1,568 research outputs found
Reading ecosystem services at the local scale through a territorial approach: The case of peri-urban agriculture in the thau Lagoon, Southern France
© 2015 by the author(s). In recent years, the ecosystem services (ES) concept has become a major paradigm for natural resource management. While policy-makers demand “hard” monetary evidence that nature conservation would be worth investing in, ongoing attempts are being made to formalize the concept as a scientifically robust “one size fits all” analytical framework. These attempts have highlighted several major limitations of the ES concept. First, to date, the concept has paid little attention to the role of humans in the production of ES. Second, the ongoing formalization of the ES concept is turning it into a “technology of globalization,” thereby increasingly ignoring the socio-cultural context and history within which ecosystems emerge. Third, economic valuation has been shown to limit local stakeholders in expressing their daily and immediate ways of interacting with their environment over and beyond extrinsic motivation provided by financial gains. We address these three limitations by analyzing a social evaluation of the roles of peri-urban farmland from a territorial perspective. Our case study is the Thau lagoon in southern France. We conducted in-depth interviews with a broad range of stakeholders and ran two participatory workshops. Using a territorial meta-model that distinguishes three levels— physical, logical, and existential—stakeholder data were analyzed to unravel the interplay of territorial elements at these three levels that gives rise to ES in two broad categories: food production and aesthetic landscape. The coupling of ES and territory concepts opens up several novel analytical perspectives. It allows partitioning of ES in a manner that “re-contextualizes” them and gives insight about both their physical constituents and their meaning at the territorial level. Additional research should incorporate the dynamics of service demand and supply, and further investigate options for implementation
Podolsky Electromagnetism at Finite Temperature: Implications on Stefan-Boltzmann Law
In this work we study Podolsky electromagnetism in thermodynamic equilibrium.
We show that a Podolsky mass-dependent modification to the Stefan-Boltzmann law
is induced and we use experimental data to limit the possible values for this
free parameter.Comment: 13 pages, submitted to Physical Review
Trimester-specific reference intervals for thyroid function parameters in pregnant Caucasian women using Roche platforms: a prospective study
Background: Standard thyroid function parameters reference intervals (RI) are unsuitable during pregnancy, potentially resulting in incongruous treatments that may cause adverse effects on pregnancy outcomes. We aimed at defining trimester-specific TSH, FT4 and FT3 RI, using samples longitudinally collected from healthy Caucasian women. Materials and methods: Blood samples from 150 healthy Caucasian women, who had a physiological gestation and a healthy newborn at term, were collected in each trimester and at around six months post-partum. They showed mild iodine deficiency. After excluding women with overt TSH abnormalities (> 10 mU/L) and/or TPO antibodies, data from 139 pregnant women were analyzed by means of widely used Roche platforms, and TSH, FT4 and FT3 trimester-specific RI were calculated. Post-partum data were available for 55 subjects. Results: Serum TSH RI were 0.34-3.81 mU/L in the first trimester, and changed slightly to 0.68-4.07 U/L and 0.63-4.00 mU/L in the second and third trimester, respectively. Conversely, both FT4 and FT3 concentrations progressively decreased during pregnancy, the median values in the third trimester being 14.8% and 13.2% lower, respectively, than in the first trimester. Thyroid function parameters in the first trimester were similar to those measured after the end of pregnancy. Conclusions: This study calculates trimester-specific RI for thyroid function parameters in pregnancy, and proposes the reference limits that should be adopted when using Roche platforms in Caucasian women
Static dipole polarizability of C70 fullerene
The electronic and vibrational contributions to the static dipole
polarizability of C70 fullerene are determined using the finite-field method
within the density functional formalism. Large polarized Gaussian basis sets
augmented with diffuse functions are used and the exchange-correlation effects
are described within the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof generalized gradient
approximation (PBE-GGA). The calculated polarizability of C70 is 103
Angstrom^3, in excellent agreement with the experimental value of 102
Angstrom^3, and is completely determined by the electronic part, vibrational
contribution being negligible. The ratio of polarizabilities of C70 and C60 is
1.26. The comparison of polarizability calculated with only local terms (LDA)
in the PBE functional to that obtained with PBE-GGA shows that LDA is
sufficient to determine the static dipole polarizability of C70.Comment: IOP style, 1 figur
Optical microrheology using rotating laser-trapped particles
We demonstrate an optical system that can apply and accurately measure the
torque exerted by the trapping beam on a rotating birefringent probe particle.
