Scientists and Dutch Pig Farmers in Dialogue About Tail Biting: Unravelling the Mechanism of Multi-stakeholder Learning

Pig farmers and scientists appear to have different perspectives and underlying framing on animal welfare issues as tail biting and natural behaviour of pigs. Literature proposes a joint learning process in which a shared vision is developed. Using two different settings, a symposium and one-to-one dialogues, we aimed to investigate what elements affected joint learning between scientists and pig farmers. Although both groups agreed that more interaction was important, the process of joint learning appeared to be rather potentially dangerous for the farmer–scientist relationship. During the symposium, farmers were only moderately open for scientific knowledge and the issue of tail biting had the tendency to run into a deadlock. The setting was an influencing element for the degree of success, because the dialogues did lead to improved mutual trust and understanding of each other’s framing and context. Another element was the degree of usability and absoluteness of scientific facts. They were frequently not concrete enough, too uncertain or not relating to the context of the farmers. In addition, some scientific facts were not recognized by the farmers. Both groups appeared to react and argue from their praxis, including their local environment, way of living, handling and understanding their environment. These praxises appeared to function as a filter, influencing the way of observing the environment, inducing ‘blind spots’ and misunderstandings. Stepping in each other’s praxis might provide concrete and fusing insights, required to realize joint learning processes.     

The Forum Theatre of Augusto Boal: A Dramatic Model for Dialogue and Community-Based Environmental Science

Community oriented environmental science combines the inclusive, action-oriented goals of environmental justice communities and the rationalist methodologies of science in an effort to balance urgent social and physical needs with research protocols, precise analysis and carefully measured conclusions. Community-based participatory research acknowledges that local expertise and networks, adverse social and economic consequences of environmental degradation and community beliefs and attitudes are vital factors that affect both overall community health and research outcomes. A unique CBPR approach to inclusive outreach and education is Community Environmental Forum Theatre (CEFT), developed through the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Center in Environmental Toxicology at the University of Texas Medical Branch/Galveston TX. CEFT integrates the dramaturgy of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed and the democratizing dialogic process of Paulo Freire into the design and implementation of environmental health research, community health care and education. CEFT projects throughout the Texas petrochemical belt have used this form of interactive workshop and energized public performance to increase knowledge of toxicological concepts, develop risk awareness, extend and strengthen coalitions, create action agendas and promote community advocacy skills. Boal image-making techniques help to deconstruct concepts such as exposure pathways, dose response, differential susceptibilities, multiple stressors/cumulative risk and the healthy worker effect. Image-based ethnographies provide insight into risk perceptions, risk communication outcomes and overarching community dynamics impacting environmental justice. CEFT project efficacy is evaluated via a multi-frame process focused on goals specific to the roles of the scientific/environmental health outreach specialist, the community development artist/practitioner and the advocate for environmental health and justice issues.     

四川省科技人力资源潜力与结构变化

通过对四川省科技人力资源的潜力、结构变化的分析,提出建立统一规范的科技人才培养经费投入政策,加强科技人才资源的再开发,不拘一格引进科技人才,建立四川省科技人力资源监测系统等对策。     

Assisted Migration in Normative and Scientific Context

Assisted migration (AM), an ecosystem engineering technology, is receiving increasing attention and significant support as a means to save biodiversity in a changing climate. Few substantive, or not obviously deficient, reasons have been offered for why pursuing this conservation goal via these means might be good. Some proponents of AM, including those who identify themselves as “pragmatists,” even suggest there is little need for such argument. We survey the principal reasons offered for AM, as well as reasons offered for not offering reasons. As exemplified by the case for translocating whitebark pine, which may at first seem especially strong, we note the incongruence of framing the goal of AM in terms of “saving biodiversity,” neglect of some crucial moral questions, marginalization of normative and scientific context when AM is cast as the lesser of two evils in a “crisis,” doubtful validity and, in any case, marginal importance of arguments that AM projects ought to be undertaken, inconsistent use of scientific facts, and omission of science that counters sanguine assessments. All told—even in cases such as whitebark pine for which AM may seem most defensible—there is little reason to think that AM projects are good as means to “save biodiversity,” or good as means to other goals that have accreted into arguments for these projects.     

