Taking the LEED? Analyzing spatial variations in market penetration rates of eco-labeled properties

This paper investigates the impact of policies to promote the adoption of LEED-certified buildings across CBSA in the United States. Drawing upon a unique database that combines data from a large number of sources and using a number of regression procedures, the determinants of the proportion LEED-certified space for more than 170 CBSA in the US is modeled. LEED-certified space still accounts for a relatively small proportion of commercial stock in all markets. The average proportion is less than 1%. There is no conclusive evidence of a positive impact of policy intervention on the levels of LEED-certified space. However, after accounting for bias introduced by non-random assignment of policies, we find preliminary evidence of a positive impact of city-level green building incentives. There is a significant positive association between market size and indicators of economic vitality on proportions of LEED-certified space.

Knowledge of A/A'-dependencies on subject extraction with two types of infinitives in non-native Portuguese adult bilingualism

Within generative L2 acquisition research there is a longstanding debate as to what underlies observable differences in L1/L2 knowledge/ performance. On the one hand, Full Accessibility approaches maintain that target L2 syntactic representations (new functional categories and features) are acquirable (e.g., Schwartz & Sprouse, 1996). Conversely, Partial Accessibility approaches claim that L2 variability and/or optionality, even at advanced levels, obtains as a result of inevitable deficits in L2 narrow syntax and is conditioned upon a maturational failure in adulthood to acquire (some) new functional features (e.g., Beck, 1998; Hawkins & Chan, 1997; Hawkins & Hattori, 2006; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007). The present study tests the predictions of these two sets of approaches with advanced English learners of L2 Brazilian Portuguese (n = 21) in the domain of inflected infinitives. These advanced L2 learners reliably differentiate syntactically between finite verbs, uninflected and inflected infinitives, which, as argued, only supports Full Accessibility approaches. Moreover, we will discuss how testing the domain of inflected infinitives is especially interesting in light of recent proposals that Brazilian Portuguese colloquial dialects no longer actively instantiate them (Lightfoot, 1991; Pires, 2002, 2006; Pires & Rothman, 2009; Rothman, 2007).

Cognitive representation of colour in bilinguals: the case of Greek blues

A number of recent studies demonstrate that bilinguals with languages that differ in grammatical and lexical categories may shift their cognitive representation of those categories towards that of monolingual speakers of their second language. The current paper extended that investigation to the domain of colour in Greek–English bilinguals with different levels of bilingualism, and English monolinguals. Greek differentiates the blue region of colour space into a darker shade called ble and a lighter shade called ghalazio. Results showed a semantic shift of category prototypes with level of bilingualism and acculturation, while the way bilinguals judged the perceptual similarity between within- and cross-category stimulus pairs depended strongly on the availability of the relevant colour terms in semantic memory, and the amount of time spent in the L2-speaking country. These results suggest that cognition is tightly linked to semantic memory for specific linguistic categories, and to cultural immersion in the L2-speaking country.

The heuristic application of explanatory theories in international relations

Explanatory theorists increasingly insist that their theories are useful even though they cannot be deductively applied. But if so, then how do such theories contribute to our understanding of international relations? I argue that explanatory theories are typically heuristically applied: theorists’ accounts of specific empirical episodes are shaped by their theories’ thematic content, but are not inferred from putative causal generalizations or covering laws. These accounts therefore gain no weight from their purely rhetorical association with theories’ quasi-deductive arguments: they must be judged on the plausibility of their empirical claims. Moreover, the quasi-deductive form in which explanatory theories are typically presented obscures their actual explanatory role, which is to indicate what sort of explanation may be required, to provide conceptual categories, and to suggest an empirical focus. This account of how theoretical explanations are constructed subverts the nomothetic–idiographic distinction that is often used to distinguish International Relations from History.

The impacts of climate change across the globe: a multi-sectoral assessment

The overall global-scale consequences of climate change are dependent on the distribution of impacts across regions, and there are multiple dimensions to these impacts.This paper presents a global assessment of the potential impacts of climate change across several sectors, using a harmonised set of impacts models forced by the same climate and socio-economic scenarios. Indicators of impact cover the water resources, river and coastal flooding, agriculture, natural environment and built environment sectors. Impacts are assessed under four SRES socio-economic and emissions scenarios, and the effects of uncertainty in the projected pattern of climate change are incorporated by constructing climate scenarios from 21 global climate models. There is considerable uncertainty in projected regional impacts across the climate model scenarios, and coherent assessments of impacts across sectors and regions therefore must be based on each model pattern separately; using ensemble means, for example, reduces variability between sectors and indicators. An example narrative assessment is presented in the paper. Under this narrative approximately 1 billion people would be exposed to increased water resources stress, around 450 million people exposed to increased river flooding, and 1.3 million extra people would be flooded in coastal floods each year. Crop productivity would fall in most regions, and residential energy demands would be reduced in most regions because reduced heating demands would offset higher cooling demands. Most of the global impacts on water stress and flooding would be in Asia, but the proportional impacts in the Middle East North Africa region would be larger. By 2050 there are emerging differences in impact between different emissions and socio-economic scenarios even though the changes in temperature and sea level are similar, and these differences are greater in 2080. However, for all the indicators, the range in projected impacts between different climate models is considerably greater than the range between emissions and socio-economic scenarios.

