Sporting Nature(s): Wildness,the Primitive,and Naturalizing Imagery in MMA and Sports Advertisements

This essay examines two Nike commercials, a TapOut commercial, and the proliferation of mixed martial arts (MMA) t-shirt visual culture, all of which symbolically link wildness and “nature” as primitivity to their particular sport contexts. MMA in particular, it is argued, is more symbolically available to symbolic discourses of the “natural” and the “primitive” because of the sport's technological minimalism. The MMA t-shirt is posited as a safe, masculine primitive performance, functioning as an expressive personal substitute (or supplement) to the analogous tattoos “worn” by many fighters and fans. Additionally, this paper reviews and connects several disparate bodies of literature, moving from a discussion of eco-critical principles for critiquing the cultural production of nature / the natural, to an assessment of “nature” as primitivity, and finally to highlight how critical analyses of sport and MMA implicate related categories. While environmental communication has addressed the place of “nature” in advertising, little has been written about how discourses of nature, gender, and the environment intersect with the highly mediatized culture of sports. This article adds to the subfield by initiating just such a critical discussion. Finally, I contend that one of the main ideological functions of the employment of nature imagery here is to implicitly authorize notions of wildness or the “primitive” in close association with a male animal ideology, and also to symbolically reinforce existing narratives which naturalize aggression. These advertisements posit, I argue, a metaphysical rather than realist ecological discourse, enabling an unsustainable narrative of the naturalness of human-on-human violence and aggression.     

“竞争申请制”:可持续发展政策试点与央地关系重构

可持续发展目标(SDGs)的提出,开启了人类可持续发展领域最宏大的政策实验,也为开展国际视野的比较公共政策研究提供了难得机遇。执行SDGs及国家可持续发展政策需要处理好中央政府与地方政府间关系,而政策试点是协调这一关系的重要政策工具。已有文献对经济政策试点做了较充分的研究,然而对旨在实现经济、社会与环境协调的可持续发展政策试点,现有研究尚缺乏成型理论。在复杂央地关系格局下,对于需持续投入成本且成果难以界定的可持续发展政策试点,其具有怎样的不同于经济政策试点的机制?此外,众多西方学者将美国作为政策试点研究的制度基础并视其为“民主实验室”。然而,政策试点在以中国为代表的不同体制国家中同样存在,并以多样的机制发挥作用。那么,不同国家体制内的可持续发展政策试点又有哪些异同?政策试点影响下中国既有的央地关系发生了怎样的重构?对此,本文基于最典型案例原则,选取中国与美国响应SDGs分别开展的政策试点进行比较研究。笔者识别了不同体制下试点机制的异同,指出中国基于“竞争申请制”开展的可持续发展政策试点强化了中央部委与地方政府间关系,形成了地方官员的可持续发展激励,保障了政策试点的实施。     

农地整治权属调整中农户认知对行为响应的作用机制--基于改进TPB及多群组SEM

农地整治权属调整是实现农业规模化和现代化的重要手段,而农户有效参与是推动权属调整的内在动力,研究农地整治权属调整中农户认知对其行为响应的作用机制,有助于高效引导农户参与权属调整,并为制定农地整治权属调整的政策提供科学依据。基于改进计划行为理论和湖北省11个县(市、区)1044份农户抽样调查数据,采用多群组结构方程模型探究了农地整治权属调整中不同类型农户认知对其行为响应的作用机制。结果表明:农地整治权属调整中农户行为逻辑符合改进计划行为理论,农户的行为态度、主观规范、知觉行为控制交互影响行为意愿,进而转换为行为响应,政府支持在行为意愿和行为响应之间起到部分中介作用。总体上,农户行为响应是"自发性""诱发性"和"约束性"三重行动逻辑的结合,且"自发性"占主导地位。多群组结构方程估计结果表明,纯农型与兼业Ⅰ型农户的行为响应受到"自发性""诱发性"和"约束性"三重影响,兼业Ⅱ型农户受到"自发性"和"诱发性"双重影响,非农型农户仅受到"诱发性"单一影响。因此,为引导农户积极参与农地整治权属调整,应该分别针对各类农户相应地提高其参与的"自发性"和"诱发性",降低"约束性",充分发挥农村社会经济组织的作用,将四种不同类型农户的利益需求统筹考虑,降低权属调整过程中利益协调难度。     

Acute toxicity of two insecticides to tubificid worms, Tubifex tubifex and Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri

Acute toxicity and presumable harmless concentration of two commercial insecticides, Furadan 3G and Malataf 50E were reported for tubificid worms, Tubifex tubifex and Limnodrilus hoffmeisteri. L. hoffmeisteri were found more susceptible to both the insecticides; the Furadan was found to be more toxic than Malataf to tubificid worms. Analysis of variants showed a significant difference between safe concentrations of the same insecticide to different species.     

