The distribution of abundance amongst species with similar ways of life is a classical problem in ecology. The unified neutral theory of biodiversity, due to Hubbell, states that observed population dynamics may be explained on the assumption of per capita equivalence amongst individuals. One can thus dispense with differences between species, and differences between abundant and rare species: ...

Low-income residents are among the most vulnerable groups to climate change in urban areas, particularly regarding heat stress. However, their perceptions about heat and the impacts they face go often undocumented, and are seldom considered in decision-making processes delivering adaptation. This paper presents a robust tool to allow the integration of perception, concerns and impacts of differ...

The origin of altruistic behavior, i.e. the behavior that is useful for a population or a species but goes at the expense of an altruistic individual, has long been a challenge for students of evolutionary biology. The populations with altruistic individuals thrive better than those without altruists; however, the altruists within a population thrive worse than the non-altruists and their preva...

Intuitive and meaningful interpretation of geographical phenomena requires their representation at multiple levels of detail. This is due to the scale dependent nature of their properties. Considerable interest remains in capturing once geographical information at the fine scale, and from this, automatically deriving information at various levels of detail and scale via the process of generalis...

The evaluation of the formative process in the University system has been assuming an ever increasing importance in the European countries. Within this context the analysis of student performance and capabilities plays a fundamental role. In this work we propose a multivariate latent growth model for studying the performances of a cohort of students of the University of Bologna. The model propo...

Evolution and geometry generate complexity in similar ways. Evolution drives natural selection while geometry may capture the logic of this selection and express it visually, in terms of specific generic properties representing some kind of advantage. Geometry is ideally suited for expressing the logic of evolutionary selection for symmetry, which is found in the shape curves of vein systems an...

Santa Muerte is one of the fastest growing folk saint movements in Mexico. She has a core following in Mexico among dispossessed populations, but also devotees from a broader swath of the Mexican population. This article analyzes the development of Santa Muerte veneration in Mexico since 2000. I argue that, from a structural analysis perspective, Santa Muerte veneration is on the threshold of d...