Women and Minorities as Living Organ Donors

In this chapter, two demographic traits of living donors are observed: the over-representation of women and the under-representation of Blacks. This raises the question of whether these differences should be considered a disparity or a preference. A traditional bioethics approach would state that as long as living donors believe that the benefits of participation outweigh the risks and harms (beneficence) and the donors give a voluntary and informed consent (autonomy or, more accurately, respect for persons), then the demographics reflect a mere difference in preferences. Such an analysis, however, ignores the social, economic, and cultural determinants as well as various forms of structural discrimination (such as racism and sexism) that may imply that the distribution is less voluntary than may appear initially. The distribution also raises justice concerns regarding the fair recruitment and selection of living donors and their recipients. A vulnerabilities analysis can help explain the demographics of living donation.

The Importance of the Neighbourhood Environment and Social Capital for Happiness in a Vulnerable District: The Case of the Pajarillos District in Spain

The characteristics of neighbourhoods, their physical and social environment, have been shown to have profound effects on the individual well-being and happiness of their residents. In an effort to help design policies and action plans that enhance well-being in the district, our study seeks to understand how happiness levels among residents in a low-income neighbourhood in Spain are linked to their socio-demographic traits, individual health, relationships with the area, and community, as well as with the physical environment of the neighbourhood. The study is part of a project called "Educa-Pajarillos Sostenible". The project aims to improve the quality of life of the area’s citizens by carrying out a series of actions. One of these actions is an eco-social map of happiness, which involves designing and applying a survey and which serves as a source of analysis for our research. An Ordered Choice Logit econometric model was applied to measure the effect of the happiness of demographic, neighbourhood environment, social capital, and socio-demographic characteristics. Results confirm the importance of variables related to the neighbourhood’s social capital and physical environment as key elements in local residents’ happiness. The findings also indicate that traditional indicators used to measure well-being, such as education or difficulty making ends meet, are not significant.

Annual Population Dynamics and Their Influencing Factors for an Endangered Submerged Macrophyte (Ottelia cordata)

Due to wetland loss, Ottelia cordata (O. cordata, Wallich) Dandy has been categorized as an endangered species on the List of Key Protected Wild Plants in China. Quantifying the relative importance of demographic (i.e., growth, survival, and reproduction) and habitat preference traits on the population dynamics (abundance) of O. cordata could guide how to develop the best recovery strategies of O. cordata, yet currently, there are no studies that investigate this. By monitoring monthly changes in O. cordata abundance and demographic traits (plant height, leaf area, flower sex ratio, and seed number) that were highly correlated with growth rate, photosynthetic rate, and water depth, we identified several relationships. Linear mixed-effect models and variance partition quantified the specific effects of four demographic traits and water depth on O. cordata abundance in three habitat types (paddyfield, stream, and spring). The linear mixed-effect models indicate that among the four demographic traits, height could be significantly positively correlated to abundance in all three habitat types. In contrast, other three traits (leaf area, sex ratio, and seed numbers) were non-significantly associated with abundance across each habitat. Height was determined by water depth, so water depth rather than photosynthetic rate and reproduction rate may promote the development and recovery of O. cordata populations. Variance partition results showed that water depth mediated the positive influence of growth rate on the abundance of O. cordata in the living habitats (paddyfield and spring). In contrast, water depth but not growth rate determined the abundance of O. cordata in the living habitat (stream). However, water depth had a significantly negative impact on the abundance of O. cordata in stream habitats, likely because all of the streams were shallow. Altogether, in the short term for avoiding the potential harm or even extinction of O. cordata, keeping appropriate water depth or transplanting O. cordata to spring should be an effective strategy because the water is not only deep enough but also clear in spring habitats. Additionally, water turbidity was shown to affect the density of O. cordata growth, wherein O. cordata was sparsely distributed when turbidity was high. Therefore, in the long run, to make the population gradually recovery, it will be necessary to restore the degraded wetland. This could be accomplished by reducing water pollution and removing sludge to reduce turbidity and increase hydrological connectivity.

Local Knowledge of Utilisation and Threats Patterns of Termites around Pendjari Biosphere Reserve, West – Africa

Background: Termites are social insects filling many ecological functions and ecosystem services in tropical ecosystems, and are also used differently for human well-being in several parts of the world. Documenting their use knowledge and associated threats are fundamental for their sustainability. Thus, this study aimed at analysing use knowledge patterns and threat factors of termites within the local communities around Pendjari biosphere reserve (PBR). Methods: Semi-structured questionnaire was administrated to 151 informants to collect socio-demographic data, use-types and use-categories of termites and their threat factor levels. Fidelity indexes, informant diversity and equitability indexes were computed and compared regarding socio-demographic traits by using a generalized linear models. A pairwise ranking of threat factors followed by series of ordinal logistic regression were performed to assess how informants’ socio – demographic traits do influence the perceived effect of threats on termite species. The statistical analyses were done by using R programming language in Rstudio. Results: Twenty five use-types of termites and termite mounds were recorded. Ethnicity and gender have significant (P-value < 0.05) influence on the use knowledge pattern of termites, with Gourmantche and Berba the most knowledgeable ethnics of termite and termite mound uses, while women are more knowledgeable than men. Ethnicity and age category have significant (P-value < 0.05) influence on perceived threats of agricultural activities and bush fire, while the reported global use values and age category have significant (P-value < 0.05) influence on the perceived threat of climate change on termites. Old informants are likely to perceive the influence of bushfire, agricultural activities and climate change threats than adult and young informants. Berbas are likely to perceive the influence of agricultural activities and bushfire threats than Gourmantche, Waama and other ethnics. Conclusion: The findings were therefore supported by gender, age and dynamic of knowledge hypothesis, with gender and ethnicity, the two factors that have significant influence on the uses’ diversity and use knowledge pattern of termite and termite mounds. Thus, the sustainable management of termites will be achieved by sensitizing indigenous communities to adopt sustainable agricultural practices associated with the creation of alternative activities to reduce pressure on termites.

Supervised Kohonen Self-Organizing Maps of Acute Asthma from Air Pollution Exposure

There are unanswered questions with regards to acute respiratory outcomes, particularly asthma, due to environmental exposures. In contribution to asthma research, the current study explored a computational intelligence paradigm of artificial neural networks (ANNs) called self-organizing maps (SOM). To train the SOM, air quality data (nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and particulate matter), interpolated to geocoded addresses of asthmatics, were used with clinical data to classify asthma outcomes. Socio-demographic data such as age, gender and race were also used to perform the classification by the SOM. All pollutants and demographic traits appeared to be important for the correct classification of asthma outcomes. Age was more important: older patients were more likely to have asthma. The resultant SOM model had low quantization error. The study concluded that Kohonen self-organizing maps provide effective classification models to study asthma outcomes, particularly when using multidimensional data. SO2 was concluded to be an important pollutant that requires strict regulation, particularly where frail subpopulations such as the elderly may be at risk.

Pro-environmental behaviors correlate with delay discounting

A total of 138 participants were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk to evaluate the relationship between temporal discounting and pro-environmental behavior. Pro-environmental behavior was assessed by using a modified version of Whitmarsh and O'Neill survey. Temporal discounting was assessed by Kirby's 27-item delay-discounting measure. The results showed a positive trend correlation between pro-environmental behavior and temporal discounting; i.e. the more discounting of the future was correlated with less pro-environmental behavior. This trend became much more significant when we just analyzed those participants who answered "Yes" to the question "Do you think climate change is something that is affecting or is going to affect you, personally?" to which 98 out of 138 participants of our study answered "yes". For this upper %70 of participants the Pearson correlation coefficient was r = 0.28; p = 0.006. We also analyzed different demographic traits to see whether there is any difference between sub-groups regarding differential pro-environmental behaviors. Two features turned out to be highly predictive of the pro-environmental behavior: education and marriage. Married and higher educated tend to act more pro-environmentally than single and lower educated.

Spatial Variation in Demographic Processes and the Potential Role of Hybridization to Future Persistence

CONTEXTSpatial variation in life history traits plays a crucial role in the structure and dynamics of populations. The demographic responses of local populations to fine-scale habitat heterogeneity have consequences for species at a broader scale and responses vary across spatial scales. Yet, the specific nature of such relationships is unclear across taxa.OBJECTIVESWe evaluated the spatial variation in demographic traits of cryptic terrestrial salamanders across the broad scale environmental gradient of elevation (i.e. temperature) and the fine-scale gradient of stream distance (i.e. moisture).METHODSUsing a 4-years of spatial mark-recapture and count data, we implemented a spatially explicit Integrated Population Model to understand demographic rates across scales. We also investigated how hybridization, which occurs in between lungless salamanders at mid-elevations, may influence demographic rates.RESULTSWe found that high elevation animals grow faster and move more, especially far from streams likely as a result of increased temperatures. Survival was highest but recruitment rates were lowest at low elevations and significantly declined with distance to stream. We also found that hybrid animals at low elevations had higher survival probabilities.CONCLUSIONSOur study reveals nuanced spatial variation in demographic rates that differ in magnitude depending on the scale at which they are assessed. Our results also show animals exhibit demographic compensation across abiotic gradients, underscoring the need for further conservation and management efforts to implement spatially explicit and dynamic strategies to match the demographic variation of species and populations of species separated across space.