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Strengthening the global system of protected areas post-2020: A perspective from the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas
Protected areas are the cornerstones of biodiversity conservation and have never been more relevant than at the present time when the world is facing both a biodiversity and a climate change crisis. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) has been helping to set global standards and best practice guidelines in protected area planning and management for 60 years. Following this guidance, many countries have made significant progress toward their Aichi Target 11 commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The global community will be coming together at the 15th Conference of the Parties of the CBD to set new biodiversity conservation targets for the next decade, as milestones to 2050 and a vision of “a world living in harmony with nature.” This paper lays out the WCPA perspective on priorities for supporting effective protected and conserved areas for the post-2020 era
American Gothic: Chaos, Anachronism and Modernity in Eyvind Earle's Sleeping Beauty
In 1951, Walt Disney hired the American illustrator and painter Eyvind Earle (1916-2000) to design the look and ambience of his feature-length animated film, Sleeping Beauty (1959), adapted from the story by Charles Perrault. In his role as 'Colour Stylist,' Earle not only produced abundant conceptual studies (for mood, lighting and scenery), he also painted many of the backgrounds used in the finished film. In an effort to create an 'authentic' historical atmosphere for the film, Earle conducted research into fourteenth- and fifteenth-century European tapestries, paintings and illuminated manuscripts, but his style remains grounded in the influence of post-war architecture, illustration and interior design. Aside from being a failed representation of history (typical of anachronism) this balancing act was arguably necessitated by a cultural context in which modernism had been widely accepted and commodified in American design culture.My paper seeks to address these shifting ideologies of taste and form in relation to the film's notoriously conservative rhetoric of gender
Order to disorder transition in the XY-like quantum magnet Cs2CoCl4 induced by noncommuting applied fields
We explore the effects of noncommuting applied fields on the ground-state
ordering of the quasi-one-dimensional spin-1/2 XY-like antiferromagnet Cs2CoCl4
using single-crystal neutron diffraction. In zero field interchain couplings
cause long-range order below T_N=217(5) mK with chains ordered
antiferromagnetically along their length and moments confined to the (b,c)
plane. Magnetic fields applied at an angle to the XY planes are found to
initially stabilize the order by promoting a spin-flop phase with an increased
perpendicular antiferromagnetic moment. In higher fields the antiferromagnetic
order becomes unstable and a transition occurs to a phase with no long-range
order in the (b,c) plane, proposed to be a spin liquid phase that arises when
the quantum fluctuations induced by the noncommuting field become strong enough
to overcome ordering tendencies. Magnetization measurements confirm that
saturation occurs at much higher fields and that the proposed spin-liquid state
exists in the region 2.10 < H_SL < 2.52 T || a. The observed phase diagram is
discussed in terms of known results on XY-like chains in coexisting
longitudinal and transverse fields.Comment: revtex, 14 figures, 2 tables, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Pressure-induced insulator-to-metal transition in low-dimensional TiOCl
We studied the transmittance and reflectance of the low-dimensional
Mott-Hubbard insulator TiOCl in the infrared and visible frequency range as a
function of pressure. The strong suppression of the transmittance and the
abrupt increase of the near-infrared reflectance above 12 GPa suggest a
pressure-induced insulator-to-metal transition. The pressure-dependent
frequency shifts of the orbital excitations, as well as the pressure
dependences of the charge gap and the spectral weight of the optical
conductivity above the phase transition are presented.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
About 'The Great Macguffin'
In this paper I will address the formal and ideological implications of silence (and associated strategies of reticence, enigma, and failed or obstructed communication) when writing creatively in response to visual art. My presentation will give special emphasis to my prose poem ‘The Great Macguffin’, which I recited for a live audience at the Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Visual Art in 2012, and which had evolved in conjunction with a large-scale drawing (also entitled The Great Macguffin (2005/2012)). In both text and drawing I deployed the concept of the ‘McGuffin’ (Hitchcock’s term for a hollow, arbitrary plot-device), in relation to the term ‘voice’ which (when used in respect of visual art objects – what they ‘mean’ or ‘say’) implicates not only their philosophic or literary subject-matter, but also their interpretation by third parties (promoters, viewers and critics). Acknowledging the challenges posed to artists and interpreters alike by the essentially non-verbal or abstract material character of visual art, we can state that to silence the art object (to obfuscate its meanings) and yet to force it to speak or to speak ‘for it’ can activate power relations in subtle and contradictory ways. My presentation will conclude with a reading of ‘The Great Macguffin,’ a piece of creative writing in which these ideas are animate
Performance Improvement Techniques for Photovoltaic Systems in Qatar: Results of First year of Outdoor Exposure
AbstractThe state of Qatar has established firm renewable energy deployment targets for the next decade, using primarily solar photovoltaic technologies.Qatar, in the Arabian Peninsula, is in the MENA Region, where the solar resource is fairly abundant, but local environmental conditions are challenging, particularly, high ambient temperatures all-year round, a dusty atmosphere due to high aerosol content, and water scarcity, which impact negatively on PV system performance and reliability.The Solar Test Facility (STF) at the Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) was founded in 2012 for the main purpose of contributing to the achievement of Qatar's sustainable energy technology deployment targets. STF provides scientific and technical capabilities for testing and evaluation of solar technologies under the specific local climate conditions.This paper presents the results of outdoor exposure of a specific model of multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) photovoltaic (PV) modules after their first complete year of operation at STF. The impact of module cleaning frequency, use of commercial anti- soiling coatings and module mounting on either fixed, one-axis-tracking or two-axis-tracking systems was studied.These results give some indication of the next steps to be taken and the solutions that would eventually work for the improvement of both the energy yield and the durability of PV systems deployed in this region
cis-Bis(2,2′-bipyridine-κ2 N,N′)dichloridoiron(III) perchlorate
In the crystal structure of the title compound, [FeCl2(C10H8N2)2]ClO4, the coordination around the FeIII atom is approximately octahedral. The equatorial positions are occupied by two N atoms from two 2,2′-bipyridyl ligands [Fe—N = 2.121 (5) and 2.147 (5) Å] and two Cl atoms [Fe—Cl = 2.220 (2) and 2.2074 (18) Å]. Weak intermolecular C—H⋯O and C—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds and C—H⋯π interactions consolidate the crystal packing
Modelling trade offs between public and private conservation policies
To reduce global biodiversity loss, there is an urgent need to determine the
most efficient allocation of conservation resources. Recently, there has been a
growing trend for many governments to supplement public ownership and
management of reserves with incentive programs for conservation on private
land. At the same time, policies to promote conservation on private land are
rarely evaluated in terms of their ecological consequences. This raises
important questions, such as the extent to which private land conservation can
improve conservation outcomes, and how it should be mixed with more traditional
public land conservation. We address these questions, using a general framework
for modelling environmental policies and a case study examining the
conservation of endangered native grasslands to the west of Melbourne,
Australia. Specifically, we examine three policies that involve: i) spending
all resources on creating public conservation areas; ii) spending all resources
on an ongoing incentive program where private landholders are paid to manage
vegetation on their property with 5-year contracts; and iii) splitting
resources between these two approaches. The performance of each strategy is
quantified with a vegetation condition change model that predicts future
changes in grassland quality. Of the policies tested, no one policy was always
best and policy performance depended on the objectives of those enacting the
policy. This work demonstrates a general method for evaluating environmental
policies and highlights the utility of a model which combines ecological and
socioeconomic processes.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
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