Effects of organic matter on phosphorus release kinetics in different trophic lake sediments and application of transition state theory

Sediments have a significant influence on the overlying water, and phosphorus (P) release from sediments is an important source for the lake eutrophication, particularly in shallow ones. In this study, effects of organic matter on P release from sediments in different trophic lakes from the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River, China, were investigated, and the release kinetics of different P fractions at different temperature were studied. The results show that the release kinetics of soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) and dissolved total phosphorus (DTP) were similar for the studied sediments, the release rate increased rapidly in the initial hours, and it increased gradually after 10h. The release kinetics of SRP, DOP and DTP followed the Power Function model. SRP was the major fraction among the released DTP, while DOP was an important fraction in the heavily polluted sediments. Organic matter restricted the SRP and DTP release while it promoted the DOP release. Both DOP and SRP release processes were endothermic. The thermodynamic properties in the P release kinetics were calculated and discussed.     

Sustainable innovation journeys: exploring the dynamics of firm practices as part of transitions to more sustainable food and farming

Deep structural and sustained change is necessary to tackle contemporary environmental challenges. How such change emerges and can be governed has been explored through the notion of sustainable innovation journeys. To date research had conceptualised such journeys as transitions to more sustainable socio-technical systems, e.g. mobility, shelter, food and farming. However, there is a paucity of how innovation proceeds in firms as part of sustainable innovation journeys. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. A longitudinal case study was completed of a medium-sized food-processing firm in the UK. Qualitative data were collected using ethnographic methods such as participant observation. Drawing on practice theory, a conceptual framework was developed which enabled us to explore and make sense of the firm's sustainable innovation journey conceptualised as practices. Findings show that we can usefully treat a firm as a flow of practices that either resist or otherwise accommodate new practices deemed more sustainable.     

粮食产量预测理论、方法与应用Ⅳ.粮食估产理论、模型及其应用

粮食估产的“通道-概率”理论：把属于最近通道的历年来的产量划分为5个气候年型通道,即丰产年、偏丰年、平产年、偏欠年、欠产年;计算产量出现在5个气候年型中的频率作为概率使用,估产年的初始估产值等于预测年各通道内平均产量与概率之积的和;估产值等于初始估产值与气候年型修正参数之积,专家根据当年气候条件和作物长势实时确定修正参数。预报单元为全国、省和县。应用结果表明：国家尺度上不需要修正,省和县级尺度需要气候年型参数修正;预测误差在3％以内;所述估产理论严谨、方法简单,参数少,参数来自原始数据本身和专家经验,易于推广使用。     

How can we ever create participation when we are the ones who decide? On natural resource management practice and its readiness for change

This article addresses the gap between demands for participatory approaches in natural resource management (NRM) policies and lack of such approaches in the work of environmental authorities. The analysis draws on practice theory, using the case of NRM practice created by Swedish County Administrative Board (CAB) officials. The data originate from officials’ reflections during courses designed to strengthen their participatory and collaborative competences. Based on practice theory, officials are seen as participants of a routinised practice in which their interpretations of their work and roles are socially constructed. The analysis shows that the objective of this practice is to protect nature and mitigate resistance from stakeholders through information. These interpretations have acquired a reified nature, making them taken for granted. This stabilises the practice, maintaining the gap between demands in national policies and their implementation. To enable change in the CAB practice, the objective constructed by officials needs to be reinterpreted to produce a rule of law that can be justified and which concurrently permits stakeholder participation. To achieve changes in NRM officials’ practice, these need to be seen in their institutional context and comprise the whole system, from international/EU auditing levels to Swedish CABs and the officials’ everyday activities.     

检察机关提起环境公益诉讼理论及实践探索

在环境问题日益凸显的大背景下,环境公益诉讼备受关注。无论是新修订的《民事诉讼法》,还是2015年1月1日起正式实施的《环境保护法》,均首次将环境公益诉讼制度予以确认。党的十八届四中全会明确提出,应探索建立检察机关提起公益诉讼制度。2015年7月2日,经全国人大常委会授权,最高人民检察院对外公布了《检察机关提起公益诉讼试点方案》,环境公益诉讼迎来新的篇章。但是,检察机关提起环境公益诉讼虽优势明显,却任重道远,相关制度与机制仍在试点与完善之中。因此,本文就检察机关提起环境公益诉讼的理论与实践进行梳理,以对此问题做有益探索。     

