Interpreting Environments: Interest Group Response to Population Ecology Pressures

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darren Halpin ◽  
Grant Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Population Ecology ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Group Response ◽  
The Way

Important articles in this Journal by Nownes in 2004 and Nownes and Lipinksi in 2005 demonstrate that ‘population ecology’ approaches are now central to interest group studies. Partly at least this move to study at population level is a consequence of the numbers of such organizations. Party scholars typically deal with far fewer cases and sui generis discussion is more defensible. Ecology seems to offer a ‘handle’ on the thousands of cases that exist in the interest group field. Nownes and Lipinski stressed the importance of environmental factors in determining group populations, and challenged group scholars to address the dynamics among interest group populations. This article argues that animal-based population ecology may be an imperfect analogy to use in making sense of group circumstances. It considers the way groups respond to opportunities and constraints.

MS prevalence in New Zealand, an ethnically and latitudinally diverse country

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 1422-1431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce V Taylor ◽  
John F Pearson ◽  
Glynnis Clarke ◽  
Deborah F Mason ◽  
David A Abernethy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Latitudinal Gradient ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
European Population ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The North ◽  
Mcdonald Criteria

Background: The prevalence of multiple sclerosis (MS) is not uniform, with a latitudinal gradient of prevalence present in most studies. Understanding the drivers of this gradient may allow a better understanding of the environmental factors involved in MS pathogenesis. Method: The New Zealand national MS prevalence study (NZMSPS) is a cross-sectional study of people with definite MS (DMS) (McDonald criteria 2005) resident in New Zealand on census night, 7 March 2006, utilizing multiple sources of notification. Capture—recapture analysis (CRA) was used to estimate missing cases. Results: Of 2917 people with DMS identified, the crude prevalence was 72.4 per 100,000 population, and 73.1 per 100,000 when age-standardized to the European population. CRA estimated that 96.7% of cases were identified. A latitudinal gradient was seen with MS prevalence increasing three-fold from the North (35°S) to the South (48°S). The gradient was non-uniform; females with relapsing—remitting/secondary-progressive (RRMS/SPMS) disease have a gradient 11 times greater than males with primary-progressive MS ( p < 1 × 10-7). DMS was significantly less common among those of Māori ethnicity. Conclusions: This study confirms the presence of a robust latitudinal gradient of MS prevalence in New Zealand. This gradient is largely driven by European females with the RRMS/SPMS phenotype. These results indicate that the environmental factors that underlie the latitudinal gradient act differentially by gender, ethnicity and MS phenotype. A better understanding of these factors may allow more targeted MS therapies aimed at modifiable environmental triggers at the population level.

Interest Group Litigation and the Embedded State: Canada's Court Challenges Program

2001 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Brodie
Keyword(s):  
Interest Group ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Social Interests ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Interest group litigation is often seen as pitting social interests against the state. This view matches a wider perspective that judicial review is a battle between state and social actors. Recently, neo-institutionalist and postpluralists have led political scientists to question the assumptions that underlie these traditional views of judicial review and interest group litigation. If the state is an active patron of interest group litigation then the way we see interest group litigation and judicial review must change. This article traces the history of the Court Challenges Program of Canada and concludes that the Program's evolution challenges the traditional views of judicial review and interest group litigation. It shows an embedded state at war with itself in court.

scholarly journals Productive perils: on metaphor as a theory-building device

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-111
Author(s):  
Claudio J Rodríguez H
Keyword(s):  
Theory Change ◽  
Theory Building ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Semiotic Theory ◽  
The Way

AbstractMetaphors constitute a relevant method for both building and making sense of theories. Semiotics is not exempt from their influence, and an important range of semiotic theories depends on metaphors to be meaningful. In this paper, we wish to examine the place of theory-constitutive metaphors considering the interaction view and the extent to which some areas of semiotics, particularly, the semiotics of culture and biosemiotics, are enriched by having metaphors dominate the way we think about them. The intention of the paper is not to document the different metaphors that have built semiotic theory, but rather to observe through a number of examples that semiotic research contains theory-building metaphors and that these are productive means of developing semiotic thinking further, with the caveat that theory change can be unexpected based on how we build metaphors for our theories.

Making Sense of the Sourcing and Shoring Maze

2010 ◽  
pp. 126-157
Author(s):  
Subrata Chakrabarty
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Global Sourcing ◽  
Academic World ◽  
Sourcing Strategies ◽  
Corporate World ◽  
Holistic Perspective ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Way

Many terminologies have grown out of the outsourcing and offshoring bandwagon. While the corporate world continues to experience these phenomena, the academic world continues to research the same. An attempt has been made to give an overview of the various outsourcing and offshoring alternatives. We first discuss the basic sourcing strategies (insourcing and outsourcing) and the shoring strategies (onshoring and offshoring). We then move deep and wide into the maze and unravel the multiple alternatives that businesses exercise in order to get the best deal for their information system (IS) needs. Approximately 50 terminologies that are related to this growing maze have been discussed. The literature was scanned for various sourcing alternatives and terminologies. The purpose of this chapter is to compile and elucidate the various facets of domestic and global sourcing of IS needs. The reader will gain holistic perspective of a phenomenon that is continuously changing the way business is carried out globally.

Production at the Cohort and Population Levels

2020 ◽  
pp. 149-168
Author(s):  
Michael J. Fogarty ◽  
Jeremy S. Collie
Keyword(s):  
Population Ecology ◽  
Life Stage ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Fish Population ◽  
Individual Growth ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Compensatory Mechanisms ◽  
Fisheries Science ◽  
Dominant Component ◽  
Time Period

The dominant focus on production processes in fisheries science sets it apart from other areas of population ecology in which population numbers are the principal currency for analysis. This chapter extends consideration of individual growth and mortality rates provided in earlier chapters to broaden the context for understanding cohort and population processes. A cohort is a group of organisms born within a given time period (e.g. year). How a fish population will respond to harvesting requires not only accurate accounting of its effective reproductive output but an understanding of the relative importance of compensatory mechanisms operating at different points in the life cycle. Recruitment (the number in a cohort surviving to a specified life stage or age) emerges as a dominant component of production at the population level. A dominant theme in this chapter concerns population regulation as embodied in the recruitment process and the high variability in this process.

scholarly journals Mapping premature ovarian insufficiency and potential environmental factors: A tool for triggering in-depth research of the problem in Slovenia

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Živa Miriam Geršak ◽  
Ksenija Geršak ◽  
Tanja Rejc ◽  
Lucija Perharič ◽  
Lijana Zaletel-Kragelj ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Goodness Of Fit ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Public Health Research ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Premature Ovarian Insufficiency ◽  
Ovarian Insufficiency ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Chi Square Test

Aiming at triggering in-depth research of the problem of Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI) in Slovenia, we assessed the regional differences in POI incidence emphasising the relationship with social and physical environmental factors at the population level using a mapping approach. The differences in POI incidence between regions were tested by goodness-of-fit chi-square test, while Pearson correlation coefficient was used to assess the ecological relationship between POI incidence and selected environmental indicators. Significant indicators were mapped. The results showed highly significant interregional differences in POI incidence (p<0.001). Statistically significant ecological relationships were observed between POI incidence and prevalence of active smoking (p=0.001), passive smoking (p=0.017) and consumption of vitamins (p=0.008). The results could be used in diminishing interregional differences in POI. It was concluded that mapping is an effective tool in public health research, especially in triggering new activities.

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