Regulating BFRs--from science to policy

An adequate distribution of responsibilities between scientists and policy-makers requires that a distinction be made between theoretical rationality (what to believe) and practical rationality (what to do). In chemical risk management, it is often necessary to base decisions on indications of risk that do not amount to full scientific proof. Guidelines are offered for how this can be done without infringing upon the integrity of science. Furthermore, it is shown that the application of standard decision theory to chemical risks yields conclusions very much in agreement with the precautionary principle.     

Implications of climate and land-use change for landscape processes,biodiversity, ecosystem services,and governance

This introduction to the Special Issue summarizes the results of 14 scientific articles from the interdisciplinary research program Ekoklim at Stockholm University, Sweden. In this program, we investigate effects of changing climate and land use on landscape processes, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, and analyze issues related to adaptive governance in the face of climate and land-use change. We not only have a research focus on the 22 650 km² Norrström catchment surrounding lake Mälaren in south-central Sweden, but we also conduct research in other Swedish regions. The articles presented here show complex interactions between multiple drivers of change, as well as feedback processes at different spatiotemporal scales. Thus, the Ekoklim program highlights and deals with issues relevant for the future challenges society will face when land-use change interacts with climate change.     

Promoting inherent safety

By inherent safety is meant that a hazard is eliminated rather than being managed by various add-on equipment and procedures. Practices of inherent safety have been developed in the chemical industry, and include for instance the substitution of hazardous substances by less hazardous ones. Inherently safer design strives to eliminate the possibility of major adverse events even when the probabilities of these events are small or cannot be meaningfully estimated. Considerations of security can be more easily incorporated into this approach than into most other branches of risk and safety analysis. Therefore, inherent safety has a great potential as a meeting-ground for the much-needed coordination of safety and security work. Its philosophical underpinnings are outlined, and proposals are made for more efficient promotion of its principles.     

教育性建筑物中的能源效率设计和可再生能源的利用:MEDUCA项目

MEDUCA(教育性建筑模式)项目包括7个国家的8个示范项目.这些项目分布在挪威的格龙(65°);瑞典的哥德堡(58°N);瑞典的Falkenberg(57°N);丹麦的巴勒鲁普(56°N);德国的新明斯特(54°N);西班牙的阿尔梅里亚(36°50'N);意大利的Bagheria(38°N);和希腊的Legraina(38°N).     

Disease and cell death in white syndrome of Acroporid corals on the Great Barrier Reef

White syndromes (WS) are among the most prevalent coral diseases, and are responsible for reef demise on the Great Barrier Reef. The disease manifests as a clear differentiation between tissue and exposed skeleton and results in rapid tissue loss. Fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) was used in conjunction with histology and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to investigate bacterial communities and cell death associated with WS. No evidence of bacterial communities or microbial association (using six bacterial probes, TEM and histopathology) was evident within the lesion or adjacent tissues, despite the presence of dense possible secondary invaders in the exposed skeletal regions. Despite widespread reference to necrosis in coral disease literature, there was no evidence of necrosis in any WS lesion or the adjacent tissues in this study. However, in situ end labelling, light microscopy and TEM of WS and healthy coral tissue sections showed evidence of extensive programmed cell death (PCD) exclusively in WS. This study provides the first evidence of intrinsic or PCD as a primary mechanism of cell death in WS, and may provide some explanation for the failure to isolate pathogens from over 80% of identified coral diseases, many of which show similar lesion patterns and WS characteristics.     

The relative contribution of dinoflagellate photosynthesis and stored lipids to the survivorship of symbiotic larvae of the reef-building corals

