Ökologischer Kreislauf Moorbad Harbach: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for Agricultural Plant Production and Transportation

In 1992 the community of Moorbad Harbach (Austria), located near the border of the Czech Republic and dominated by extensive agricultural practice on small scale farms, decided to initiate activities for regional devolopment. About 40 farms (27 %) converted to organic farming, a local marketing service as well as regional food processing businesses (slaughterhouse, dairy), operating as linkages between regional agriculture and the local spa hotel were founded. The basic idea for the work presented here was to evaluate the – especially ecological – consequences of such a regional conversion. One part of this attempt of evaluation was carried out as a LCA for the agricultural production in Moorbad Harbach. The emphasis of the study was to compare plant production before and after the regional conversion to organic farming. In another step changes in transportation distances and quantities with special regard to transport of raw milk and milk products were quantified

The ethical challenge of Touraine's 'living together'

In Can We Live Together? Alain Touraine combines a consummate analysis of crucial social tensions in contemporary societies with a strong normative appeal for a new emancipatory 'Subject' capable of overcoming the twin threats of atomisation or authoritarianism. He calls for a move from 'politics to ethics' and then from ethics back to politics to enable the new Subject to make a reality out of the goals of democracy and solidarity. However, he has little to say about the nature of such an ethics. This article argues that this lacuna could usefully be filled by adopting a form of radical humanism found in the work of Erich Fromm. It defies convention in the social sciences by operating from an explicit view of the 'is' and the 'ought' of common human nature, specifying reason, love and productive work as the qualities to be realised if we are to move closer to human solidarity. Although there remain significant philosophical and political differences between the two positions, particularly on the role to be played by 'the nation', their juxtaposition opens new lines of inquiry in the field of cosmopolitan ethics

Long spin relaxation times in wafer scale epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001)

We developed an easy, upscalable process to prepare lateral spin-valve devices on epitaxially grown monolayer graphene on SiC(0001) and perform nonlocal spin transport measurements. We observe the longest spin relaxation times tau_S in monolayer graphene, while the spin diffusion coefficient D_S is strongly reduced compared to typical results on exfoliated graphene. The increase of tau_S is probably related to the changed substrate, while the cause for the small value of D_S remains an open question.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Observations and analysis of polar stratospheric clouds detected by POAM III and SAGE III during the SOLVE II/VINTERSOL campaign in the 2002/2003 Northern Hemisphere winter

The Polar Ozone and Aerosol Measurement and Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment instruments both observed high numbers of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) in the polar region during the second SAGE Ozone Loss and Validation (SOLVE II) and Validation of INTERnational Satellites and Study of Ozone Loss (VINTERSOL) campaign, conducted during the 2002/2003 Northern Hemisphere winter. Between 15 November 2002 (14 November 2002) and 18 March 2003 (21 March 2003) SAGE (POAM) observed 122 (151) aerosol extinction profiles containing PSCs. PSCs were observed on an almost daily basis, from early December through 15 January, in both instruments. No PSCs were observed from either instrument from 15 January until 4 February, and from then only sparingly in three periods in mid- and late February and mid-March. In early December, PSCs were observed in the potential temperature range from roughly 375 K to 750 K. Throughout December the top of this range decreases to near 600 K. In February and March, PSC observations were primarily constrained to potential temperatures below 500 K. The PSC observation frequency as a function of ambient temperature relative to the nitric acid-trihydrate saturation point (using a nitric acid profile prior to denitrification) was used to infer irreversible denitrification. By late December 38% denitrification was inferred at both the 400–475 K and 475–550 K potential temperature ranges. By early January extensive levels of denitrification near 80% were inferred at both potential temperature ranges, and the air remained denitrified at least through early March

Happiness, environmental protection and market economy

The manufacturing sector is leaving the West for Asia’s low wages and good working culture. Europe would be better off keeping these manufacturing activities, slowing down wage inflation and what is more, letting a young, cheaper workforce from the East settle down within their borders. This would aid in preserving the diverse economic structure which has been characteristic for Europe.Beside the economic growth there are two more concepts which have turned into the “holy cows” of economics during the last fifty years. One is the need to constantly improve labor productivity and the other is increasing competitiveness of nations. The high labor productivity of some countries, induces severe unemployment in the globalized world. In the other hand it is high time we understood that it is not competition, but cooperation that brings more happiness to humanity.Should we still opt for “happiness” and “sanity”, it is quite obvious that we all should, in economists’ terms, define our individual welfare functions corresponding to our own set of values, staying free from the influence of media, advertisements and fashion. The cornerstone to all this is the intelligent citizen who prefers local goods and services

