Scientific evidence,expert entrepreneurship,and ecosystem narratives in the UK Natural Environment White Paper

The Natural Environment White Paper represents the most important conservation policy shift in the United Kingdom (UK) in twenty years. It formalises the ecosystem approach within national policy objectives and emphasises the economic value of ecosystem services. By analysing the use of various evidence sources, the involvement of science entrepreneurs, and the development of policy narratives, our goal was to understand factors that influenced adoption of an ecosystem service framework in the UK. We interviewed 48 policy actors and found that centrally-sponsored synthesis reports with entrepreneurial authors provided the most influential expert-based knowledge in the development of the White Paper. More recently published reports had greater influence, yet the window of opportunity for scientific evidence having policy impact was greater in the problem-setting stages of policy development. The interaction between teams preparing syntheses and expert entrepreneurs helped influence the construction of strategic policy narratives. Those narratives increased the impact of scientific evidence by communicating and framing key policy-salient messages, and brokering between broad ecosystem-based and environmental economics narratives. The combination of ecological and economics evidence was particularly salient in the UK case due to the context of continued biodiversity loss and the acceptability of valuation narratives within central government. Our findings suggest that evidence impact varies at different stages of the policy process, and that this is driven by the interplay of contextual factors like policy timing, personal influence, and the competition between different sets of actors and narratives.     

铁路行车事故救援智能辅助决策系统研究

介绍了铁路行车事故救援智能辅助决策系统的设计及实现。采用产生式规则与数据库技术相结合的铁路行车事故救援决策知识表示方法。推理过程为正向推理。决策树分层分类并嵌入数据库。该系统可在行车事故现场以人机交互方式提供一个或几个救援方案。为铁路行车事故救援决策提供了一种新的途径与范例。并为人工智能在新的工程领域的应用进行了有益的尝试     

环保投资项目的专家论证系统

专家论证系统 ,是一种能使环保投资项目达到环境与经济“双赢”效果的保障模式。     

区域环境大气质量评价专家系统

立足于我国环境监测数据和我国专家经验建立了一个集数据库、知识库、方法库、模式库和图形库为一体的实用性区域环境大气质量评价专家系统。该系统可以进行现状评价、回顾评价、预测分析和控制对策分析。经天津市评价实例证明该系统具有可达性和实用性。     

林火行为预测预报专家系统

在针对我国大兴安岭林区典型可燃物进行实验的基础上,参考美国北方林火实验室编制的BEHAVE程序中的数学模型,提出了一整套估算森林地表火火行为特征量的表达式。在此基础上,通过交互式窗口技术、字符型汉字技术和专家系统原理,建立了“林火行为预测预报专家系统”。该系统在输入现场可燃物分布特性参数及相应的地形条件和气象条件后,即能迅速预测火蔓延过程中不同时间段的火行为特征量的值。与野外试验的结果对比表明,预测的结果是合理、可靠的。     

基于专家地理信息系统(EGIS)的露天采矿烟尘污染环境效应评价模型

针对露天矿山烟尘污染源的特点 ,运用环境评价的原理和方法 ,探讨了传统评价工作中存在的不足 ,将地理信息系统 (GIS)应用到露天矿烟尘污染控制中 ,提出了基于专家地理信息系统 (EGIS)的烟尘污染环境效应评价模型 ,并评述了该模型的重要意义和发展前景     

Developing an expert prognosis system of the reciprocating compressor based on associations among monitoring parameters and maintenance records

The reciprocating compressor is, in general, a critical equipment in a process plant. For certain ultra-high-pressure process, if the reciprocating compressor fails, often it will cause serious impact to not just the compressor itself, but also the process surrounds it. To prevent compressors from failures, an expert diagnosis system is needed. However, the traditional rule-based expert system is quite inefficient and difficult to create.For an expert prognosis system that is customized to meet needs of a specific process, one needs to refer to plant maintenance history, which is hard to come by due to the fact that most maintenance was poorly documented. This research attempt to demonstrate the feasibility of developing an expert prognosis system through implementation of association rules. Rather than mining from maintenance history, records of failure cases were collected from technical journal articles by extracting information containing failure symptoms and causes on failed components, that mimicking repair history. In total, 115 failure information out from 41 journal articles were gathered. Applications of this approach to practical use in a process plant is easy by replacing the failure information table with that from datamining the repair history. The failure information was first tabulated and then put through association analysis for support, confidence, and lift between two parameters. The demonstration program has been successful with 1-to-1, many-to-1, and many-to-many analysis among failed components, failure modes, and operation parameters.     

Achieving sustainable biomaterials by maximising waste recovery

The waste hierarchy of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle, recover’ can be followed to improve the sustainability of a product, yet it is not applied in any meaningful way in the biomaterials industry which focuses more on sustainable sourcing of inputs. This paper presents the results of industry interviews and a focus group with experts to understand how waste recovery of biomaterials could become more widespread. Interview findings were used to develop three scenarios: (1) do nothing; (2) develop legislation; and (3) develop certification standards. These scenarios formed the basis for discussions at an expert focus group. Experts considered that action was required, rejecting the first scenario. No preference was apparent for scenarios (2) and (3). Experts agreed that there should be collaboration on collection logistics, promotion of demand through choice editing, product ‘purity’ could be championed though certification and there should be significant investment and research into recovery technologies. These considerations were incorporated into the development of a model for policy makers and industry to help increase biomaterial waste recovery.     

Environmental innovation strategies: When and why NGOs go beyond public regulations

The concept of environmental innovation strategies (EIS) is introduced and discussed. The notion refers to the conduct by which non-governmental organisations (NGOs) act as policy entrepreneurs seeking to address environmental issues by going beyond the provisions of public regulations. Environmental innovation is understood as the product of a process of social interactions between heterogeneous types of actors, including NGOs. Three social mechanisms are introduced in order to capture the conditions enabling and motivating NGOs to pursue EIS, as well as the politics through which EIS are produced. These mechanisms are then discussed in the light of two in-depth case studies in Indonesia and Switzerland. The findings highlight the institutional frustration and mix of concerns that push NGOs to engage in EIS, as well as the non-spontaneous nature of environmental innovations. Innovation represents, in the end, a game of power that should be analysed as such.     

Integrated resource management systems: Coupling expert systems with data-base management and geographic information systems

Decision making in natural resource management is becoming increasingly information-intensive because of the rising public concerns about resource conservation and environmental quality. The volume of information that must be analyzed and the complexity of the decision-making process demands that computerized systems be developed to provide decision support services. An integrated systems approach that couples data-base management, geographic information systems, and expert systems is needed. We refer to such an approach as integrated resource management automation (IRMA) and describe a prototype system that is currently being tested in the Nicolet National Forest. This type of information system is likely to play an increasingly important role in the management of natural resources in the future.