Negotiation can be conceptualized as a problem-solving enterprise in which mental models guide behavior. We examined the association between negotiation outcomes and mental models, as measured by negotiators’ associative networks. Four hypotheses were supported. First, negotiators who reached optimal settlements had mental models that reflected greater understanding of the negotiation’s payoff ...

While the variation in childbearing patterns across countries and between socio-economic groups within a country has been studied in detail, less is known about the differences in fertility patterns across settlements within a country. Using aggregate and individual-level register data, we examine fertility variation across settlements in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. We observe a signi...

This monograph contains the results of a study carried out by the Yakutsk Research Center for Complex Medical Problems, "Evaluating the health of the indigenous minorities of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) and optimizing medical assistance using innovative technologies and telemedicine in indigenous settlements." The child population was studied in 19 indigenous minority settlements, and the adul...

Rural China has experienced rapid urbanization and industrialization, accompanied with rural–urban migration since 1978. This tremendous transition has caused a series of negative consequences, necessitating a spatial-territorial reorganization of rural settlements. Previous studies on the restructuring of rural settlements are insufficient for inter-settlement connection consideration and prac...

Informal settlement in Kabul Why and how should Kabul upgrade its informal settlements? Informal settlements shelter about 80% of Kabul’s population (2.44 million people), cover 69% of the city’s residential land, and represent a fixed private capital investment of US$2.5 billion (not including land value). The size, scale, and contribution to the economy of informal settlements force the poli...

Recent scholarship has demonstrated that virtual communities can be traced in the online ‘tells’ retained by popular virtual settlements like Facebook and Twitter. In this article, the authors push this line of research toward an analysis of pre-requisites and constrains of virtual settlements that determine the understanding of community life across settlements. The approach followed is ground...

BACKGROUND This paper considers the question of dietary diversity as a proxy for nutrition insecurity in communities living in the inner city and the urban informal periphery in Johannesburg. It argues that the issue of nutrition insecurity demands urgent and immediate attention by policy makers. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was undertaken for households from urban informal (n = 195) and ...

Like most cities in developing countries, Kigali is experiencing rapid urbanisation leading to an increase in the urban population and rapid growth in the size and number of informal settlements. More than 60% of the city's population resides in these settlements, where they experience inadequate and poor quality urban services including sanitation. This article discusses the issues and constra...

Brazil has presided over the most comprehensive agrarian reform frontier colonization program on Earth, in which ~1.2 million settlers have been translocated by successive governments since the 1970's, mostly into forested hinterlands of Brazilian Amazonia. These settlements encompass 5.3% of this ~5 million km2 region, but have contributed with 13.5% of all land conversion into agropastoral la...

Understanding the spatial point pattern of human settlements and their geographical associations are important for understanding the drivers of land use and land cover change and the relationship between environmental and ecological processes on one hand and cultures and lifestyles on the other. In this study, a Geographic Information System (GIS) approach, Ripley's K function and Monte Carlo s...