Negative online consumer reviews: effects of different responses

Purpose When consumers buy online, they are often confronted with consumer reviews. A negative consumer review on an online shopping website may keep consumers from buying the product. Therefore, negative online consumer reviews are a serious problem for brands. This paper aims to investigate the effects of different response options to a negative consumer review. Design/methodology/approach In an online experiment of 446 participants different response options towards a negative consumer review on an online shopping website are examined. The experimental data is analysed with simple linear regression models using product purchase intentions as the outcome variable. Findings The results indicate that a positive customer review counteracts a negative consumer review more effectively than a positive brand response, whereas brand strength moderates this relationship. Including a reference to an independent, trusted source in a brand or a customer response is only a limited strategy for increasing the effectiveness of a response. Research limitations/implications Additional research in other product categories and with other subjects than students is suggested to validate the findings. In future research, multiple degrees of the phrasing’s strength of the reference could be used. Practical implications Assuming high quality products, brands should encourage their customers to write reviews. Strong brands can also reassure consumers by responding whereas weak brands cannot. Originality/value This research contributes to the online consumer reviews literature with new insights about the role of brand strength and referencing to an independent, trusted source.

Socioeconomic correlates of global mammalian conservation status

The main causes of biodiversity decline are related to human use of resources, which is ultimately triggered by the socioeconomic decisions made by individuals and nations. Characterizing the socioeconomic attributes of areas in which biodiversity is most threatened can help us identify decisions and conditions that promote the presence or absence of threats and potentially suggest more sustainable strategies. In this study we explored how diverse indicators of social and economic development correlate with the conservation status of terrestrial mammals within countries explicitly exploring hypothesized linear and quadratic relationships. First, comparing countries with and without threatened mammals we found that those without threatened species are a disparate group formed by European countries and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) with little in common besides their slow population growth and a past of human impacts. Second, focusing on countries with threatened mammals we found that those with a more threatened mammalian biota have mainly rural populations, are predominantly exporters of goods and services, receive low to intermediate economic benefits from international tourism, and have medium to high human life expectancy. Overall, these results provide a comprehensive characterization of the socioeconomic profiles linked to mammalian conservation status of the world's nations, highlighting the importance of transborder impacts reflected by the international flux of goods, services and people. Further studies would be necessary to unravel the actual mechanisms and threats that link these socioeconomic profiles and indicators with mammalian conservation. Nevertheless, this study presents a broad and complete characterization that offers testable hypotheses regarding how socioeconomic development associates with biodiversity.

Opinion dynamics of learning agents: does seeking consensus lead to disagreement?

We study opinion dynamics in a population of interacting adaptive agents voting on a set of issues represented by vectors. We consider agents who can classify issues into one of two categories and can arrive at their opinions using an adaptive algorithm. Adaptation comes from learning and the information for the learning process comes from interacting with other neighboring agents and trying to change the internal state in order to concur with their opinions. The change in the internal state is driven by the information contained in the issue and in the opinion of the other agent. We present results in a simple yet rich context where each agent uses a Boolean perceptron to state their opinion. If the update occurs with information asynchronously exchanged among pairs of agents, then the typical case, if the number of issues is kept small, is the evolution into a society torn by the emergence of factions with extreme opposite beliefs. This occurs even when seeking consensus with agents with opposite opinions. If the number of issues is large, the dynamics becomes trapped, the society does not evolve into factions and a distribution of moderate opinions is observed. The synchronous case is technically simpler and is studied by formulating the problem in terms of differential equations that describe the evolution of order parameters that measure the consensus between pairs of agents. We show that for a large number of issues and unidirectional information flow, global consensus is a fixed point; however, the approach to this consensus is glassy for large societies.

