The effect of earthworms on roadway-derived Zn deposited as a surface layer in storm water retention basin soils

Increased urban development, including an increase in impervious surfaces has the potential to alter the biogeochemistry of surface systems due to storm water runoff contaminated with potentially toxic trace metals (e.g. Zn, Cu and Pb). A major source for urban metals is dust that accumulates on roadways. This roadway dust is derived from vehicle wear sources and tends to be enriched in trace metals such as Pb, Zn, Cu, Cd, Ni and Cr. This continuous source is then being transported via storm water runoff to receiving systems, such as storm water retention systems, which become important focusing environments for trace metal deposition. The fate of these roadway derived metals and their bioavailability once deposited in these urban ecosystems is not well understood. In this investigation we tested the hypothesis that the distribution and form of surface deposited roadway-derived Zn is a function of earthworm processes and is species dependent. The results of this investigation indicate that roadway dust derived Zn deposited as a surface layer on urban soils is readily removed from the surface in less than 30 days whether earthworms are present or not. However, after 90 days, the presence of earthworms and the life habit of the earthworm species present was found to have a significant impact on the physical and chemical cycling of roadway derived trace metals in storm water retention basin soils.     

Language Matching Among Mother‐child Dyads: Associations with Child Attachment and Emotion Reactivity

Links between mother‐infant affective matching and attachment security are well‐documented, but research on other types of behavioral matching and attachment security are lacking, as are studies that examine these constructs later in children's development. We examine language style matching (LSM) between mothers and their school‐aged children (N = 68), using interviews with each dyad member. As predicted, regressions revealed that higher mother‐child relational LSM was associated with greater child attachment security (operationalized as high security, low dismissal), and that higher LSM predicted smaller increases in children's electrodermal response to a relational probe 1.5 years later. Further, mother‐child relational LSM was a mediator in the indirect path between children's attachment security and children's reactivity. We discuss the potential utility of LSM as a measure of relationship quality and future studies that could refine our understanding of parent‐child language matching.     

Maternal Responsiveness and the Development of Directed Vocalizing in Social Interactions

For effective communication, infants must develop the phonology of sounds and the ability to use vocalizations in social interactions. Few studies have examined the development of the pragmatic use of prelinguistic vocalizations, possibly because gestures are considered hallmarks of early pragmatic skill. The current study investigated infant vocal production and maternal responsiveness to examine the relationship between infant and maternal behavior in the development of infants' vocal communication. Specifically, we asked whether maternal responses to vocalizations could influence the development of prelinguistic vocal usage, as has been documented in recent experimental studies exploring the relation between maternal responses and phonological development. Twelve mother–infant dyads participated over a six‐month period (between 8 and 14 months of age). Mothers completed the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory when infants were 15 months old. Maternal sensitive responses to infant vocalizations in the previous months predicted infants' mother‐directed vocalizations in the following months, rather than overall response rate. Furthermore, mothers' sensitive responding to mother‐directed vocalizations was correlated with an increase in developmentally advanced, consonant–vowel vocalizations and some language measures. This is the first study to document a social shaping mechanism influencing developmental change in pragmatic usage of vocalizations in addition to identifying the specific behaviors underlying development.     

Prevention interventions of alcohol problems in the workplace

The workplace offers advantages as a setting for interventions that result in primary prevention of alcohol abuse. Such programs have the potential to reach broad audiences and populations that would otherwise not receive prevention programs and, thereby, benefit both the employee and employer. Researchers have implemented and evaluated a variety of workplace alcohol problem prevention efforts in recent years, including programs focused on health promotion, social health promotion, brief interventions, and changing the work environment. Although some studies reported significant reductions in alcohol use outcomes, additional research with a stronger and integrated methodological approach is needed. The field of workplace alcohol prevention also might benefit from a guiding framework, such as the one proposed in this article.     

