Response to ‘Protected areas and climate change Reflections from a practitioner's perspective

Cliquet et al. 1 provide a thought-provoking analysis of the challenges posed to the EU's protected areas by climate change. This paper seeks to build on some of the perspectives they brought to what is a highly challenging area of nature conservation law, policy and practice. While there is much to support in their analysis of the relationships between protected areas and climate change, there are two key strands we seek to develop further, based on the RSPB's experience of this area of nature conservation policy and practice: first, is the ecological model for adapting to climate change and second, the legal framework provided by the Birds2 and Habitats3 Directives (the Nature Directives) as it relates to the delivery of such adaptive actions

Ecosystem services in cities: towards the international legal protection of ecosystem services in urban environments

Biodiversity provides many ecosystem services in cities that are beneficial to human well-being including adaptation to the effects of climate change and positive effects of nature on human health. Rapid urbanization however is causing an adverse impact on biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide. Protecting and restoring urban biodiversity and ecosystem services can increase human well-being of the rapidly increasing urban population. Today, however, the international biodiversity conservation practice mainly focuses on rural areas, and not on urban conservation and restoration. Within city scale, there are several opportunities to green urban living, such as green infrastructure and urban parks and nature reserves. This paper investigates the current scientific practices for promoting and protecting ecosystem services in urban areas. Secondly, the authors review and assess the legally binding instruments on biodiversity at the international and EU level in order to see if there are sufficient existing mechanisms for protection of ecosystem services in urban areas. Thirdly, the paper elaborates on the Aichi Targets in order to explore whether or not these targets are enough to facilitate the protection and enhancement of ecosystem services in urban areas as swiftly as they are needed

Work in progress: a novel method of creating an academic content repository

This paper outlines a project aimed at addressing the issue of the scalability of online academic support. This project is being run during the Autumn semester at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Toowoomba Australia, in conjunction with the Australian Digital Futures Institute. The study attached to the project will use Design-Based Research to evaluate the effectiveness of a simple, but innovative academic content and metadata creation tool referred to as Academic Assist. Academic Assist has been recently developed at USQ as a plug-in block for the moodle-based Learning Management System employed at USQ for its several hundred online subjects. The pilot project and associated study now extends over nine subjects, including three consecutive subjects in computer engineering; and covers faculties of Engineering, Education, Business, Science and Arts. Some preliminary results are presented here. Complete results of the study including acceptance surveys, expert reviews and usage statistics will be presented at FIE 2009

Capacity building : just rhetoric, or a way forward in addressing health inequality?

Issue addressed: It is time to move beyond defining the problem of health inequality to taking action. The response required is complex and calls for system wide action. It is in this context that a discussion of increasing the capacity of the health system to respond to health inequality is both timely and essential. Methods: This paper looks at a capacity building framework that has been developed by the New South Wales Health Department and provides an example of a number of projects that have applied capacity building strategies. Conclusion: Addressing health inequality presents a significant challenge to health promotion practitioners. Emerging capacity building theory provides direction for strategies to build the capacity of a health system to address equity. It proposes a set of practical actions using the five focus areas of organisational development, workforce development, resource allocation, partnerships and leadership. So what?: A capacity building approach by itself will not provide the mandate and framework for the action that needs to be taken to address health inequality, but it helps to ensure that once potential solutions are identified the health system has the capacity to respond

Looking at Colour on post-Antique Sculpture

Review of: Vinzenz Brinkmann, Oliver Primavesi, Max Hollein, (eds), Circumlitio. The Polychromy of Antique and Medieval Sculpture. Liebighaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt am Main, 2010. The polychromy of medieval sculpture in Northern Europe is addressed in five of the articles in Circumlitio, which together form an important part of the editors’ project to bring the study of the coloured surfaces of sculpture out of the realm of technical reports and into the mainstream of sculptural scholarship. The five articles comprise surveys of techniques and materials (Harald Theiss) and of the field in general (Stefan Roller), and case studies of a major monument, Sluter’s Well of Moses at the Chartreuse de Champmol (Susie Nash), the raw material of the dyestuff madder (Dieter Köcher) and the reconstruction of the polychromed surface of a fourteenth century St George at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum,in Nuremberg (Arnulf von Ulmann). In his review, the author discusses some of the historiography of polychromy, examining in particular the treatment of Italian sculpture, whose study is not the focus of Circumlitio, giving context to the essays at hand within the wider field

