Sustainable Forest Bioenergy Development Strategies in Indochina: Collaborative Effort to Establish Regional Policies

We conducted a feasibility study in Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam) with the aim of promoting biomass and bioenergy markets, technology transfer, rural development, and income generation. Policy development is guided by the International Union of Forest Research Institutions (IUFRO) Task Force “Sustainable Forest Bioenergy Network”. In this paper, we highlight the achievements up to now and present results of a multi-stakeholder questionnaire in combination with a quantitative analysis of the National Bioenergy Development Plans (NBDPs). We found a gap between official documents and working group assessments. NBDPs are focused on the market development, technology transfer, and funding possibilities of a regional bioenergy strategy, while the respondents of a questionnaire (working groups) favored more altruistic goals, i.e., sustainable resource management, environmental protection and climate change mitigation, generation of rural income, and community involvement, etc. We therefore suggest the following measures to ensure regulations that support the original aims of the network (climate change mitigation, poverty alleviation, sustainable resource use, and diversification of energy generation): (i) Consideration of science-based evidence for drafting bioenergy policies, particularly in the field of biomass production and harvesting; (ii) invitation of stakeholders representing rural communities to participate in this process; (iii) development of sustainability criteria; (iv) feedback cycles ensuring more intensive discussion of policy drafts; (v) association of an international board of experts to provide scientifically sound feedback and input; and (vi) establishment of a local demonstration region, containing various steps in the biomass/bioenergy supply chain including transboundary collaboration in the ACMECS region

EU Nature Restoration Law; EGU Response

The EGU Biodiversity Task Force welcomes the ambitious targets outlined in the Nature Restoration Law that was presented by the European Commission on 22 June 2022. To ensure the Nature Restoration Law is successful, the EGU Biodiversity Task Force is recommending seven key points to be added, amended, or strengthened throughout the document

Preface to the special issue of the Division Energy, Resources and the Environment at the EGU General Assembly 2023

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) brings together geoscientists from all over Europe and the rest of the world, covering all disciplines of Earth, planetary and space sciences. The Division on Energy, Resources and the Environment (ERE), as part of the EGU, follows an interdisciplinary approach to serve society and provide solutions to challenges of our time and in the future. One task for humankind, for example, is to provide adequate and reliable supplies of affordable energy and other resources, obtained in environmentally sustainable ways, which will be essential for economic prosperity, environmental quality and political stability around the world. This volume of Advances in Geosciences spans the range of topics of the division and continues a series of ten ERE special issues over the course of the last ten years. We incorporate emerging topics into the division ERE along the line and we advocate that every idea and opportunity should be studied and tested.</p

Preface to the special issue of the Division Energy, Resources and the Environment at the EGU General Assembly EGU22

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is one of the leading global bottom-up societies that promotes earth, planetary and space sciences. In its annual general assemblies, EGU brings together experts from all over the world to discuss cutting-edge research and implementation of findings in their respective disciplines and beyond via its inter-and transdisciplinary sessions, and thus offers a unique forum for scientific exchange, science-policy interaction, and joint development of strategies for future research endeavours. Within that framework the Energy, Resources and the Environment (ERE) Programme Group provides the platform for discussion about adequate and reliable supplies of affordable energy and other georesources in environmentally sustainable ways. This special issue in Advances in Geosciences comprises a collection of contributions from the ERE Programme Group, which were presented at the General Assembly 2022. It was held in hybrid mode for the first time from 23–27 May 2022, after two virtual assemblies in 2020 and 2021.</p

Thirty-two Goldbach Variations

We give thirty-two diverse proofs of a small mathematical gem--the fundamental Euler sum identity zeta(2,1)=zeta(3) =8zeta(\bar 2,1). We also discuss various generalizations for multiple harmonic (Euler) sums and some of their many connections, thereby illustrating both the wide variety of techniques fruitfully used to study such sums and the attraction of their study.Comment: v1: 34 pages AMSLaTeX. v2: 41 pages AMSLaTeX. New introductory material added and material on inequalities, Hilbert matrix and Witten zeta functions. Errors in the second section on Complex Line Integrals are corrected. To appear in International Journal of Number Theory. Title change

On Birthing Dancing Stars: The Need for Bounded Chaos in Information Interaction

While computers causing chaos is acommon social trope, nearly the entirety of the history of computing is dedicated to generating order. Typical interactive information retrieval tasks ask computers to support the traversal and exploration of large, complex information spaces. The implicit assumption is that they are to support users in simplifying the complexity (i.e. in creating order from chaos). But for some types of task, particularly those that involve the creative application or synthesis of knowledge or the creation of new knowledge, this assumption may be incorrect. It is increasingly evident that perfect order—and the systems we create with it—support highly-structured information tasks well, but provide poor support for less-structured tasks.We need digital information environments that help create a little more chaos from order to spark creative thinking and knowledge creation. This paper argues for the need for information systems that offerwhat we term ‘bounded chaos’, and offers research directions that may support the creation of such interface

The ATLAS SCT grounding and shielding concept and implementation

This paper presents a complete description of Virgo, the French-Italian gravitational wave detector. The detector, built at Cascina, near Pisa (Italy), is a very large Michelson interferometer, with 3 km-long arms. In this paper, following a presentation of the physics requirements, leading to the specifications for the construction of the detector, a detailed description of all its different elements is given. These include civil engineering infrastructures, a huge ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber (about 6000 cubic metres), all of the optical components, including high quality mirrors and their seismic isolating suspensions, all of the electronics required to control the interferometer and for signal detection. The expected performances of these different elements are given, leading to an overall sensitivity curve as a function of the incoming gravitational wave frequency. This description represents the detector as built and used in the first data-taking runs. Improvements in different parts have been and continue to be performed, leading to better sensitivities. These will be detailed in a forthcoming paper

Editorial: Energy, Resources and the Environment – Interdisciplinary answers to approach the sustainable energy and resources conundrum

Every year, the European Geosciences Union (EGU) brings together experts from all over the world at its General Assembly, covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The EGU Division on Energy, Resources and the Environment (ERE) is concerned with one of the humankind's most challenging goals – providing affordable, reliable and sustainable energy and other georesources. A collection of contributions from the ERE Division at the EGU General Assembly 2018 is assembled within the present special issue in Advances in Geosciences.</p

Determination of the b quark mass at the M_Z scale with the DELPHI detector at LEP

An experimental study of the normalized three-jet rate of b quark events with respect to light quarks events (light= \ell \equiv u,d,s) has been performed using the CAMBRIDGE and DURHAM jet algorithms. The data used were collected by the DELPHI experiment at LEP on the Z peak from 1994 to 2000. The results are found to agree with theoretical predictions treating mass corrections at next-to-leading order. Measurements of the b quark mass have also been performed for both the b pole mass: M_b and the b running mass: m_b(M_Z). Data are found to be better described when using the running mass. The measurement yields: m_b(M_Z) = 2.85 +/- 0.18 (stat) +/- 0.13 (exp) +/- 0.19 (had) +/- 0.12 (theo) GeV/c^2 for the CAMBRIDGE algorithm. This result is the most precise measurement of the b mass derived from a high energy process. When compared to other b mass determinations by experiments at lower energy scales, this value agrees with the prediction of Quantum Chromodynamics for the energy evolution of the running mass. The mass measurement is equivalent to a test of the flavour independence of the strong coupling constant with an accuracy of 7 permil.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by Eur. Phys. J.