Attitudes towards sex selection for non-medical reasons: a review

Early non-invasive fetal sexing is widely available over the Internet, leading to concerns about its possible use for sex selection. The aim of this review is to summarise the results of surveys describing lay attitudes towards sex selection for non-medical reasons to help address or inform such concerns. A search of electronic databases and key journals was supplemented by an Internet search and citation-tracking. Twenty-one quantitative studies were identified. Most were conducted in the US, with five recent studies in the UK and Germany. Most studies found that, overall, people were not in favour of sex selection. However, this varied from 94 to 18%. People may hold more negative attitudes when the method of sex selection is specified, particularly if this involves termination of pregnancy (TOP). Attitudes towards the general availability of sex selection are less negative than those towards personal use. Attitudes were consistently negative in German surveys. Little is known of such attitudes outside the US, the UK and Germany, and how such attitudes may change as new sex selection technologies become available. Studies of use of early non-invasive fetal sexing for sex selection for non-medical reasons are needed to assess the extent to which concerns about usage are justified and to assist in debates on how these might be most appropriately addressed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

车用三效催化剂的研究进展

三效催化剂是机外治理机动车尾气污染最常采用的有效方法，车用三效催化剂已发展到第4代。目前车用三效催化剂的研究主要集中在：开发稀燃型三效催化剂和紧耦合三效催化剂及发展三效催化剂低温冷起燃技术等。国内应以稀土添加少量贵金属的三效催化剂为主要研究方向，开发适合我国现状的车用净化催化剂技术。     

油田废污泥治理研究

冀东油田废水池地处环境敏感区域，对其废污泥采用固化法进行处理。在大量实验的基础上优选出了三种固化剂体系并通过多次浸泡实验、淋洗实验和静态浸出实验对固化效果进行了分析。     

石油修井作业机钢丝绳断裂失效研究

石油修井作业机钢丝绳断裂失效给人身安全和设备带来了很大的安全风险。我们分析了钢丝绳断裂机理,对采样进行综合研究认为:钢丝绳断裂的直接原因是在用钢丝绳在断裂前的脆性断丝数远远超过标准规定的报废要求,即该绳"带病工作",承载力严重降低,在过大的解卡载荷下,剩余钢丝不足以承受工作载荷,而导致断裂。笔者建议在今后的修井作业过程中,定期对钢丝绳和轮槽进行检查,及时更换不满足使用要求的钢丝绳、轮槽;钢丝绳使用过程中采用合理的润滑方法进行维护;在钢丝绳保存和转运期间,避免对钢丝绳造成损伤影响使用寿命;对于轮式修井机改用钢芯钢丝绳,避免结构破坏;鉴于卷筒旋向,今后应改用右捻钢丝绳。在修井作业过程中,解卡作业严禁超负荷施工。     

Ⅰ Ⅱ-ASBR中厌氧颗粒污泥的微生物组成及特性

在35℃下以奶粉人工合成废水为底物连续运行了两段厌氧反应器(ⅠⅡ-ASBR),且于ⅠⅡ两柱中形成了两种不同的厌氧颗粒污泥,为了解厌氧颗粒污泥的微生态结构及生物学特性,对ⅠⅡ两柱中厌氧颗粒污泥的形态及微生物组成进行扫描电镜观察,并测定了其不同基质中的比产甲烷活性、辅酶F420和胞外多聚物的含量。结果表明:ⅠⅡ-ASBR反应器ⅠⅡ两柱中厌氧颗粒污泥形态及微生物组成差异明显,Ⅰ柱的厌氧颗粒污泥大而密实,Ⅱ柱的较小,呈多孔的网状结构,Ⅰ柱中厌氧颗粒污泥以甲烷八叠球菌、球菌及短杆菌为主,丝状菌较少,Ⅱ柱则以丝状菌、短杆菌为主,球菌较少;Ⅰ柱颗粒污泥利用葡萄糖、甲酸、丙酸的产甲烷活性较高,利用乙酸的活性相对较低,Ⅱ柱颗粒污泥利用葡萄糖、乙酸的产甲烷活性较高,而利用甲酸、丙酸的产甲烷活性较低;辅酶F420的含量Ⅱ柱比Ⅰ柱明显要高,而胞外多聚物含量Ⅰ柱比Ⅱ柱的高。     

Arts as a vehicle for community building and post‐disaster development

Use of the arts in international aid is common in an ad hoc form, but it has not been systematically theorised or evaluated. The arts have the potential to be a culturally contextualised and sustainable intervention for adults and children in the aftermath of war or disaster. On the micro level, the arts are a method to enable the retrieval and reprocessing of traumatic memories that are often encoded in images rather than in words. On a macro level, they can help to reconstruct a group narrative of a disaster as well as mobilise people back into control of their lives. This paper researches a long‐term project using arts in Sri Lanka following the civil war and tsunami. A central finding is the need to understand arts within their cultural context, and their usefulness in strengthening the voices and problem‐solving capacities of the victims of the disaster.     

