Marine ecosystem services: Linking indicators to their classification

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. There is a multitude of ecosystem service classifications available within the literature, each with its own advantages and drawbacks. Elements of them have been used to tailor a generic ecosystem service classification for the marine environment and then for a case study site within the North Sea: the Dogger Bank. Indicators for each of the ecosystem services, deemed relevant to the case study site, were identified. Each indicator was then assessed against a set of agreed criteria to ensure its relevance and applicability to environmental management. This paper identifies the need to distinguish between indicators of ecosystem services that are entirely ecological in nature (and largely reveal the potential of an ecosystem to provide ecosystem services), indicators for the ecological processes contributing to the delivery of these services, and indicators of benefits that reveal the realized human use or enjoyment of an ecosystem service. It highlights some of the difficulties faced in selecting meaningful indicators, such as problems of specificity, spatial disconnect and the considerable uncertainty about marine species, habitats and the processes, functions and services they contribute to

Social Quality: A Way to Measure the Quality of Society

In this paper we suggest a way to measure the well-being of society based upon our own development of the Social Quality model. The Social Quality model has the advantage of being sociologically grounded as a measure of the well-being of society and the individuals within it. We test our model of Social Quality against life satisfaction as an indicator of how successful it is in delivering these aspirations. The model was tested on all European countries using the European Quality of Life Surveys in 2003 and 2007 and was found to explain a large amount of variance, which was consistent across time and space. We suggest that it is possible to operationalise this model using small number of variables, ones that are frequently used in comparative surveys and this should enable the quality of society to be measured in a parsimonious and effective way

Representations of solutions of the wave equation based on relativistic wavelets

A representation of solutions of the wave equation with two spatial coordinates in terms of localized elementary ones is presented. Elementary solutions are constructed from four solutions with the help of transformations of the affine Poincar\'e group, i.e., with the help of translations, dilations in space and time and Lorentz transformations. The representation can be interpreted in terms of the initial-boundary value problem for the wave equation in a half-plane. It gives the solution as an integral representation of two types of solutions: propagating localized solutions running away from the boundary under different angles and packet-like surface waves running along the boundary and exponentially decreasing away from the boundary. Properties of elementary solutions are discussed. A numerical investigation of coefficients of the decomposition is carried out. An example of the field created by sources moving along a line with different speeds is considered, and the dependence of coefficients on speeds of sources is discussed.Comment: submitted to J. Phys. A: Math. Theor., 20 pages, 6 figure

Fast H+/Li+ ion exchange in Li0.30La0.57TiO3 nanopowder and films in water and in ambient air

International audienceThe H+/Li+ ion exchange reaction of lithium lanthanum titanate (LLTO) nanopowders and films with water and CO2 contained in air, leads to the formation of a partially protonated titanates and carbonates at the surface of the oxide. A mechanism of surface reaction is proposed: the titanate undergoes reaction with water, then a topotactic exchange reaction of H+ for Li+ takes place into the perovskite structure, lithium hydroxide (or lanthanum oxyhydroxide) is then formed on the grain surface and reacts with CO2 contained in air to form Li2CO3 (or lanthanum carbonate). This surface reaction occurs rapidly after synthesis under ambient atmosphere and is greatly enhanced by the use of nanomaterials or films. It is reversible if the material is heat-treated around 300–400 °C. Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RBS), Nuclear Reaction Analysis (RNA) and Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis (ERDA) are used to determine the composition of the films after storage in ambient air and to confirm the occurrence of an exchange reaction at the surface of the oxide stored under ambient atmospher