Tax neutrality and the Saskatchewan Uranium Royalty

In their analysis of the Saskatchewan Uranium Royalty (SUR) scheme Anderson and Barnett (1983) conclude that the scheme is effective in that, together with the other levies on the uranium industry, it succeeds in appropriating 75–80% of available economic rent under reasonable assumptions about uranium price and production costs. While collecting a substantial proportion of economic rent was a major provincial government objective in designing the tax structure, provincial tax planners may also have been concerned to ensure that marginal production decisions be affected as little as possible by the tax. Because their model of the Key Lake mine considers only the extraction plan adopted by the firm, Anderson and Barnett are unable to conclude whether a different plan would have been adopted in the absence of the tax. In other words, the nature of their model confines their investigation to the question of effectiveness, as defined above. The purpose of the present article is to examine the question of whether the SUR is likely to be neutral with respect to the extraction plan and to assess the effects of any tax-induced distortion.     

高职《给水工程》教学新设想

通过介绍《给水工程》课程的性质和作用,分析目前《给水工程》课程教学中存在的主要问题,对课程今后的教学思路提出了新设想,主要包括：依托学科建设优势,引入科学研究新成果,构架全新课程内容体系;尝试采取＂课堂＋网络辅助＂教学模式;采用多媒体教学和传统讲授相结合的理论教学手段和课堂演示与工程现场结合、教师演示与学生动手结合、经典演示与现代高科技结合、传统演示与多媒体结合的实践教学手段;采用变一考为多考和加重平时成绩的课程考核方式等。     

Taxation of uranium mining in Canada and Australia

The objective of this paper is to compare the nature of the taxation schemes facing uranium mine operators in Australia's Northern Territory and in Canada's Province of Saskatchewan. The findings demonstrate that, although the Canadian system appropriates up to 85% of incremental sales revenue, it is extremely sensitive to industry profitability. Its Australian counterpart is, in contrast, a regressive scheme which, at the current selling price of yellowcake, captures a significantly larger proportion of available economic rent.     

Assessment of risk in a minerals industry: Canadian nickel

The level of rents attributable to natural resource producers depends on the risk faced by those producers. This paper argues that estimates of risk in mining should control for characteristics of firms such as diversification and debt financing. The capital asset pricing model is applied to securities of three Canadian nickel mining firms over the period 1961–1974. It is concluded that the level of risk was not unusually high.     

The measurement of resource rents: An application to Canadian nickel

Once the ‘risk’ of the industry is recognized, there are at least two sources of higher-than-normal returns to investment in mineral extraction: Ricardian rents to resources with different economic qualities and monopoly rents. An estimate of the relative importance of these sources in the Canadian nickel industry over the period 1961-74 is made and it is found that Ricardian rents and, for one firm, monopoly rents, were important.     

Canadian mineral policy debated : Industry reaction to a major federal initiative

The debate on mineral policy between the Canadian federal government and the mining industry is reviewed and policy-making emerges as necessarily an adversarial process. The Canadian federal system provides major obstacles to the formulation of a national mineral policy but does not exclude it. It is argued that industry should play a more pro-active part in mineral policy formulation, seeking with governments a clear hierarchical list of priorities against which discrete policy decisions can be evaluated.     

Canadian manufacturing: The impacts of natural resource price increases on input demands and costs

The separate effects of 50% increases in the prices of energy, renewable and nonrenewable natural resource inputs on factor demands and production costs are simulated for Canadian total manufacturing and six two-digit industries. Both renewable and nonrenewable natural resource price increases have a substantially greater effect upon the demands for other factors and upon production costs than a parallel energy price increase. These results are important from a policy perspective and justify the further disaggregation of inputs in this and in other models of input demand.     

试论环境政治学的两大分支及其关系

环境政治学是培养环境人才的必要课程之一。通过探讨环境政治学的概念和研究对象,论述环境政治包括国内环境政治和国际环境政治这两个分支四个方面的联系。     

Critical reflections on the theory and practice of social sustainability in the built environment – a meta-analysis

This article presents a critical reflection on the theory and practice of social sustainability in the built environment, identifies areas of agreement and disagreement, explores theoretical and conceptual gaps and challenges, and suggests practical implications for future research and urban policy. It argues that despite revisionist approaches which challenge the tripartite structure of sustainable development, social dimension of sustainability remains an essential valid pillar. Utilising a qualitative meta-analysis methodology for undertaking critical analysis of previous research and publications on the topic, key themes of theory and practice of social sustainability are identified and critically examined. Accordingly, 10 key formative characteristics of social sustainability and their research and policy implications are introduced. The article concludes with institutional observations for policy-makers to achieve greater success in addressing largely underestimated dimensions of social sustainability in urban settings.