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Community phylogenetic methods incorporate information on evolutionary relationships into studies of organismal assemblages. We used a community phylogenetic framework to investigate relationships and biogeographic affinities and to calculate phylogenetic signal of endemism and invasiveness for the flora of the pine rocklands-a globally critically imperiled ecosystem with a significant portion of its distribution in South Florida, United States. METHODS:We reconstructed phylogenetic relationships of 538 vascular plant taxa, which represent 92.28% of the vascular flora of the pine rocklands. We estimated phylogenetic signal for endemism and invasiveness using phylogenetic generalized linear mixed models. We determined the native range for each species in the data set and calculated the total number of species sourced from each region and all possible combinations of these regions. KEY RESULTS:The pine rockland flora includes representatives of all major vascular plant lineages, and most species have native ranges in the New World. There was strong phylogenetic signal for endemism, but not for invasiveness.CONCLUSIONS: Community phylogenetics has high potential value for conservation planning, particularly for fragmented and endangered ecosystems like the pine rockland. Strong phylogenetic signal for endemic species in our data set, which also tend to be threatened or endangered, can help to identify species at risk, as well as fragments where those species occur, highlighting conservation priorities. Our results indicate, at least in the pine rockland ecosystem, no phylogenetic signal for invasive species, and thus other information must be used to predict the potential for invasiveness.

INTRODUCTION: The Vulnerable Children (VC) Act 2014 amended section 13 (s13) of the Children, Young Persons and their Families (CYPtF) Act 1989 to re-emphasise the principle that the welfare and interests of the child should be the paramount consideration in child protection proceedings. This study examines the policy process behind the amendment, and investigates its possible implications, in particular its impact on the power relationship between the state and family/whanau.METHOD: Data was collected from semi-structured, confidential interviews with 10 key informants. Key themes were identified using thematic analysis. This was supplemented by document analysis of published and unpublished government papers, consultation papers and local and international research.FINDINGS: The policy process that preceded the decision to amend s13 of the CYPtF Act was controlled by a small policy elite that failed to consult broadly on either the need for the amendment, or its impact on vulnerable children and families. Government gave little consideration to the implications of the policy change, and the policy process used to develop the amendment lacked the characteristics of rational, comprehensive, policy development. No evaluation or monitoring of the policy change has been put in place, despite the known risk that it may result in an increase in unnecessary removals of children from their families/whanau.CONCLUSION: The s13 amendment, while appearing minor, has significant implications for vulnerable children and families and is part of a fundamental re-balancing of power relations in New Zealand’s child welfare policy.

Rubato has for centuries been linked with the idea of compensating tempo modulation. Despite the wealth of references to this idea in writings by famous performers and teachers over the ages, scholars investigating the idea have so far emphatically dismissed the notion as a myth, or at best a rationalization. In this article, I take as a starting-point these performers' writings, and show that it is scholars rather than performers who have reduced the idea of compensation to an abstract principle. Using Debussy's 1913 piano-roll recordings as examples, I show with the aid of empirical timing data and close listening that compensating rubato is far from a myth in the performance practice of the early twentieth century.

Résumé Dans cet entretien, Andrew Abbott revient sur sa trajectoire intellectuelle et personnelle. Parcourant plus de quatre décennies de recherche et d’enseignement, il aborde plusieurs thèmes qui ont été centraux dans son travail. Il évoque en particulier sa critique du positivisme, formulée dans les années 1980 et qui lui a permis d’interroger les méthodes des sciences sociales, les formes de savoir qu’elles autorisent, et l’inconscient épistémologique de la sociologie étatsunienne. L’entretien est surtout l’occasion pour lui d’évoquer en détail sa théorie processuelle du monde social en cours d’élaboration. Abbott en explicite les fondements et la positionne par rapport à différents auteurs contemporains ou passés.