2,445 research outputs found
Data from: Integrating local knowledge to prioritise invasive species management
No full text1. Invasive species management involves complex and multidimensional challenges. There is considerable uncertainty regarding how to identify management strategies that will achieve invasive species control to enhance biodiversity, local economies, and human well-being. Invasive species management on inhabited islands is especially challenging, often due to perceived socio-political risks and unexpected technical difficulties.
2. Failing to incorporate local knowledge and local perspectives in the early stages of planning can compromise the ability of decision-makers to achieve long-lasting conservation outcomes. Hence, engaging the community and accounting for stakeholder perceptions is essential for invasive species management, yet these processes are often overlooked as they can be perceived as too difficult to implement, too costly, and/or too slow for management timeframes.
3. To address this gap, we present an application of invasive species management based on structured decision-making, and INFFER —a cost-benefit analysis tool— on Minjerribah-North Stradbroke Island (Australia). We assessed the cost-effectiveness of six management scenarios, co-developed with local land managers and community groups, aimed at preserving the environmental and cultural significance of the island by eradicating European red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and feral cats (Felis catus). Information was collected in a survey that elicited local stakeholders’ perspectives regarding the significance of the Island, their perception of the benefits of the proposed management scenarios, funding requirements, technical feasibility of implementation, and socio-political risk.
4. We found that low budgets achieve less cost-effective results than higher budgets. The best strategy focussed on controlling European red foxes on Minjerribah. However, our results also highlight the need for more research on feral cat management.
5. This work demonstrates how to use a structured decision support tool, such as INFFER, to assess contesting management strategies. Using appropriate decision support tools is particularly important when stakeholders' perceptions regarding management outcomes are heterogeneous and uncertain
Kevin Scrivens photograph, Greenford Fair, 1984.
No full textC. Ives' Atkinson tractor photographed 31 March 1984. Digitisation and record funded by the Pilgrim Trust
Where Oliver Fits by C. Atkinson
No full textAtkinson, Cale. Where Oliver Fits. Toronto, Tundra Books, 2017.
Oliver is a unique little puzzle piece with a cute round head smattered with blue and orange. He wants to be part of a bigger picture and goes on a journey to find where he fits. As he finds different puzzles, he discovers that the other puzzle pieces are not like him at all. Some puzzle pieces complain that he does not have enough of the right colour to fit properly. Others say that he is not the right shape. Determined to find his place in the world, he decides that he needed to be more like others in order to be accepted.
He uses creative strategies to change his shape and colour, however, after continuing to be rejected, he becomes desperate enough to create a disguise to finally fit into a puzzle. Although he finally finds his fit, Oliver begins to question whether or not it was right to pretend he was someone else and learns that it is better to be himself.
This is a wonderful story of imagination. Children learn through the eyes of Oliver that it is better to be one’s true self rather than changing to fit in. The illustrations are bright, colourful, and capture all the conflicting emotions that Oliver goes through. Designed for children ages 3-7, this book provides a good moral lesson in a fun and creative way.
Recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Janice Kung
Janice Kung is a Public Services Librarian at the University of Alberta, John W. Scott Health Sciences Library. She obtained her undergraduate degree in commerce and completed her MLIS degree in 2013. She believes that the best thing to beat the winter blues is to cuddle up on a couch and lose oneself in a good book
Scott Fitzgerald's women: a view of the flapper as a projection of the author's anima
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, 1979
SCOP-1996
No full textCCC's student literary magazine containing poetry, short stories, essays, dramas, graphic short stories, and artwork created by Abbey, Frances P.; Atkinson, Melanie R.; Barry, Emily; Bidwell, Andrew M.; Blunt, Suzanne L.; Brown-Tsai, Jufe; Campbell, Andrew; Carr, Sally; Chichester, Stephanie; Christian, Andrew; Cook, Shelby A.; DeCicco, Tracey; Delafield, Jeanne; Draper, Danielle; English, Andrea; Fogarty, Matthew; Gross, Reneé L.; Haskins, Kathryn; Hemly, Jennifer; Hensel, Michael J.; Hill, Holly; Keck, Stacey; Margeson, Nicole; Maslar, Megan; Mena, Catherine; Meriwether, William; Mould, Lecia; Olson, Michael; Osborne, Gina; Preston, Betsi; Savino, Emily; Scott Jr., David Alan; Sepelak, Virginia; Smith, Timothy; Snegosky, David; Spicer, Jenny; Welch, Barb; Wise, Scott C.; Zawko, Mark.Archived web conten
Circulating cities of difference: assembling geographical imaginations of Toronto’s diversity in the newsroom
No full textThis paper concerns the relationship between media and the framing of ethnic diversity as a central condition of contemporary urban life. Rather than focusing on how media represent ethnic diversity, this paper relies on a conceptualisation of news media as cultural forms which become entangled in the various interpretive communities partaking in their circulation. Examining the practical milieus of news editors at the Toronto Star, the paper focuses on a case example of editors’ work on a special section related to Toronto’s projected ethnic diversity in 2017. The main argument of the paper is that the relationships between sites of mainstream media production and urban publics are more complex and contradictory – as well as more banal and everyday – than conventionally acknowledged. This suggests we take seriously the ongoing importance of increasingly fragile, unified mediated public forums through which different groups might encounter one another in and across contemporary cities
Theme-based book review: Public-sector corruption
No full textDr. Adrian Blau recently wrote, “public-office corruption can be extremely damaging. It can be particularly harmful to poor people and women. It can kill. Understanding, explaining, and reducing it are literally vital” (2019, p. 201–202). Corruption is usually thought of narrowly – as bribes taken by weak-willed public officials from business people – but the concept is more nuanced than this. Corruption can include the distortion of judgment, and limited viewpoints on complicated issues (Blau, 2019). Corruption can result in the elimination of voices from the public sphere, so that the desires of elites are easier to realize.
