5,849 research outputs found
Revisão taxonómica do género Calendula L. (Asteraceae - Calenduleae) na PenÃnsula Ibérica e Marrocos
The genus Calendula L. (Asteraceae - Calenduleae) includes, depending on the author, 10 to 25 species, distributed mainly in the Mediterranean basin. The taxonomy of this genus is considered to be extremely difficult, due to a great morphological variability, doubtfull relevance of some of the characters used to distinguish its species (e.g. the life form: annual or perennial; the habit: erect or diffuse, shape of the leaves, indumentum, relative size of the capitula and colour of disc or ray florets, achene morphology), but also due to the hybridization and polyploidization. Despite the numerous studies that have been published, no agreement on the classification and characters used to discriminate between taxa has been reached. A taxonomic study of the genus Calendula was conducted for the Iberian Peninsula and Morocco, aiming at (1) access the morphological variability between and within taxa, (2) confirm the chromosome numbers, (3) increase the nuclear DNA content estimations, (4) re-evaluate taxa delimitations and circumscription, and (5) reassess, and redefine, the
descriptions and characters useful to distinguish taxa. In order to achieve a satisfying taxonomic core, extensive fieldwork, detailed morphometric analysis,
chorological, karyological and genome size studies were conducted. For the Iberian Peninsula, four species were recognized, including nine subspecies (between these two new subspecies were described). For Morocco, including some taxa from Algeria and Tunisia 13 species were recognized (two new species and a nomenclatural change), including 15 subspecies (among these eight new subspecies were described). To corroborate the results obtained and to evaluate the evolutionary relationships among taxa, phylogenetic studies using molecular methods, such as ITS, microsatellites or other molecular markers, should be used.O género Calendula L. (Asteraceae - Calenduleae) inclui, dependendo do autor, 10 a 25 espécies, distribuÃdas essencialmente na bacia do Mediterrâneo. A taxonomia deste género é considerada extremamente difÃcil, devido à grande variabilidade morfológica, discutivel relevância de alguns dos caracteres utilizados para distinguir suas espécies (por exemplo, a forma de vida: anual ou perene, o hábito: erecto ou difuso, a forma das folhas, o indumento, o tamanho e a cor dos capÃtulos e a morfologia dos aquénios), mas também devido Ã
hibridização e poliploidização. Apesar dos inúmeros estudos que foram publicados, não foi alcançado um acordo sobre a classificação e os caracteres utilizados para discriminar as suas espécies. Um estudo taxonómico do género Calendula foi realizado para a PenÃnsula Ibérica e Marrocos, com o objectivo de (1) verificar a variabilidade morfológica, (2) confirmar o número de cromossomas, (3) aumentar as estimativas de conteúdo em ADN, (4) reavaliar a delimitação e a circunscrição dos taxa, e (5) reavaliar e redefinir as descrições e caracteres úteis para os distinguir. Para alcançar uma robustês taxonómica satisfatória, foram realizados extensos trabalhos de campo, análise morfométrica detalhada, abordagens corológicas, cariológicas e quanto ao conteúdo em ADN. Para a PenÃnsula Ibérica, quatro espécies foram reconhecidas, incluindo nove subespécies (entre essas duas novas subespécies foram descritas). Para Marrocos, incluindo alguns taxa da Argelia e Tunisia, foram reconhecidas 13 espécies (duas novas e uma mudança nomenclatural), incluindo 15 subespécies (entre essas oito novas subespécies foram descritas). Para corroborar os resultados obtidos e avaliar as relações evolutivas e filogenéticas entre os taxa, estudos que utilizem diferentes métodos
moleculares, tais como ITS, microsatélites ou outros marcadores moleculares, devem ser utilizados.Apoio financeiro do Laboratório Associado CESAM - Centro de Estudos do Ambiente e do Mar (AMB/50017) financiado por fundos nacionais através da FCT/MCTES e cofinanciado pelo FEDER (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007638), no âmbito do Acordo de Parceria PT2020, e Compete 2020Programa Doutoral em Biologi
Towards a sociology of conspiracy theories: An investigation into conspiratorial thinking on Dönmes
