Behavioral responses of rural and urban greater white-toothed shrews (Crocidura russula) to sound disturbance

Urban Ecosystems - The development of urban areas imposes challenges that wildlife must adapt to in order to persist in these new habitats. One of the greatest changes brought by urbanization has...     

Measuring credibility of compensatory preference statements when trade-offs are interval determined

This paper studies how an overall fuzzy preference relation can be constructed in the compensatory context of the simple additive difference model, when imprecision on the trade-offs has to be taken into account. Three credibility indices of preferences are analysed and illustrated by a numerical example. Arguments are presented supporting the use of the third index, for which an interesting transitivity property (which was an open problem) is proved.     

Community Wise: The Development of an Anti-Oppression Model to Promote Individual and Community Health

Communities with histories of oppression have shown great resilience, yet few health interventions focus on structural oppression as a contributor to health problems in these communities. This article describes the development and active ingredients of Community Wise, a unique behavioral health intervention designed to reduce substance use frequency, related health risk behaviors, and recidivism among individuals with a history of incarceration and substance abuse residing in distressed and predominantly African American communities. Community Wise, developed through the collaborative efforts of a board of service providers, researchers, consumers, and government officials, is a 12-week group intervention that aims to address behavioral health problems by raising critical consciousness in distressed communities.     

A Stochastic Model to Assess the Effect of Meat Inspection Practices on the Contamination of the Pig Carcasses

The objective of meat inspection is to promote animal and public health by preventing, detecting, and controlling hazards originating from animals. With the improvements of sanitary level in pig herds, the hazards profile has shifted and the inspection procedures no longer target major foodborne pathogens (i.e., not risk based). Additionally, carcass manipulations performed when searching for macroscopic lesions can lead to cross‐contamination. We therefore developed a stochastic model to quantitatively describe cross‐contamination when consecutive carcasses are submitted to classic inspection procedures. The microbial hazard used to illustrate the model was Salmonella, the data set was obtained from Brazilian slaughterhouses, and some simplifying assumptions were made. The model predicted that due to cross‐contamination during inspection, the prevalence of contaminated carcass surfaces increased from 1.2% to 95.7%, whereas the mean contamination on contaminated surfaces decreased from 1 logCFU/cm² to ?0.87 logCFU/cm², and the standard deviations decreased from 0.65 to 0.19. These results are explained by the fact that, due to carcass manipulations with hands, knives, and hooks, including the cutting of contaminated lymph nodes, Salmonella is transferred to previously uncontaminated carcasses, but in small quantities. These small quantities can easily go undetected during sampling. Sensitivity analyses gave insight into the model performance and showed that the touching and cutting of lymph nodes during inspection can be an important source of carcass contamination. The model can serve as a tool to support discussions on the modernization of pig carcass inspection.     

Sexual Beliefs and Sexual Functioning: The Mediating Role of Cognitive Distraction

Dysfunctional sexual beliefs are vulnerability factors for sexual dysfunction. This cross-sectional study aimed to test the mediating role of cognitive distraction on the relationship between dysfunctional sexual beliefs about sexual functioning shared by men and women and sexual function. The authors used a sample of 421 cisgender heterosexual participants involved in a monogamous relationship. The hypothesized mediation model was tested using a bootstrapped cross product of coefficients approach. Results showed a significant negative, indirect effect between dysfunctional sexual beliefs and women's sexual function through cognitive distraction. The discussion of this study highlights the importance of cognitive factors in sexual functioning.     

What Influences the Location of Nonprofit Organizations? A Spatial Analysis in Brazil

What are the local characteristics influencing where new nonprofits will be established? How important are community needs, available resources, or the existence of similar organizations for nonprofits’ location? This paper analyzes how the characteristics of 5562 Brazilian municipalities in the year 2000 help explain the location of nonprofits formed between 2001 and 2010. Based on geographically weighted regressions, results indicate that neither access to resources nor poor socioeconomic indicators are powerful influences on nonprofit location in Brazilian municipalities. The main predictor of nonprofit entry is a high pre-existing density of nonprofits in that area. These findings, however, vary across regions and nonprofit fields of activity. By mapping the effect of key explanatory variables, this paper helps understand nonprofit location. The methodology and findings on nonprofit location presented here are novel and may contribute to research in other countries.     

Female Labor Supply,Human Capital,and Welfare Reform

We estimate a dynamic model of employment, human capital accumulation—including education, and savings for women in the United Kingdom, exploiting tax and benefit reforms, and use it to analyze the effects of welfare policy. We find substantial elasticities for labor supply and particularly for lone mothers. Returns to experience, which are important in determining the longer‐term effects of policy, increase with education, but experience mainly accumulates when in full‐time employment. Tax credits are welfare improving in the U.K., increase lone‐mother labor supply and marginally reduce educational attainment, but the employment effects do not extend beyond the period of eligibility. Marginal increases in tax credits improve welfare more than equally costly increases in income support or tax cuts.