Exploring the Links Between Science, Risk, Uncertainty, and Ethics in Regulatory Controversies About Genetically Modified Crops

Just as a stream of genetically modifiedcrops looked set to be approved for commercialproduction in the European Union, the approvalprocedure appears to have become bogged down onceagain by disagreements among and within member states.Old controversies have resurfaced in new forms. Theintractability of the issues suggests that theregulatory procedure has had too narrow a focus,leaving outside its boundary many of the morefundamental aspects that cause people in the EuropeanUnion most concern. Regulators have come underconsiderable pressure to ensure their risk assessmentdecisions are soundly science-based. Ethical issueshave been deemed to lie beyond the scope of theregulatory procedure, as a matter to be consideredseparately by professional ethicists. Yet it has beensuggested that all environmental controversies at rootinvolve disputes about fundamental ethical principles.This paper examines how the ethical issues arecurrently suppressed or sidelined. It discusses how anappreciation of systems thinking and a check on thevalues that underpin decisions, using boundary testingquestions, might contribute to a more constructiveregulatory dialogue, with ethical issues considered asintegral in a way that takes better account ofpeople's concerns.     

About peak and loop in sludge rheograms

The thixotropic behavior of sewage sludge is analysed by varying several parameters such as the time of rest, the slope of the shear rate ramp or the data sampling. We observed that only the initial stress overshoot is time-dependent but always appears, for a given material, at the same critical angle which indicates it is linked to elastic effects: during shear, the material has a short memory. The visualisation of the velocity profile within the sheared material confirms this assumption. We also demonstrate that the hysteresis area is highly dependant on the data sampling and cannot be considered as a material characteristic. Finally, we pointed out that shear rate cycles are not the most powerful method to characterize thixotropy.     

Science advocacy in political rhetoric and actions

Environment Systems and Decisions - ‘Science’ is a proportionately small but recurring constituent in the rhetorical lexicon of political leaders. To evaluate the use of science-related...     

Problems in Extinction Model Selection and Parameter Estimation

It is a vexing problem to achieve a consensus about the proper scientific way to assess population viability for habitat conservation plans. Rather than a hypothesis-testing approach, here it is proposed to select population models, estimate extinction parameters, and assess prediction uncertainty using a pragmatic, empirical Bayesian approach. The simplest usable models include the effects of population growth, r; carrying capacity, K; Allee threshold, N(A); and environmental stochasticity, v(r). Analytic predictions of expected extinction times are available for such models. Models that are more complex can be elaborated from this basis. Selection from a hierarchy of nesting population models can often be done through the evaluation of parameters. The estimation of the most important extinction parameters can be undertaken in a variety of ways. Time series can be analyzed to estimate r(d), v(r), rho, and K. Habitat models and individualistic population models may help estimate N(A) and K and demographic stochasticity. Fine-scale biogeography and climatological data may be useful in the estimation of a variety of parameters. Because it takes many years to estimate extinction parameters accurately for a given population of interest, the most efficient estimation procedures are desirable. I propose the use of prior information from an (as yet nonexistent) population biology database. The accumulation of local information through monitoring will improve our estimates allowing adaptive management. Uncertainty in the estimates will always remain, but it may be quantified by the posterior distributions. A crude example is discussed using treefrog population data. Although the motivations, beliefs, and biases of competing stakeholders will differ, a habitat conservation plan could accommodate this variation in the prior distributions. Field experience from monitoring will increasingly clear up any discrepancies between the opposing beliefs and the real ecosystem. As the world is an uncertain place and because there is no universal scientific method, there will always be controversy and surprises. The best we can do is (1) agree about our prior information, (2) agree about the strategy of model selection and parameter estimation, and (3) agree about our strategy for adaptive management. Perhaps the greatest impediment to such prior agreements for HCPs is the likely paranoia inspired by the use of unfamiliar statistical methodology. We need to train students of ecology in a more flexible and deeper understanding of statistics and philosophy of science.     

