1,720,968 research outputs found
From Second National Communication to Third National Communication for the UNFCCC: Sri Lanka’s Progress
Full text linkSri Lanka is a signatory country to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and therefore is expected to provide information on greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories, measures to mitigate and to facilitate adequate adaptation to climate change, and any other information that the party considers relevant to the achievement of the objective of the Convention.Sri Lanka is now in the preparation of the 3rd National Communication. This paper attempts to review the status of the implementation of the recommendations provided by the Second National Communication (submitted in 2010) in the area of Green House Gas mitigation in the backdrop of the expectations of the Third National Communication. The targets of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) were also considered in this context. The sectors dealt with here are power, transport, industries, agriculture, land use, land use change and forestry and waste. In general considerable action had been taken towards implementation of the recommendations put forward by the Second National Communication (2NC). However more work needs to be done to fulfil the expectations fully. With regards to the power sector, despite the expectation of the INDCs to provide 50% of the energy demand from Non-Conventional Renewable Energies (NCRE) by 2030, the Long Term Generation and Expansion Plan of the Ceylon Electricity Board envisages only 26.27% from NCRE by 2034 while the contribution from coal increased to 56.91%. The recommendation of 2NC to introduce natural gas as an alternative for base load generation has not materialized. With regards to the transportation sector which emits about 50% of carbon dioxide, there had been certain policy directions towards ensuring sustainable transport modes but the progress is rather slow. Some strategies and action plans in this regard are National Transport Master Plan, Road Sector Master Plan and Western Megapolis Action Plan which collectively aims at enhancing the use of public transport of higher quality and encourage its use while constructing and maintaining high quality transport modes including road and rail. Clean Air 2025 and Blue Green Era directives also accentuates these intentions. Greening the industries remain largely voluntary. The Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment has introduced two very important tools; National Green Reporting System (2011) and Green Procurement Policy (2015). The Blue Green Era Policy advocates green infrastructure and green industries. In the area of agriculture, National Agriculture Policy Framework and National Food Production Programme (2016-18) identifies the requirement of production of safe food by promoting eco-friendly practices and minimizing agro chemicals and pesticides in food crop production. The policy on toxin free country also is in agreement to this. With regards to the land use, land use change and forestry, the major attempt is the production of the National REDD+ Investment Framework and Action Plan in 2017. It encompassed three policy areas; forest, wildlife and watersheds, land use planning and other forested lands. In the waste sector, while National Policy on Solid Waste Management (2007) and Pilisaru Project are struggling to achieve their objectives, plans are underway to form a single waste management authority for the country and also introduce instruments such as Polluter Pay, producer Responsible etc. to minimize the pollution from waste streams. A Waste Management Plan for target provinces had been prepared by the Ministry of Mahaweli Development and Environment with the assistance of UN HABITAT in 2017. There is some interest in waste to energy projects.Keywords: National communication, Transport, Waste, Forests, Recommendations, Powe
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF MORAGAHAKA,NDA DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Full text linkThe Moragahakanda Development Project is an integral component of the 30-year Master planfor the Mahaweli Development Programme and is the last of the reservoirs to be developed.The project comprise of many components; a 63 m high dam and two smaller saddle dams atMoragahakanda forming a reservoir with full supply level (FSL) of 185 m msl and area of 29.5km2, a 20 MW base power plant incorporated in the dam with a 132 KV transmission line toHabarana, a second diversion tunnel from Bowatenna to Lenadora with 25 m3/s capacityaccompanied by improvement of the Huruluwewa Feeder Canal, a branch extension of theUpper Left Bank Canal of the Kariudulla Irrigation Scheme in System Dl to accommodatearound 1000 families who would be displaced by the Project.This paper attempts to review the principle environmental impacts of the proposed project,especially in upstream catchment, reservoir area and the dam, power plant, downstream riverand irrigation and settlements. Effects on the environment in the construction phase andoperational phase also were taker. separately. An environmental management plan had beendesigned covering all the project components and mitigation measures in the upstream riverbasin, reservoir area and dam site, downstream river and irrigation areas.
Greening the Highways – Road Way Design That Integrates Transportation Functionality and Ecological Sustainability – Case Study of Port to Port Expressway in Hambantota District
Full text linkThe weight of the road transport sector within an economy is considerable, not only inquantitative terms (tons transported), but also in economic terms such as source of wealth,employment and in terms of support given to other economic activities. Through numerousmechanisms, investments in the road sector benefit the whole society by providing access toterritory and allowing poverty alleviation to take place. Consequently, the road networkcreates and stimulates positive synergy and enhances social cohesion and integration bygiving citizens access to the same opportunities. However, in as much as it provides the aforesaid benefits, if not done holistically without giving proper heed to the environment andnatural resources, it poses many negative impacts. Some of them are bifurcating landscapesand societies and calling for involuntary resettlement, impediment on natural hydrology,noise pollution, water pollution, habitat destruction/disturbance and local air quality; and thewider effects including climate change from vehicle emissions. The design, construction andmanagement of roads can change the impacts to varying degrees.A green highway is a roadway constructed with a relatively new concept for roadway designthat integrates transportation functionality and ecological sustainability. An environmentalapproach is used throughout the planning, design, and the construction. The result is ahighway that will benefit transportation, the ecosystem, urban growth, public health andsurrounding communities. In order to achieve this developer should go beyond the minimumstandards set by environmental laws and regulations. First of all it is required to map all theresources in the area in order to avoid, identify and protect critical resource areas. Naturaldrainage paths need to be protected and restored to protect the hydrology of wetlands andstreams in project area. The disruptions to ecological processes should be reduced bypromoting wildlife corridors and passages in areas identified through wildlife conservationplans. Examples are taken for the illustration of the above from the recently designedexpressway to link the Seaport with the Airport and the Southern Expressway in HambantotaDistrict
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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