Corruption as a symptom or antecedent of governance failure has been an ongoing theme in political science and public administration literature. From the perspective of PA, corruption has often involved case study material for the sake of teaching ethics and values in the public service: prevention of official misconduct through training and indoctrination of values systems, or compliance approaches that identify corrupt behaviors and punish offenders. As a matter for governance, corruption is known to exist – to underlay the foundations of public institutions in small or grand ways at various times in the history of organizations and societies – and it is never far away from the use of public power and resources.
Internationally, corruption is tied to a lack of good governance and political instability, which can yield fragile and failed states; failed states can evidence serious threats to humanity and civilization. There is a tendency to want to solve problems with aid, but money does not alleviate the problem of corruption. Quality of governance is tied to the effectiveness of bureaucracy, but politicization can threaten a superior, citizen-oriented system based upon merit (Khan, 2016). A focus on economic development to the detriment of other societal priorities has led to an environment in many cases of crony capitalism, yielding corruption in public and private venues. Corruption in the public sector lowers trust in the private sector as well (Gillanders & Neselevska, 2018). As public resources grow scarce and the public sphere seems unstable, interest in corruption might grow as people look for a scapegoat to blame for negative outcomes. We search for some guardian to cease the downward spiral, but to no avail. Even the media, lauded in earlier times as a watchdog for public interests, is often unable to respond to that charge, due to its close connection with both business and political interests (Choi, 2018).
Discussions about corruption and governance have become more difficult due to tribalism and reticence to engage opposing viewpoints. Framing the problem of public corruption in today’s reality-averse contexts is a prospect that has become tense and fraught with allegations
of political bias. It is worth suggesting though that many have become desensitized to the problem of corruption, and willing to explain it away if it will allow the continuation of a narrative that is aligned with at least some of their belief system. However, this is a problem
that must be addressed. Fourie (2018) suggested that corruption undermines society’s very social fabric, as the public grows in apathy, unwilling to challenge corrupt behaviors – this undermines the legitimacy of institutions (2018). In the practitioner community as well as the
academy, ignoring official corruption leads to an increasingly precarious position for civilization as a whole. Too much is at stake.
This essay considers three recent books on the topic of public-sector corruption: Corruption and Corruption Control: Democracy in the Balance, by Staffan Andersson and Frank Anechiarico; The Challenge of Governance in South Sudan: Corruption, Peacebuilding, and Foreign Intervention, edited by Steven C. Roach and Derrick K. Hudson; and Corruption Prevention and Governance in Hong Kong, by Ian Scott and Ting Gong.Book ReviewJournal ArticlePublishe
Telling interactive stories: A practice-based investigation into new media interactive storytelling
No full textThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Telling Interactive Stories is a practice-based thesis, which theoretically and practically probes the field of digital fictional interactive storytelling. The submission takes the form of the interactive cinema installation Crossed Lines
together with a written element of the thesis which interrogates historical, contextual, theoretical, technical and critical aspects of the field of interactive narrative using new media. Crossed Lines is an original fictional interactive AV piece, amalgamating multiform plots, a multi-screen viewing environment, an
interactive interface and an interactive story navigation form. The installation tells the stories of nine characters in a way that the viewer can constantly explore and switch between all nine forms, using a telephone keypad and handset as an interface, and can simultaneously observe all characters’ presence between the
nine remote locations. Several research methodologies are utilised to analyse and
evaluate the installation. Quantitative methodologies include the use of user tracking systems where the computational output of the installation provides measurements and timings of user choices and behaviours. Qualitative
methodologies include theoretical and visual analysis, and in depth analysis of user responses using interviews, questionnaires, video recordings and cuttingedge eye-tracking technologies
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