Child? Fertility Ideals,Resources and Opportunities

Low fertility in most developed countries has prompted policy concern in relation to labour market supply, pensions, and expenditure on health and welfare services as well as policy debate about both the cost of children and the opportunity costs of parenthood. The extent to which family policy interventions can be effective in slowing or reversing fertility decline is much debated. This paper, based on a fertility module of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2005, examines the current fertility, and ideal and expected fertility of a nationally representative sample of 455 parents of reproductive age and focuses on whether they plan to have another child. It compares the characteristics of those who intend to have another child with those who do not, and how parents with one child differ from those with more children. It addresses three questions about family size: (1) fertility ideals, (2) resources and the economic implications of childbearing, and (3) opportunities for childbearing and the effects of a late start on fertility expectations. It concludes that, despite a sustained period of low fertility in Scotland, childbearing ideals are robust and explanations of low fertility must derive from difficulties in realising those ideals. Difficulties in realising fertility aspirations are associated less with resources than with opportunities for childbearing, especially the timing of first birth. Those who delay their first birth are less likely to realise their ideal family size, and their lower fertility is associated with the opportunity costs of childbearing in terms of foregone qualifications, careers and earnings.     

Neoliberalism and social work identity

This article considers the relationship between the identity of social work and the neoliberal political project. Reference is made to a small but carefully structured quantitative research study in Auckland, New Zealand which examined the knowledge applied and produced in the practice of social work. This study found evidence consistent with Philp’s [(1979). Notes on the form of knowledge in social work. Sociological Review, 27(1), 83–111] theorisation of a specific ‘form of knowledge’ for social work which is produced and reproduced as a function of relational engagement between social workers and those who are constructed as ‘clients’ in an unequal society. This discourse casts the ‘failing subject’ as socially located and inherently redeemable in direct contrast to populist neoliberal constructions of personal responsibility and moral deficit. With reference to dialectical theory it is suggested that this resilient discourse, embedded in ‘every-day’ practice, is inevitably a source of resistance to the imposition of neoliberal practice and policy design. This resistance provides hope for the progressive voice of social work in the current contest of ideas in relation to the future development of social work.     

Internet use,political knowledge and youth electoral participation in Australia

Almost since its inception, the internet has been seen as a means of reinvigorating political knowledge and engagement among the young. Early studies showed small but significant effects for internet use and increased political knowledge among the young. Using a large, national election survey conducted in Australia in 2013, this paper examines the role of the internet in shaping political knowledge among the young and, in turn, its effects on electoral participation. The results show that use of the internet during an election campaign significantly increases political knowledge among the young, and that such political knowledge enhances the likelihood of turning out to vote. Overall, the results extend the findings of other studies which have demonstrated the potential of the internet to re-engage young people into the political process.     

Countering essentialism in behavioural social science: the example of 'the vulnerable child' ethnographically examined

After discussing ways in which the concept of vulnerability is applied to children in psychology and sociology. It is argued that many of these may arise from the mistaken concretisation of essentialising concepts which have sometimes thereby become barriers to, rather than facilitators of, sociological understanding. Fieldwork is presented and analysed concerning the interactions of some London children, and their characterisations of themselves and others, in a variety of home, school and other settings. It is suggested that situations in which children are present often do generate 'vulnerability' in all participants not only in the children. In classrooms and elsewhere the attribution and reality of vulnerability moves rapidly between persons as situations develop and change.     

Gambling and Problem Gambling Among Young Adolescents in Great Britain

International evidence suggests that problem gambling tends to be 2–4?times higher among adolescents as among adults and this proves to be true of Great Britain according to the latest adolescent prevalence survey. 8,958 British children (11–15) were surveyed in 201 schools during late 2008 and 2009. The questionnaire included a standard screen, DSM-IV-MR-J, to test for problem gambling. Our regression models explore influences of demographic, home and school characteristics on probabilities (both unconditional and conditional on being a gambler) of a child testing positive for problem gambling. More than 20% of children participated in gambling and, of these, nearly 8% tested positive. Age-group prevalence of problem gambling was 1.9%, compared with 0.6–0.9% in the most recent official adult surveys. Boys were much more likely than girls to gamble and to exhibit symptoms of problem gambling if they did. Generally, home characteristics, particularly parental attitude and example, dominated school characteristics in accounting for risks. Unanticipated findings included significantly elevated probabilities of problem gambling among Asian children and among children who live in a home without siblings. Child income was also a potent predictor of gambling and problem gambling.     

The global “war for talent”

In this paper we examine the “global war for talent,” the factors that impact it, and organizations' responses to it. Using a comprehensive search of more than 400 contemporary academic and business press articles, the paper reviews relevant research and reassesses the “talent war.” We posit that the dominant approaches to the “talent war” based on a scarcity state of mind and action, often characterized by a tactical and exclusive top talent or “star” focus, are being challenged by the emergence of a more evolutionary paradigm. This new paradigm adopts more strategic, innovative, cooperative and generative approaches which we describe as creative ‘talent solutions.’ The paper also highlights implications for future research, teaching and development in the field.