Developing Performance Indicators for Nature-Based Solution Projects in Urban Areas: The Case of Trees in Revitalized Commercial Spaces

It is becoming increasingly important to audit nature-based solutions (NBS) projects to understand their utility in addressing urban sustainability goals. However, the ecological and social complexity of such projects makes it difficult to develop performance indicators. Focusing on specific case studies and specific natural elements could advance this area of research. Urban trees are a vital component of many NBS initiatives. Cities with ambitious tree-planting goals rely on urban revitalization to provide the conditions necessary to grow trees in highly urbanized areas, and in this way deploy NBS projects. We present a conceptual and methodological framework of case-specific performance indicators in the context of NBS projects. This framework addresses the type of parameters, measures, and data that could be considered when assessing small-scale, NBS-inspired, revitalization projects, taking the natural elements of these projects, in this case the trees, as the unit of assessment. Our framework integrates ecological, environmental, and social indicators of tree performance and was developed with the experience gained from on-going, multi-year research projects at two revitalization sites in Toronto, Canada, where street trees grew in engineered sub-surface habitats. The framework includes indicators related to: urban tree ecology; tree characteristics; soils; climate and atmosphere; built environment; tree planting, care, and maintenance; social characteristics of the urban space; and human decisions and governance. This study frames the need for interdisciplinarity and case specificity in the development of performance indicators for NBS projects

The CMS Integration Grid Testbed

The CMS Integration Grid Testbed (IGT) comprises USCMS Tier-1 and Tier-2 hardware at the following sites: the California Institute of Technology, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of California at San Diego, and the University of Florida at Gainesville. The IGT runs jobs using the Globus Toolkit with a DAGMan and Condor-G front end. The virtual organization (VO) is managed using VO management scripts from the European Data Grid (EDG). Gridwide monitoring is accomplished using local tools such as Ganglia interfaced into the Globus Metadata Directory Service (MDS) and the agent based Mona Lisa. Domain specific software is packaged and installed using the Distrib ution After Release (DAR) tool of CMS, while middleware under the auspices of the Virtual Data Toolkit (VDT) is distributed using Pacman. During a continuo us two month span in Fall of 2002, over 1 million official CMS GEANT based Monte Carlo events were generated and returned to CERN for analysis while being demonstrated at SC2002. In this paper, we describe the process that led to one of the world's first continuously available, functioning grids.Comment: CHEP 2003 MOCT01

Brilliance of a fire: innocence, experience and the theory of childhood

This essay offers an extensive rehabilitation and reappraisal of the concept of childhood innocence as a means of testing the boundaries of some prevailing constructions of childhood. It excavates in detail some of the lost histories of innocence in order to show that these are more diverse and more complex than established and pejorative assessments of them conventionally suggest. Recovering, in particular, the forgotten pedigree of the Romantic account of the innocence of childhood underlines its depth and furnishes an enriched understanding of its critical role in the coming of mass education - both as a catalyst of social change and as an alternative measure of the child-centeredness of the institutions of public education. Now largely and residually confined to the inheritance of nursery education, the concept of childhood innocence, and the wider Romantic project of which it is an element, can help question the assumptions underpinning modern, competence-centred philosophies of childhood

Surface oxides of activated carbon: Internal reflectance spectroscopic examination of activated sugar carbons

The nature of the activated carbon surface with respect to surface functional groups has been examined using infrared internal reflectance spectroscopy (IRS). By employing this recently developed technique, the surface character of laboratory-activated sugar carbons has been examined as a function of activation temperature and atmosphere. The IRS spectra obtained for series of O2 and CO2 + O2 activated carbons indicate the presence of dicarboxylic acids and quinone carbonyl groups. The adsorption isotherms of p-nitrophenol on these carbons has been studied and has been shown to conform with the previously suggested adsorption mechanism involving the formation of a donor-acceptor complex with surface carbonyl oxygen.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32843/1/0000219.pd

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

The Photosynthetic Cycle and Respiration: Ligh-Dark Transients

Studies of the transient changes in radiocarbon found in various photosynthetic and respiratory intermediates in Scenedesmus, which result when changing from a condition of steady-state photosynthesis in the light to dark and then back to light again, indicate the following metabolic mechanisms: (a) The carboxylation step in the carbon-reduction cycle of photosynthesis results in the formation of two molecules of 3-PGA from one RuDP molecule, one CO{sub 2}, and one H{sub 2}O: (b) This carboxylation reaction proceeds for about thirty seconds in the dark after the light is turned off and its rate is proportional to the falling concentration of RuDP, and stops when the latter concentration falls to zero. (c) Turning off the light results in the transfer of radiocarbon from PGA to citric acid, and glutamic acid, whereas turning on the light results in a decrease in radiocarbon in citric acid. These results provide new evidence for the theory that the oxidation of pyruvic acid to acetyl CoA and CO{sub 2} with a subsequent condensation of acetyl CoA with oxaloacetic acid to give citric acid is blocked in the light by reduction of a cofactor, which may be thioctic acid, required for pyruvic acid oxidation. (d) These transients in radioactivity found in Krebs-cycle acids are taken as evidence for the association with the chloroplast of enzymes and intermediates of the Krebs cycle

A Conceptual Framework of Urban Forest Ecosystem Vulnerability

The urban environment is becoming the most common setting in which people worldwide will spend their lives. Urban forests, and the ecosystem services they provide, are becoming a priority for municipalities. Quantifying and communicating the vulnerability of this resource are essential for maintaining a consistent and equitable supply of these ecosystem services. We propose a theory-based conceptual framework for the assessment of urban forest vulnerability that integrates the biophysical, built, and human components of urban forest ecosystems. A review and description of potential vulnerability indicators are provided. Urban forest vulnerability can be defined as the likelihood of decline in ecosystem service supply and its associated benefits for human populations, urban infrastructure, and biodiversity. It is comprised of: 1) exposure, which refers to the stressors and disturbances associated with the urban environment that negatively affect ecosystem function, 2) sensitivity, which is determined by urban forest structure and dictates the system response to forcing from exposures and the magnitude of potential impacts, and 3) adaptive capacity, which is the social and environmental capacity of a system to shift or alter its conditions to reduce its vulnerability or to improve its ability to function while stressed. Potential impacts, or losses in ecosystem service supply, are temporal in nature and require backward-looking monitoring and/or forward-looking modelling to be measured and assessed. Vulnerability can be communicated through the use of indicators, aggregated indices, and mapping. A vulnerability approach can communicate complex issues to decision-makers and advance the theoretical understanding of urban forest ecosystems.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author