Search

The emergence of conflict is a complex issue with numerous drivers and interactions playing a role. Exploratory dimension-reduction techniques can reveal patterns of association in such complex data. In this study, an existing dataset was reanalyzed using factor analysis for mixed data to visualize the data in two-dimensional space to explore the conditions associated with high levels of conflict. The first dimension was strongly associated with resilience index, control of corruption, income, income inequality, and regime type, while the second dimension was strongly associated with oil production, regime type, conflict level, political terror level, and water stress. Hierarchical clustering from principal components was used to group the observations into five clusters. Country trajectories through the two-dimensional space provided examples of how movement in the first two dimensions reflected changes in conflict, political terror, regime type, and resilience index. These trajectories correspond to the evolution of themes in research on conflict, particularly in terms of considering the importance of climate or environmental variables in stimulating or sustaining conflict. Understanding conditions associated with high conflict can be helpful in guiding the development of future models for prediction and risk assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global refugee and migrant flows form complex networks with serious consequences for both sending and receiving countries as well as those in between. While several basic network properties of these networks have been documented, their finer structural character remains under-studied. One such structure is the triad significance profile (TSP). In this study, the TSPs of global refugee and migrant flow networks are assessed. Results indicate that the migrant flow network's size and TSP remain stable over the years; its TSP shares patterns with social networks such as trade networks. In contrast, the refugee network has been more dynamic and structurally unstable; its TSP shares patterns with networks in the information-processing superfamily, which includes many biological networks. Our findings demonstrate commonality between migrant and social networks as well as between refugee and biological networks, pointing to possible interdisciplinary collaboration—e.g., application of biological network theories to refugee network dynamics—, potentially furthering theoretical development with respect to both network theory and theories on human mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a way to measure agreement in participatory mapping. We asked subject matter experts (SMEs) to draw where Sudanese ethnic groups were located on a map. We then used an eigenanalysis approach to determine whether SMEs agreed on the location of ethnic groups. We used minimum residual factor analysis to assess the extent of interinformant agreement among SMEs' judgments of four ethnic groups' spatial locations. Although we found little evidence of the lumper/splitter problem, some SMEs drew larger polygons than others, and we provide directions on how to reduce this potential bias. Finally, the results of the geospatial agreement analysis were validated through a comparison of other sources of geospatial data for three of the four ethnic groups.

Research on migration has become more challenging due to at least four factors: (1) more complex migration traditions; (2) the development of migration economies that engage many types of migrants from ever more social and cultural backgrounds; (3) increasing likelihood of climate change‐driven environmental migration; and (4) increasing likelihood of conflict‐based migration in some contexts. These developments have shaken economic theories of migration and have encouraged interdisciplinary, methodologically mixed, qualitative and quantitative research and analysis. From a review of the literature, we have gleaned 11 common themes about environmental, economic and conflict migration that we differentiate by process (migration behaviours that are still evolving) and patterns (migration behaviours that have become customary). We then consider how positive and negative dimensions of migration can be captured and represented with close attention to livelihood constellations (multiple economic activities combined by individuals, households and families). Finally, focusing on Somalia and agro‐pastoral peoples generally, where recent environmental and conflict migration have been added to decades of economic migration and centuries of seasonal, environmental migration associated with pastoralism, we combine historical and qualitative work to demonstrate the value of a livelihood constellation perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine protected areas (MPA's) are spatially defined fishery management strategies designed to allow overfished species to recover by excluding fishing effort from certain fishing grounds and essential habitats. When MPA's are established in federal waters, the net socioeconomic impact to fishery stakeholders must be forecast. In many cases, conducting a quantitative impact analysis is not possible due to poor spatial resolution of available data. This study implements a semi-quantitative impact assessment based on Delphi methodology to evaluate the net socioeconomic impact of alternative MPA sites proposed for the deepwater component of the snapper-grouper fishery off the southeastern coast of the United States. The results suggest that the approach is tractable and useful to fishery managers when assessing alternative MPA sites in a data-poor environment., Introduction As defined by Marine Protected Areas Executive Order 13158, a marine protected area (MPA) is 'any area of the marine environment that has been reserved by Federal, State, territorial, [...]

Behavioral observations and sociometric ratings were assessed in separate 3- and 4-year-olds child-care classes across a 2-year period. In general, correspondence between behavioral observations and sociometric ratings increased with age, and social structure showed greater cohesion in the 4-year-olds class. Gender was an organizing principle in the social structure of the 4-year-olds class and became more apparent across time in the 3-year-olds class. (HTH)

Research has been conducted on the mammaglobin/lipophilin B complex. The role of this complex in cancerous and healthy states and its use in the breast cancer diagnostic assay development have been investigated and are discussed.

Tourist development often depends on the development of specific tourist activities (e.g., sportfishing), combined with new and creative approaches to promoting areas as tourist destinations. Travel agents occupy crucial positions in this process, acting as information brokers between tourists and tourist destinations. Their perceptions of tourist destinations influence their promotion behaviors. Methods that model perceptions using judged similarity and belief-frame comparison data, such as multidimensional scaling, optimal scaling and clustering analysis, are particularly useful in gaining information about how travel agents think about tourist destinations. Such methods may also facilitate attempts to promote one destination over another. We present these methods in this article, illustrating how they were applied to the promotion of sportfishing in Puerto Rico as one portion of an overall effort of fisheries development in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Key words: travel, tourism, sportfishing, development, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands