Books on the topic 'Spatial distribution pattern'

In this chapter, the discussion focuses on the spatial variation of species within urban environment. Studies on urban–rural gradients are discussed. These are studies along gradients of disturbance and environmental stress. The extreme heterogeneity of urban environments, where contrasting urban forms are juxtaposed, is recognized as an issue in drawing generalities. Despite this, some limited generalities in the patterns of species richness and density can be detected. The intermediate disturbance hypothesis is discussed and its limitations identified. Examples are presented from a number of taxa where different spatial distribution patterns are observed. There is also a brief consideration of r- and K-selected species and of urban avoiders and adaptors and how their distributions are affected by urban environments. While it is possible to make general statements regarding the distribution of biodiversity across an urban environment, considerable variations exist in terms of individual species.

This chapter focuses on a different conception of ecological space known as egohoods. It motivates the use of egohoods regarding the three features of routine activities theory: suitable targets, motivated offenders, and capable guardians. It discusses the spatial patterns of these three concepts and how egohoods as a geographic unit are well suited to capture their dynamic processes. It asks: what are the consequences of sociodemographic and business pattern changes in egohoods for the distribution of crime? Does the change in egohoods have similar implications for crime as does the change in meso-units such as neighborhoods, or microunits such as street segments? The chapter provides an empirical examination of these questions using data from the city of Los Angeles from 2000–2010 of robbery and burglary events.

This book provides the first systematic and comprehensive discussion of the intra-urban distribution of high-status goods, and their production or role as a marker of the nature of the settlements known as royal cities of New Kingdom Egypt (c.1550-1069 BC). Using spatial analysis to detect patterns of artefact distribution, the study focuses on Amarna, Gurob, and Malqata, incorporating Qantir/Pi-Ramesse for comparison. Being royal cities, these three settlements had a great need for luxury goods. Such items were made of either highly valuable materials, or materials that were not easily produced and therefore required a certain set of skills. Specifically, the industries discussed are those of glass, faience, metal, sculpture, and textiles. Analysis of the evidence of high-status industrial processes throughout the urban settlements, has demonstrated that industrial activities took place in institutionalized buildings, in houses of the elite, and also in small domestic complexes. This leads to the conclusion that materials were processed at different levels throughout the settlements and were subject to a strict pattern of control. The methodological approach to each settlement necessarily varies, depending on the nature and quality of the available data. By examining the distribution of high-status or luxury materials, in addition to archaeological and artefactual evidence of their production, a deeper understanding has been achieved of how industries were organized and how they influenced urban life in New Kingdom Egypt.

This chapter provides examples of the ways in which victimization surveys have been used in environmental criminology to identify spatial distributions of crime and to test and refine hypotheses that speak to these distributions. It first makes some initial remarks on the variations in victimization surveys, which clearly affect what can be concluded from them with what confidence about differing forms of spatial contribution. It then provides three examples showing how national victimization surveys have been used to develop, test, and refine hypotheses drawn from environmental criminology that relate to spatial distributions of various crimes that link back to individual activity patterns. This is followed by a discussion of the benefits and limitations of victimization surveys in environmental criminology.

This chapter discusses the biodiversity and main biogeographic patterns of marine plankton, the causes of such patterns, as well as factors that influence spatial and temporal plankton distribution. Plankton are influenced by a large number of environmental factors and as a result are not distributed randomly in the oceans and seas. Plankton biodiversity is constrained by hydroclimatic parameters such as temperature, bathymetry, and oceanic surface currents or large-scale hydrodynamic features such as the subarctic gyre. Plankton also follow most of the main divisions of the pelagic realm. The marine ecosphere can be divided into three main ecomes: (1) cold regions (Arctic and Antarctic), (2) cold-temperate regions, and (3) warm-temperate regions.

In this chapter an agent-based model of endogenously evolving migrant networks is developed to find and estimate the size of determinants of migration and return decisions. Individuals are connected by links, the strength of which declines over time and distance. Methodologically speaking, this chapter combines parameterization using data from the Mexican Migration Project with calibration. It is shown that expected earnings, an idiosyncratic home bias, network ties to other migrants, strength of links to the home country, and age have a significant impact on circular migration patterns over time. The model can reproduce spatial patterns of migration as well as the distribution of the number of trips of migrants. It can also be used for computational experiments and policy analysis.

