31,073 research outputs found
Non-governmental organizations and multi-sited marine conservation science: A case study
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now major players in the realm of environmental conservation. While
many environmental NGOs started as national organizations focused around single-species protection, governmental
advocacy, and preservation of wilderness, the largest now produce applied conservation science and work with
national and international stakeholders to develop conservation solutions that work in tandem with local aspirations.
Marine managed areas (MMAs) are increasingly being used as a tool to manage anthropogenic stressors on marine
resources and protect marine biodiversity. However, the science of MMA is far from complete. Conservation
International (CI) is concluding a 5 year, $12.5 million dollar Marine Management Area Science (MMAS) initiative.
There are 45 scientific projects recently completed, with four main “nodes” of research and conservation work:
Panama, Fiji, Brazil, and Belize. Research projects have included MMA ecological monitoring, socioeconomic
monitoring, cultural roles monitoring, economic valuation studies, and others. MMAS has the goals of conducting
marine management area research, building local capacity, and using the results of the research to promote marine
conservation policy outcomes at project sites.
How science is translated into policy action is a major area of interest for science and technology scholars (Cash and Clark 2001; Haas 2004; Jasanoff et al. 2002). For science to move policy there must be work across “boundaries” (Jasanoff 1987). Boundaries are defined as the “socially constructed and negotiated borders between science and policy, between disciplines, across nations, and across multiple levels” (Cash et al. 2001). Working across the science-policy boundary requires boundary organizations (Guston 1999) with accountability to both sides of the boundary, among other attributes. (Guston 1999; Clark et al. 2002).
This paper provides a unique case study illustrating how there are clear advantages to collaborative science. Through
the MMAS initiative, CI built accountability into both sides of the science-policy boundary primarily through
having scientific projects fed through strong in-country partners and being folded into the work of ongoing
conservation processes. This collaborative, boundary-spanning approach led to many advantages, including cost
sharing, increased local responsiveness and input, better local capacity building, and laying a foundation for future
conservation outcomes. As such, MMAS can provide strong lessons for other organizations planning to get involved
in multi-site conservation science. (PDF contains 3 pages
Quantum Belief Propagation
We present an accurate numerical algorithm, called quantum belief propagation
(QBP), for simulation of one-dimensional quantum systems at non-zero
temperature. The algorithm exploits the fact that quantum effects are
short-range in these systems at non-zero temperature, decaying on a length
scale inversely proportional to the temperature. We compare to exact results on
a spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain. Even a very modest calculation, requiring
diagonalizing only 10-by-10 matrices, reproduces the peak susceptibility with a
relative error of less than , while more elaborate calculations
further reduce the error.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; revised time estimates due to improved
implementation. Typographical corrections to Eq. 7 made; thanks to David
Poulin for pointing out the mistak
The global human security index: Can disaggregations help us to forge progress?
A Human Security Index (HIS) enumerating 200 countries was introduced in 2008. A community-level HSI is under development in the USA. Coastal communities face large disparities in components of human security. How can a HSI support improved policies/services (such as environmental or public health forecasts or warnings) for improving lives? Several issues are discussed. (PDF contains 4 pages
Lieb-Robinson Bounds and the Exponential Clustering Theorem
We give a Lieb-Robinson bound for the group velocity of a large class of
discrete quantum systems which can be used to prove that a non-vanishing
spectral gap implies exponential clustering in the ground state of such
systems.Comment: v2: corrected proof of Theorem 2. v3: slightly better bound in
Theorem 2; updated proo
Decay of Correlations in Fermi Systems at Non-zero Temperature
The locality of correlation functions is considered for Fermi systems at
non-zero temperature. We show that for all short-range, lattice Hamiltonians,
the correlation function of any two fermionic operators decays exponentially
with a correlation length which is of order the inverse temperature for small
temperature. We discuss applications to numerical simulation of quantum systems
at non-zero temperature.Comment: 3 pages, 0 figure
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