Kvinnors upplevelse av planerad hemförlossning i Skandinavien : Women´s experience of planned home birth in the Scandinavian countries

Background: In Sweden and Norway planned home birth is not included in the health care system. In Denmark women with expected low risk birth have the right to choose home birth. Registrations of home births in the Nordic countries are not completed and women’s experiences of planned home birth in Scandinavian context are not earlier described.Objective: The aim of this study was to describe women’s experiences of planned home birth in the Scandinavian countries.Design: Inductive content analysis. Fifty-three Scandinavian women who have experienced planned home birth have replied an open question in a questionnaire. Findings: In the analysis five categories and twelve subcategories emerged. The categories were, to feel secure, experiences of support, being in control, harmony and insecurity. The women felt secure and calm in their own homes. They felt being in control, secure, support and trust in the midwife, relatives and the own body. What worried the women most in presence of the delivery was that the midwife should not be present. Keywords: Home birth, experiences, women.

Sjuksköterskestudenters upplevelse av den kliniska färdighetsträningen på Kompetenscenter : Fokusgruppsintervjuer med sjuksköterskestuderande

Syfte: Syfte med denna studie var att belysa hur sjuksköterskestudenter upplevde den kliniska färdighetsträningen på Kompetenscenter. Metod: Den genomfördes som en empirisk studie med kvalitativ ansats där två fokusgruppsintervjuer med fem sjuksköterskestuderande i vardera utfördes. Deltagarna var mellan 22 och 30 år. Materialet analyserades med hjälp av kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: I analysen framkom ett tema, tre kategorier och tio subkategorier. Studenternas upplevelser speglade ett behov av att lärandemiljön, lärarna och undervisningen bör ha en verklighetsanknytning. Studenterna upplevde den fysiska miljön som autentiskt vilket var viktigt för dem. De framhöll även att läromaterialet bör vara verklighetstroget, vara av god kvalitet och finnas i tillräckligt antal. Studenterna uttryckte behov av trygghet och framhöll vikten av en god relation med läraren. De uttryckte även behov av samstämmiga lärare och poängterade behov att metoder och rutiner som lärs ut skulle vara enhetliga och baseras på aktuell evidens. För att läraren skulle uppfattas trovärdig framhöll de att vederbörande bör ha en verklighetsanknytning. De underströk vikten av att övningarna skulle upplevas verkliga och vara relevanta för det kommande yrket. Studenterna önskade interprofessionellt lärande då de trodde det kunde öka känslan av sammanhang och verklighet. Konklusion: Studenternas upplevelser av den kliniska färdighetsträningen på KC gav uttryck för en verklighetsförankrad lärandemiljö. Studenterna uttryckte behov av att övningarna skulle var evidensbaserade och upplevas verkliga då det ökade deras förmåga att tillägna sig kunskaper i den kliniska färdighetsträningen. 

Svenska för invandrarskap? : Språk, kategorisering och identitet inom utbildningsformen Svenska för invandrare

The overall purpose of this thesis and the four independent studies it builds upon is to examine how categorizations and identity positions are constructed and negotiated in the educational program Swedish for immigrants (SFI) both historically and among participants in the program at the beginning of the 21th century. The analytical focus is on the discourses that frame the development of the SFI program with a specific interest in categorizations and identity in relation to gender, language and national belonging. The empirical material includes historical texts (curricula, commission reports, public inquiries, political propositions, laws) from 1965 to 2010, as well as approximately 95 hours of audio and video recorded data and ethnographic field notes from five SFI classrooms. The results are presented primarily in the four articles but partly also in the thesis itself. Our analysis in the first study, that takes a sociohistorical perspective as a point of departure, indicates shifts in discourses with regards to the categories and aims of the educational program, thus, making certain identity positions more accessible than others at specific times. Using the approach of nexus analysis, the theoretical framework employed in the second study approaches language policies n terms of a dialectical elationship between policy and the learning that takes lace in the language focused classroom. Feminist and postcolonial frameworks re employed ore pecifically in the third and fourth studies. The historical nalysis presented in article three shows how the categories of “immigrant” and Swedes” ave been produced and negotiated in discourses on gender and gender quality in the SFI program since the early 1970s. The fourth study highlights he omplex relationship between gender equality and integration policies, as well as he perception of gender equality as a central part of Swedishness”, negotiated in he everyday conversations in the SFI classroom. Overall, the results illuminate he circulation of discourses both cross ime and between policy and classrooms. oreover, it contributes to a critical discussion about the intersection of language, ender and national elonging in the negotiation of boundaries between insiders and outsiders in Swedish society.

