Cambodian Higher Education Governance: The Politics of Global Summitry and Clientelism

This chapter uses the concepts of “global summitry” and “clientelism” to theorize higher education governance in Cambodia. After reviewing the history of higher education since the 1960s, the chapter analyzes the country’s experiences amid regional attempts to harmonize standards, degree structures, quality assurance systems, and credit systems in Southeast Asia. Rather than explicit intervention into Cambodia’s higher education sector as has been historically common, the contemporary order transmits policy and governance practices through various regional and international forums, creating a seemingly homogenous system of higher education. External influence through global summitry, however, must be paired with a recognition of the prevalence of clientelism. By exploring the case of the Accreditation Council of Cambodia, higher education governance is shown to reproduce the engrained system of clientelism, empowering elites and contributing further to systems of informal patronage. The chapter concludes with recent (up to April 2016) developments in higher education governance, offering some observations and obstacles for future development in the sector

Ecological Indicator Values for Europe (EIVE) 1.0

Aims: To develop a consistent ecological indicator value system for Europe for five of the main plant niche dimensions: soil moisture (M), soil nitrogen (N), soil reaction (R), light (L) and temperature (T). Study area: Europe (and closely adjacent regions). Methods: We identified 31 indicator value systems for vascular plants in Europe that contained assessments on at least one of the five aforementioned niche dimensions. We rescaled the indicator values of each dimension to a continuous scale, in which 0 represents the minimum and 10 the maximum value present in Europe. Taxon names were harmonised to the Euro+Med Plantbase. For each of the five dimensions, we calculated European values for niche position and niche width by combining the values from the individual EIV systems. Using T values as an example, we externally validated our European indicator values against the median of bioclimatic conditions for global occurrence data of the taxa. Results: In total, we derived European indicator values of niche position and niche width for 14,835 taxa (14,714 for M, 13,748 for N, 14,254 for R, 14,054 for L, 14,496 for T). Relating the obtained values for temperature niche position to the bioclimatic data of species yielded a higher correlation than any of the original EIV systems (r = 0.859). The database: The newly developed Ecological Indicator Values for Europe (EIVE) 1.0, together with all source systems, is available in a flexible, harmonised open access database. Conclusions: EIVE is the most comprehensive ecological indicator value system for European vascular plants to date. The uniform interval scales for niche position and niche width provide new possibilities for ecological and macroecological analyses of vegetation patterns. The developed workflow and documentation will facilitate the future release of updated and expanded versions of EIVE, which may for example include the addition of further taxonomic groups, additional niche dimensions, external validation or regionalisation

The FOOTPRINT software tools: pesticide risk assessment and management in the EU at different spatial scales.

Original paper can be found at: http://www.ask-eu.com/default.asp?Menue=149&AnbieterID=586 [Full text of this paper is not available in the UHRA]In the EU-project FOOTPRINT three pesticide risk assessment and management tools were developed, for use at different spatial scales. The three FOOTPRINT tools share the same underlying science, based on the consistent identification of environmental characteristics driving the fate of agriculturally applied pesticides and their interpretation to parameterise state of the art modelling applications thus providing an integrated solution to pesticide risk assessment and management in the EU

Spatial distribution of soil hydraulic parameters estimated by pedotransfer functions for the Jialing River Catchment, Southwestern China

Soil hydraulic parameters θ s, α, n, K s, L and θ r of the van Genuchten-Mualem model were estimated using three pedotransfer functions (PTFs) based on soil properties for surface soils of the largest main tributary catchment (the Jialing River) of the upper Yangtze River in China. The soil database was from the second national soil survey of China with a spatial 30 X 30 arc-second resolution. According to the statistical analysis of the differences between the continuous-PTFs-estimated values of soil hydraulic parameters for the study catchment and the reference values for a specific texture class provided in the development database of a specific PTF, best estimations were obtained using the Wösten PTF. The Rawls & Brakenssiek PTF was good estimation for parameter θ r that was assumed as zero by Wösten PTF. The established higher θ r (0.08%) and lower K s (20 cm/d) and θ s (0.43%) in the mid-downstream area relative to the other areas of the catchment could lead to larger amounts of surface runoff and consequently provide higher energy to erode soil. Thus, these factors provide a supporting explanation for previously reported severe soil erosion occurring in this area. Spatial heterogeneity analysis for estimated hydraulic parameters in terms of semivariogram showed that the spatial correlation distance was in the range of 50-80 km and that the spatial variability (sill) was not large except for parameters K s and L. The semi-variance with the exponential model at the zero distance (nugget) was 30%-50% of the sill. This study provided a practical PTF approach for estimating soil hydraulic properties from soil survey data at a large watershed scale. The estimation results could provide better insight into the mechanism of surface runoff and soil erosion, which is important to better understand and manage erosion in the catchment

The FOOTPRINT Software Tools : Pesticide Risk Assessment and Management in the EU at different spatial scales

FOOTPRINT was a research project in the 6th Framework Programme which developed a suite of three pesticide risk prediction and management tools, for use by three different end-user communities: - farmers and extension advisors at the farm scale; - water managers at the catchment scale; and - policy makers/registration authorities at the national/EU scale. The tools were based on state-of-the-art knowledge of processes, factors and landscape attributes influencing pesticide fate in the environment and integrate innovative components that allow users to: - identify the dominant contamination pathways and sources of pesticide contamination in the landscape; - estimate pesticide concentrations in local groundwater resources and surface water abstraction sources; - make scientifically-based assessments of how the implementation of mitigation strategies will reduce pesticide contamination of adjacent water resources. The three tools share the same overall philosophy and underlying science and therefore provide a coherent and integrated solution to pesticide risk assessment and risk reduction at the various scales. The tools developed within FOOTPRINT allow stakeholders to make consistent and robust assessments of risk of contamination to water bodies relevant to management, mitigation and regulation (i.e. field/farm, catchment and national/EU). In particular, they allow pesticide users to assess whether their pesticide practices ensure the protection of local water bodies, and provide site-specific mitigation recommendations. The FOOTPRINT tools are expected to make a direct contribution to the revision of the Council Directive 91/414/EEC, the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and the future Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Pesticides.Peer reviewe