Increasing crop richness and reducing field sizes provide higher yields to pollinator-dependent crops

Agricultural landscapes cover >60% of terrestrial landscapes. While biodiversity conservation and crop productivity have been seen as mutually exclusive options for a long time, recent research suggests that agricultural landscapes represent significant opportunities for biodiversity conservation outside of traditional protected areas. Here, we use a unique dataset that includes annual monitoring of 12,300 permanent 25-ha plots over two decades across Spain to assess how agricultural landscapes are changing over time. We focus particularly on landscape composition and configuration variables such as the diversity of crops grown within a landscape, average plot size or the cover of natural habitats and assess how changes to these variables affect the ability of agricultural landscapes to ensure high yields. We find potential synergistic strategies that are good for biodiversity conservation and can also lead to increasing crop yields. Specifically, we find that management practices that favour increasing biodiversity values such as maintaining small field sizes and high crop richness values at the landscape scale actually led to the greatest average yield values across 54 crops, 41% of which depend on pollinator activity for reproduction. Policy implications: While our analysis does not factor in economic costs and benefits, we show that synergy scenarios that are good for biodiversity conservation and crop productivity are possible, yet not as widespread as they could be. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Applied Ecology © 2022 British Ecological Society.We thank Sergio Mancheño Losa from the Spanish Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Ali‐mentación for his support in providing the data used in this paper and to all the staff members that made ESYRCE database possible. A.M. received funding from an Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science Research Fellowship. Research was also supported by the Spanish State Research Agency through Maria de Maeztu Excellence Unit accreditation (MDM‐2017‐0714) and the Basque Government BERC Programme. We appreciate funding from BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals (under the BiodivScen ERA‐Net COFUND programme and with the funding organizations AEI, NWO, ECCyT and NSF)

Commissioning through Competition and Cooperation. Interim Report

Policy background A wide ranging set of reforms is being introduced into the English NHS. The reforms are designed to increase the market-like behaviour of providers of care with a view to improving efficiency, quality and responsiveness of services (DH, 2005; Health and Social Care Act, 2012; ‘HSCA 2012’) and they span the New Labour government and current Coalition government regimes. The idea behind these reforms is that competition between a wider range of providers will produce the desired results such as improved quality and greater efficiency. At the same time, it is still necessary for providers of care to cooperate with each other in order to deliver high quality care. There are many aspects of care quality where cooperation is needed, such as continuity of care as patients move between organisations, and sharing of knowledge between clinicians. Documents such as the Principles and rules for cooperation and competition (DH, 2010) (and more recently, HSCA 2012) explained how the NHS was required to deal with competition and cooperation simultaneously. The principles included the requirement for ‘providers and commissioners to cooperate to deliver seamless and sustainable care to patients’ (principle 4), while also prohibiting commissioners and providers from reaching ‘agreements which restrict commissioner or patient choice against patients’ or taxpayers’ interests’ (principle 6). Similar principles are enshrined in the HSCA 2012, as supplemented by guidance issued by Monitor. Moreover, a Statutory Instrument was issued under the HSCA 2012 which set out the rules governing procurement of health services by NHS commissioners , indicating that competitive procurement is to be preferred (The National Health Service Procurement Patient Choice and Competition No 2 Regulations 2013). A national panel was established to interpret the principles (the Cooperation and Competition Panel, CCP) and advise the NHS on what behaviours were acceptable. Under the HSCA 2012, Monitor (as the new economic regulator) took over some of the functions of the CCP and along with the national competition authorities (being, since April 2014 the Competition and Markets Authority, and prior to that, The Office of Fair Trading, OFT, and the Competition Commission (CC) has powers to enforce competition law to prevent anti-competitive behaviour. At the same time Monitor is also responsible for promoting co-operation. HSCA 2012, section 66 (2) (e) states that Monitor must have regard to ‘the desirability of persons who provide health care services for the purposes of the NHS co-operating with each other in order to improve the quality of health care services provided for those purposes’. It is the role of NHS commissioners (including Clinical Commissioning Groups ‘CCGs’), however, to ensure that the appropriate levels of competition and cooperation exist in their local health economies (HSCA, 2012). Need for research While studies have noted that incentives for competition and cooperation exist in healthcare (Goddard and Mannion, 1998; Kurunmaki 1999), few have researched the interaction between the two. Although there is research about the effects of competition in the NHS reforms introduced by New Labour (e.g. Cooper et al, 2010; Gaynor et al, 2011), there remains a need to investigate the way in which local health systems are managed to ensure that cooperative behaviour is appropriately coexisting with competition. Some specific forms of cooperation have been evaluated 5 (such as integrated care organisations, DH 2009, and clinical networks, e.g. Ferlie et al, 2010), but it does not appear that the general manner in which local health systems are being managed to balance competition and cooperation under the current reforms is being investigated. Study of commissioning through competition and cooperation For this reason, PRUComm is undertaking a project to investigate how commissioners in local health systems manage the interplay of competition and cooperation in their local health economies, looking at acute and community health services (CHS). The research questions are: How do commissioners and the organisations they commission from understand the policy and regulatory environment, including incentives for competition and co-operation? In the current environment, which encourages both competition and cooperation, how do commissioning organisations and providers approach their relationships with each other in order to undertake the planning and delivery of care for patients? In particular, how do commissioning organisations use or shape the local provider environment to secure high quality care for patients? This entails examining how CCGs’ commissioning strategies take account of the local configuration of providers and the degree to which they seek to use or enhance competition and/or encourage cooperation to improve services. This interim report deals with the first research question concerning commissioners’ and providers’ respective understandings of the policy and regulatory environment in which they operate

