Search results for "Herding"
showing 10 items of 26 documents
Experimental socioecology: Integrative science for anthropocene landscape dynamics
2016
Abstract The emergence of coupled natural and human landscapes marked a transformative interval in the human past that set our species on the road to the urbanized, industrial world in which we live. This emergence enabled technologies and social institutions responsible for human-natural couplings in domains beyond rural, agricultural settings. The Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics Project (MedLand) is studying the interacting social and biophysical processes associated with these novel socioecological systems and their long-term consequences using a new form of 'experimental socioecology' made possible by recent advances in computation. We briefly describe the MedLand modeling laboratory, …
Coping with Difficult Weather and Snow Conditions : Reindeer herders’ views on climate change impacts and coping strategies
2016
Winter is a critical season for reindeer herding, with the amount and quality of snow being among the most important factors determining the condition of reindeer and the annual success of the livelihood. Our first aim was to model the future (2035–2064) snow conditions in northern Finland, especially the quantities related to ground ice and/or ice layers within the snow pack, exceptionally deep snow and late snow melt. Secondly, we studied the strategies by which herders cope with the impacts of difficult weather and snow conditions on herding by interviewing 21 herders. SNOWPACK simulations indicate that snow cover formation will be delayed by an average of 19 days and snow will melt 16 d…
Land-use and climate related drivers of change in the reindeer management system in Finland: geography of perceptions
2021
Drivers of change in the reindeer management system are rather well-known. But when developing the gover-nance to support the traditional livelihoods, it is crucial to understand also practitioner perceptions. Systematic research on these is lacking. We analyzed the land-use and climate related drivers within the reindeer man-agement area (RMA) in Finland, and, using a perception geography approach, studied the herder perceptions towards these. We conducted an on-site questionnaire survey with herders from 51 herding districts. Factors directly affecting the welfare of reindeer were perceived as crucial by herders, for example basal icing affecting the forage availability, and land-use rela…
Climate Change and Migration for Scandinavian Saami: A Review of Possible Impacts
2019
Migration, especially of indigenous peoples, related to or influenced by climate change continues to gain increasing research and policy attention. Limited material remains for this topic for Scandinavia&rsquo
Opinion dynamics in social networks through mean field games
2016
Emulation, mimicry, and herding behaviors are phenomena that are observed when multiple social groups interact. To study such phenomena, we consider in this paper a large population of homogeneous social networks. Each such network is characterized by a vector state, a vector-valued controlled input, and a vector-valued exogenous disturbance. The controlled input of each network aims to align its state to the mean distribution of other networks' states in spite of the actions of the disturbance. One of the contributions of this paper is a detailed analysis of the resulting mean-field game for the cases of both polytopic and $mathcal L_2$ bounds on controls and disturbances. A second contrib…
Contagion and Bank Runs in a Multi-Agent Financial System
2012
In this work we explore contagion from one institution to another that can stem from the existence of a network of financial contracts. In fact, in modern financial systems, an intricate web of claims and obligations links the balance sheets of a wide variety of intermediaries (banks, for instance) into a network structure of interdependencies that have created an environment for feedback elements to generate amplified responses to shocks to the financial system. Small shocks, which initially affect only a few institutions, can indeed spread by contagion to the rest of the financial sector and cause a crisis in the connected intermediaries. Whether the financial crisis does spread depends c…
Transitions in Herd Management of Semi-Domesticated Reindeer in Northern Finland
2008
In northern Finland, reindeer-herd management has experienced two major transitions: extensification of intensive herding, and development of supplementary/corral feeding in winter. The transitions were studied in six herding associations in different parts of the Finnish reindeer management area. It was suggested that intensive herding turns into more extensive forms as the reasons for intensive herding (predation, reindeer disappearing to foreign areas, protection of agricultural fields) gradually ceased to exist. The results of the study, based on interviews of elderly reindeer herders, were variable. In the three southern areas intensive herding changed to the free ranging system at the…
Herding in the cryptocurrency market: CSSD and CSAD approaches
2018
Abstract We analyse the existence of herding in the cryptocurrency market through the cross-sectional standard (absolute) deviation of returns. Our results show that extreme dispersion of returns is explained by rational asset pricing models although it is possible to observe herding during down markets, which highlights the inefficiency and risk of cryptocurrencies. We also observe that the smallest digital currencies are herding with the largest ones, thus traders base their decisions on the performance of the main cryptocurrencies. However, the herding phenomenon cannot be solely attributed to Bitcoin, since the rest of the market is not herding with the main cryptocurrency.
‘Where the F… is Vuotso?’ : heritage of Second World War forced movement and destruction in a Sámi reindeer herding community in Finnish Lapland
2017
In this paper we discuss the heritage of the WWII evacuation and the so-called ‘burning of Lapland’ within a Sámi reindeer herding community, and assess how these wartime experiences have moulded, and continue to mould, the ways people memorialise and engage with the WWII material remains. Our focus is on the village of Vuotso, which is home to the southernmost Sámi community in Finland. The Nazi German troops established a large military base there in 1941, and the Germans and the villagers lived as close neighbours for several years. In 1944 the villagers were evacuated before the outbreak of the Finno-German ‘Lapland War’ of 1944–1945, in which the German troops annihilated their militar…
Do Carbon Traders Behave as a Herd?
2017
Abstract This paper shows the existence of herding behavior in the European Carbon Futures Market and studies its possible causes and consequences. This market is characterized by leading the carbon price discovery process and by being highly dominated by professional traders. Both features make it an appropriate environment for the existence of herding. A patterns analysis indicates that the herding level increases in speculative periods, on those days on which the price and size clustering effect is stronger, and with the arrival of carbon-related news. Regarding possible market drivers, we find that herding behavior is positively related with the number of trades, the intraday volatility…