A Guide to Understanding Social Science Research for Natural Scientists

Natural scientists are increasingly interested in social research because they recognize that conservation problems are commonly social problems. Interpreting social research, however, requires at least a basic understanding of the philosophical principles and theoretical assumptions of the discipline, which are embedded in the design of social research. Natural scientists who engage in social science but are unfamiliar with these principles and assumptions can misinterpret their results. We developed a guide to assist natural scientists in understanding the philosophical basis of social science to support the meaningful interpretation of social research outcomes. The 3 fundamental elements of research are ontology, what exists in the human world that researchers can acquire knowledge about; epistemology, how knowledge is created; and philosophical perspective, the philosophical orientation of the researcher that guides her or his action. Many elements of the guide also apply to the natural sciences. Natural scientists can use the guide to assist them in interpreting social science research to determine how the ontological position of the researcher can influence the nature of the research; how the epistemological position can be used to support the legitimacy of different types of knowledge; and how philosophical perspective can shape the researcher's choice of methods and affect interpretation, communication, and application of results. The use of this guide can also support and promote the effective integration of the natural and social sciences to generate more insightful and relevant conservation research outcomes. Una Guía para Entender la Investigación de Ciencias Sociales para las Ciencias Naturales Katie Moon     

The role of digital data entry in participatory environmental monitoring

Many argue that monitoring conducted exclusively by scientists is insufficient to address ongoing environmental challenges. One solution entails the use of mobile digital devices in participatory monitoring (PM) programs. But how digital data entry affects programs with varying levels of stakeholder participation, from nonscientists collecting field data to nonscientists administering every step of a monitoring program, remains unclear. We reviewed the successes, in terms of management interventions and sustainability, of 107 monitoring programs described in the literature (hereafter programs) and compared these with case studies from our PM experiences in Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greenland, and Vietnam (hereafter cases). Our literature review showed that participatory programs were less likely to use digital devices, and 2 of our 3 more participatory cases were also slow to adopt digital data entry. Programs that were participatory and used digital devices were more likely to report management actions, which was consistent with cases in Ethiopia, Greenland, and Australia. Programs engaging volunteers were more frequently reported as ongoing, but those involving digital data entry were less often sustained when data collectors were volunteers. For the Vietnamese and Canadian cases, sustainability was undermined by a mismatch in stakeholder objectives. In the Ghanaian case, complex field protocols diminished monitoring sustainability. Innovative technologies attract interest, but the foundation of effective participatory adaptive monitoring depends more on collaboratively defined questions, objectives, conceptual models, and monitoring approaches. When this foundation is built through effective partnerships, digital data entry can enable the collection of more data of higher quality. Without this foundation, or when implemented ineffectively or unnecessarily, digital data entry can be an additional expense that distracts from core monitoring objectives and undermines project sustainability. The appropriate role of digital data entry in PM likely depends more on the context in which it is used and less on the technology itself.     

咸潮预警值设定的研究

为研究咸潮预警,上海某饮用水源地安装了蓝色卫士水质综合预警系统。采用实验室配制人工海水模拟减潮,通过动态实验研究蓝色卫士的成潮预警值。试验证明,成潮预警值设定范围为1．6～1．8较好。经过连续1a自动监测,蓝色卫士共准确预警预报两次成潮,成功保障了该水源地的饮水安全。     

森林碳汇功能的研究进展

因全球温室效应和气候变化影响,以及森林对CO2的固定作用,使林业碳汇得到了世界各国的广泛支持和发展。文章主要围绕森林植被碳汇、土壤碳汇研究现状,森林碳汇功能的不确定性以及森林管理与碳汇的关系4个方面对国内外森林碳汇的研究进展简要综述,为森林碳汇的科学研究提供基础。