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The corpse walker : real life stories, China from the bottom up
A compilation of twenty-seven extraordinary oral histories that opens a window, unlike any other, onto the lives of ordinary, often outcast, Chinese men and women. Liao Yiwu (one of the best-known writers in China because he is also one of the most censored) chose his subjects from the bottom of Chinese society: people for whom the \"new\" China--the China of economic growth and globalization--is no more beneficial than the old. Here are a professional mourner, a trafficker in humans, a leper, an abbot, a retired government official, a former landowner, a mortician, a feng shui master, a former Red Guard, a political prisoner, a village teacher, a blind street musician, a Falun Gong practitioner, and many others--people who have been battered by life but who have managed to retain their dignity, their humor, and their essential, complex humanity. Liao's interviews were given from 1990 to 2003.--From amazon.com.
Book
An assessment of population size and demographic drivers of the Bearded Vulture using integrated population models
Conventional approaches for the assessment of population abundance or trends are usually based on a single source of information, such as counts or changes in demographic parameters. However, these approaches usually neglect some of the information needed to properly understand the population as a whole, such as assessments of the non-breeding proportion of the population and the drivers of population change. The Bearded Vulture Gypaetus barbatus is a threatened species and its Pyrenean population (the largest in Europe) inhabits parts of Spain, Andorra, and France. We developed an Integrated Population Model (IPM) using data from a long-term study (1987–2016) in the three countries, including capture–mark–recapture of 150 marked individuals, to assess population size and age structure at the whole population scale, and obtain estimates of survival and breeding parameters of this population. The breeding population experienced a geometric mean population increase of 3.3% annually, falling to 2.3% during the last 10 yr. The adult proportion of the population increased with time, from 61% to 73%. There were 365 (95% Bayesian credible interval [BCI]: 354–373) adult breeding birds in 2016, representing 49% of the adult population and 36% of the total population (estimated at 1,026 individuals, 95% BCI: 937–1,119). The large number of non-breeding adults probably led to higher mean age of first reproduction than previously estimated, and to an estimated 30–35% of territories occupied by polyandrous trios. Population growth rate was positively and strongly correlated with adult survival, which had a much greater effect on population growth than productivity. The effects of subadult and juvenile survival on population growth were weaker. We found strong evidence for a density-dependent decrease in juvenile survival, productivity and adult survival, leading to reduced population growth with increased population size. Our approach allowed us to identify important conservation issues related to the management of supplementary feeding sites and geographic expansion of this population. Our study supports the use of IPMs as a tool to understand long-lived species, allowing simultaneous estimates of the non-breeding size of the population (which is critical for understanding population functioning), better estimates of population parameters, and assessment of demographic drivers.
Journal Article
Can common people govern? : political parties, movements, and uprisings
\"In Can Common People Govern? renowned French social theorist, philosopher and historian Jacques Bidet offers a theoretical and political exploration of political parties and social movements as forms of popular organization, an alternative to figures like Lenin and Xi Jinping, Gramsci and Althusser, and theorists of Left-wing populism. These political forms, he argues, are related to the structure of modern society in which the popular class is opposed in a \"triangular duel\" against a dominant class that includes two poles in conflictual connivance, \"capital-power\" and \"competence-power\"(or \"elite\"). This duality offers the common people an angle of attack for a risky alliance with this elite against capital. This class confrontation is put in the context of the ongoing ecological disaster. Can Common People Govern? is relevant to students of Marxism as well as wider readership interested in political thought and action\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
The Rise of 'New' Social Classes within the Service Class in the Netherlands: Political Orientation of Social and Cultural Specialists and Technocrats between 1970 and 2003
The employment structure of The Netherlands and other advanced countries is evolving from industrial to postindustrial. Yet existing social class schemata, like the well-known Erikson, Goldthorpe and Portocarero (EGP) class schema, were constructed for an industrial employment structure. In this study, we adjust the EGP class schema to account for this transformation by using new class theories. We distinguish a 'new' class of social and cultural specialists and an 'old' class of technocrats with both a higher and a lower version in the service class. Our research question concerns the extent to which the adjusted EGP class schema is a better predictor of people's political orientation than the standard EGP class schema. We assume that the 'new' classes differ in their political orientation from the 'old' classes. We also assume that, during their formation, the 'new' classes become increasingly effective in explaining differences in people's political orientation. Experts' knowledge is employed to classify the occupations. In addition, we use the data of 34,856 respondents gathered between 1970 and 2003 in The Netherlands. The adjusted EGP class schema explains people's political orientation substantially better than the standard EGP class schema; the 'new' classes vote significantly more for leftist parties and differ substantially in their political orientation from the 'old' classes. Furthermore, our results show that the political orientation of the low-grade social and cultural specialists has become more crystallized since 1970.
