限塑令实施前后居民环境意识水平变化的比较研究

我国限塑令实施后,塑料袋使用量下降明显,效果显著,但其对公众环境意识的影响缺乏研究。本文以南京市大型超市为例,通过调查问卷、访谈等方法进行数据采集,建立公众环境意识多级模糊评价指标体系,并运用赋值分析法,研究限塑令实施前后南京市居民相关环境意识的变化,以评价限塑令对公众环境意识的影响和作用。研究结果表明:限塑令的实施带来较为有效的环境知识普及作用(公众环境知识评价提高18%)、快速明显的环境行为矫正作用(公众环境行为评价提高32%)以及相对滞后的环境态度带动作用(公众环境态度评价提高6%)。     

白酒糟防除水田杂草试验初探

采用田间试验的方法,研究了白酒糟防除水田杂草的效果。结果表明:白酒糟对稗草、扁杆藨草、狼把草、蒲草均有不同程度的防效,水稻产量、经济效益均比对照(人工除草)高。     

纳氏试剂比色法测定水中氨氮的影响因素分析

就纳氏试剂比色法在测定水中氨氮的过程中各种影响测定的因素进行分析,并就实验时间对测定的的影响进行了研究。     

宋代地震灾害与政府应对

地震灾害是给人类社会造成极大破坏的自然灾害之一。根据《宋史》等书记载,对宋代320年间的地震灾害进行初步的统计和分析,以认识两宋地震灾害的基本状况。地震发生后,宋朝政府积极展开救灾与论政,以帮助灾区度过困难并总结治国方略得失,以增强政府抵御灾害的能力。     

Modelling of heating furnace fire scenarios using fault tree analysis,a bayesian network,and a thermal transfer method for system reliability analysis

Energy production for oil companies requires high-performance equipment. However, after a certain period of use, this equipment could be damaged, causing numerous problems and defects, impeding production, and leading to incidents that may cause material and human losses. Therefore, it is necessary to master the performance parameters of each equipment, which are key indicators of its functionality and can indicate the possibility of reusing it after inspection and diagnosis. However, it is worth noting that the studied system is a vertical cylindrical furnace in Algeria's refinery. This paper describes a new hybrid approach, a methodology that evaluates system reliability by combining two studies. The first is based on the surety of the system's functioning through an analysis with a fault tree to identify the risks, followed by a quantitative analysis using a Bayesian method. The second study follows the thermal calculation of the equipment's performance parameters, namely: the thermal efficiency (η), heat transfer coefficient (h), and heat absorbed quantity (Q), using heat balance equations to quantify the heat absorbed quantity and identify the fluid flow regime inside the tube. The calculation considers three cases: The design case, the failure case, and the after renovation case. The originality of this work appears when the collected findings from the second study are fed into the first study's Bayesian Network (BN) to analyse the system's reliability using the calculated parameters. Then, BN is used to calculate the Probabilistic Importance Factors (PIFs) in order to identify the most impactful system components. Finally, a prediction analysis was conducted. The latter reveals that one of the furnace's major faults is the fumes accumulation inside the combustion chamber. Corrosion, overheating, coke formation inside the tubes, dumper deformation, and burner tip clogging all contribute to this fault.     

Mating expenditures reduced via female sex pheromone modulation in the primitively eusocial halictine bee, Lasioglossum (Evylaeus) malachurum (Hymenoptera: Halictidae)

The present paper reports on behavioral experiments and gas chromatographic analysis of chemical communication in the mating biology of the primitively eusocial sweat bee Lasioglossum (Evylaeus) malachurum. In a dual-choice experiment, a female made odorless was significantly less attractive than an untreated one. Attraction in L. (Evylaeus) malachurum is therefore mediated by a female-produced sex pheromone. Further bioassays showed that unmated gynes are more attractive to males than mated ones. Males are able to differentiate between the two groups of females as little as 3 h after mating. Biotests with different samples obtained from attractive gynes showed surface extracts to be most attractive. Behavioral tests with synthetic copies of the compounds identified as cuticular constituents of virgin gynes were highly attractive to males; the volatile bouquets consisting of n-alkanes, n-alkenes and iso- pentenyl esters of unsaturated fatty acids were the most attractive samples. Isopentenyl esters of unsaturated fatty acids were the key compounds in inducing male inspections as well as stimulating pounces and copulatory attempts. Virgin and nesting gynes differed clearly in the relative and absolute amounts of the volatiles on the cuticle. The total amount of volatiles was significantly higher in virgin gynes and decreased in breeding queens. Hydrocarbons were the dominant group of compounds in both groups of females. The relative amounts of the wax-type ester, hexadecyl oleate, iso- pentenyl esters, and a hitherto unidentified steroid were higher in attractive virgin gynes, while the relative proportions of hydrocarbons and lactones dominated in nesting queens. The site of sex pheromone production in attractive young L. (Evylaeus) malachurum gynes remains unknown. Head glands or Dufour's gland secretions may be involved. Another possible source of the `active principle' found among the cuticular lipids could be glandular cells of the epidermis. The significance of modulation of female sex pheromone composition is discussed in terms of a reduction in mating expenditures. Received: 30 April 1998 / Accepted after revision: 24 July 1998     

