“Talking of citizenship … ” Exploring the contribution an intergenerational,participatory learning project can make to the promotion of active citizenship in sustainable communities

The value of participating in community projects for the creation of a sustainable community is widely recognised but there remains little research into the multiple dispositions, knowledge, and competencies necessary for building and maintaining such a community. This article examines a small intergenerational social learning project that brought together students from a local community college and members of the town community association to explore the concept of sustainability-focused citizenship. The project was founded on themes of active citizenship, social learning, and intergenerational interaction, and was jointly evaluated by the participants and the researcher. This article presents two key ways in which this community-based learning project contributed to the promotion of citizenship for a sustainable community – firstly, as effective preparation for citizenship for sustainability, through the development of knowledge, disposition, and competencies, and secondly, in the performance of citizenship during the course of the workshops, through the encounter with, and negotiation of, difference.     

Positive psychology in education for sustainable development at a primary-education institution

The present global environmental crisis is demanding serious rather than superficial changes within the cultural assumptions of human-to-human and human-to-nature relationships. In this sense, education is one of the strongest tools to model our future and a key factor of cultural change. One of the principal aims of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is to develop cognitive and affective skills that affect people's values, such as empathy and critical thinking. Together with compromise and responsibility towards a group, it is possible to build new values and ways to interact with both people and the environment. In the present study we used positive psychology principles in creating teaching interventions to empower empathy and critical thinking through an ESD programme at a Chilean primary school. The results show that an intervention of this kind helps to harmoniously build reflective thinking and empathy within students. This enables them to achieve important changes in their disposition to make sound personal and environmental decisions, and prepares them to positively meet imposing present and future challenges.     

Null-Hypothesis Significance Testing and the Critical Weight Range for Australian Mammals

Abstract:  The critical weight range hypothesis for Australian terrestrial mammals states that species in the intermediate size range 35–5500 g are particularly susceptible to extinction. In a 2001 study Cardillo and Bromham found no statistically significant evidence for this hypothesis and suggested that research should instead focus on why small species are resistant to extinction. We used a similar data set of body sizes of Australian mammals grouped by conservation classification, but we used test statistics (mean deviation above and below the median body size) that are more statistically powerful than those of Cardillo and Bromham (quartiles, maxima, and minima of body size distributions). We found strong evidence in favor of the critical weight range hypothesis: the body size distribution of threatened species was more clustered toward the median body size from above and below. This pattern was statistically significant at the continental scale and in the arid zone, but not in the mesic zone. Confusing statistical significance with evidence of no effect, as Cardillo and Bromham did, can have negative implications for conservation biology because it can result in failure to act when action is warranted or provision of incorrect advice that affects policy and planning decisions.     

The UN/ECE International Programme on Mapping Critical Loads and Levels

Critical Loads and levels have played a centralrole in the successful development of effect-based emissionreduction strategies for Europe in the fields of acidification,eutrophication and ground-level ozone. The aim of theInternational Programme on Mapping Critical Loads and Levelsled by Germany, with participation of 24 countries, is todetermine critical loads and levels for forest, crops, naturalvegetation, soils, water and materials. The exceedances ofcritical loads and critical levels are used to quantify the riskfor environmental damage by air pollution and tosupport the development of optimised abatement strategies.     

重要基础设施的依赖性模型及应用

把无效果投入产出模型(IIM)引入到重要基础设施的相互依赖性模型研究中,模型中的参数估计通过问卷调查从各领域专家处获得,并使用三角模糊数对该估计值进行修正,最终分别用依赖性指标和影响增益指标评价相互依赖性造成的影响;采用专家调查法和三角模糊数估计模型的参数值,构建了重大自然灾害中重要基础设施的相互依赖性模型。将模型应用于中国2008年南方冰冻雨雪灾害中重要基础设施的依赖性研究中,比较得到受影响最大的设施系统和依赖性最大的设施系统,为防灾减灾和有侧重地进行重要基础设施的保护和完善提供了依据。     

