In this paper the purpose is to discuss a concept of technology that can explain how the transfer of technology implies the risk of new failures, misuse, accidents and unhealthy workplaces. Production technologies are often transformed through a steady stream of incremental changes appropriate to their social context, and the technology will therefore gradually acquire some contextually dependent preconditions for use. These preconditions will most probably be revealed when a technology is transferred from one context to another. Thus, a technology transfer project may trigger a long process of re-innovations just to make the technology fully operational in its new context. In a transfer process, technological risks may arise due to incomplete transfer of mastering capacity; mismatch between transferred technology and the environment; transfer of latent conditions for failure; and the transformation of latent conditions or known risks when the technology is installed in a new environment. Longitudinal data from the Norwegian petroleum industry indicates that the first phases in a transfer process will create high technological risks. It will take many years before the transferred technologies are adapted to the new context and the risk level has been normalised. 相似文献
The woody species known, used, and preferred as fuelwood were examined in three rural communities within the county of Soledade,
Paraíba State, NE Brazil. Ethnobotanical information was collected using semi-structured interviews with more than 90% of
the local households (55 adult residents; 31 women, and 24 males). The interviewees cited 36 plant species as fuelwoods, distributed
among 30 genera and 15 families, in addition to two unidentified plants. The plant families represented by the largest numbers
of species were Euphorbiaceae, Anacardiaceae, Mimosaceae, Caesalpiniaceae, Sapotaceae, and Fabaceae. The species Caesalpinia pyramidalis Tul. (“catingueira”) was cited with the greatest frequency in all three communities. Within the communities we found significant
differences on the number of plants cited and actually used (p < 0.05), indicating that the residents knew more fuelwood species than they effectively harvest. The different distances
from the communities to the urban centers were not related to differences on the use or the size of the stocks of fuelwood.
Additionally, the study revealed that the communities examined still maintain a significant knowledge of the use of energy-providing
plants in spite of the widespread use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue. 相似文献
Environment, Development and Sustainability - Taxes often face public opposition, which hinders their implementation since people envision them as costs without a return. Taxes on emissions are one... 相似文献
Like many conservation organizations and federal and state agencies, The Nature Conservancy is in the process of large-scale planning and prioritization efforts. To improve the efficiency of these planning efforts, the Conservancy has developed a methodology for these efforts. The results of these planning efforts will be a conservation blueprint which identifies the conservation areas necessary for conserving biodiversity and a subset of those areas where the Conservancy will focus its immediate efforts over the next 10 years. The subset of all the conservation areas identified in the planning process help The Nature Conservancy determine where it will work. This subset of areas (referred to as action sites) is selected using a tool which ranks key criteria for each conservation area. These criteria include the current conservation status of each area, complementarity to other areas selected, the diversity and viability of targets at the area, the urgency and degree of threats to the targets, the feasibility or opportunity to abate the threats at the area and the leverage potential of working at a conservation area. Taken together, these criteria help planners to select the areas where they will focus their conservation efforts. 相似文献
Food and Environmental Virology - Enteric viruses have been described as important contaminants in fresh and ready-to-eat foods such as sandwiches, deli meat and dairy products. This is a... 相似文献
Climate change is a global phenomenon that affects biophysical systems and human well-being. The Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change entered into force in 2016 with the objective of strengthening the global response to climate change by keeping global temperature rise this century well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 °C. The agreement requires all Parties to submit their “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) and to strengthen these efforts in the years ahead. Reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is an important strategy for mitigating climate change, particularly in developing countries with large forests. Extensive tropical forest loss and degradation have increased awareness at the international level of the need to undertake large-scale ecological restoration, highlighting the need to identify cases in which restoration strategies can contribute to mitigation and adaptation. Here we consider Brazil as a case study to evaluate the benefits and challenges of implementing large-scale restoration programs in developing countries. The Brazilian NDC included the target of restoring and reforesting 12 million hectares of forests for multiple uses by 2030. Restoration of native vegetation is one of the foundations of sustainable rural development in Brazil and should consider multiple purposes, from biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation to social and economic development. However, ecological restoration still presents substantial challenges for tropical and mega-diverse countries, including the need to develop plans that are technically and financially feasible, as well as public policies and monitoring instruments that can assess effectiveness. The planning, execution, and monitoring of restoration efforts strongly depend on the context and the diagnosis of the area with respect to reference ecosystems (e.g., forests, savannas, grasslands, wetlands). In addition, poor integration of climate change policies at the national and subnational levels and with other sectorial policies constrains the large-scale implementation of restoration programs. The case of Brazil shows that slowing deforestation is possible; however, this analysis highlights the need for increased national commitment and international support for actions that require large-scale transformations of the forest sector regarding ecosystem restoration efforts. Scaling up the ambitions and actions of the Paris Agreement implies the need for a global framework that recognizes landscape restoration as a cost-effective nature-based solution and that supports countries in addressing their remaining needs, challenges, and barriers.
Although pesticide regulatory tools are mainly based on individual substances, aquatic ecosystems are usually exposed to multiple pesticides from their use on the variety of crops within the catchment of a river. This study estimated the impact of measured pesticide mixtures in surface waters from 2002 and 2008 within three important Portuguese river basins (‘Mondego’, ‘Sado’ and ‘Tejo’) on primary producers, arthropods and fish by toxic pressure calculation. Species sensitivity distributions (SSDs), in combination with mixture toxicity models, were applied. Considering the differences in the responses of the taxonomic groups as well as in the pesticide exposures that these organisms experience, variable acute multi-substance potentially affected fractions (msPAFs) were obtained. The median msPAF for primary producers and arthropods in surface waters of all river basins exceeded 5%, the cut-off value used in the prospective SSD approach for deriving individual environmental quality standards. A ranking procedure identified various photosystem II inhibiting herbicides, with oxadiazon having the relatively largest toxic effects on primary producers, while the organophosphorus insecticides, chlorfenvinphos and chlorpyrifos, and the organochloride endosulfan had the largest effects on arthropods and fish, respectively. These results ensure compliance with European legislation with regard to ecological risk assessment and management of pesticides in surface waters. 相似文献