Evaluation of the location of cities in terms of land cover on the example of Poland

Urban Ecosystems - The increasing availability of remote sensing materials of varying spatial resolution inclines to look for methods enabling their use, both at planning the spatial structure of...     

HIGH-LEVEL DECISIONS: A LESSON FROM THE IRAN HOSTAGE RESCUE OPERATION

We use the analytic hierarchy process to analyze the role of subjective factors in decision making as illustrated in the Iran rescue operation. Essentially, we show that a decision maker and that decision maker's advisors may differ in their estimates on whether an action should or should not be taken depending on what intangible factors the leader holds as personally important, factors that the others would not necessarily include in their thinking-a serious point for which we provide a particularly effective methodology.     

Manual bamboo cutting tool

The paper presents the development of a cutting tool guide, specifically for the harvest of bamboo. The development was made based on precepts of eco-design and ergonomics, for prioritizing the physical health of the operator and the maintenance of the environment, as well as meet specific requirements of bamboo. The main goal is to spread the use of bamboo as construction material, handicrafts, among others, from a handy, easy assembly and material available tool.     

The utilization of infrared imaging for occupational disease study in industrial work

Infrared imaging has been used to visualize superficial temperatures in industrial employers standing and working in an indoor environment at 22°C. Temperature distributions and changes have been recorded digitally and analyzed. Mean skin temperatures determined by this method have been compared with superficial temperatures obtained with a probe thermocouple. During working hours, surface temperatures were higher over extensor muscles than over other structures and their spatial distributions differed dramatically from those observed before working hours. The authors also analyzed the cold water immersion of the hands during work. This paper showed that working generates different thermal effects on human skin that reflect physiological and pathological occupational conditions and can be monitored by infrared imaging.     

Survival,abundance, and capture rate of eastern cottontail rabbits in an urban park

Eastern cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) are common, conspicuous denizens of urban environments. They are associated with human-wildlife conflict due to vegetation damage. Prior to this study, population dynamics of this species in urban environments remained largely uncharacterized. For three consecutive winters, we used classic field ecology methods (mark-recapture and mark–resight surveys) to estimate demographic parameters of rabbits in a city park in Chicago, Illinois. Rabbits occurred in densities as high as 16.3 rabbits/ha, which is comparatively high for the Midwestern United States. An annual survivorship of 30.4?±?12.9 % SE was similar to that observed in natural environments in similar climates. This result refuted our hypothesis that urban rabbits would have higher annual survival rates than rabbits in natural settings due to food subsidies supplied by landscaping in parks. Mean distance between trap locations for rabbits trapped three or more times was 43.14?±?30.01 m SD, suggesting that rabbits in the urban study area had smaller home ranges than rabbits in non-human-dominated habitats. This study contributes to our understanding of population dynamics of a human-wildlife conflict species in urban environments and provides useful information for managers dealing with damage caused by rabbits. The mark-resight method employed here could be used by managers to estimate pre- and post-management population sizes of other conflict species, for example Canada geese (Branta Canadensis), in parks and green spaces, provided that the species is trappable, visible, and individuals have relatively small home ranges.     

A Bayesian Test for the Mean of the Power Exponential Distribution

In this article, we deal with the problem of testing a point null hypothesis for the mean of a multivariate power exponential distribution. We study the conditions under which Bayesian and frequentist approaches can match. In this comparison it is observed that the tails of the model are the key to explain the reconciliability or irreconciliability between the two approaches.     

过度教育的发生率及政策启示研究——基于北京市数据的分析

本文使用2008年北京市调查数据分别采用自我评估法和众数法从性别、职业、行业、所有制层次对过度教育进行了测算,发现与欧美国家相比,我国过度教育发生率整体上偏高。从劳动力市场分割理论分析认为,劳动力市场存有明显地分割是引致一些地区、职业、行业等内人力资本过度集中的重要原因。对于整体上还处于教育不足的我国而言,转变经济发展方式,鼓励技术创新、深化社会主义市场化改革,降低劳动力流动成本是解决过度教育的根本出路。     

Divorce and the duality of marital payoff

Empirical studies on the determinants of divorce are scarce in economics. The literature has focused on the impact of income differentials between partners. We extend the model of marital dissolution to integrate time-varying non-pecuniary quality of the match. We use a unique Russian dataset to measure shocks to the non-economic components of the value of marriage. Our estimates suggest that the monetary and non-monetary components enter additively into marriage surplus, but with gender-specific marginal rates of substitution: divorce hazard is more sensitive to the non-pecuniary dissatisfaction of the wife than to that of the husband; impacts of the monetary components are also gender-specific and highly non-linear. We link these findings to remarriage prospects and partial risk sharing.     

TOGETHER – A Couples’ Program to Improve Communication,Coping, and Financial Management Skills: Development and Initial Pilot‐Testing

The accumulated knowledge about the negative impact of financial strain on couple's relationship functioning and the magnitude of the latest economic downturn have brought together the fields of financial counseling and couples’ therapy. This article describes the development of a new interdisciplinary program that aims at helping couples under financial strain improve their financial management, communication, and dyadic coping skills. The article also reports the results from its initial pilot‐testing with data collected from 18 financially distressed couples before and after participation in the program and 3 months later. Results from repeated measures ANOVAs suggest that the program may help reduce both partners’ financial strain and the male negative communication and improve both partners’ financial management skills and strategies to cope together with financial strain, and the male relationship satisfaction. These findings together with the high satisfaction reported by participants regarding the structure and content of the sessions and homework suggest that this program may be a promising approach to help couples experiencing financial strain. Gender differences, clinical implications, and possibilities for further research are also discussed.