Climate Change,Multiple Stressors,and the Decline of Ectotherms

Climate change is believed to be causing declines of ectothermic vertebrates, but there is little evidence that climatic conditions associated with declines have exceeded critical (i.e., acutely lethal) maxima or minima, and most relevant studies are correlative, anecdotal, or short‐term (hours). We conducted an 11‐week factorial experiment to examine the effects of temperature (22 °C or 27 °C), moisture (wet or dry), and atrazine (an herbicide; 0, 4, 40, 400 μg/L exposure as embryos and larvae) on the survival, growth, behavior, and foraging rates of postmetamorphic streamside salamanders (Ambystoma barbouri), a species of conservation concern. The tested climatic conditions were between the critical maxima and minima of streamside salamanders; thus, this experiment quantified the long‐term effects of climate change within the noncritical range of this species. Despite a suite of behavioral adaptations to warm and dry conditions (e.g., burrowing, refuge use, huddling with conspecifics, and a reduction in activity), streamside salamanders exhibited significant loss of mass and significant mortality in all but the cool and moist conditions, which were closest to the climatic conditions in which they are most active in nature. A temperature of 27 °C represented a greater mortality risk than dry conditions; death occurred rapidly at this temperature and more gradually under cool and dry conditions. Foraging decreased under dry conditions, which suggests there were opportunity costs to water conservation. Exposure to the herbicide atrazine additively decreased water‐conserving behaviors, foraging efficiency, mass, and time to death. Hence, the hypothesis that moderate climate change can cause population declines is even more plausible under scenarios with multiple stressors. These results suggest that climate change within the noncritical range of species and pollution may reduce individual performance by altering metabolic demands, hydration, and foraging effort and may facilitate population declines of amphibians and perhaps other ectothermic vertebrates. Cambio Climático, Estresantes Múltiples y la Declinación de Ectotermos     

Accounting for Complementarity to Maximize Monitoring Power for Species Management

To choose among conservation actions that may benefit many species, managers need to monitor the consequences of those actions. Decisions about which species to monitor from a suite of different species being managed are hindered by natural variability in populations and uncertainty in several factors: the ability of the monitoring to detect a change, the likelihood of the management action being successful for a species, and how representative species are of one another. However, the literature provides little guidance about how to account for these uncertainties when deciding which species to monitor to determine whether the management actions are delivering outcomes. We devised an approach that applies decision science and selects the best complementary suite of species to monitor to meet specific conservation objectives. We created an index for indicator selection that accounts for the likelihood of successfully detecting a real trend due to a management action and whether that signal provides information about other species. We illustrated the benefit of our approach by analyzing a monitoring program for invasive predator management aimed at recovering 14 native Australian mammals of conservation concern. Our method selected the species that provided more monitoring power at lower cost relative to the current strategy and traditional approaches that consider only a subset of the important considerations. Our benefit function accounted for natural variability in species growth rates, uncertainty in the responses of species to the prescribed action, and how well species represent others. Monitoring programs that ignore uncertainty, likelihood of detecting change, and complementarity between species will be more costly and less efficient and may waste funding that could otherwise be used for management. Contabilización de la Complementariedad para Maximizar el Poder de Monitoreo para el Manejo de Especies     

Influence of several fungicides on the antioxidant activity of red wines (var. Monastrell)

The antioxidant activity of wines obtained from grapes treated with six fungicides (famoxadone, fenhexamid, fluquinconazole, kresoxim-methyl, quinoxyfen and trifloxystrobin) was investigated. Two field trials in triplicate were carried out for each formulation of the fungicide at the recommended dose of the manufacturer. The first trial was carried out under good agricultural practices (GAP), following the recommended pre-harvest interval, and the second one under critical agricultural practices (CAP) that involves treating the same field just before the harvest. The residue levels were determined by gas and liquid chromatography coupled to mass detectors (GC-MS and LC-MS). The antioxidant activity was determined in the wines obtained from the thirteen trials including one control, six from treated grapes obeying the pre-harvest interval, and six from grapes treated at the day of harvest or at most unfavorable conditions. Elimination of 40–100% of the initial fungicide residues present in grapes was observed during the wine-making process. It can be inferred from the results that the use of these fungicides did not produce any decrease of the antioxidant activity in the wines (7.19 ± 0.22 mmol Trolox/L for the blank wine versus a range of 6.45 ± 0.82 mmol Trolox/L to 10.06 ± 0.59 mmol Trolox/L for the treated wines) at the pre-harvest interval and most unfavorable conditions. Nevertheless, the presence of famoxadone, kresoxim-methyl and quinoxyfen increased the antioxidant activity and this was directly related to their residue levels in the grapes. Also, the wine phenolic composition was altered in variable intensity by the presence of the fungicide residues.     

MODELING MULTIPLE CRITICAL DEPTHS1

ABSTRACT: This paper explores the occurrence of multiple critical depths in one-dimensional computational models of open channel systems. The mathematical formulation is reviewed, including examination of the number of possible roots by Descartes' Rule. Governing equations and dependent variables are scrutinized using two compound cross sections. Occurrence tendencies are reviewed for singular channels. Critical flow is introduced as a tool to determine the existence and location of computationally based multiple critical depths. A strategy to manage multiple critical depths in existing one-dimensional steady or unsteady models is proposed.