Fish wars and cooperation maintenance

In this paper, a discrete-time game model related to a bioresource management problem (fish catching) is considered. We divide a fishery into regions, which are exploited by single players. The center (referee) shares a reservoir between the competitors. The players (countries), which harvest the fish stock are the participants of this game.We assume that there are migratory exchanges between the regions of the reservoir. Therefore, the stock in one region depends not only on the previous stock and catch in the region, but also on the stock and catch in neighboring regions. We derive the Nash and cooperative equilibria for an infinite planning horizon.We consider two ways to maintain the cooperation: incentive equilibrium and time-consistent imputation distribution procedure. We investigate the cooperative incentive equilibrium in the case when the center punishes players for a deviation.Also we consider the case when the center is a player and find the Shapley value and time-consistent imputation distribution procedure. We introduce a new condition which offers an incentive to players to keep cooperating.     

Force-Velocity Characteristics of Individual Human Skeletal Muscles: TBCIat and TBCIong. Outline of the Method

The aim of the work is to outline a procedure of finding force-velocity (F–V) characteristics (F = f(V)) of individual skeletal muscles of the human locomotor system. The presentation is based on an example concerning extensors of the elbow joint: the lateral and long heads of triceps brachii (TBCIat and TBCIong). The experimental part of the procedure involves a natural movement of using the upper extremity to push an external object of variable, adjustable load, engaging both the elbow and shoulder joint.

Five men aged 23 took part in the experiment. Their task was to push the handle of a physical pendulum whose moment of inertia could be adjusted within the range of 58 kg m²-450 kg m², so as to give it maximum angular velocity. During each trial the movement of the trunk, of the upper extremity and of the pendulum was video recorded and the force applied with the hand to the handle of the pendulum was measured.

In order to find the F–V characteristics a simulation model SHOULDER was used, which is capable of solving the synergy problem for muscles of the arm and the shoulder girdle.

It was found that despite considerable dispersion of experimental points the respective regression lines revealed a clear tendency of decreasing muscle force for increased shortening velocity of the monoarticular head (TBCIat) and of increasing muscle force for increased lengthening velocity of the biarticular head (TBCIong) of the triceps brachii muscle.     

Made in conflict. Local residents' construction of a local environmental problem

The aim of this paper is to understand how local residents participate in the construction of local environmental problems and to evaluate a particular analytical approach in environmental sociology to study this phenomenon. The paper is based on an interview study with a sample of local residents. The analysis demonstrates how the local residents attempt to construct a local environmental problem. In particular, the study focuses on how involved actors are positioned, how different sorts of knowledge claims are used, and how the neglect the residents perceive from the authorities affects the attempt to construct a local environmental problem. The study shows that the local residents play a central role in the construction of the situation and that the evaluated model could be very helpful as an analytical tool in the investigation of local residents' participation in the construction of environmental problems.     

High-risk ecosystems as foci for considering biodiversity and ecological integrity in ecological risk assessments

Ecological risk management historically focused on risks to human health and the immediate human environment. Increasingly, societal interest in biodiversity and ecological integrity demands that risk assessors and managers take a broader view of the environment and include non-human species and ecosystems within their realm of concern. The greatest threats to biodiversity in the USA and much of the world are habitat alteration (including conversion, degradation, and fragmentation) and exotic species invasions. This paper reviews and integrates the results of several recent studies (e.g. by The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, and the National Biological Service) that have identified regions and ecosystems that are highly distinct biologically, are rare or declining, contain high numbers of imperiled species, face immediate threats, and stand to lose considerable biodiversity in the near future. These studies converge on a set of regions that warrant urgent attention from risk managers. Focal species and functional groups of species can be selected within these regions to characterize ecological effects and track recovery of ecosystems along the same axes (e.g. habitat structure, disturbance frequency) that led to biotic impoverishment. The most fruitful approach to risk management ultimately will be one that addresses the most urgent threats at several levels of biological organization, from focal species to communities to ecoregions.     