The long-distance dispersal of larvae provides important linkages between populations of reef-building corals and is a critical part of coral biology. Some coral planulae have symbiotic dinoflagellates (Symbiodinium spp.) that probably provide energy in addition to the lipids provisioned within the egg. However, our understanding of the influence of symbionts on the energy metabolism and survivorship of planulae remains limited. This study examines the relative roles of symbiotic dinoflagellate photosynthesis and stored lipid content in the survivorship of the developing stages of the corals Pocillopora damicornis and Montipora digitata. We found that survivorship decreased under dark conditions (i.e. no photosynthetic activity) for P. damicornis and M. digitata at 31 and 22 days after release/spawning, respectively. The lipid content of P. damicornis and M. digitata planulae showed a significant decrease, at a higher rate, under dark conditions, when compared with light conditions. When converted to energy equivalents, the available energy provided by the depletion of lipids could account for 41.9 and 84.7% of larval metabolism for P. damicornis (by day 31) and 38.4 and 90.1% for M. digitata (by day 21) under light and dark conditions, respectively. This finding indicates that not all energy requirements of the larvae are met by lipids: energy is also sourced from the photosynthetic activities of the symbiotic dinoflagellates within these larvae, especially under light conditions. In addition, the amounts of three main lipid classes (wax esters, triglycerides, and phospholipids) decreased throughout the experiment in the planulae of both species, with the wax ester content decreasing more rapidly under dark conditions than under light conditions. The observations that the planulae of both species derive considerable amounts of energy from wax esters, and that symbiotic dinoflagellates enable larvae to use their stores at lower rates, suggested that symbiotic dinoflagellates have the potential to extend larval life under light conditions.     

Relationships between ecological variables and four organochlorine pollutants in an artic glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus) population

The Arctic has become a sink for organochlorine contaminants (OCs) from lower latitudes, and relatively high levels have been found in different biota. Recent studies of the glaucous gull, Larus hyperboreus, a top predator in the arctic food web, have documented that high blood residues of various OCs are related to lower reproductive performance and reduced adult survival. Here we provide additional evidence that OCs are having ecological effects in the glaucous gull population at Bear Island in the Norwegian Arctic, and compare the effects of the four major OCs found in the glaucous gulls: HCB, oxychlordane, DDE and PCBs, which made up >95% of measured OCs. Firstly; it has previously been shown that gulls with high levels of PCBs in their blood spent more time away from the nest site during incubation than gulls with low levels. Here we reanalyzed the data and found that PCBs (P<0.02) and oxychlordane (P<0.05) were positive and significantly related to time away from the nest site, while DDE and HCB were not related to this trait. Secondly, among females which bred in an area where fish dominated the diet, and thus had high flight costs during feeding, early chick growth was negatively related to maternal levels of all four OCs, especially HCB and DDE (P<0.01). On the contrary, among females breeding in an area where the diet was dominated by eggs and young from nearby seabird colonies, and thus feeding costs were low, there were no effects of OC levels on early chick growth. This indicates that additional stress may be fundamental in causing reproductive effects of OCs in this population. Finally, during three breeding seasons we examined the probability of adults returning to the breeding grounds in the subsequent season, as a function of blood concentration of the four OCs. Overall, return rate from one year to the next was negatively related to blood residues of oxychlordane (P=0.02), but not significantly related to the other three compounds. Further support for the importance of oxychlordane was that a 60% drop in the blood levels between 1997 and 2000 led to a significant increase in return rate between these two years.     

Sex ratio in lesser black-backed gull in relation to environmental pollutants

In birds, there is ample evidence that the mother can manipulate the sex of the young and produce more of the sex, which gives the highest fitness return. This has previously been documented in gulls, Laridae. Gulls are sexually size dimorphic with males larger than females, and there is good evidence that parents in poor body condition switch their investment to the smallest sex. In the present study, we examined the primary sex ratio and the survival of male and female chicks of lesser black-backed gull (Larus fuscus fuscus) in relation to their blood levels of organochlorines (OCs), perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (BDE-47). We show that females with high levels of OCs (but not PFCs and BDE-47) are likely to skew their sex ratio at hatching towards female offspring. Few females had very high levels of OCs, and the many females with low levels of OCs overproduced sons resulting in a male skew at hatching (59%). The survival of female offspring was lower than the survival of male offspring, causing an even stronger male skew in sex ratio (71%). There is evidence to conclude that circulating levels of OCs in the blood of females may have detrimental effect on the sex allocation strategy and could be of serious threat to the population. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Safety is an inherently inconsistent concept

Some basic principles for philosophical definition work are introduced and then applied to safety and related concepts. Definitions are provided first for comparative safety concepts such as “safer than” and then for the monadic “safe”. It is shown that “safe” is an inherently inconsistent concept, i.e. it cannot be restored to consistency without giving up what we perceive as some of its central elements. The reason for this is that both absolute and relative conceptions of safety are entrenched in common usage of the term. In order to avoid the inconsistency a strategy of terminological ramification is proposed: We should distinguish between the two concepts “reasonably safe” and “absolutely safe”. Any usage of “safe” or “safety” simpliciter should be seen as an abbreviated reference to one of these two closely related, remarkably confusable, but still unmergable concepts.