Search results for "611"
showing 10 items of 259 documents
The (de)politicisation of nuclear power: The Finnish discussion after Fukushima
2017
When the Fukushima accident occurred in March 2011, Finland was at the height of a nuclear renaissance, with the Government’s decision-in-principle in 2010 to allow construction of two new nuclear reactors. This article examines the nuclear power debate in Finland after Fukushima. We deploy the concepts of (de)politicisation and hyperpoliticisation in the analysis of articles in the country’s main newspaper. Our analysis indicates that Finnish nuclear exceptionalism manifested in the safety-related depoliticising and the nation’s prosperity-related hyperpoliticisation arguments of the pro-nuclear camp. The anti-nuclear camp used politicisation strategies, such as economic arguments, to sho…
Accounting for preferential sampling in species distribution models
2019
D. C., A. L. Q. and F. M. would like to thank the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) for financial support (jointly financed by the European Regional Development Fund) via Research Grants MTM2013‐42323‐P and MTM2016‐77501‐P, and ACOMP/2015/202 from Generalitat Valenciana (Spain). Species distribution models (SDMs) are now being widely used in ecology for management and conservation purposes across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine realms. The increasing interest in SDMs has drawn the attention of ecologists to spatial models and, in particular, to geostatistical models, which are used to associate observations of species occurrence or abundance with environmental covariates in a fi…
New national and regional Annex I Habitat records: from #21 to #25
2021
New Italian data on the distribution of the Annex I Habitats 3170*, 6110*, 91E0*, 9320, 9330 are reported in this contribution. Specifically, one new occurrence in Natura 2000 sites is presented and six new cells are added in the European Environment Agency 10 km × 10 km reference grid. The new data refer to the Italian administrative regions of Sardinia, Sicily and Umbria.
Long-term mineral fertiliser use and maize residue incorporation do not compensate for carbon and nutrient losses from a Ferralsol under continuous m…
2015
9 pages; International audience; It has been repeatedly argued that mineral fertiliser application combined with in situ retention of crop residue biomass can sustain long-term productivity of West African soils. Using 20-year experimental data from southern Togo, a biannual rainfall area, we analysed the effect of two rates of mineral NPK fertiliser application to maize–cotton rotation on the long-term dynamics of soil C and nutrient contents, as compared with two control treatments. Mineral fertiliser treatments consisted of application to both maize (first season) and cotton (second season) the research-recommended NPK rates (Fertiliser-RR) and 1.5 times these rates (Fertiliser-1.5 RR). …
Vegetation structure and greenness in Central Africa from Modis multi-temporal data.
2013
African forests within the Congo Basin are generally mapped at regional scale as broad-leaved evergreen forests, with a main distinction between terra-firme and swamp forests types. At the same time, commercial forest inventories, as well as national maps, have highlighted a strong spatial heterogeneity of forest types. A detailed vegetation map generated using consistent methods is needed to inform decision makers about spatial forest organisation and theirs relationships with environmental drivers in the context of global change. We propose a multi-temporal remotely sensed data approach to characterize vegetation types using vegetation index annual profiles. The classifications identified…
Fishery-dependent and -independent data lead to consistent estimations of essential habitats
2016
AbstractSpecies mapping is an essential tool for conservation programmes as it provides clear pictures of the distribution of marine resources. However, in fishery ecology, the amount of objective scientific information is limited and data may not always be directly comparable. Information about the distribution of marine species can be derived from two main sources: fishery-independent data (scientific surveys at sea) and fishery-dependent data (collection and sampling by observers in commercial vessels). The aim of this paper is to compare whether these two different sources produce similar, complementary, or different results. We compare them in the specific context of identifying the Es…
Modelling sensitive elasmobranchs habitat
2013
Basic information on the distribution and habitat preferences of ecologically important species is essential for their management and protection. In the Mediterranean Sea there is increasing concern over elasmobranch species because their biological (ecological) characteristics make them highly vulnerable to fishing pressure. Their removal could affect the structure and function of marine ecosystems, inducing changes in trophic interactions at the community level due to the selective elimination of predators or prey species, competitors and species replacement. In this study Bayesian hierarchical spatial models are used to map the sensitive habitats of the three most caught elasmobranch spe…
Transcriptome analysis revealed that a quorum sensing system regulates the transfer of the pAt megaplasmid in Agrobacterium tumefaciens.
2016
Background Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain P4 is atypical, as the strain is not pathogenic and produces a for this species unusual quorum sensing signal, identified as N-(3-hydroxy-octanoyl)-homoserine lactone (3OH,C8-HSL). Results By sequence analysis and cloning, a functional luxI-like gene, named cinI, has been identified on the At plasmid of A. tumefaciens strain P4. Insertion mutagenesis in the cinI gene and transcriptome analyses permitted the identification of 32 cinI-regulated genes in this strain, most of them encoding proteins responsible for the conjugative transfer of pAtP4. Among these genes were the avhB genes that encode a type 4 secretion system (T4SS) involved in the forma…
Empiricism and Relationism Intertwined: Hume and Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity
2016
Einstein acknowledged that his reading of Hume influenced the development of his special theory of relativity. In this article, I juxtapose Hume’s philosophy with Einstein’s philosophical analysis related to his special relativity. I argue that there are two common points to be found in their writings, namely an empiricist theory of ideas and concepts, and a relationist ontology regarding space and time. The main thesis of this article is that these two points are intertwined in Hume and Einstein.
New national and regional Annex I Habitat records: from #60 to #82
2023
New Italian data on the distribution of the Annex I Habitats are reported in this contribution. Specifically, 8 new occurrences in Natura 2000 sites are presented and 49 new cells are added in the EEA 10 km × 10 km reference grid. The new data refer to the Italian administrative regions of Campania, Calabria, Marche, Piedmont, Sardinia, Sicily, Tuscany and Umbria. Relevés and figures are provided as Supplementary material respectively 1 and 2.