This allows the viscosity and surface effects within liquid media to be
measured quantitatively on a micron-size scale using a trapped rotating
spherical probe particle. We use the system to measure the viscosity inside a
prototype cellular structure.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. v2: bibliographic details, minor text correction
Projectile and target-Roper excitation in the p (d, d')X reaction
In this paper we compare a model that contains the mechanisms of
excitation in the projectile and Roper excitation in the target with
experimental data from two (d, d') experiments on a proton target. The
agreement of the theory with the experiment is fair for the data taken at T_d =
2.3 GeV. The excitation in the projectile is predicted close to the
observed energy with the correct width. The theory, however, underpredicts by
about 40% the cross sections measured at T_d = 1.6 GeV at angles where the
cross section has fallen by about two orders of magnitude. The analysis done
here allows to extract an approximate strength for the excitation of the Roper
[N^*(1440)] excitation and a qualitative agreement with the theoretical
predictions is also found.Comment: 8 ps figure
THE COST STRUCTURE OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA
Microfinance institutions are important, particularly in developing countries, because they expand the frontier of financial intermediation by providing loans to those traditionally excluded from formal financial markets. This paper presents the first systematic statistical examination of the performance of MFIs operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A cost function is estimated for MFIs in the region from 1999-2004. First, the presence of subsidies is found to be associated with higher MFI costs. When output is measured as the number of loans made, we find that MFIs become more efficient over time and that MFIs involved in the provision of group loans and loans to women have lower costs. However, when output is measured as volume of loans rather than their number, this last finding is reversed. This may be due to the fact that such loans are smaller in size; thus for a given volume more loans must be made.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40195/3/wp809.pd
Strain Effects on Point Defects and Chain-Oxygen Order-Disorder Transition in 123-Structure Cuprate Superconductors
The energetics of Schottky defects in 123 cuprate superconductor series, (where RE = lanthandies) and (AE =
alkali-earths), were found to have unusual relations if one considers only the
volumetric strain. Our calculations reveal the effect of non-uniform changes of
interatomic distances within the RE-123 structures, introduced by doping
homovalent elements, on the Schottky defect formation energy. The energy of
formation of Frenkel Pair defects, which is an elementary disordering event, in
123 compounds can be substantially altered under both stress and chemical
doping. Scaling the oxygen-oxygen short-range repulsive parameter using the
calculated formation energy of Frenkel pair defects, the transition temperature
between orthorhombic and tetragonal phases is computed by quasi-chemical
approximations (QCA). The theoretical results illustrate the same trend as the
experimental measurements in that the larger the ionic radius of RE, the lower
the orthorhombic/tetragonal phase transition temperature. This study provides
strong evidence of the strain effects on order-disorder transition due to
oxygens in the CuO chain sites.Comment: In print Phys Rev B (2004
Information sharing and credit : firm-level evidence from transition countries
We investigate whether information sharing among banks has affected credit market performance in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, using a large sample of firm-level data. Our estimates show that information sharing is associated with improved availability and lower cost of credit to firms. This correlation is stronger for opaque firms than transparent ones and stronger in countries with weak legal environments than in those with strong legal environments. In cross-sectional estimates, we control for variation in country-level aggregate variables that may affect credit, by examining the differential impact of information sharing across firm types. In panel estimates, we also control for the presence of unobserved heterogeneity at the firm level, as well as for changes in macroeconomic variables and the legal environment
- …