The long arm of time pressure at work: Cognitive failure and commuting near-accidents

This study tests whether cognitive failures mediate effects of work-related time pressure and time control on commuting accidents and near-accidents. Participants were 83 employees (56% female) who each commuted between their regular place of residence and place of work using vehicles. The Workplace Cognitive Failure Scale (WCFS) asked for the frequency of failure in memory function, failure in attention regulation, and failure in action execution. Time pressure and time control at work were assessed by the Instrument for Stress Oriented Task Analysis (ISTA). Commuting accidents in the last 12 months were reported by 10% of participants, and half of the sample reported commuting near-accidents in the last 4 weeks. Cognitive failure significantly mediated the influence of time pressure at work on near-accidents even when age, gender, neuroticism, conscientiousness, commuting duration, commuting distance, and time pressure during commuting were controlled for. Time control was negatively related to cognitive failure and neuroticism, but no association with commuting accidents or near-accidents was found. Time pressure at work is likely to increase cognitive load. Time pressure might, therefore, increase cognitive failures during work and also during commuting. Hence, time pressure at work can decrease commuting safety. The result suggests a reduction of time pressure at work should improve commuting safety.

Landscape connectivity, habitat structure and activity of bat guilds in farmland-dominated matrices

Agricultural intensification has caused a decline in structural elements in European farmland, where natural habitats are increasingly fragmented. The loss of habitat structures has a detrimental effect on biodiversity and affects bat species that depend on vegetation structures for foraging and commuting. We investigated the impact of connectivity and configuration of structural landscape elements on flight activity, species richness and diversity of insectivorous bats and distinguished three bat guilds according to species-specific bioacoustic characteristics. We tested whether bats with shorter-range echolocation were more sensitive to habitat fragmentation than bats with longer-range echolocation. We expected to find different connectivity thresholds for the three guilds and hypothesized that bats prefer linear over patchy landscape elements. Bat activity was quantified using repeated acoustic monitoring in 225 locations at 15 study plots distributed across the Swiss Central Plateau, where connectivity and the shape of landscape elements were determined by spatial analysis (GIS). Spectrograms of bat calls were assigned to species with the software batit by means of image recognition and statistical classification algorithms. Bat activity was significantly higher around landscape elements compared to open control areas. Short- and long-range echolocating bats were more active in well-connected landscapes, but optimal connectivity levels differed between the guilds. Species richness increased significantly with connectivity, while species diversity did not (Shannon's diversity index). Total bat activity was unaffected by the shape of landscape elements. Synthesis and applications. This study highlights the importance of connectivity in farmland landscapes for bats, with shorter-range echolocating bats being particularly sensitive to habitat fragmentation. More structurally diverse landscape elements are likely to reduce population declines of bats and could improve conditions for other declining species, including birds. Activity was highest around optimal values of connectivity, which must be evaluated for the different guilds and spatially targeted for a region's habitat configuration. In a multi-species approach, we recommend the reintroduction of structural elements to increase habitat heterogeneity should become part of agri-environment schemes.

Retirement as a “language related major life event” and its consequences on the multilingualism of migrants

The present study investigates life stories of established Italian workforce migrants living in the city of Berne, Switzerland, in regard to “language related major life events” (De Bot, 2007). These events are important in terms of changes happening in the linguistic setting during the life span and influence language development. In this sense, during the process of retirement, a new phase of life begins, which, amongst other things, has to be reorganized in relation to social contact and language use. One of my main questions is how the subjects handle the changes happening within and after the process of retirement in respect to the use of different languages and how this “language related major life event” is constructed and described by the migrants. One of these changes happens due to the fact that, after retirement, the social network at the workplace (the primary source of language input) can get (partially) lost and with it, the use of the local language. The fact that migrants living in Berne are confronted with diglossia (Standard German and Swissgerman), that the Canton of Berne is bilingual (German and French) and that the migrants' mother tongue (Italian) is one of the Swiss national languages, makes this question even more interesting. A second question will consider the influence of the fact that most of the subjects in question lived with the idea of return migration, but as shown in a previous study (Alter/Vieillesse/Anziani, NFP 32, 1999), only a third returned back while another third remained in the host country and the final third chose the commuting option. I will first examine these processes, changes and influences by using quantitative questionnaires in order to obtain general information on demographic data, the social situation, and a self-assessment of linguistic skills. Secondly, I will use qualitative interviews to get in-depth information of the subjects’ life stories and language biographies. The results of this project are meant to deliver insight into different aspects that have not been looked at in detail to this point: which factors of the life stories of Italian workforce migrants, who decided to remain in Switzerland after retirement, influence the linguistic changes in general and the ones happening around retirement in particular.