The Role of a Responsible Global Citizen (Gitizen) in the 21st Century: The Need, the Challenges and the Future

UNESCO promoted global citizenship (gitizenship) since the launch of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) on August 22nd2012, which made fostering global citizenship one of its three priorities. This is a pedagogical guidance on global citizenship with 3 major outcomes: Education,Defense and Trade. (Taylor, 1997). It is the prerogative of the international community to clarify the conceptual underpinnings of global citizenship and providepolicy and programmatic directions, this paper which is to a large extent conceptual and directive in nature has been developed in response after deeply studying the needs and demands of and on integrating global citizenship in most of the active countries in the world. It presents suggestions for translating global citizenship education concepts into practical and age specific topics learning objectives in a way that follows principles of adaptation in local contexts.It is intended as a resource for educators, curriculum developers, trainers as well as policy-makers, but it will also be useful for other education stakeholders working in non-formal and informal settings. Global citizenship encompasses a sense of belonging to whole humanity and common mankind. It emphasizes political, economic, social and cultural interdependency and interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global. Growing interest in global citizenship has resulted in an increased attention towards global dimension of citizenship, education, policy, curricula, teaching and learningThey can serve as the basis for defining global citizenship goals, learning objectives and competencies, as well as priorities for assessing and evaluating learning. These core conceptual dimensions are based on three domains of learning: cognitive, socio-emotional intelligence and global citizenship education (Freud, 1905)

Improvement in the Accuracy of Back Trajectories Using WRF to Identify Pollen Sources in Southern Iberian Peninsula

Airborne pollen transport at micro-, meso-gamma and meso-beta scales must be studied by atmospheric models, having special relevance in complex terrain. In these cases, the accuracy of these models is mainly determined by the spatial resolution of the underlying meteorological dataset. This work examines how meteorological datasets determine the results obtained from atmospheric transport models used to describe pollen transport in the atmosphere. We investigate the effect of the spatial resolution when computing backward trajectories with the HYSPLIT model. We have used meteorological datasets from the WRF model with 27, 9 and 3 km resolutions and from the GDAS files with 1 ° resolution. This work allows characterizing atmospheric transport of Olea pollen in a region with complex flows. The results show that the complex terrain affects the trajectories and this effect varies with the different meteorological datasets. Overall, the change from GDAS to WRF-ARW inputs improves the analyses with the HYSPLIT model, thereby increasing the understanding the pollen episode. The results indicate that a spatial resolution of at least 9 km is needed to simulate atmospheric flows that are considerable affected by the relief of the landscape. The results suggest that the appropriate meteorological files should be considered when atmospheric models are used to characterize the atmospheric transport of pollen on micro-, meso-gamma and meso-beta scales. Furthermore, at these scales, the results are believed to be generally applicable for related areas such as the description of atmospheric transport of radionuclides or in the definition of nuclear-radioactivity emergency preparedness

New European Driving Cycle assessment by means of particle size distributions in a light-duty diesel engine fuelled with different fuel formulations

In this study, an experimental investigation of particle size distribution emission over performance of transient conditions in a high speed diesel engine fuelled with diesel, biodiesel and Fischer Tropsch fuels have been assessed. Six fuels with different properties have been tested in a 4-cylinder light-duty diesel engine typically used for European passenger cars. The cycle used in this study was the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) and each test was carried out after a stabilization warming period in order to avoid cold start effects. A comparative analysis between nucleation and accumulation particle mode concentration, particle size distributions and a geometric mean diameter calculation are presented in this paper. In this sense, a reduction in the range of particle diameter emitted and a decrease in accumulation particle mode concentration with Fischer Tropsch fuel during the EUDC were found. In contrast, all biofuels used show an increase of particle number concentration in nucleation-mode during the urban cycles (ECE-15) related to combustion damage at low load conditions. Finally, an increase in the sulfur content diesel fuel leads to an increase in the geometric mean diameter of particle size distribution related to the increase in accumulation particle concentration during the entire cycle.The equipment used in this work has been partially supported by FEDER project funds "Dotacion de infraestructuras cientifico tecnicas para el Centro Integral de Mejora Energetica y Medioambiental de Sistemas de Transporte (CiMeT), (FEDER-ICTS-2012-06)'', framed in the operational program of singular scientific and technical infrastructure of the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain.Bermúdez Tamarit, VR.; Lujan Martinez, JM.; Ruiz Rosales, S.; Campos, D.; Linares Rodríguez, WG. (2015). New European Driving Cycle assessment by means of particle size distributions in a light-duty diesel engine fuelled with different fuel formulations. Fuel. 140:649-659. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2014.10.016S64965914

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics of Air Pollution

xxiii+738hlm;25c

Chemical amplification (or dampening) of the Twomey effect: Conditions derived from droplet activation theory

Cloud droplet number concentrations are controlled by both meteorological and microphysical factors. Microphysical factors include aerosol number concentration and composition. This paper examines the importance of microphysical phenomena compared to the sensitivity with respect to parcel updraft velocity in the activation of aerosols to become cloud droplets. Of the compositional (chemical) factors that can influence droplet number concentration, the effect of organics is examined through their ability to alter droplet surface tension and to contribute solute. A recent parameterization of aerosol activation (by Abdul-Razzak et al.) is extended to obtain analytical expressions for the sensitivity of activation to microphysical factors relative to updraft velocity. It is demonstrated that, under some conditions, the droplet number concentration can be as much as 1.5 times more sensitive to changes in aerosol composition than to updraft velocity. Chemical effects seem to be most influential for size distributions typical of marine conditions and decrease in importance for strongly anthropogenically perturbed conditions. The analysis indicates that the presence of surface-active species can lead to as much uncertainty as results from variations in updraft velocity. The presence of surfactant species also drastically changes the response of the cloud condensation nuclei to changes in the updraft velocity spectrum. Conditions are found under which an increase in dissolved organic compounds can actually lead to a decrease in cloud droplet number, a "contra-Twomey effect." Results presented have more general implications than just for organic compounds and can apply, in principle, for any chemically induced activation effect. © 2004 American Meteorological Society

Aerosol Properties Computed from Aircraft-Based Observations during the ACE-Asia Campaign: 1. Aerosol Size Distributions Retrieved from Optical Thickness Measurements

In this article, aerosol size distributions retrieved from aerosol layer optical thickness spectra, derived from the 14-channel NASA Ames Airborne Tracking Sunphotometer (AATS-14) measurements during the ACE-Asia campaign, are presented. Focusing on distinct aerosol layers (with different particle characteristics) observed in four vertical profiles, we compare the results of two different retrieval methods: constrained linear inversion and a nonlinear least squares method. While the former does not use any assumption about the analytical form of the size distribution, the latter was used to retrieve parameters of a bimodal lognormal size distribution. Furthermore, comparison of the retrieved size distributions with those measured in-situ, aboard the same aircraft on which the sunphotometer was flown, was carried out. Results of the two retrieval methods showed good agreement in the radius ranges from ~0.1 μm to ~1.2–2.0 μm, close to the range of retrievable size distributions from the AATS-14 measurements. In this radius interval, shapes of retrieved and measured size distributions were similar, in accord with close wavelength dependencies of the corresponding optical thicknesses. Additionally, the effect of a size-resolved refractive index on the retrieved size spectra was investigated in selected cases. Retrieval using a constant refractive index pertaining to particle sizes within the range of retrievable size distributions resulted in a size distribution very close to the one retrieved using a size-resolved refractive index