Can strategic technology development improve climate cooperation? A game-theoretic analysis

Clean technology has figured prominently in recent debates on international climate policy. This article offers a game-theoretic investigation of the possibility and effectiveness of strategic technology development: environmental leaders setting policies that reduce the global cost of clean technology. The game-theoretic model combines technology development and adoption with pollution abatement, and it allows technology costs to differ across countries. The key theoretical findings are as follows. First, free riding is an obstacle to technology development in two ways: countries fail to fully internalize the beneficial effect of technology development on (i) global pollution abatement and (ii) the reduced cost of technology adoption in outsider countries. Second, strategic technology development can be effective when (i) a key group of frontrunner countries prefers to invest in research and development and (ii) many other countries are willing to adopt the new technology. The findings suggest that strategic technology deployment by a group of frontrunners can enable more effective climate cooperation in the future.     

Twin climate cities—an exploratory study of their potential use for awareness-raising and urban adaptation

Twin climate cities are pairs of cities for which it is appropriate to assume that the future climate of a city “A” will be significantly similar to the current climate of another city “B”. In this paper, we explore the potential use of the climate twins approach for the development of adaptation strategies to climate change in urban areas. We propose an innovative and robust climate-matching method that is suitable to link cities’ current and future climates. Of the 100 cities investigated, 70 have at least one twin climate region, and 39 have a twin climate city. The case-study revealed a highly significant similarity for temperature variables and heat-related indices, but a less significant similarity for precipitation variables. The Climate Twins approach appears to be a potentially effective mechanism for raising awareness about the pace of climate change and for easily identifying (1) future impacts and vulnerabilities associated with climate change as well as (2) policies, infrastructure, and best practices that should be implemented in a city in order to cope efficiently with future extreme temperature events.     

Early loss and multiple return of the lower temporal arcade in diapsid reptiles

The temporal arches of diapsid reptiles have received attention for several decades. In particular, it has been observed that the lower temporal bar at the ventral margin of the cheek is frequently reduced due to the absence of a contact between jugal and quadratojugal. The loss of the arcade was formerly considered to be of high systematic value, but is now often interpreted as being autapomorphic for the respective taxon, and the presence of both arcades is generally regarded as a plesiomorphic feature. Here I show, based on a cladistic analysis as well as on further anatomical evidence, that the lower temporal arcade was lost only once in diapsid evolution, and that the presence of the arch in "higher" diapsids is secondary, which is indicated by the different ratio between jugal and quadratojugal as well as by ontogeny. This result also sheds new light on the understanding of the cheek configuration of enigmatic taxa such as ichthyosaurs and turtles.Electronic Supplementary Material  Supplementary material is available for this article if you access the article at . A link in the frame on the left on that page takes you directly to the supplementary material.     

Cleaner production as a means for effective environmental management

Cleaner production is a strategy to prevent emissions at the source and to initiate a continuous preventive improvement of environmental performance of organizations. In terms of Cleaner production the focus of management should be on prevention rather than on cure in avoiding environmental problems. The inclusion of commitment to prevention in the environmental policy is one prerequisite of the standard ISO 14001. But how can a formalized environmental management system help to start a process of continuous improvement and voluntary self regulation? We conclude from our experience that Cleaner production and ISO 14001 go well together and support each other in helping an organization to really decrease its environmental effect. Analysing environmental management systems introduced on the basis of Cleaner production projects demonstrates, that Cleaner production supplies management and employees with systematic tools to decrease the environmental impact and at the same time save costs from inefficient use of materials and energy and motivates the organization as well by creating awareness throughout the enterprise.     

A new look at Op art: towards a simple explanation of illusory motion

Vivid motion illusions created by some Op art paintings are at the centre of a lively scientific debate about possible mechanisms that might underlie these phenomena. Here we review emerging evidence from a new approach that combines perceptual judgements of the illusion and observations of eye movements with simulations of the induced optic flow. This work suggests that the small involuntary saccades which participants make when viewing such Op art patterns would generate an incoherent distribution of motion signals that resemble the perceptual effects experienced by the observers. The combined experimental and computational evidence supports the view that the illusion is indeed caused by involuntary image displacements picked up by low-level motion detectors, and further suggests that coherent motion signals are crucial to perceive a stable world.