Search results for "Ecos"
showing 10 items of 1898 documents
Statistical upscaling of ecosystem CO2 fluxes across the terrestrial tundra and boreal domain: Regional patterns and uncertainties
2021
The regional variability in tundra and boreal carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes can be high, complicating efforts to quantify sink-source patterns across the entire region. Statistical models are increasingly used to predict (i.e., upscale) CO2 fluxes across large spatial domains, but the reliability of different modeling techniques, each with different specifications and assumptions, has not been assessed in detail. Here, we compile eddy covariance and chamber measurements of annual and growing season CO2 fluxes of gross primary productivity (GPP), ecosystem respiration (ER), and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) during 1990–2015 from 148 terrestrial high-latitude (i.e., tundra and boreal) sites to a…
Water-use efficiency and transpiration across European forests during the Anthropocene
2015
Considering the combined effects of CO2 fertilization and climate change drivers on plant physiology leads to a modest increase in simulated European forest transpiration in spite of the effects of CO2-induced stomatal closure. The Earth’s carbon and hydrologic cycles are intimately coupled by gas exchange through plant stomata1,2,3. However, uncertainties in the magnitude4,5,6 and consequences7,8 of the physiological responses9,10 of plants to elevated CO2 in natural environments hinders modelling of terrestrial water cycling and carbon storage11. Here we use annually resolved long-term δ13C tree-ring measurements across a European forest network to reconstruct the physiologically driven r…
The green granary of the Empire? Insights into olive agroforestry in Sicily (Italy) from the Roman past and the present
2023
Groves with ancient olive trees (Olea europaea L.) could be considered remnants of old agroforestry systems. Anything but static, these agro-ecosystems have undergone drastic transformational processes in Mediterranean countries, where abandonment or intensification have been observed far more than continuity, expansion or renaissance, leading to environmental degradation of rural areas. Starting from this assumption and inspired by historical ecology and historical geography, we consider centuries-old olive trees as living archives of human-nature interactions and are thus proxies of past agroforestry. Our aim is to better understand what has driven dynamics of change and persistence, happ…
Revision of Recent and fossil Mixtacandona Klie 1938 (Ostracoda, Candonidae) from Italy, with description of a new species
2017
Although studies on ostracods dwelling in inland subterranean habitats of Italy have increased in the last decades, highlighting a considerable taxonomic diversity, available information is still far from sufficient to understand phylogenetic and biogeographic relationships. Mixtacandona Klie 1938 is one of the most common and diverse genera of ostracods in subterranean waters. Of the 20 living recognized species in the genus, all stygobiontic and restricted to the Palearctic Region, four are known for the Italian peninsula and Sardinia, one of which exclusively as fossil. Several other Recent and fossil taxa attributable to Mixtacandona, but identified at supraspecific level, have been rep…
Robots responding to care needs? : A multitasking care robot pursued for 25 years, available products offer simple entertainment and instrumental ass…
2020
Twenty-five years ago, robotics guru Joseph Engelberger had a mission to motivate research teams all over the world to design the ‘Elderly Care Giver’, a multitasking personal robot assistant for everyday care needs in old age. In this article, we discuss how this vision of omnipotent care robots has influenced the design strategies of care robotics, the development of R&D initiatives and ethics research on use of care robots. Despite the expectations of robots revolutionizing care of older people, the role of robots in human care has remained marginal. The value of world trade in service robots, including care robots, is rather small. We argue that the implementation of robots in care is n…
Innovative and Applied Research in Biology: Proceedings, Vol. 3/2021
2021
The collection contains SCIENTIFIC articles on the topics of the LU 79 conference reports. The main focus is on innovative and applied research in biology and interdisciplinary fields.
Human Rights–Based Social Work and the Natural Environment: Time for New Perspectives
2023
AbstractThe natural environment and sustainability play an increasingly important role in social work as a discipline and profession. This is often described as the ecosocial paradigm. Even though the paradigm shares important ethical foundations with human rights–based social work, the connection between both is rarely examined in social work scholarship. This article addresses the gap by asking the following questions: How is the ecosocial paradigm linked to the human rights discourse in social work? What is the environmental dimension of human rights, and what implications does it have for social work? How can a human rights–based social work encompass the environmental dimension? In res…
Characteristics and Actors of Impact Investing Ecosystem from the Perspective of Technology Startups
2023
Interest in impact investing within technology startup industry is in-creasing. Regardless of the growing interest in impact investing, there is a significant deficiency in research considering practice of impact investing in the field of technology. Also, technology startup perspective on impact investing ecosystem research is novel research stream which and the existing research on topic is very limited. Ecosystem paradigm is widely adopted in economics and management research and adopting it in impact investing research could increase the comprehension of the phenomenon. Again, it may result in better business decisions among startup company management and foster impact investments alloc…
Improving soil and water conservation and ecosystem services by sustainable soil management practices: From a global to an Italian soil partnership
2020
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identify the need to restore degraded soils in order to improve productivity and the provision of ecosystem services. The aim is to support food production, store and supply clean water, conserve biodiversity, sequester carbon, and improve soil resilience in a context of climate change. Within this framework, in order to achieve the SDGs and to correct land management in the long-term, soil management is considered mandatory. The reduction of land degradation should be based on various sustainable soil management practices that improve and maintain soil organic matter levels, increase water infiltration, and improve soil water management. This tec…
A quantitative insight into the impact and performance of seed accelerators and their accelerated start-ups
2020
El tema de investigación de esta tesis es el estudio de las aceleradoras de emprendimiento (AE), consideradas la nueva generación de incubadora de empresas (Bøllingtoft, 2012). Tanto las incubadoras como las aceleradoras permiten a las empresas jóvenes comenzar su actividad a través de un proceso de aprendizaje, consultoría e inversión, con el objetivo de aumentar sus posibilidades de supervivencia y crecimiento en el mercado durante sus primeros meses de vida (Cohen y Hochberg, 2014). El número de AE ha aumentado drásticamente desde la primera Aceleradora conocida en 2005 (Y Combinator), hasta un estimado de más de 3.000 AE en todo el mundo (Hochberg, 2016). Europa en particular, experimen…