Is There a Forest Transition? Deforestation,Reforestation, and Development1

Abstract Environmental social scientists have recently begun to use the term 'forest transition' to describe how forest cover changes as economic development occurs in nations. The hypothesized transition occurs as follows. An initial surge in economic activity in impoverished societies spurs deforestation, but as economic activity continues to intensify and cities grow larger, a 'turnaround' occurs, and deforestation gives way to reforestation. This paper uses cross-national data from five successive surveys of world forest resources to assess this empirical claim. A turnaround in forest cover trends does occur in a significant number of nations. The paper also evaluates two explanations for the turnaround, a wood scarcity hypothesis derived from microeconomic theory and an industrialization hypothesis linked to central place theory. It finds period specific support for the industrialization hypothesis. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of these findings for proposals to alleviate the biodiversity crisis through programs of reforestation.     

Identity and Boundary Tensions When Educators and Mental Health Professionals Collaborate: Between Wish and Reality

Schools are centers of collaboration in promoting the development and learning of children and adolescents. They seek to develop cultures of collaboration not only within their walls but also among constituencies with similar interests. These efforts, unfortunately, all too often prove frustrating and disappointing to all concerned. Yet, the need for interdisciplinary inquiry is greater today than ever before. This is particularly true considering the complex, diverse, and multifaceted nature of today's schools. No one professional can address all of the problems confronting education, particularly those of urban schools. For decades mental health and education professionals have joined together around their similar interest in promoting children and adolescent development. One such initiative is a program that fosters educators' development. This program, named the Teacher Education Program, began under the auspices of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and evolved into the Human Development and Learning Program when a partnership was formed with DePaul University's School of Education. From the program's 34-year history, the authors highlight specific tensions they experienced as directors of this collaborative initiative, and how these challenges either were or were not anticipated and/or addressed. The aims are to put a human face on the challenges and struggles encountered in the relationship between education and mental health professionals, and to identify common ground between educational and psychoanalytic theories and practices.     

Exploration to Foster Career Development

Responses to the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI: Super, Thompson, Lindeman, Myers, & Jordaan, 1988) were organized through cluster analysis to identify different ways in which adults use exploratory behavior to cope with career development tasks. Significant differences in life-role salience among the types of adult career explorers identified were also investigated. Findings indicated a variety of ways in which adults use exploratory behavior. However, no significant differences were found in life-role salience among the types of career explorers. The discussion explains how career counselors can interpret their clients' ACCI profiles to select appropriate career interventions.     

Changing U.S. immigration law and the occupational selectivity of Asian immigrants

This study explored the relationship between US immigration laws and their impact on the immigration of Asian professionals. The article relied on a 1996 Population Association presentation. Data were obtained from the US Immigration and Naturalization Service on legally admitted immigrants to the US. The authors describe the paths to admission, trends in immigration of professionals during 1972-94, and the Immigration Act of 1965 and its 4 amendments. Standardization-decomposition techniques are used to explain the relative differences in professional immigration across 1972-77, 1978-91, and 1992-94. The crude professional rate for all Asians declined by 19% during 1972-91. 62% of the decline was due to changes in the class of admission composition, and 25% was due to a decline in the class-specific professional rates. During 1992-94, the Asian crude professional rate increased 7%, most of which was due to changes in class composition, with the exception of Korean rates. Only the Vietnamese experienced a decline in rates. The 1965 law allowed for equity between countries in admission. The paths of immigration were family ties, job skills, or refugee status. During 1972-77, Chinese took advantage of family reunification, and Indians entered on employment preferences. The legal changes affected the size and share of each class of admission. The revisions indirectly affected the occupational selectivity of immigrant groups. 27% of the flow of Asians during 1972-77 was accounted for by employment preferences. Professionals were 44% of Asian immigrants during 1972-77, 26% during 1978-91, and 33% during 1992-94.     

Genotypic performance over environmental arrays: A non-linear grouping protocol

A non-linear model for examining genotypic responses across an array of environments is contrasted with the 'joint regression' formulation, and a rigorous approach to hypothesis testing using the conditional error principle is demonstrated. The model is extended to cater for situations where single straight-line response patterns fail to characterize genotypic behaviors over an environmental array: a combination of two straight lines, with slope in below-average and in above-average environments, is offered as the 1 2 simplest representation of convex and concave patterns. A protocol for classifying genotypes according to the results of hypothesis tests, i.e. H( = ) and H( = = = 1), is 1 2 1 2 presented . A doubly desirable response pattern is convex ( < 1< ), while a doubly 1 2 undesirable pattern is concave ( > 1> ). 1 2     

Spatial variation in risk of disease: a nonparametric binary regression approach

A common problem in environmental epidemiology is the estimation and mapping of spatial variation in disease risk. In this paper we analyse data from the Walsall District Health Authority, UK, concerning the spatial distributions of cancer cases compared with controls sampled from the population register. We formulate the risk estimation problem as a nonparametric binary regression problem and consider two different methods of estimation. The first uses a standard kernel method with a cross-validation criterion for choosing the associated bandwidth parameter. The second uses the framework of the generalized additive model (GAM) which has the advantage that it can allow for additional explanatory variables, but is computationally more demanding. For the Walsall data, we obtain similar results using either the kernel method with controls stratified by age and sex to match the age–sex distribution of the cases or the GAM method with random controls but incorporating age and sex as additional explanatory variables. For cancers of the lung or stomach, the analysis shows highly statistically significant spatial variation in risk. For the less common cancers of the pancreas, the spatial variation in risk is not statistically significant.