Forest ethnography: An approach to study the environmental history and political ecology of urban forests

Urban Ecosystems - A landscape succession paradigm has shaped much of our understanding about the processes of forest emergence and transformation in the United States. Drawing heavily from theory...     

Female-perpetrated intimate partner violence and romantic attachment style in a college student sample

The frequency, severity, and reciprocity of female-perpetrated intimate partner violence and its consequences (i.e., injuries) were investigated in a college sample of women (N = 457). Participants were classified into one of the following four groups on the basis of self-reported physical assault perpetration and victimization against their relationship partners: nonviolent, perpetrator-only, victim-only, and bidirectionally violent. Results showed that females in the bidirectionally violent group had a reportedly higher occurrence (although not always statistically significant) of perpetration and victimization than those in the perpetrator-only and victim-only groups. Additionally, a similar degree of reciprocity was indicated by females in bidirectionally violent relationships in terms of violence severity and the occurrence of injury. Adult romantic attachment style was also examined among a subset of females (N = 328), and bidirectionally violent females were found to have the highest reported levels of attachment anxiety. Further, females high in attachment anxiety and low in attachment avoidance were more likely to report perpetrating violence than females high in both styles. Implications for prevention are discussed.     

Merging medical groups

One of the trends of the past 10 years that has marked the way physicians practice medicine is growth in the size and complexity of group practice. The reasons for these changes (better patient coverage, within-the-group referral, a larger financial base, a collegial environment, shared overhead, professional management, and packaged negotiation) are clear and are certainly valid. This trend shows few signs of slowing and may be accelerating. Indeed, most of the proposals for national health care reform seem likely to put larger groups at a competitive advantage. We have developed a highly effective procedure that helps improve the efficiency and the success of the merger process.     

Litter decomposition and nitrogen mineralization in oak stands along an urban-rural land use gradient

We investigated litter mass loss and soil nitrogen (N)-transformation rates in oak stands along a 130-km, urban-rural transect originating in New York City to examine the relationship between changes in these parameters and previously documented differences in soil temperature, heavy metal and total salt concentrations, and soil biota. Reference litter from a rural site was placed in litterbags, and rates of mass loss and changes in N concentration in litter residues were measured over a 6-month period. Net N-mineralization and nitrification rates were measured in A horizon soils using laboratory incubations under constant moisture and temperature. Both mass loss (76%) and N release (65%) from litterbags reached their maximum in urban stands, whereas net N-mineralization rates were 2.3-fold higher than in rural A horizon soils. Litter fragmentation by earthworms and higher soil temperatures are potential causes of the higher mass loss rates observed in urban stands. The higher releases of N measured in the urban litterbags could be a result of their faster mass loss rates, exogenous inputs of N from atmospheric deposition, a relatively low heterotrophic demand for N, or a combination of these factors. The results of this study suggest that in comparison with rural stands, urban forests are characterized by comparatively high rates of litter decomposition, and may also be characterized by comparatively high rates of N mineralization. Additional studies are needed to test whether these effects are common to urban environments in general.     

A conceptual framework for the study of human ecosystems in urban areas

The need for integrated concepts, capable of satisfying natural and social scientists and supporting integrated research, motivates a conceptual framework for understanding the role of humans in ecosystems. The question is how to add humans to the ecological models used to understand urban ecosystems. The ecosystem concept can serve as the basis, but specific social attributes of humans and their institutions must be added. Learning and feedback between the human and natural components of urban ecosystems are key attributes of the integrated model. Parallels with familiar ecological approaches can help in understanding the ecology of urban ecosystems. These include the role of spatial heterogeneity and organizational hierarchies in both the social and natural components of urban ecosystems. Although urban watersheds are commonly highly altered, the watershed approach can serve as a spatial basis for organizing comparative studies of ecosystems exhibiting differing degrees of urbanization. The watershed concept can also spatially organize the hierarchically scaled linkages by which the integrated human ecosystem model can be applied. The study of urban ecosystems is a relatively new field, and the questions suggested by the integrated framework can be used to frame ecosystem research in and associated with urban and metropolitan areas.     

The Incompatibility of System and Lifeworld Understandings of Food Insecurity and the Provision of Food Aid in an English City

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - We report qualitative findings from a study in a multi-ethnic, multi-faith city with high levels of deprivation. Primary...     

Stereotyping Online? Internet News,Social Media,and the Racial Typification of Crime

A substantial body of research indicates that television news consumption is associated with criminal stereotyping. However, less is known about how online media, such as Internet news and social media news consumption, is associated with such attitudes. Using a multisite sample of mostly young adults, the current study examines the relationships between multiple types of online news consumption and crime news engagement on racially typifying African Americans as violent, property, and drug offenders. Findings reveal that Internet news consumption is negatively related, but social media news consumption is positively related, to racially typifying African Americans as criminals. Beyond consumption, social media crime news engagement is negatively related to racial typification. Last, there is some evidence that the association between online media consumption and engagement varies by race and political ideology. Findings and direction for future research is discussed.     

Monogamy on trial

Part II concludes the historical discussion of monogamy and its alternatives. From the Colonial period on, cohabitation, common-law marriage, singlehood, and communal experimentation existed on the American frontier, but romantic monogamy replaced patriarchal monogamy as the predominant lifestyle. The Enlightenment emphasis uponindividual freedom (which also contributed to the creation of the democratic family), the rise of the Purity Crusade, and easy divorce contributed to the decline of traditional monogamy and the rise of a more flexible form currently described as sequential polygamy or serial monogamy. In future times, individuals may vary their lifestyles as they move through their life spans.     

Deliberation: Integrating Analytical Results into Environmental Decisions Involving Multiple Stakeholders

The National Research Council has recommended the use of an analytic/deliberative decision making process in environmental restoration decisions that involve multiple stakeholders. This work investigates the use of the results of risk assessment and multiattribute utility analysis (the "analysis") in guiding the deliberation. These results include the ranking of proposed remedial action alternatives according to each stakeholder's preferences, as well as the identification of the major reasons for these rankings. The stakeholder preferences are over a number of performance measures that include the traditional risk assessment metrics, e.g., individual worker risk, as well as programmatic, cultural, and cost-related impacts. Based on these results, a number of proposals are prepared for consideration by the stakeholders during the deliberation. These proposals are the starting point for the formulation of actual recommendations by the group. In our case study, these recommendations included new remedial action alternatives that were created by the stakeholders after an extensive discussion of the detailed analytical results.     

From feedbacks to coproduction: toward an integrated conceptual framework for urban ecosystems

Research in urban ecology depends on frameworks that meaningfully integrate our understanding of biophysical and social change. Although the coupled nature of urban ecosystems is widely accepted, the core mechanisms we use to integrate the social and biophysical aspects of urban ecosystems – their social-ecological feedbacks – are poorly understood. This paper considers how feedbacks are used to conceptualize social-ecological change, noting their utility and their limitations. In so doing, we suggest that coproduction provides a meaningful alternative to feedbacks, one that captures not only the structure-function relationships usually assumed in studies of biophysical landscape change, but also the structure-agency relationships that facilitate our most comprehensive understanding of social change. By addressing both the stepwise forms of transformation that a feedback approach captures and the simultaneous forms of transformation captured by a coproduction approach, a more comprehensive assessment of the ways that social and ecological change take place is afforded. We contend that thinking in terms of coproduction is essential for moving beyond the interdisciplinary approach that usually guides urban ecology models, toward a more integrated, trans-disciplinary approach.