Deliberative democracy meets democratised science: a deliberative systems approach to global environmental governance

The main achievements of the debates on deliberative democracy and democratised science are investigated in order to analyse the reasons, meanings and prospects for a democratisation of global environmental policy. A deliberative systems approach, which emphasises the need to explore how processes in societal spheres interact to shape the deliberative qualities of the system as a whole, is adopted. Although science plays a key role in this, its potential to enhance deliberative capacity has hardly been addressed in deliberative theories. The democratisation of science has potential to contribute to the democratisation of global environmental policy, in that it also shapes the potential of deliberative arrangements in the policy sphere. Deliberative arrangements within the policy sphere may stimulate the democratisation of science to different degrees.     

The informal rules of working relationships

It was expected that there would be informal rules of several kinds for working relationships. In the first study subjects rated 33 common rules and a number of relationship-specific rules for three work roles. It was found that certain rules were strongly endorsed for work-mates, superiors and subordinates. These provide a maintenance function by regulating general and relationship-specific sources of conflict. Rules about cooperation, help and fairness applied strongly to work-mates, rules about consideration and skilful use of power to supervisors, rules about using initiative and accepting orders and criticism to subordinates. Rules about reward were also obtained and these tended to be task-focused rather than intimacy sustaining. In the second study one hundred and twenty-four subjects rated the degree of dissatisfaction which they would feel for 11 types of rule violation by each of four work colleagues varying in degree of intimacy. Some level of dissatisfaction was expressed for each rule violation particularly maintenance rules, and the degree of expressed dissatisfaction increased with increased closeness to the work colleague. Study I was replicated in three other countries — Italy, Hong Kong and Japan, and cross-cultural comparisons were made. While there was some cross-cultural consistency for certain maintenance rules, there were cultural differences both in the type of rules endorsed and the strength of endorsement. Japanese relationships in particular were most dissimilar to other countries, characterized by greater homogeneity of overall rule structure within the four work roles, and by lower levels of intimacy and emotional expressiveness towards the other person in each relationship.     

Breakdown products on metabolic pathway of degradation of benz[a]anthracene by a ligninolytic fungus

Cultures of the ligninolytic fungus Irpex lacteus incubated in a nutrient liquid medium degraded more than 70% of the initially applied benz[a]anthracene within 14 days. At the first step of metabolization, benz[a]anthracene was transformed via a typical pathway of ligninolytic fungi to benz[a]anthracene-7,12-dione (BaAQ). The product was further transformed by at least two ways, whereas one is complied with the anthracene metabolic pathway of I. lacteus. Benz[a]anthracene-7,12-dione was degraded to 1,2-naphthalenedicarboxylic acid and phthalic acid that was followed with production of 2-hydroxymethyl benzoic acid or monomethyl and dimethylesters of phthalic acid. Another degradation product of BaAQ was identified as 1-tetralone. Its transformation via 1,4-naphthalenedione, 1,4-naphthalenediol and 1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-1-hydroxynaphthalene resulted again in phthalic acid. None of the intermediates were identified as dead-end metabolites. Metabolites produced by ring cleavage of benz[a]anthracene using the ligninolytic fungus are firstly presented in this work.     

Detection of lead-induced oxidative stress in the rat epididymis by chemiluminescence

It has been shown that lead (Pb) is able to induce lipid peroxidation, one of the main manifestations of oxidative stress. In this study we examined the relationship between chronic Pb exposure and level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in reproductive system tissues of sexually mature male Wistar rats. One group of animals (control, K) was allowed to drink distilled water, the second group (Pb) was allowed to drink freely 1% aqueous solution of lead acetate. Another groups had a following supplements: rats were allowed to drink distilled water containing vitamin C (vit C) at concentration of 500 mg/l or Trolox (a vitamin E analog) at concentration of 48 mg/l or vit C (500 mg/l) + Trolox (48 mg/l). The similar groups among Pb-treated animals were examined after treatment with the same vitamins and using the same vitamin doses, dissolved in 1% aqueous solution of lead acetate. In all cases the time of drinking was 6 months. It was found that lead content in samples of tissues from testis, epididymis and in a whole blood in Pb- and Pb with antioxidants treated rats was significantly elevated. Chemiluminescence (CL) emitted by the Pb-treated tissues was significantly higher when compared to the light emission by tissues isolated from the animals of control group. The increase in the CL caused by lead occurs in the following increasing order within the studied tissues: cauda of epididymis < testis < caput of epididymis (19%, 39% and 51%, respectively). Dietary vit C supplementation to the Pb-treated rats for 6 months period decreased the CL from caput of epididymis, cauda of epididymis and testis (by 43%, 24%, 39%, respectively) more effectively in comparison to the control group (35%, 17%, 33%, respectively). Also stronger quenching effect on the light emission from the above mentioned tissues after Trolox supplementation was observed in the Pb-treated group (42%, 21%, 35%, respectively) than in the control group (23%, 13%, 13% respectively). The combination of both antioxidants treatments (vit C and Trolox) did not give a higher significant quenching effect compared to the treatment with the vitamins separately. No ultrastructural changes were found in the seminiferous epithelium of Pb-treated animals. However, we found abnormalities in ultrastructure of epididymal epithelial cells and epididymal spermatozoa in rats of Pb-treated groups. These findings provide ex vivo evidence that Pb causes oxidative cellular damage in reproductive system tissues of adult male rats, which may be closely associated with the ROS production.     

Adaptation to environmental stress in Daphnia magna simultaneously exposed to a xenobiotic

In standardized ecotoxicological testing chemicals are investigated under optimal conditions for the test organisms despite the fact that environmental factors such as predation pressure and food availability are important parameters regulating natural populations. Food limitation and predator presence can induce shifts in life-history traits in various Daphnia species, especially trade-offs in reproductive biomass allocation. These adaptive responses are thought to ensure survival of the population in a highly variable environment. A xenobiotic dispersant (used in textile dyeing processes) also shifted the biomass allocation of Daphnia magna. To assess whether the dispersant could hinder D. magna adaptation to varying environmental conditions, we conducted experiments with food level and presence of Chaoborus larvae as environmental factors and simultaneous exposure to the dispersant. At low food level and in presence of the predator, D. magna produced fewer but larger sized neonates, regardless of dispersant exposure. The dispersant shifted biomass allocation towards more but smaller sized offspring in all experiments. However, the adaptive response to the environmental factors and the dispersant effect cancelled each other out in that they induced independently from each other opposite shifts in biomass allocation. In summary, the dispersant exposure resulted not in an inhibition of the adaptive response but in a reduction of the value of the response. Our study with this model substance demonstrates that xenobiotics can affect the adaptation of organisms to environmental stress which can result in effects likely to be overlooked in standardized testing.     

Learning for social-ecological change: a qualitative review of outcomes across empirical literature in natural resource management

Learning is considered as a promising mechanism to cope with rapid environmental change. The implications of learning for natural resource management (NRM) have not been explored in-depth and the evidence on the topic is scattered across multiple sources. We provide a qualitative review of types of learning outcomes and consider their manifestations in NRM across selected empirical literature. We conducted a systematic search of the peer-reviewed literature (N = 1,223) and a qualitative meta-synthesis of included articles, with an explicit focus on learning outcomes and NRM changes (N = 53). Besides social learning, we found several learning concepts used, including policy and transformative learning, and multiple links between learning and NRM reported. We observe that the development of skills, together with a system approach involving multi-level capacities, is decisive for implications of learning for NRM. Future reviews could systematically compare how primary research applies different learning concepts and discusses links between learning and NRM changes.