The Ethics of Assisted Colonization in the Age of Anthropogenic Climate Change

This paper examines an issue that is becoming increasingly relevant as the pressures of a warming planet, changing climate and changing ecosystems ramp up. The broad context for the paper is the intragenerational, intergenerational, and interspecies equity implications of changing the climate and the value orientations of adapting to such change. In addition, the need to stabilize the planetary climate by urgent mitigation of change factors is a foundational ethical assumption. In order to avoid further animal and plant extinctions, or at the very least, their increased vulnerability to becoming rare and endangered; the systematic assisted colonization of “at risk” species is being seriously considered by scientists and managers of biodiversity. The more practical aspects of assisted colonization have been covered in the conservation biology literature; however, the ethical implications of such actions have not been extensively examined. Our discussion of the value issues, using a novel case study approach, will rectify the limited ethical analysis of the issue of assisted colonization of species in the face of climate change pressures. Beyond sustainability ethics, both animal and environmental ethical approaches will be used and intrinsic versus instrumental value orientations in the literature shall form the basis of our discussion. After the application of all the ethical approaches to the case studies, we conclude that without mitigation and the prospect of a future stable climate, assisted colonization will be involved in an inherently unethical process and a “move and lose it” outcome. With mitigation, there is wide-ranging ethical support for assisted colonization.     

矿渣粉磨系统袋式除尘器的选型及应用

介绍了矿渣粉磨系统含尘废气的特性、国内治理技术现状和除尘新技术,并从处理凤量的确定、袋式除尘器类型的确定、过滤风速的选取、过滤面积的计算、除尘器规格的选取等方面介绍了矿渣粉磨袋式除尘器的选型,以及FGM型矿渣用气箱脉冲袋式除尘器和KDMC大型低阻袋式除尘器在矿渣粉磨系统除尘的应用推广情况。     

云南省工业化进程判断及路径选择

云南省是一个人口众多、生产力水平低下的边疆、民族、山区省份，其工业发展严重滞后于全国平均水平。要使云南省实现经济增长方式的转变，缩小同发达地区的差距，实现跨越式的发展，坚持走工业化的道路是必然选择。分析了目前云南省工业发展中存在的问题，对其工业化的发展阶段做出判断，并针对今后云南省工业化的路径选择问题进行了分析。     

中国资源节约型、环境友好型社会建设的胁迫与选择

中国是资源大国,同时又是人口大国.中国经济社会发展正在经历从资源过度消耗、牺牲环境促进经济规模的扩张到人与自然和谐,最终实现人类社会经济的可持续发展的过程.在分析中国资源节约型、环境友好型社会选择背景的基础上,阐明节约型与友好型社会的本质与内涵,提出了资源节约型、环境友好型社会建设的保障措施.     

Solar Assisted Small-Scale Biomass District Heating System in the Northern Part of Sweden

Abstract

This article presents a case study of a projected solar assisted biomass district heating system in the north of Sweden. It is generally known that a biomass district heating system combined with solar heat brings many important benefits. The most common system solution is to install a heat store and a large solar collector field near the heating central. No plant of this type is however in operation in the northern part of Sweden. The main reason for this is that the solar irradiation at these latitudes is very low when the demand for heat is high. Solar heat could however be useful during summer in order to generate hot tap water. One problem is that the heat losses, calculated as percentage of the delivered heat, become very large during these months. This article presents the idea of allowing the connected households to generate their own hot tap water using solar collectors and heat stores installed in each house. The district heating network can therefore be closed in summer, which eliminates the heat losses outside the heating period. A case study of a projected plant has been carried out and it is shown that it is possible to reduce the heat losses by 20% compared to a conventional system. This idea also provides many other important technical and economic benefits.     

可视化技术及其在环境科学中的应用

可视化是近年新发展起来的一个研究和开发十分活跃的技术领域，它是把计算机图形学、图像处理和计算机视觉等技术应用于计算科学。目前已在各个学科中得到广泛的应用，主要介绍了可视化技术的概念、发展概况、实现过程以及可视化技术在环境科学中的应用和前景。     

蛋白质组学及其在环境科学中的应用

在后基因组时代，蛋白质组学是最新的生物体内蛋白质表达的分析工具，将对环境科学产生直接和间接的影响。蛋白质组学包括采用高分辨率2D技术的蛋白质提取、分离，结合高效率的蛋白质鉴定和生物信息学技术对蛋白质的分析与鉴定。简要介绍了蛋白质组学的内涵、研究方法、国内外研究进展以及在环境科学中的应用与展望。     

虚拟现实技术及其在环境科学中的应用

本文简要介绍了虚拟现实的基本概念和基本特征,重点探讨虚拟现实技术在环境科学领域的应用前景,并结合实例,论述了虚拟现实技术在环境管理、水环境和水资源、大气环境和预报、环境科学研究和教育等方面的应用。