Our world of increasing and varied conflicts is confusing and threatening to citizens of all countries, as they try to understand its causes and consequences. However, how and why war occurs, and peace is sustained, cannot be understood without realizing that those who make war and peace must negotiate a complex world political map of sovereign spaces, borders, networks of communication, access to nested geographic scales, and patterns of resource distribution. This book takes advantage of a diversity of geographic perspectives as it analyzes the political processes of war and their spatial expression. Contributors to the volume examine particular manifestations of war in light of nationalism, religion, gender identities, state ideology, border formation, genocide, spatial rhetoric, terrorism, and a variety of resource conflicts. The final section on the geography of peace covers peace movements, diplomacy, the expansion of NATO, and the geography of post-war reconstruction. Case studies of numerous conflicts include Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzogovina, West Africa, and the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The post-Second World War period saw major fluctuations in fertility in both Scotland and England and Wales, but the oscillations decreasingly moved in tandem, though, as elsewhere in western Europe, the general tendency of family sizes was downward from the 1980s. This was accompanied by major changes in the ages at which women were most likely to bear a child and, in Scotland, significant alterations in the spatial distribution of the highest and lowest fertility areas. Many possible explanations have been offered for these changes and some specifically Scottish features which may have affected the scale and timing of changes north of the border are briefly reviewed, including access to efficient contraception; immigration and religion; council housing and house purchase patterns; living standards, expectations and insecurity; women’s education, employment and household division of labour; and wider value changes.

Urban environments are characterized by the density of buildings and elements of a number of infrastructures that support urban residents in their daily life. These built elements and the activities that take place within towns and cities create a distinctive climate and increase air, water, and soil pollution. Within this context the elements of the natural environment that either are residual areas representative of the pre-urbanized area or are created by people contain distinctive floral and faunal communities that do not exist in the wild. The diverse prions, viruses, micro-organisms, plants, and animals that live there for all or part of their life cycle and their relationships with each other and with humans are illustrated with examples of diseases, parasites, and pests. Plants and animals are found inside as well as outside buildings. The roles of plants inside buildings and of domestic and companion animals are evaluated. Temporal and spatial distribution patterns of plants and animals living outside buildings are set out and generalizations are drawn, while exceptions are also discussed. The strategies used and adaptions (genotypic, phenotypic, and behavioural) adopted by plants and animals in face of the challenges presented by urban environments are explained. The final two chapters contain discussions of the impacts of urban environments on human biology and how humans might change these environments in order to address the illnesses that are characteristic of urbanites in the early twenty-first century.

Justice Across Ages is a book about how we should respond to inequalities between people at different stages of their lives. Age structures our social institutions, relationships, obligations, and entitlements. There is an age for voting, an age for working, and an age when one is expected (and sometimes required) to retire. Each stage of life also corresponds to specific forms of social risks and vulnerabilities. As a result, inequalities between age groups and generations are numerous and multidimensional. And yet, political theorists have spared little time thinking about how we should respond to these disparities. Are they akin to those patterned on gender or race? Or is there something relevantly distinctive about them that mitigates the need for concern? These questions and others are answered in this book and a theory of justice between co-existing generations is proposed. Age structures our lives and societies. It shapes social institutions, roles, and relationships, as well as how we assign obligations and entitlements within them. There is an age for schooling, an age for voting, an age for working, and an age when one is expected (and sometimes required) to retire. Each life-stage also brings its characteristic opportunities and vulnerabilities, which spawn multidimensional inequalities between young and old. How should we respond to these age-related inequalities? Are they unfair in the same way that gender or racial inequalities often are? Or is there something distinctive about age that should mitigate ethical concern? Justice Across Ages addresses these and related questions, offering an ambitious theory of justice between age groups. Written at the intersection of philosophy and public policy, the book sets forth ethical principles to guide a fair distribution of goods like jobs, healthcare, income, and political power among persons at different stages of their life. Drawing on a range of practical cases, the book deploys normative tools to distinguish objectionable instances of inequalities from acceptable ones and in so doing, critically assesses a range of policy remedies. At a time where young people are starkly under-represented in legislatures and subject to disproportionally high unemployment rates, the book moves from foundational theory to the specific policy reforms needed today. As moral and political philosophers have noted, it can be tempting to assume that age-based inequalities are morally trouble free, since over the course of a complete life, a person moves through each age groups. Yet, Justice Across Ages argues that we should resist this assumption. In particular, we should regard with suspicion commonplace and widely tolerated forms of age-based social hierarchy, such as the infantilization of young adults and older citizens, the political marginalization of teenagers and young adults, the exploitation of young workers through precarious contracts and unpaid internships, and the spatial segregation of elderly persons. If we ever are to live in a society where people are treated as equals, we must pay vigilant attention to how age membership can alter our social standing. This position carries important implications for how we should think about the political and moral value of equality, design our social and political institutions, and conduct ourselves in a range of contexts that includes families, workplaces, and schools.