Professional Development in the Contemporary Educational Context: Encouraging Practice Wisdom

Preparing social work students to be effective practitioners is a complex and challenging task undertaken in a dynamic environment both in terms of the field of social work and the higher education sector. There have been recommendations that self knowledge, empirical knowledge, theoretical knowledge and procedural knowledge are the keys to high standards of social work practice. This paper suggests that the concept of practice wisdom is a useful focus for integrating these different aspects of informed practice and for focusing educational programmes for social work. As practice wisdom is more about process than possessed characteristics then there are important motivational and value-based considerations in developing wise practitioners. This discussion considers motivational and personal narrative aspects of practice wisdom so that it can be integrated into social work teaching.     

Limited liability and its moral hazard implications: the systemic inscription of instability in contemporary capitalism

The principle of limited liability is one of the defining characteristics of modern corporate capitalism. It is also, we argue in this article, a powerful structural source of moral hazard. Engaging in a double conceptual genealogy, we investigate how the concepts of moral hazard and limited liability have evolved and diffused over time. We highlight two parallel but unconnected paths of construction, diffusion, moral contestation, and eventual institutionalization. We bring to the fore clear elective affinities between both concepts and their respective evolution. Going one step further, we suggest that both concepts have come to be connected through time. In the context of contemporary capitalism, limited liability has to be understood, we argue, as a powerful structural source of moral hazard. In conclusion, we propose that this structural link between limited liability and moral hazard is an important explanatory factor of the systemic instability of contemporary capitalism and, as a consequence, of a pattern of recurrent crises that are regularly disrupting our economies and societies.     

Adoption of an Outdoor Residential Hall Smoking Policy in a California Public University: A Case Study

Abstract

Objective: Because secondhand smoke is a public health concern, many colleges have adopted bans to ensure healthier environments. This study demonstrates how outdoor smoking policy change can be accomplished at a large public university. Participants: The participants were 1,537 students housed in residential communities at the University of California, Berkeley, who completed an online survey. Methods: A proposal for smoke-free residential communities that included student resident survey data was prepared. Results: The survey data indicated that most students (77%) were bothered by secondhand smoke, and most (66%) favored smoke-free environments. The data were used to advocate for a change in the residential community smoking policy. Conclusion: The survey data and institutional comparisons played a key role in administrators’ decision-making about campus smoking policy. Despite administrators’ concerns about students’ safety and freedom of choice, student-led advocacy was able to influence policy change.     

Social Justice Manifest: A University–Community Partnership to Promote the Individual Right to Housing

This article examines an ongoing university–community relationship that fuses innovative technology delivery, university-outreach research, and social work practice/research education into a unique, collaborative intervention to reduce homelessness. In doing so, we apply a social justice framework to homelessness, arguing that housing is a right rather than a privilege. In the case study, a university, in partnership with a local homeless coalition, maintains a management information system to collect and analyze real-time data on homelessness in the community. The overarching social justice intention of this partnership is to improve client outcomes for homeless individuals by producing community-based research to inform policy decisions for governmental and organizational partners.     

“Battle of the Mei-Meis”

On May 7, 2011, Singapore held its 16th General Election. The ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) predictably secured a landslide victory, and yet the result was contextually historic, with the opposition winning six seats from a possible eighty-seven—the largest loss for the PAP since political independence in 1965. At the centre of the General Election was a persistent media buzz surrounding two young female candidates: Tin Pei Ling of the People’s Action Party and Nicole Seah of the National Solidarity Party. While the former suffered sustained criticism, the latter received sustained praise. This article seeks to analyze the manner in which these two women were positioned as inverse feminine subjects within the mediascape. The analysis emerges from data collected from 194 sources which appeared online between March 29, 2011 and May 8, 2011, comprising political blogs, discussion forums, articles, and reports from online news sites. It aims to reveal how the gendered media constructions of, and public responses to, both women interpolate a diametrically opposed positive and negative binary of womanhood which functions to: (1) reify national discourses of ideal femininity; and (2) corroborate regional conceptualizations of “good” and “bad” feminine subjectivities.