Blow Flies from Forest Fragments Embedded in Different Land Uses: Implications for Selecting Indicators in Forensic Entomology

Given the general expectation that forest loss can alter biodiversity patterns, we hypothesize that blow fly species abundances differ in a gradient of native vegetation cover. This study was conducted in 17 fragments across different landscapes in central Brazil. Different land cover type proportions were used to represent landscape structure. In total, 2334 specimens of nine species of Calliphoridae were collected. We used principal component analysis (PCA) to reduce dimensionality and multicollinearity of the landscape data. The first component explained 70%, and it represented a gradient of forest‐pasture land uses. Alien species showed a wide distribution in different fragments with no clear relationship between the abundance values and the scores of PCA axes, whereas native species occurred only in areas with a predominance of forest cover. Our study revealed that certain native species may be sensitive to forest loss at the landscape scale, and they represent a bioindicator in forensic entomology.     

Partner Violence Entrapment Scale: Development and Psychometric Testing

This article describes the development and testing of the psychometric properties of the Partner Violence Entrapment Scale (PVES), an instrument that evaluates the women’s perceived reasons for staying in violent partner relationships. After initial pilot testing, the scale was administered to 213 Spanish women who were victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). An exploratory factor analysis identified six factors: Socio-Economic Problems, Attachment and Fear of Loneliness, Blaming Oneself and Resignation, Impact on Children, Fear of Harm and Worry for the Partner, and Feelings of Confusion. Discriminant validity was established by demonstrating associations between PVES factors and socio-demographic, clinical and abuse variables. The scale appears to be a useful assessment tool for social and clinical settings. Its factor structure, reliability, and validity need to be replicated in other populations and samples.     

The role of `the resources of the power hypothesis' in explaining the Spanish welfare state between 1975–1995

Abstract There are two clearly differentiated parts to this work. The first consists of a review of the theoretical arguments that underlie the so–called 'resources of power hypothesis' . That theory has been used to explain the growth and development of the Welfare State in several European countries. The findings of a number of empirical works backing up that theory have also been included in this review. The intention of the second part is to check the theory against the Spanish case between 1975 and 1995. The conclusion of this work is that if, besides considering the ideological persuasion of the party controlling the government, we take into account the other relevant factors encompassed by the theory, then the 'resources of power hypothesis' is valid in explaining and interpreting the make–up and scope of the Spanish Welfare State.     

Combinatorics in the theory of utility

It used to be thought that the utility or pleasure that goods gave consumers depended on the whole on the nature of the goods and, particularly, on its quantity. This is half true, half false. The utility obtained from a set of goods depends mainly on how the goods are ordered and combined within the dynamic time sequence represented by consumption. In other words, it depends less on what the goods are and more on how the goods are positioned. Understanding this offers huge possibilities within the theory of utility--and thus of consumption--as it allows us to apply the arsenal of tools available to us in the mathematic speciality known as combinatorics, as applied to utility. If each combination of goods poses a utility, we can rank these combinations differently using ordinal criteria and real transitive preferences. From there we can establish a set of menus, from best to least poor, and, armed with this information, work out a theory of individual choice. This is in brief the purpose of this work.     

Three paradigms in a single monetary circulation

The nature of money is simple and easy to understand, both what it is and what it was; it is the ＂law of gravity＂ we all understand. Many macroeconomic concepts and operations are based on money. Without it, they would be impossible to comprehend and, in fact, can only be understood by methodically tracking the circulation of money. There are three core paradigms of money and money circulation： the money multiplier, the velocity of circulation of money income and the money-income multiplier. In this paper, we try to demystify or decouple some of these circulatory mechanisms in order to establish, to the extent that is possible, a single comprehensive theory. A comprehensive theory or an approximation to such demands that the three economic operations corresponding to the above three paradigms form part of the same monetary macroeconomic phenomenon. To prove workable, it requires that the formulae arrived at being represented by a single mathematical expression. This paper shows that there is a conflict between, on one hand, the inevitable and persistent economic intuition that relates the three paradigms and, on the other, the mathematical formulae （and their components） that occasionally negate this.     

Preliminary results of an investigation on postmortem variations in human skeletal mass of buried bones

Extreme fragmentation can complicate the inventory of human skeletal remains. In such cases, skeletal mass can provide information regarding skeleton completeness and the minimum number of individuals. For that purpose, several references for skeletal mass can be used to establish comparisons and draw inferences regarding those parameters. However, little is known about the feasibility of establishing comparisons between inherently different materials, as is the case of curated reference skeletal collections and human remains recovered from forensic and archaeological settings. The objective of this paper was to investigate the effect of inhumation, weather and heat exposure on the skeletal mass of two different bone types. This was investigated on a sample of 30 human bone fragments (14 trabecular bones and 16 compact bones) that was experimentally buried for two years after being submitted to one of four different heat treatments (left unburned; 500?°C; 900?°C; 1000?°C). Bones were exhumed periodically to assess time-related mass variation. Skeletal mass varied substantially, decreasing and increasing in accordance to the interchanging dry and wet seasons. However, trends were not the same for the two bone types and the four temperature thresholds. The reason for this appears to be related to water absorption and to the differential heat-induced changes in bone microporosity, volume, and composition. Our results suggest that mass comparisons against published references should be performed only after the skeletal remains have been preemptively dried from exogenous water.     

The impact of student-generated digital flashcards on student learning of constitutional law

This article describes, evaluates and reflects upon student creation of cloud-based digital flashcards as an authentic formative and summative assessment task designed for the deep learning of constitutional law. The usefulness of digital flashcards in online legal education is explored. The undergraduate law student participants in the study responded differently to the assessment task depending upon the constitutional law topic they were assigned, the perceived relevance of constructing digital flashcards to professional practice and how they reacted to this creative task. Building digital flashcards provides a potentially powerful authentic assessment task for the study of constitutional law provided it is designed to support semester long creation, validation and sharing of digital flashcards that students perceive as professionally relevant and educationally useful. Student recommendations for designing an assessment task involving the creation of digital flashcards are evaluated.