Modelling directional spatial processes in ecological data

Distributions of species, animals or plants, terrestrial or aquatic, are influenced by numerous factors such as physical and biogeographical gradients. Dominant wind and current directions cause the appearance of gradients in physical conditions whereas biogeographical gradients can be the result of historical events (e.g. glaciations). No spatial modelling technique has been developed to this day that considers the direction of an asymmetric process controlling species distributions along a gradient or network. This paper presents a new method that can model species spatial distributions generated by a hypothesized asymmetric, directional physical process. This method is an eigenfunction-based spatial filtering technique that offers as much flexibility as the Moran's eigenvector maps (MEM) framework; it is called asymmetric eigenvector maps (AEM) modelling. Information needed to construct eigenfunctions through the AEM framework are the spatial coordinates of the sampling or experimental sites, a connexion diagram linking the sites to one another, prior information about the direction of the hypothesized asymmetric process influencing the response variable(s), and optionally, weights attached to the edges (links). To illustrate how this new method works, AEM is compared to MEM analysis through simulations and in the analysis of an ecological example where a known asymmetric forcing is present. The ecological example reanalyses the dietary habits of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) sampled in 42 lakes of the Mastigouche Reserve, Québec.     

Network calculations and ascendency based on eco-exergy

Ascendency is an index of activity and organization in living systems calculated in terms of flows. The concern here is with how that quantity behaves when the flows in question are measured in terms of eco-exergy. The storage of eco-exergy has served as a goal function in assessing parameter values for structurally dynamic models, but network magnitudes and topologies can change in response to significant changes in the forcing functions. As storages are relatively insensitive to such changes, it is advisable in such cases to explore how changes in a flow variable, like ascendency, might capture network adaptations. It happens that changes in ascendency calculated in terms of flows of simple energy are small in comparison to corresponding variations in the storages of eco-exergy. But when ascendency is reckoned in terms of flows of eco-exergy, its changes in response to network changes are more comparable to those in the storages. Ascendency seems to be more sensitive to changes in flow topology, however, so that a combination of eco-exergy storage and eco-exergy ascendency would probably be most appropriate for situations where changes in flow topology are significant.     

A population comparison of the strength and persistence of innate colour preference and learning speed in the bumblebee <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bombus terrestris</Emphasis>

Studies of innate colour preference and learning ability have focused on differences at the species level, rather than variation among populations of a single species. Initial strength and persistence of colour preferences are likely to affect colour choices of naïve flower visitors. We therefore study the influence of both the strength and persistence of innate colour preference (for blue) on an operant learning task (associating food reward with yellow flowers) in two populations of the bumblebee Bombus terrestris. We found that both strength and persistence of blue preference differed significantly between populations: B. terrestris dalmatinus had a weaker and less persistent blue preference than B. terrestris audax. These differences in preference also influenced learning performance. Considering only landing behaviours, one-trial learning occurred in the majority (73%) of bees, and was achieved sooner in B. terrestris dalmatinus because of its weaker blue preference. However, compared to landing behaviours the relative frequency of approach flights to rewarding and unrewarding flower types changed more slowly with task experience in both populations. When considering both approaches and landings, the rate of learning, following the first rewarded learning trial, was faster in B. terrestris audax than B. terrestris dalmatinus. However, the net effects of population differences in blue preference and learning dynamics result in similar final levels of task performance. Our results provide new evidence of behavioural differences among isolated populations within a single species, and raise intriguing questions about the ecological significance and adaptive nature of colour preference.     

Female-biased sex allocation of offspring by an <Emphasis Type="Italic">Apodemus</Emphasis> mouse in an unstable environment

We investigated the effects of population fluctuation on the offspring’s sex allocation by a weakly polygynous mouse, Apodemus argenteus, for 3 years. In acorn-poor seasons, heavier mothers invested more in sons, and lighter mothers invested more in daughters. In acorn-rich seasons, heavier mothers invested more in daughters, and lighter mothers invested more in sons. Maternal body condition and litter size affected the sex allocation. Furthermore, there was a maternal investment trade-off between a son’s birth mass and the number of daughters. Based upon the effect of population fluctuation on the lifetime reproductive success of each sex, we proposed the new “safe bet hypothesis”. This hypothesis predicts that frequent and unpredictable change in female distribution, which is often caused by abrupt fall in food condition, favors female-biased maternal investment to offspring by polygynous mammals and is applicable to many small mammals inhabiting in unstable environments.