This thesis investigates the social and political significance of conspiracy theories, which has been an academically neglected topic despite its historical relevance. The academic literature focuses on the methodology, social significance and political impacts of these theories in a secluded manner and lacks empirical analyses. In response, this research provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for conspiracy theories by considering their methodology, political impacts and social significance in the light of empirical data. Theoretically, the thesis uses Adorno's semi-erudition theory along with Girardian approach. It proposes that conspiracy theories are methodologically semi-erudite narratives, i.e. they are biased in favour of a belief and use reason only to prove it. It suggests that conspiracy theories appear in times of power vacuum and provide semi-erudite cognitive maps that relieve alienation and ontological insecurities of people and groups. In so doing, they enforce social control over their audience due to their essentialist, closed-to-interpretation narratives. In order to verify the theory, the study analyses empirically the social and political significance of conspiracy theories about the Dönme community in Turkey. The analysis comprises interviews with conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory readers and political parties, alongside a frame analysis of the popular conspiracy theory books on Dönmes. These confirm the theoretical framework by showing that the conspiracy theories are fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish society. Hence, conspiracy theorists, most readers and some political parties respond to their own ontological insecurities and political frustrations through scapegoating Dönmes. Consequently, this work shows that conspiracy theories are important symptoms of society, which, while relieving ontological insecurities, do not provide politically prolific narratives
Cooking the wild: the role of the Lundayeh of the Ulu Padas, (Sabah, Malaysia) in managing forest foods and shaping the landscape
This thesis provides an account of the Lundayeh subsistence system as found in the villages of Long Pasia and Long Mio, situated in the Ulu Padas, Sabah. The research focuses on Lundayeh food and diet, describing the diversity of resources used and the importance of forest foods. Comparison with studies from elsewhere in Borneo suggests that there are many similarities between Lundayeh practices and those of other highland peoples. These data are used to critically examine the concepts of 'wild' and 'wilderness', considering whether these concepts are meaningful, either analytically or for the Lundayeh. Investigation of the way in which the Lundayeh manipulate and manage their resources suggests that they have had a profound influence on their environment. Consequently, the Ulu Padas cannot be described as a wilderness, nor its resources as wild. The extent to which the Lundayeh themselves construct the categories of 'wild' and 'cultivated' foods is investigated through examining how these resources are owned, and their different roles in the diet. These data suggest that the Lundayeh recognise that there is no simple dichotomy of 'wild' and 'cultivated', but rather, that there is a gradation between these two categories. There is also evidence to suggest that the Lundayeh do not consider any resources as wild, in the sense of being uninfluenced by people. The environmental perceptions of the Lundayeh are also investigated, and how these have been shaped by their particular way of life, history, beliefs and knowledge systems. It is apparent that for the Lundayeh, the Ulu Padas is a cultural landscape. However, this is changing, as a result of recent social and environmental changes. This thesis concludes by examining the impact of changing perceptions on how the Lundayeh are managing their environment, and on their attitudes towards conservation
B/order work: recomposing relations in the seamful carescapes of health and social care integration in Scotland
As people, ageing and living with disabilities, struggle with how care is enacted through their lives, integrated care has gained policy purchase in many places, especially in the United Kingdom. Accordingly, there have been various (re)forms of care configurations instigated, in particular, promoting partnership and service redesign. Despite integrations apparent popularity, its contribution to improved service delivery and outcomes for people has been questioned, exposing ongoing uncertainties about what it entails and its associated benefits. Nonetheless, over decades, a remarkably consistent approach to integrated care has advanced collaboration as a solution. Equally, any (re)configurations emerge through wider infrastructures of care, in what might be regarded as dis-integrated care, as complex carescapes attempt to hold and aporias remain.
In 2014, the Scottish Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act mandated Health and Social Care Integration (HSCI), as a means to mend fraying carescapes; a flagship policy epitomising public service reform in Scotland, in which normative aspirations of collaboration are central. What then are the accomplishments of this ambitious legislation? From the vantage point of 2021, HSCI has been assessed as slow and insubstantial, but this is not the complete picture. Narratives about failing to meet expectations obscure more complicated histories of cooperation and discord, successes and failures, and unintended consequences. Yet given collaborative ubiquity, if partnerships are contested how then are they practiced?