The Chisholm firestorm: observed microstructure, precipitation and lightning activity of a pyro-Cb

International audienceA fire storm that occured on 28 May 2001 devastated the town of Chisholm, ~150 km north of Edmonton, Alberta, induced a violent fire-invigorated cumulonimbus cloud. This pyro-cumulonimbus (pyro-Cb) had overshooting tops of 2.5?3 km above the tropopause, and injected massive amounts of smoke into the lower stratosphere. Fortunately, this event occurred under good coverage of radar, rain gauge, lightning and satellite measurements, which allowed in-depth documentation of the event. The combination of heat and smoke created a cloud with extremely small drops, which ascended rapidly in violent updrafts. There appeared to be little freezing up to the homogeneous freezing isotherm level of ?38°C. A cloud with such small and short-lived highly supercooled drops is incapable of producing precipitation except for few large graupel and hail, which produced the observed radar echoes and charged the cloud with positive lightning. The small cloud drops froze homogeneously to equally small ice particles, for which there is no mechanism to aggregate into precipitation particles that hence remain in the anvil. The small precipitation efficiency implies that only a small fraction of the smoke is scavenged, so that most of it is exhausted through the anvil to the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Comparisons with other cases suggest that a pyro-Cb does not have to be as violent as the Chisholm case to have strongly suppressed precipitation. However, this level of convective vigor is necessary to create the overshooting updraft that injects the smoke into the lower stratosphere

F-GAMMA: On the phenomenological classification of continuum radio spectra variability patterns of Fermi blazars

The F-GAMMA program is a coordinated effort to investigate the physics of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) via multi-frequency monitoring of Fermi blazars. In the current study we show and discuss the evolution of broad-band radio spectra, which are measured at ten frequencies between 2.64 and 142 GHz using the Effelsberg 100-m and the IRAM 30-m telescopes. It is shown that any of the 78 sources studied can be classified in terms of their variability characteristics in merely 5 types of variability. It is argued that these can be attributed to only two classes of variability mechanisms. The first four types are dominated by spectral evolution and can be described by a simple two-component system composed of: (a) a steep quiescent spectral component from a large scale jet and (b) a time evolving flare component following the "Shock-in-Jet" evolutionary path. The fifth type is characterised by an achromatic change of the broad band spectrum, which could be attributed to a different mechanism, likely involving differential Doppler boosting caused by geometrical effects. Here we present the classification, the assumed physical scenario and the results of calculations that have been performed for the spectral evolution of flares.Comment: Proceedings of the conference: "The Central Kiloparsec in Galactic Nucleic: Astronomy at High Angular Resolution 2011", August 29 - September 2, 2011, Bad Honnef, German

The Chisholm firestorm: observed microstructure, precipitation and lightning activity of a pyro-cumulonimbus

International audienceA fire storm that occurred on 28 May 2001 and devastated the town of Chisholm, ~150 km north of Edmonton, Alberta, induced a violent fire-invigorated cumulonimbus cloud. This pyro-cumulonimbus (pyro-Cb) had overshooting tops of 2.5?3 km above the tropopause, and injected massive amounts of smoke into the lower stratosphere. Fortunately, this event occurred under good coverage of radar, rain gauge, lightning and satellite measurements, which allowed in-depth documentation of the event, and gave us an opportunity to study the cloud top morphology and microstructure, precipitation and cloud electrification of the pyro-Cb. The combination of heat and smoke created a cloud with extremely small drops, which ascended rapidly in violent updrafts. There appeared to be little freezing up to the homogeneous freezing isotherm level of ?38°C. A cloud with such small and short-lived highly supercooled drops is incapable of producing precipitation except for few large graupel and hail, which produced the observed radar echoes and charged the cloud with positive lightning. The small cloud drops froze homogeneously to equally small ice particles, for which there is no mechanism to aggregate into precipitation particles, and which hence remain in the anvil. The lack of significant precipitation implies that only a small fraction of the smoke is scavenged, so that most of it is exhausted through the anvil to the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Comparisons with other cases suggest that a pyro-Cb does not have to be as violent as the Chisholm case for precipitation to be strongly suppressed. However, this level of convective vigor is necessary to create the overshooting updraft that injects the smoke into the lower stratosphere