Self-energy and Self-force in the Space-time of a Thick Cosmic String

We calculate the self-energy and self-force for an electrically charged particle at rest in the background of Gott-Hiscock cosmic string space-time. We found the general expression for the self-energy which is expressed in terms of the $S$ matrix of the scattering problem. The self-energy continuously falls down outward from the string's center with maximum at the origin of the string. The self-force is repulsive for an arbitrary position of the particle. It tends to zero in the string's center and also far from the string and it has a maximum value at the string's surface. The plots of the numerical calculations of the self-energy and self-force are shown.Comment: 15 pages, 4 Postscript figures, ReVTe

Mammals from British Columbia

p. 161-168 ; 24 cm.Includes bibliographical references

Vortices and extreme black holes: the question of flux expulsion

It has been claimed that extreme black holes exhibit a phenomenon of flux expulsion for abelian Higgs vortices, irrespective of the relative width of the vortex to the black hole. Recent work by two of the authors showed a subtlety in the treatment of the event horizon, which cast doubt on this claim. We analyse in detail the vortex/extreme black hole system, showing that while flux expulsion can occur, it does not do so in all cases. We give analytic proofs for both expulsion and penetration of flux, in each case deriving a bound for that behaviour. We also present extensive numerical work backing up, and refining, these claims, and showing in detail how a vortex can end on a black hole in all situations. We also calculate the backreaction of the vortex on the geometry, and comment on the more general vortex-black hole system.Comment: 28 pages revtex, 10 figures, minor changes, reference adde

Averaged Methods for Vortex-String Evolution

We discuss friction-dominated vortex-string evolution using a new analytic model recently developed by the authors. By treating the average string velocity, as well as the characteristic lengthscale, as dynamical variables, we can provide a quantitative picture of the complete evolution of a vortex-string network. Previously known scaling laws are confirmed, and new quantitative predictions regarding loop production and evolution are made.Comment: REVTeX, 21 pages, 23 .eps files included. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Minor changes---but some key concepts clarifie

Problems and Aspects of Energy-Driven Wavefunction Collapse Models

Four problematic circumstances are considered, involving models which describe dynamical wavefunction collapse toward energy eigenstates, for which it is shown that wavefunction collapse of macroscopic objects does not work properly. In one case, a common particle position measuring situation, the apparatus evolves to a superposition of macroscopically distinguishable states (does not collapse to one of them as it should) because each such particle/apparatus/environment state has precisely the same energy spectrum. Second, assuming an experiment takes place involving collapse to one of two possible outcomes which is permanently recorded, it is shown in general that this can only happen in the unlikely case that the two apparatus states corresponding to the two outcomes have disjoint energy spectra. Next, the progressive narrowing of the energy spectrum due to the collapse mechanism is considered. This has the effect of broadening the time evolution of objects as the universe evolves. Two examples, one involving a precessing spin, the other involving creation of an excited state followed by its decay, are presented in the form of paradoxes. In both examples, the microscopic behavior predicted by standard quantum theory is significantly altered under energy-driven collapse, but this alteration is not observed by an apparatus when it is included in the quantum description. The resolution involves recognition that the statevector describing the apparatus does not collapse, but evolves to a superposition of macroscopically different states.Comment: 17 page

Dynamical Stability of Witten Rings

The dynamical stability of cosmic rings, or vortons, is investigated for the particular equation of state given by the Witten bosonic model. It is found that there exists a finite range of the state parameter for which the vorton states are actually stable against dynamical perturbations. Inclusion of the electromagnetic self action into the equation of state slightly shrinks the stability region but otherwise yields no qualitative difference. If the Witten bosonic model represents a good approximation for more realistic string models, then the cosmological vorton excess problem can only be solved by assuming either that strings are formed at low energy scales or that some quantum instability may develop at a sufficient rate.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX-ReVTeX (v.3), 2 figures available upon request, DAMTP R-94/1

2,4-Dithiouracil: the reproducible H-bonded structural motifs in the complexes with 18-membered crown ethers

[[abstract]]2,4-Dithiouracil (DTU) forms in the crystals the H-bonded monohydrates of a 1 : 1 : 1 ratio with 18-crown-6 (18C6) 1, cis,syn,cis-isomer of dicyclohexano-18-crown-6 (DCH6A) 2, and benzo-18-crown-6 (B18C6) 3, while the anhydrous adduct with cis,anti,cis-isomer of dicyclohexano-18-crown-6 (DCH6B) 4 is of a 2 : 1 ratio. In 1–3 the components reproducibly alternate in the chains, while in 4 the chains are built of the alternative centrosymmetric dimers of 2,4-dithiouracil and the molecules of the cis,anti,cis-isomer of dicyclohexano-18-crown-6.[[journaltype]]國外[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子版[[countrycodes]]GB