江汉平原农地资源价值研究

农地价值的货币化计量为缓解我国农地流失形势。修订和完善农地分等定级成果、征地补偿制度，制定和实施农地生态管护政策提供理论与实践依据。在随机抽样调查的基础上．运用收益还原法及CVM对江汉平原不同类型农地资源的市场价值和非市场价值进行评估．研究表明：江汉平原包括耕地，圈地、林地及水域用地在内的农地资源的非市场价值现值达1246．82亿元，是农地资源价值构成中无法忽略的重要组成部分。其中．耕地资源整体价值达4563．28亿元，无法通过市场交易体现的非市场价值有545．30亿元．占耕地价值构成的11．95％；园地及水域用地的价值分别为623．09亿元和3210．06亿元，非市场价值所占比例份额分别为32．21％和8，57％；林地资源的非市场价值225．64亿元，折合非市场价值约85704元／hm^2。     

SUSTAINABILITY AT THE LOCAL LEVEL: MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND MUNICIPAL TAX INCENTIVE MODEL

The implementation of sustainable development may seem a simple concept when written on paper. However to carry-out long term actions put forward by the Agenda 21 (AG21) at the local level represents one of the main challenges as municipal governments in general do not have the capacity to effectively implement the process. Regional environmental assessment (REA) has shown to be effective in supporting decision-making not only to correct environmental problems due to past unsustainable social-economic developments but also help local governments to implement sustainable actions. However this requires long-term investments of AG21 plans and projects. The allocation of regular and consistent financial resources is one of the main ingredients for the sustainable development process. But traditional plans and projects financed by national and/or international funds may not be sustainable in the long-term because they become dependent on external funding. Research demonstrate that innovative economic instruments such as ecotaxes represent a feasible alternative to sponsor local sustainability because taxes are collected permanently by the government and could be invested in continuous actions. Ecotaxes experiences have provided important reference to structure a municipal incentive model (MIM) to sponsor AG21’s environmental plans and projects on a long-term (permanent) basis. However sustainable development cannot be solely through economic investments. A comprehensive municipal environmental management scheme (MEMS) has been established to support the incentive model. The scheme seeks not only to improve local institutional framework but also incentive continuous participation of local stakeholders at all levels of society. Participatory events and the provision of incentives (educational and financial) are key to motivate society to protect the environment and support actively the sustainable development process as emphasised in the RIO-92 Conference.     

Biomagnification of anthropogenic and naturally-produced organobrominated compounds in a marine food web from Sydney Harbour, Australia

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and naturally-produced organobrominated compounds, such as methoxylated PBDEs (MeO-PBDEs), have been scarcely studied in the Southern Hemisphere. Yet, sources of the latter group of compounds were found in Southern regions, specifically in Australia. The environmental distribution and biomagnification potential of organobrominated compounds were therefore investigated in a representative aquatic food chain (invertebrates and fish) from the Sydney Harbour, Australia. Mean PBDE concentrations ranged from 6.4 ng/g lipid weight (lw) in squid to 115 ng/g lw in flounder. BDE 47 was the dominant congener, followed by BDE 100. Mean levels of MeO-PBDEs (sum of congeners 2’-MeO-BDE 68 and 6-MeO-BDE 47) were as high as 110 ng/g lw in tailor, with a slight dominance of 2’-MeO-BDE 68. Polybrominated hexahydroxanthene derivates (PBHDs), another class of naturally-produced compounds, were found at variable concentrations and ranged from 4.7 ng/g lw in fanbelly and 146 ng/g lw in tailor. The tribrominated PBHD isomer dominated in the samples, except for luderick and squid. The lower levels of PBDEs found in luderick from the harbour compared to those obtained from the upper Parramatta River indicated a terrestrial (anthropogenic) origin of PBDEs, while the higher levels of MeO-PBDEs and PBHDs in the samples from the harbour confirmed the marine (natural) origin of these compounds. The highest trophic magnification factor (TMF) was found for sum PBDEs (3.9), while TMFs for sum MeO-PBDEs and sum PBHDs were 2.9 and 3.4, respectively. This suggests that biomagnification occurs in the studied aquatic food chain for anthropogenic brominated compounds, but also for the naturally-produced organobromines.     

Effects of EGR on performance and emissions of a diesel engine fuelled with balanites aegyptiaca/diesel blends

In this study, balanites Aegyptiaca (L.) Del biodiesel was blended in proportions of 10% and 20% on the volume basis with diesel fuel and tested in a single cylinder, VCR diesel engine under measured load conditions with varied EGR rates (0, 10 and 20%). The results showed that B10 and B20 blends shown a significant reduction rate in terms of NO_x emissions that were familiar with biodiesel blends. At peak load conditions, BTE increased slightly for test fuel blends compared with pure diesel fuel while the BSFC rate and EGT suffered from increasing and decreasing nature with respect to blending percentage. From the emissions point of view, with the increase in blends percentage, a significant reduction rate is observed in terms of CO and HC concentrations (up to 12.34 and 17.5%, respectively) while NOx emissions decreased at peak load conditions (up to 24.34%). HC and CO emissions decreased with increase in blends percentage. However, lower levels of NO_x and EGT (up to 21.37 and 8.47%, respectively) and the average increase in terms of BTE and BSFC (up to 2.83 and 2.9%, respectively) can be realised with B20 test fuel blend under 20% EGR rate.     

A multi-objective design optimisation of eco-friendly aircraft: the impact of noise fees on airplanes sustainable development

The current work deals with multi-objective optimisations including financial merit factors in the multi-disciplinary conceptual design of a commercial aircraft with a specific focus on noise social cost. The results of optimisations using financial and performance-oriented objective functions have been analysed and combined in a multi-objective optimisation problem using a three-dimensional objective vector. The main novelty of the present work is the analysis of social cost noise fees effectiveness integrated in financial models embracing a wider group of stakeholders’ interests. The foundations of this research lie on the air traffic increase envisaged in the next decades and the contextual growth of the urban areas nearby airport facilities. This scenario requires the aeronautical industry to handle the environment challenge taking into account all the social and economic effects. Indeed, the consolidated technology has approached a saturation point, therefore breakthrough concepts and configurations are mandatory. This matter is addressed as a highly multi-disciplinary problem within conceptual design framework. The financial model proposed is shown to highlight the need of appropriate noise fees as instruments to push all stakeholders towards a technology radical renewal and encourage the aeronautical industry towards a shared strategy in the development of an eco-friendly commercial aviation system.