Attitudes Toward Resolution of Human–Wildlife Conflict Among Forest-Dependent Agriculturalists Near Rajaji National Park,India

Understanding local attitudes towards human–wildlife conflict (HWC) is key to developing successful conflict mitigation strategies. In this paper, in-depth interview and questionnaire data about resolution of HWC in Uttarakhand, India are examined from both qualitative and quantitative approaches (n = 70). Responses are differentiated between and within three subgroups: gender, literacy status, and relative wealth. Overall, the plurality of respondents said that fencing is the best solution, that the Forest Department should take leadership, and that villagers would be willing to participate in a cooperative management institution. However, cooperative action was only actively supported by 27.4% of respondents, suggesting that comanagement of this protected area will require significant capacity building and trust building activities. Intragroup differences show that all three factors are significant, and underscore the importance of addressing gender differences in attitudes about HWC in particular. Women were less likely than men to support compensation, more likely to prefer that the village take leadership, and less willing to participate in a cooperative management institution. The study illustrates the value of mixed-method research, and suggests a number of specific entry points for action.

Social Capital,Collective Action and Group Formation: Developmental Trajectories in Post-socialist Mongolia

Group formation, social capital and collective action have been the focus of much recent attention amongst donors and policy makers. Optimistic scenarios highlight their contributions to poverty reduction and effective natural resource management. However, recent critiques have focused on the exclusionary potential or ‘dark side’ of groups and social capital. Not only are their longer term livelihood impacts unclear, but lacunae persist in our understanding of how social capital, especially trust, is built. This paper presents a longitudinal evaluation of trust, collective action and cooperation among herders in post-Soviet Mongolia in the context of recent donor projects. Results highlight the important catalytic effect of external interventions in overcoming a lack of trust and promoting formalised collective action, but only in the context of a particular conjunction of circumstances. Indications for livelihood outcomes confirm the differentiated benefits, exclusionary potential and fragility of social capital and new institutional forms.

Rethinking of risk communication: lessons from the decision sciences

Risk communication involves three primary elements: process, content and intent. Much has been written about the first two. Much is known, for example, about the guiding principles that should be considered during the design of a risk communication. Likewise, many studies have been conducted about how best to establish the technical and informational content of a risk communication. Very little attention, by contrast, has been devoted to the intent of risk communication, which is to inform decision making for risk management. While appropriate information upon which to base risk management decisions is important, so to is an understanding of how people instinctively approach decision making under conditions of risk. Work in the decision sciences provides this often-missing perspective for many risk communication efforts and is, therefore, the focus of this paper.

The Social Aspects of Fishing Effort

While economic literature inspired by the “tragedy of the commons” has emphasised people’s tendency to increase fishing effort beyond desirable levels, sociologists and anthropologists who have studied the social aspects of fishing have often emphasised the capacity of these factors to restrict fishing effort. The article addresses the influence of social norms and communication on fishing effort in an empirical study of the Atlantic blue whiting fishery. The data were generated at a time when this fishery had yet to see efficient quota regulations, and had been subject to a rapid growth in fishing effort, making it the largest fishery in the Atlantic. The article argues that social norms and communication patterns in the fishing fleet create a synergic effect of co-operation and competition on fishing effort. The article questions the view that social norms and communication necessarily represent a solution to the tragedy of the commons.

Plants for Peace? Conflict Management in the Development of Ten South African Outreach Nurseries

Conflict is inherent to development, but the intensity of conflicts over small-scale projects is often severely underestimated. Effectively managed conflict can strengthen relationships and enhance productivity, but unresolved conflict undermines relationships, morale and projects. This paper examines conflict management during the development of ten South African outreach nurseries situated within communities experiencing high levels of poverty. Sources of conflict included: (1) Contestations over scarce or limited resources, or (2) ownership; (3) Disputes over accountability; (4) Struggles over social boundaries or (5) individual or collective identities; (6) Deteriorating interpersonal relationships; (7) Power struggles between community participants and (8) Structural imbalances between implementing organisations and community stakeholders. Conflicts spiraled into violence or near-violence in two cases, with threats of violence in two others. Fostering cooperative relationships and operational environments requires concerted effort from the outset, including the development of effective institutions. Development fundamentals cannot be exchanged for expediency; adequate time, staff, and resources have to be allocated to projects.

Leitlinien zur molekulargenetischen Diagnostik: Fragiles-X und Fragiles-X assoziiertes Tremor/Ataxie Syndrom

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Donor Perspectives on Issues Associated with Donation of Genetic Samples and Information: An Australian Viewpoint

This paper provides a legal overview of key issues associated with donation of genetic samples and information from a donor perspective. In particular, it addresses the property status of samples as well as issues in respect of consent, privacy, commercialisation and benefit sharing. The paper highlights the need for appropriate protection and safeguards for individuals, but also, importantly, for understanding what donors actually think and want in terms of genetic research and the use of their samples and information. The paper seeks to emphasise the importance of transparency and accountability in the conduct of research in order to maximise donor participation and confidence and public trust in general.

