Wildfires have played a determining role in distribution, composition and structure of many ecosystems worldwide and climatic changes are widely considered to be a major driver of future fire regime ...changes. However, forecasting future climatic change induced impacts on fire regimes will require a clearer understanding of other drivers of abrupt fire regime changes. Here, we focus on evidence from different environmental and temporal settings of fire regimes changes that are not directly attributed to climatic changes. We review key cases of these abrupt fire regime changes at different spatial and temporal scales, including those directly driven (i) by fauna, (ii) by invasive plant species, and (iii) by socio-economic and policy changes. All these drivers might generate non-linear effects of landscape changes in fuel structure; that is, they generate fuel changes that can cross thresholds of landscape continuity, and thus drastically change fire activity. Although climatic changes might contribute to some of these changes, there are also many instances that are not primarily linked to climatic shifts. Understanding the mechanism driving fire regime changes should contribute to our ability to better assess future fire regimes.
•The degree of convexity of the distribution/share changes across full- and self-service channels.•Self-service stores have a higher degree of convexity than full-service stores.•The higher degree of ...convexity for the self-service channel is increased further for high-share than for low-share brands.•When the economy declines, distribution gains are more effective in the self-service channel.
Retail distribution is one of the major challenges in emerging economies. These economies are volatile and filled with inefficiencies, and the representativeness of unstructured retail increases the complexity of distribution systems for consumer packaged-goods companies.
We analyze 644 brands to extend the existing literature by modeling the retail distribution and market share in an emerging market according to the type of retail channel (full- and self-service channels), moderated by economic fluctuations and the market position of a brand (high- and low-share brands). Our model controls for endogeneity using instrumental variables (IVs) and accommodates heterogeneity across brands and categories by means of a fixed-effects robust regression. Our study highlights that the relationship between distribution and market share exhibits greater convexity in the self-service channel than in the full-service channel. Further, we contribute to the existing research in distribution effectiveness in emerging markets by showing the convex effect of distribution on market share could vary when the economy changes. Distribution gains are more effective in the self-service channel than in the full-service channel in times of economic decline. Also, the results indicate the higher degree of convexity in the relationship between distribution and market share for the self-service channel compared with the full-service channel is increased further for high-share brands than for low-share brands.
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Oil scholarship often focuses on oil as money, as if the industry were a mere revenue-producing machine—a black box with predictable effects. Drawing on fieldwork in Equatorial Guinea, I take the ...industry as my object of analysis: infrastructures, labor regimes, forms of expertise and fantasy. Starting from a visit to an offshore rig, I explore the idea of "modularity"—mobile personnel, technologies, and legal structures that enable offshore work in Equatorial Guinea to function "just like" offshore work elsewhere. Anthropologists often characterize as naive the simplifications of modular processes, the evacuation of specificity they entail. Yet for the industry in Equatorial Guinea, this evacuation of specificity was neither mistake nor flaw. Tracing the making of modularity shows how corporations can appear removed from local entanglements and also helps to clarify the "how" of capitalism—the work required to frame heterogeneity and contingency into the profit and power found in many global capitalist projects.
Water has become an urgent theme in anthropology as the worldwide need to provide adequate supplies of clean water to all people becomes more challenging. Anthropologists contribute by seeing water ...not only as a resource, but also as a substance that connects many realms of social life. They trace the different forms of valuing water, examine the often unequal distribution of water, explore the rules and institutions that govern water use and shape water politics, and study the multiple, often conflicting knowledge systems through which actors understand water. They offer ethnographic insights into key water sites—watersheds, water regimes, and waterscapes—found in all settings, though with widely varying characteristics. Anthropologists provide a critical examination of a concept called integrated water resource management (IWRM), which has become hegemonic in the global discourse of sustainable development.
Background: Internationally, cardiovascular mortality and economic recessions showed an established relationship. Northern Ireland was badly affected by the global financial crisis in 2008-2014 but ...little is known in terms of how cardiovascular mortality was affected.
Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential impact of the 2008 economic crisis on the annual cerebrovascular accidents CVA and ischaemic heart disease IHD related mortality in Northern Ireland.
Method: Mortality data were extracted from Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency database. We utilized generalized linear regression Poisson modelling to estimate the impact of economic crisis on the IHD and CVA mortality.
Results: We found a significant increase of IHD-deaths during the financial crisis years in males over the age of 65 (β = 49.466, p value = 0.003) and females over the age of 65 (β = 57.721, p value = 0.001). However, CVA-mortality in the post crisis years rose significantly for females who were 65 years or older (β = 56.010, p value = 0.005) but not for males. The rest of the age groups were not significantly affected in terms of either CVA or IHD mortality.
Conclusion: For the total population the only age category with significant increase in both IHD and CVA mortality in the post-2008 era was the over 65 (p values < 0.001 and = 0.012, respectively)
Declaration of interest: None.