Journal Article
Trophic redundancy and predator size class structure drive differences in kelp forest ecosystem dynamics
Ecosystems are changing at alarming rates because of climate change and a wide variety of other anthropogenic stressors. These stressors have the potential to cause phase shifts to less productive ecosystems. A major challenge for ecologists is to identify ecosystem attributes that enhance resilience and can buffer systems from shifts to less desirable alternative states. In this study, we used the Northern Channel Islands, California, as a model kelp forest ecosystem that had been perturbed from the loss of an important sea star predator due to a sea star wasting disease. To determine the mechanisms that prevent phase shifts from productive kelp forests to less productive urchin barrens, we compared pre- and postdisease predator assemblages as predictors of purple urchin densities. We found that prior to the onset of the disease outbreak, the sunflower sea star exerted strong predation pressures and was able to suppress purple urchin populations effectively. After the disease outbreak, which functionally extirpated the sunflower star, we found that the ecosystem response—urchin and algal abundances—depended on the abundance and/or size of remaining predator species. Inside Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), the large numbers and sizes of other urchin predators suppressed purple urchin populations resulting in kelp and understory algal growth. Outside of the MPAs, where these alternative urchin predators are fished, less abundant, and smaller, urchin populations grew dramatically in the absence of sunflower stars resulting in less kelp at these locations. Our results demonstrate that protected trophic redundancy inside MPAs creates a net of stability that could limit kelp forest ecosystem phase shifts to less desirable, alternative states when perturbed. This highlights the importance of harboring diversity and managing predator guilds.
Journal Article
Middle Class Decline? The Growth of Professional-Managers in the Neoliberal Era
This study examines changes in the U.S. class structure under neoliberalism. Applying a Marxian analytic framework to U.S. Census data from 1970 to 2010, we find that the professional middle class grew to 32% of the workforce and experienced steady earnings growth. The working class declined in size and earnings, the petty bourgeoisie remained stable but lost income, whereas the ruling class advanced significantly on both fronts. This overall pattern was more pronounced for whites, Asians, and women than for blacks, Hispanics, and men, confirming some but upending other expectations about the social ramifications of neoliberal policy.
Journal Article
Explaining Change in Social Fluidity: Educational Equalization and Educational Expansion in Twentieth‐Century Sweden
The authors analyze social fluidity among Swedish men and women using a series of 24 annual surveys, 1976-99 (N = 63,280). A theoretical model suggests that changes in fluidity are normally driven by cohort rather than period effects. The results support this argument: changes in fluidity between the mid-1970s and late 1990s were due to the successive replacement of older and less fluid, by younger and more fluid, cohorts. Cohorts differed in their fluidity because the effect of class origins on educational attainment declined (an equalization effect) and because greater shares of each cohort had higher levels of educational attainment, which placed them in labor markets that operate more meritocratically (a compositional effect). The article discusses the relevance of these results for other countries and for policy. Adapted from the source document.
Journal Article
PATHWAYS TO SOCIAL EVOLUTION: RECIPROCITY, RELATEDNESS, AND SYNERGY
Many organisms live in populations structured by space and by class, exhibit plastic responses to their social partners, and are subject to nonadditive ecological and fitness effects. Social evolution theory has long recognized that all of these factors can lead to different selection pressures but has only recently attempted to synthesize how these factors interact. Using models for both discrete and continuous phenotypes, we show that analyzing these factors in a consistent framework reveals that they interact with one another in ways previously overlooked. Specifically, behavioral responses (reciprocity), genetic relatedness, and synergy interact in nontrivial ways that cannot be easily captured by simple summary indices of assortment. We demonstrate the importance of these interactions by showing how they have been neglected in previous synthetic models of social behavior both within and between species. These interactions also affect the level of behavioral responses that can evolve in the long run; proximate biological mechanisms are evolutionarily stable when they generate enough responsiveness relative to the level of responsiveness that exactly balances the ecological costs and benefits. Given the richness of social behavior across taxa, these interactions should be a boon for empirical research as they are likely crucial for describing the complex relationship linking ecology, demography, and social behavior.
Journal Article
Crystal Structure and Topological Features of Two New Indene Derivatives
7-Bromo-5-(
tert
-butyl)-2-phenyl-1
H
-indene (
1
) and 6,7-dibromo-2,4-dimethyl-2,3-dihydro-1
H
-inden-1-one (
2
) are analyzed by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The conformational structure, vibrational spectrum of molecules, topology and hierarchical complexity of crystal structures are discussed. The structure of
1
is layered and contains (100) molecular layers of the
tts
topological type. The structure of
2
does not contain long molecular ensembles but demonstrates short Br⋯O contacts linking molecules into a centrosymmetric dimer.
Journal Article