A framework for ICT-based knowledge sharing in sustainable rural development : the case of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan

Some 50% of the people in the world live in rural areas, often under harsh conditions and in poverty. The need for knowledge of how to improve living conditions is well documented. In response to this need, new knowledge of how to improve living conditions in rural areas and elsewhere is continuously being developed by researchers and practitioners around the world. People in rural areas, in particular, would certainly benefit from being able to share relevant knowledge with each other, as well as with stakeholders (e.g. researchers) and other organizations (e.g. NGOs). Central to knowledge management is the idea of knowledge sharing. This study is based on the assumption that knowledge management can support sustainable development in rural and remote regions. It aims to present a framework for knowledge management in sustainable rural development, and an inventory of existing frameworks for that. The study is interpretive, with interviews as the primary source for the inventory of stakeholders, knowledge categories and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure. For the inventory of frameworks, a literature study was carried out. The result is a categorization of the stakeholders who act as producers and beneficiaries of explicit and indigenous development knowledge. Stakeholders are local government, local population, academia, NGOs, civil society and donor agencies. Furthermore, the study presents a categorization of the development knowledge produced by the stakeholders together with specifications for the existing ICT infrastructure. Rural development categories found are research, funding, agriculture, ICT, gender, institutional development, local infrastructure development, and marketing & enterprise. Finally, a compiled framework is presented, and it is based on ten existing frameworks for rural development that were found in the literature study, and the empirical findings of the Gilgit-Baltistan case. Our proposed framework is divided in four levels where level one consists of the identified stakeholders, level two consists of rural development categories, level three of the knowledge management system and level four of sustainable rural development based on the levels below. In the proposed framework we claim that the sustainability of rural development can be achieved through a knowledge society in which knowledge of the rural development process is shared among all relevant stakeholders.

Patienters upplevelser av livskvalitet vid nydiagnostiserad typ 2 Diabetes Mellitus : En intervjustudie

Syfte: Att undersöka patienters upplevelser av livskvalitet vid nydiagnostiserad typ 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Metod: En empirisk studie med en kvalitativ ansats som innefattade tio deltagare med nydiagnostiserad typ 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes utifrån en intervjuguide där insamlad data analyserades med kvalitativ manifest innehållsanalys. Resultat: Studien resulterade i fyra huvudkategorier och tio subkategorier. Upplevelsen av att få ett diagnosbesked varierade mellan deltagarna, för vissa deltagarna var beskedet inte förvånande medan andra upplevde känslor av chock och förnekelse. Deltagarna upplevde positiva förändringar, exempelvis viktnedgång och förbättrad hälsa men även negativa förändringar, exempelvis att vara beroende av läkemedel. Vissa upplevde ingen förändring alls. Typ 2 Diabetes Mellitus påverkade inte deltagarnas fysiska eller psykiska hälsa i de flesta fall. Deltagarna ansåg det som viktig att få stöd från både omgivningen och hälso- och sjukvården. Konklusion: Känslorna över ett diagnosbesked kunde variera men upplevelsen av livskvalitet påverkades inte av Typ 2 Diabetes Mellitus i de flesta fall i studien. Patientens inställning till att leva med Typ 2 Diabetes Mellitus inverkade på förmågan till att utföra egenvård, och distriktsköterskans stöd och engagemang ansågs vara betydelsefullt i sjukdomsprocessen.

Barnmorskors erfarenheter av preventivmedelsrådgivning på ungdomsmottagning : - En intervjustudie

Bakgrund: Barnmorskans arbetsfält omfattar idag sexuell-, reproduktiv- och perinatal hälsa och det centrala i yrkesutövningen är att främja hälsa. Barnmorskan ska ha kunskaper om, kunna ge information och undervisa om sexualitet och samlevnad utifrån ett genus- och livscykelperspektiv. Uppdraget på ungdomsmottagning är att arbeta med sexualitet och hälsa samt att förebygga oönskade graviditeter och STI. Syfte: Syftet var att beskriva barnmorskors erfarenheter av preventivmedelsrådgivning på ungdomsmottagning. Metod: Individuella intervjuer genomfordes med nio barnmorskor på ungdomsmottagningar. Vid intervjutillfället användes en frågeguide och semistrukturerade frågor ställdes. Som analysmetod användes kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Fyra kategorier och 15 subkategorier identifierades. Kategorierna var enligt följande: Erfarenheten och kunskapens betydelse, Det kliniska arbetssättet, Modererande faktorer och Utmaningar. Slutsats: Barnmorskor uppgav god kunskap och goda erfarenheter av ungdomar och preventivmedelsrådgivning på ungdomsmottagning men menade att det är ett dynamiskt arbete som bidrar till ständig utveckling. Vid möten med preventivmedelssökande ungdomar på ungdomsmottagning fanns önskan att mötet skulle ske på individnivå. Erfarenheter av modererande faktorer för barnmorskan, utmaningar för preventivmedelsrådgivningen och följsamheten fanns vilket innebar att preventivmedelsrådgivning för ungdomar på ungdomsmottagning är komplext. Klinisk tillämpbarhet: Studiens resultat skulle kunna innebära ökad förståelse för arbetet på ungdomsmottagning och skapa underlag för att möta utmaningarna som barnmorskorna möter i det dagliga arbetet.