Keywords: IHD, CVA, Northern Ireland, economic recession, working-age, socio-economic changes
This article presents an up‐to‐date portrayal of the greatly changed landscape of scholarly journal publishing and identifies the emerging trends characterizing it. We consider the attributes, ...novelty, and disruptive potential of different models, which range from improvements to the extant model to attempts at reconfiguration and transformation. We propose that journal transition can be seen as falling into three categories. The first is enhanced models of the traditional scholarly journal, which typically afford enriched functionality that breaks the bonds of the printed page whilst otherwise remaining wholly traditional in their offerings. The second category is innovative models of the traditional scholarly journal, which aim at supporting the journal in performing its traditional roles through convention‐altering ways. The third category is the possible alternatives to the traditional journal, which represent a move towards alternative modes of knowledge dissemination. This review shows that each of the models identified makes contributions to enriching the reporting and showcasing of scholarly output. They also make it more effective and more efficient. However, we conclude that none of the possible alternatives being discussed can serve as a full‐fledged alternative to the journal.
Iskandar J, Iskandar BS, Partasasmita R. 2016. Responses to environmental and socio-economic changes in the Karangwangi traditional agroforestry system, South Cianjur, West Java. Biodiversitas 17: ...332-341. In the past, the swidden agriculturesystem (huma) was dominant in village frontiers of West Java; including in the Karangwangi Village of Cidaun Sub-district, Cianjur District, West Java Province. Culturally, each Karangwangi household owned a right to cultivate upland rice (huma) by felling mature forest (leuweung). Moreover, the land was planted by upland rice and other annual crops, such as corn, cassava, cucumber, and various beans. After harvesting rice and other annual crops, the land was fallowed and transformed into secondary forest (reuma) through natural succession. Moreover, the mature secondary forest (reuma kolot) could be opened for rice planting again in the following year or fallowed for more than 3-5 years. People will shift to another piece of mature secondary forest for rice planting. Today, because of increasing population, decreasing forests, and increasing market economic penetration, the Karangwangi people have predominantly practiced the swidden farming in the non-forest instead of the forest. The forests had culturally been converted to traditional agroforestry systems, such as mixed-garden (kebon tatangkalan),  and homegarden (pekarangan). This paper discusses the process of evolution of the swidden farming and innovatory cultural practice among the Karangwangi community, South Cianjur, West Java, in management of the traditional agroforestry systems which have been dynamically affected by ecological and socio-economic changes. Four parts are presented in this paper. In part one, we account for the Karangwangi people used to practice the swidden farming in the forest when the forest area that was still abundant. In part two, we discuss a focus on process of the evolution of the swidden farming, transformed to the traditional agroforestry systems In part three, we elaborate on some changes of the traditional agroforestry system and responses to environmental changes. In part four, it is summarized and inferred of the paper. Based on this study, it can be inferred that by developing innovatory cultural practice, Karangwangi people of South Cianjur, West Java have tended to success to evolve their swidden farming to new condition of the traditional agroforestry systems in sustainable way, despite population growth, the depletion of the forests, and intensive market economic penetration.
The aim of this study was to identify the factors inducing customers to choose cashless payments made with payment cards at retail and service outlets during the COVID-19 pandemic. We identified ...factors that are crucial for consumers’ functioning under pandemic conditions, but which have so far been neglected in research. The estimated logit model indicates that the variables significantly influencing the more frequent choice of payment cards at retail outlets are related to the fear of infection and perception of the advantages of new technological solutions in connection with social distancing. Our study shows that, in addition to sociodemographic characteristics such as age and level of education, emotionally motivated factors induced by the pandemic have begun to play an important role in the transition to cashless payment.
Thirty years since its first public use in 1980, the phrase structural adjustment remains obscure for many anthropologists and public health workers. However, structural adjustment programs (SAPs) ...are the practical tools used by international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to promote the market fundamentalism that constitutes the core of neoliberalism. A robust debate continues on the impact of SAPs on national economies and public health. But the stories that anthropologists tell from the field overwhelmingly speak to a new intensity of immiseration produced by adjustment programs that have undermined public sector services for the poor. This review provides a brief history of structural adjustment, and then presents anthropological analyses of adjustment and public health. The first section reviews studies of health services and the second section examines literature that assesses broader social determinants of health influenced by adjustment.
•The impact of socio-economic changes on land use are analysed on the period 1846–2009.•The population density increased from 33 to 50 people/km2.•Employment in agriculture decreased from 98% to ...below 30%.•Cultivated land decreased by 94% and its upper boundary lowered by 200m.•Forest cover rapidly increased after collapse of communism in 1989.
The impact of socio-economic changes on land use on the period 1846–2009 are studied in village of Ochotnica (105km2) and the Jaszcze and Jamne catchments in the Polish Carpathians. The analysis of maps, aerial photos, historical and census reports indicates that during the investigated period the forest area in Ochotnica increased by 77% and in the Jaszcze and Jamne catchments by 29% and 43%, respectively and cultivated land decreased by 94% in both catchments. The population density increased from 33 to more than 50people/km2, while employment in agriculture decreased from 98% to below 30%. The analysed period shows diverging trends of land use, referring to the three stages of socio-economic development in the Polish Carpathians. Until World War II, agricultural land contribution was the highest throughout the history of human activity. After World War II, a communist maintenance system of the land use structure was inherited from the past. A free market economy, introduced after 1989, forced the largest increase in forest area since the first colonisation of the Gorce Mountains. In contrast to the mid-mountains of Western Europe, a decrease in population density did not accompany forest expansion, nor did a dominance of small farms in the ownership system.
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