To answer this question, I embarked on an interorganisational ethnography of the enactment of a Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP), which went ‘live’ on April 1st, 2016; in a place I call ‘Kintra’. I interrogate what happened when several managers (from the NHS and Council) endeavoured to implement HSCI according to the precepts of the Act; working to both (re)configure and hold things together behind care frontiers; away from the bodywork of direct care, immersed in everyday arrangements in the spaces of governance and operations. I chart their efforts to comply with regulations, plan, and build governance apparatuses through documents. I explore through coalescent objects how distributed forms of governance, entwined in policy implementation, were subsequently both sustained, and challenged. I observed for seven months actors struggling to (re)configure care services embedded in a collaborative approach, as well as establish the legitimacy of the HSCP; exemplified through the fabrication of what was understood as a 'must-do' commissioning plan.
In tracing documents, I show the ways in which HSCI was simultaneously materialised and constituted through documentation. I reveal how, in the mundane mattering of document manufacturing, possibilities for (re)forming the carescape emerged. By delving into inconspicuous, ‘seamful’ b/order work that both sustained distinctions between the NHS and Council and enabled b/order crossings, I expose how actors were knotted, and how this shaped efforts to recompose the contours of the carescape.
While ‘Kintra’s story might be familiar, situated in concerns that may resonate across Scotland; I reveal how collaboration-as-practice is tangled in differing organisational practices, emerging from quotidian intra-actions in meeting rooms, offices, car parks and kitchenettes. I deploy a posthuman practice stance to show not only the way in which public administration ‘does’ care, but it’s world-making through a sociomaterial politics of anticipation.
I was told legislation was the only way to make HSCI in ‘Kintra’ happen, nevertheless, there was resistance to limit the breadth and depth of integrating. Consequently, I show how the (re)organising of b/orders was an always-ongoing act of maintenance and repair of a (dis)integrating carescape; as I learnt at the end of my fieldwork, ‘it’s ‘Kintra, ‘it’s aye been!
Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB) in a changing world : the case of S and W Iberian Bays
This thesis aimed to investigate, in two wide-open sheltered bays (Lisbon and Lagos) influenced by upwelling, how the meteorological and oceanographic (MetOc) setting may affect phytoplankton communities. Results of a 9-year time series data showed a high interannual variability of phytoplankton biomass, estimated as chlorophyll a (Chl-a). Nevertheless, the Chl-a sinusoidal model showed different temporal variability patterns in each bay: a uni-modal pattern with a short peak and low Chl-a concentrations in Lagos, and a weak bi-modal pattern with a long period of high Chl-a concentrations in Lisbon. Cross-correlation analyses performed for Chl-a and different MetOc variables indicated that PAR contributed most to Chl-a in winter/early-spring, while upwelling and SST were the main drivers in late-spring/summer. Analysis performed during 1-year showed significant spatial differences in phytoplankton assemblages between the bays. On a temporal scale, significant differences were observed on phytoplankton communities in both bays in the 4-meteorological seasons. However, results from a nearshore station studied in Lagos only indicated the occurrence of 3-biological seasons, with no significant differences between summer and autumn communities. This study suggests that Lagos region has a higher probability for the occurrence of HABs (in higher cell concentrations and persistence). The ecology of the benthic genus Ostreopsis was studied based on 7-years of water samples. Two species were identified reaching maximum cell densities in late-summer/early-autumn: Ostreopsis cf. ovata restricted to the south coast and Ostreopsis cf. siamensis present in both Portuguese coasts. Ostreopsis was much more abundant in Lagos (nearshore) and maxima concentrations were related to positive SST anomalies. High densities in the plankton were often recorded after a period of more than 2-weeks of low sea state, followed by short-time events of onshore wind and moderate waves. In Lisbon, O. cf. siamensis was seldom recorded in the plankton and no clear relationship could be established with the studied MetOc drivers. The recent records of Ostreopsis in this bay are interpreted as an early colonization stage of an invasion process. The present work highlights the relevance of the peculiarities of regional setting in determining phytoplankton dynamics in wide-open coastal bays influenced by upwelling, even at short latitudinal distance.Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera (MAR2020-P02M01-1490P)Centro de Ciências do Mar e do Ambiente da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (UIDB/04292/2020)Centro de Ciências do Mar da Universidade do Algarve (UID/Multi/04326/2020
Changing ideas about corporate social responsibility CSR and development in Context: The case of Mauritius
The idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has risen to prominence with remarkable rapidity in recent years. Although the literature on contemporary CSR has concentrated almost exclusively on advanced capitalist countries, CSR is increasingly being promoted in a developing country context as an important mechanism for furthering economic and social development goals. Yet, there is currently very limited research about whether contemporary CSR can in fact assist in development. This thesis seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge in this area. The first, theoretical, part of the thesis explores changing ideas about the nature of CSR, and argues that contemporary ideas of CSR are ameliorative in nature, marking a fundamental shift from the original, transformative, idea of the `socially responsible corporation', which emerged in the 1920s and 30s. The thesis also argues that with their emphasis on self-regulation and voluntarism, contemporary ideas about CSR are very much part and parcel of contemporary neo-liberal ideas about economic and social organisation. The second, empirical, part of the thesis seeks to investigate whether the model of CSR being deployed in the developing world is indeed a conservative one and, if so, whether this conservatism is likely to render it ineffectual. It explores how CSR is understood by its practitioners - company executives and other key players - in Mauritius, focusing on the impact of the concept on executive opinion by examining their rhetorical commitment to CSR as well as what that entailed in practice. The research suggests that executives in Mauritius tend to equate CSR with corporate philanthropy, which casts doubt on its ability to make a significant contribution to development. In light of the arguments developed in the thesis, one of its main conclusions is that a return to the earlier, more radical, conception of CSR is needed if CSR is really to make an important contribution to development
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Exploratory research on the adoption of composting for the management of biowaste in the Mediterranean island of Cyprus
Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Biowaste management is one of the biggest challenges for the European and Commonwealth small state of Cyprus, a Mediterranean island situated in the southeast corner of Europe. On the one hand, it is widely acknowledged that biowaste treatment processes such as composting should be adopted to divert biowaste from landfills, protect the environment, safeguard human health and well-being, and comply with the European environmental policies and legislation; on the other hand, national and local government efforts that promote its implementation appear to be lethargic preventing the move towards a sustainable bioeconomy. Using the political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal (PESTEL) approach, the study conceptually explores the underlying motives and multitude of reasons that may preclude the adoption of composting for biowaste management. Findings suggest that the lack of a biowaste management infrastructure investment strategy plan has derailed progress on biowaste management, despite the national government's rhetoric to promote sustainable development. Moreover, the lack of waste planning at the local level, public awareness on the consequences of biowaste mismanagement, and the lack of market demand for the compost produced are additional barriers to the adoption of composting. This emphasizes the urgent need for collaboration between the national and local governments to promote the development of a functional, sustainable biowaste management strategy. The study informs on the need of policy and decision-makers to prioritise the development of biowaste management strategy that would be broadly implemented could not only help Cyprus reduce its reliance on landfills and comply with the European legislation, but create environmental, economic and social value via the recovery of resources from biowaste and a sense of responsibility to its public. This is key to supporting the transition towards a circular bioeconomy.Brunel University London; Open University of Cyprus
Carbon Emission Performance and Regime Type – The Role of Inequality
Existing results about the impact of regime type on states’ environmental performance are inconclusive. We argue that this can stem from failure to allow for a factor that, thus far, has been largely overlooked – economic inequality. More equal democratic societies, we contend, are likely to make greater progress in dealing with environmental problems. However, inequality undermines those processes and characteristics of democratic polities that are supposed to further environmental protection. In contrast, inequality is unlikely to be of much importance in authoritarian states. We examine this argument using data on carbon emission performance for the post-1970 period. Our results provide strong and robust evidence that inequality moderates the influence of democracy on this aspect of environmental outcomes. Our research adds to the debate about regime type and environmental politics, addressing a major gap in the literature
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