Chapter 14- The Mentoring Program as a Research Project

Chapter 14, “The Mentoring Program as a Research Project,” helps stakeholders, program coordinators, and researchers distinguish the differences and similarities between program evaluation and program research. If stakeholders choose to include program research, they will need approval from their university’s institutional review board (IRB). Therefore, the second section of this chapter helps stakeholders navigate the IRB. The third section of this chapter describes how theoretical frameworks, operational definitions of mentoring, and methodological designs factor into mentoring programs that contain research. While all formal mentoring programs in academia should include theoretical frameworks, operational definitions, and sound methodology, many do not. The third section of this chapter highlights the interconnectedness between theory, definitions, methods, and measurements. The fourth and final section provides examples of measurements that can be used. Some of these measurements may be used for both evaluative and research purposes

The Pentagram, No. 1

Welcome to the verse of a bunch of guys who think writing should be part of every educated man\u27s experience. We are a group sanctioned by none, other than our own selves, sanctioned with our own belief that we have something to say. Spend a few minutes with us. Be you science student, English student, agriculture student, whatever your forte we believe there is interest for you in the following pages. Who are we? Students too. But students egotistical enough to want to have our ideas, any ideas, spread throughout a few minds other than our own. We have talked to ourselves and to each other. Now we want to talk to you. Glance through the following pages. If you see something of value, talk about it.https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/pentagram/1000/thumbnail.jp

A Framework for Establishing Restoration Goals for Contaminated Ecosystems

This article represents 1 of 6 articles in the special series “Restoration of Impaired Ecosystems: An Ounce of Prevention or a Pound of Cure?” The articles result from a Technical Workshop organized by SETAC and the Society for Ecological Restoration, held June 2014 in Jackson, Wyoming, that focused on advancing the practice of restoring ecosystems that have been contaminated or impaired from industrial activities.As natural resources become increasingly limited, the value of restoring contaminated sites, both terrestrial and aquatic, becomes increasingly apparent. Traditionally, goals for remediation have been set before any consideration of goals for ecological restoration. The goals for remediation have focused on removing or limiting contamination whereas restoration goals have targeted the ultimate end use. Here, we present a framework for developing a comprehensive set of achievable goals for ecological restoration of contaminated sites to be used in concert with determining goals for remediation. This framework was developed during a Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and Society of Ecological Restoration (SER) cosponsored workshop that brought together experts from multiple countries. Although most members were from North America, this framework is designed for use internationally. We discuss the integration of establishing goals for both contaminant remediation and overall restoration, and the need to include both the restoration of ecological and socio-cultural-economic value in the context of contaminated sites. Although recognizing that in some countries there may be regulatory issues associated with contaminants and clean up, landscape setting and social drivers can inform the restoration goals. We provide a decision tree support tool to guide the establishment of restoration goals for contaminated ecosystems. The overall intent of this decision tree is to provide a framework for goal setting and to identify outcomes achievable given the contamination present at a site. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2016;12:264–272. 2015 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC

Impact of rapid urban expansion on green space structure

Rapid urban expansion has had a significant impact on green space structure. A wide variety of modelling approaches have been tested to simulate urban expansion; however, the effectiveness of simulations of the spatial structure of urban expansion remains unexplored. This study aims to model and predict urban expansion in three cities (Kuala Lumpur, Metro Manila and Jakarta), all experiencing rapid urban expansion, and to identify which are the main drivers, including spatial planning, in the resulting spatial patterns. Land Change Modeller (LCM)-Markov Chain models were used, parameterised on changes observed between 1988/1989 and 1999 and verified with the urban form observed for 2014. These models were then used to simulate urban expansion for the year 2030. The spatial structure of the simulated 2030 land use was then compared with the 2030 master plan for each city using spatial metrics. LCM-Markov Chain models proved to be a suitable method for simulating the development of future land use. There were also important differences in the projected spatial structure for 2030 when compared to the planned development in each city; substantive differences in the size, density, distance, shape and spatial pattern. Evidence suggests that these spatial patterns are influenced by the forms of rapid urban expansion experienced in these cities and respective master planning policies of the municipalities of the cities. The use of integrated simulation modelling and landscape ecology analytics supplies significant insights into the evolution of the spatial structure of urban expansion and identifies constraints and informs intervention for spatial planning and policies in cities