Glass buildings on river banks as “polarized light traps” for mass-swarming polarotactic caddis flies

The caddis flies Hydropsyche pellucidula emerge at dusk from the river Danube and swarm around trees and bushes on the river bank. We document here that these aquatic insects can also be attracted en masse to the vertical glass surfaces of buildings on the river bank. The individuals lured to dark, vertical glass panes land, copulate, and remain on the glass for hours. Many of them are trapped by the partly open, tiltable windows. In laboratory choice experiments, we showed that ovipositing H. pellucidula are attracted to highly and horizontally polarized light stimulating their ventral eye region and, thus, have positive polarotaxis. In the field, we documented that highly polarizing vertical black glass surfaces are significantly more attractive to both female and male H. pellucidula than weakly polarizing white ones. Using video polarimetry, we measured the reflection-polarization characteristics of vertical glass surfaces of buildings where caddis flies swarmed. We propose that after its emergence from the river, H. pellucidula is attracted to buildings by their dark silhouettes and the glass-reflected, horizontally polarized light. After sunset, this attraction may be strengthened by positive phototaxis elicited by the buildings' lights. The novelty of this visual-ecological phenomenon is that the attraction of caddis flies to vertical glass surfaces has not been expected because vertical glass panes do not resemble the horizontal surface of waters from which these insects emerge and to which they must return to oviposit.     

推进规划环评工作的实践和思考

就规划环评实施过程中普遍存在的问题提出了相应的解决方法,浅谈了对规划环境影响评价的认识及如何推进规划环境影响评价工作的体会。     

包头市生态环境问题及对策研究

本文在对包头市生态环境现状存在的问题进行了概述,并重点针对目前生态环境保护与管理提出了对策措施。     

Reflecting ecological criteria in laws supporting the Baja to Bering Sea marine protected areas network case study

Canadian and US marine conservation law, and other related law, was analyzed to determine if it reflected ecological criteria needed to implement connectivity among marine protected areas of the northeast Pacific in the proposed trilateral Baja to Bering Sea (B2B) initiative. The analysis included both nations’ federal laws and those of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and British Columbia. While legal provisions exist already to implement marine protected areas for varying reasons, there is little capacity in most laws to create connectivity among them for conservation purposes. Only California's legislation contained explicit provisions for all the criteria. Other federal, state, and provincial laws, while containing provisions for species at risk and vulnerable habitats, generally lacked explicit provisions for the vital criteria, size of area, migratory patterns, and recruitment patterns. Implementation, future management, and protection of the proposed B2B marine network would be facilitated by amendment of both Canadian and US laws. Some of the ecological criteria are already implied implicitly or vaguely, but they need to be made explicit in the amended law. The legislative model of California could serve as a template for amending the laws of other jurisdictions in the B2B venture.     

环境问题、环境伦理与环境保护探析

人类社会步入二十一世纪,环境问题日益成为全人类共同关注的问题。环境的日益恶化要求人类重新审视人与自然的关系,建立和谐共生的关系体系。保护环境,保护自然,保护人类唯一的家园,实现人类的可持续发展。环境保护是保证当代人和未来人能否享有真正福利的基础,在我国以经济建设为中心的现阶段,环境保护具有重要的意义。     

Education for sustainable development – an inter‐disciplinary pilot module for undergraduate engineers and scientists

The coming together of a number of initiatives provided a springboard for an innovative pilot programme in education for sustainable development. For some time problem‐based learning has gathered momentum as an approach to educating professionals. More recently, there has been a burgeoning interest in inter‐disciplinary approaches to the complex societal and environmental issues that face the world as a whole. At the same time, professional engineering institutions have been reflecting on appropriate approaches to the education and development of future engineers. Building on work already undertaken by some of the authors, the Royal Academy of Engineering sponsored an inter‐disciplinary pilot programme in sustainable development for undergraduate engineers and scientists in the University of Manchester. The pilot was innovative not only in its inter‐disciplinary approach to sustainable development but also in its approach to the development of the curriculum. Inter‐disciplinary exercises were designed that enabled a contextual, active, collaborative and cumulative approach to learning. The assessment was also designed to align to the learning approach. Evaluation of the pilot programme suggests that it was well received by the students, and the post‐doctoral researchers who acted as facilitators, and also that there were gains in both understanding of the issues and also in approaches to learning.