Individual variability of behavioural responses by Wandering Albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) to human disturbance

Sub-Antarctic Marion Island has had a permanent research station for 50 years and the islands Wandering Albatrosses have been intensively studied for 20 years. The reactions of breeding birds to approaches by a human on foot were recorded. Three response variables were calculated: intensity of vocal reaction (IVR), intensity of non-vocal reaction (INR) and overall response index (ORI). At 5 m from the nest, twice as many birds stood and/or vocalised as at 15 m. Nearest neighbour distance, age and gender did not explain individual variability of responses. Study colony birds had higher IVR scores than non-study colony birds; birds at colonies closest to the station had the highest ORI scores. A better breeding record was associated with lower IVR and ORI scores, but a causative relationship remains to be demonstrated. A minimum viewing distance of 25 m is recommended for breeding Wandering Albatrosses.

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Towards dynamical system models of language-related brain potentials

Event-related brain potentials (ERP) are important neural correlates of cognitive processes. In the domain of language processing, the N400 and P600 reflect lexical-semantic integration and syntactic processing problems, respectively. We suggest an interpretation of these markers in terms of dynamical system theory and present two nonlinear dynamical models for syntactic computations where different processing strategies correspond to functionally different regions in the system’s phase space.

The Contribution of Mere Recognition to the P300 Effect in a Concealed Information Test

In two experiments, we investigated the role of mere recognition in a P300 based CIT. Mere recognition was isolated by having participants respond based on an irrelevant dimension of the stimuli. In Experiment 1 stimuli consisted of familiar and unfamiliar faces, with a dot placed on the left or the right cheeck. Participants responded according to dot location. In the second experiment, participants were presented with autobiographical information, alternated with irrelevant stimuli, while instructed to respond based on the case of the stimuli. Results showed that with both familiar faces, and autobiographical information, mere recognition was sufficient to elicit a P300.

Human Beings as Evolved Nepotists

Inclusive fitness theory provides a compelling explanation for the evolution of altruism among kin. However, a completely satisfactory account of non-kin altruism is still lacking. The present study compared the level of altruism found among siblings with that found among friends and mates and sought to reconcile the findings with an evolutionary explanation for human altruism. Participants (163 males and 156 females) completed a questionnaire about help given to a sibling, friend, or mate. Overall, participants gave friends and mates as much or more help than they gave siblings. However, as the cost of help increased, siblings received a progressively larger share of the help, whereas friends and mates received a progressively smaller share, despite the fact that participants were closer emotionally to friends and mates than they were to siblings. These findings help to explain the relative standing of friends and mates as recipients of altruistic aid.

Negotiating Values: Narrative and Exposition

In this paper I focus on the limits of narrative by asking what kinds of things narratives do, and what kinds of texts do related things in other ways. In particular I focus on how narrative genres organise time in relation to value, drawing on functional linguistic models of temporality and evaluation. From a linguistic perspective, the various narrative genres negotiate different kinds of solidarity with listeners, and so the limits of narrative materialise various possibilities for communing in a culture, alongside the potentialities for construing community through related and other genres of discourse—since in general, the limits/possibilities of our language (and attendant modalities of communication) are the limits/possibilities of our social world.

Intelligent design and mathematical statistics: a troubled alliance

The explanatory filter is a proposed method to detect design in nature with the aim of refuting Darwinian evolution. The explanatory filter borrows its logical structure from the theory of statistical hypothesis testing but we argue that, when viewed within this context, the filter runs into serious trouble in any interesting biological application. Although the explanatory filter has been extensively criticized from many angles, we present the first rigorous criticism based on the theory of mathematical statistics.

Hennigian Phylogenetic Systematics and the ‘Groundplan’ vs. ‘Post-Groundplan’ Approaches: A Reply to Kukalová-Peck

The recent contribution by Jarmila Kukalová-Peck on Hennigian phylogenetics and hexapod limb evolution is critically evaluated.

Assessing Marine Resource Exploitation in Lofanga,Tonga: One Case Study—Two Approaches

This paper is an attempt to combine the results and conclusions of two independently designed research projects, in order to achieve a more complete understanding of the degree of exploitation of living marine resources by a small Tongan coastal fishing community. Results of a socioeconomic resource-driven survey and an anthropological study adopting a commons dilemma approach, agree substantially on the impact of tradition and changes, but disagree with regard to the driving forces. The socioeconomic study argues that dynamics between traditional and modern economic values best explain the state of the community’s coastal fisheries; while the anthropological study argues that social values and obligations still determine to a great extent the goals people pursue with their economic activities. Current fishing pressure, the marine tenure system, and present and future marketing potentials are all factors which may result in conflict between the traditional Tongan system and the modern cash-based, remittance sustained system. These will ultimately affect the current and future status of coastal resources and the social cohesion of the community.

Compositional reasoning of performance in component-based distributed systems

Rapid prototyping of distributed systems can be achieved by integrating commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. With components as the building blocks, it is important to predict the performance of the system based on the performance of individual components. In this paper, performance prediction of a system consisting of a small number of components is investigated under different inter-component communication patterns, and the number of threads provided by components. Based on the experimental results, it can be inferred that the proposed composition rules provide a reasonably accurate prediction of the performance of a system made out of these components.

Gridcast—a next generation broadcast infrastructure?

Gridcast is an R&D project investigating grid ideas and technologies in the broadcasting technical infrastructure. In this paper I discuss the business and technical issues in building infrastructures to support broadcasters and outline the structure of the Gridcast grid-based service oriented architecture for broadcasting playout support.

Is it a revolution?

Jablonka and Lamb's claim that evolutionary biology is undergoing a ‘revolution’ is queried. But the very concept of revolutionary change has uncertain application to a field organized in the manner of contemporary biology. The explanatory primacy of sequence properties is also discussed.