1,721,177 research outputs found
Negotiated complexity in ecostystem services science and policy making
No full textAbstract: Its a long way from scientific knowledge to concrete policy action. Along the way many decisions have to be made. A lot of these decisions relate to setting priorities. With regard to policy uptake of scientific knowledge on ecosystem services, the need for an integrated decision-making framework is crucial. Framing complexity is a crucial aspect of any ecosystem services approach: How do we deal with ecological and social complexity? The complexity to be taken into account and the approach for dealing with that complexity are part of context-specific negotiation among actors involved in the process of investigation and interpretation, and as such becomes negotiated complexity. We propose an analytical deliberative multicriteria decision-support framework for ecosystem services decision making. We illustrate the practicalities of the framework by referring to its application in the field of environmental health in Belgium, and we reflect on the opportunities for a similar approach regarding ecosystem services
Bioenergy to biodiversity: downscaling scenarios of land use change
No full textBioenergy crops are a key component of Scotland’s strategy to meet 2050 carbon emissions targets. The introduction of these crops could have large scale impacts on the biodiversity of lowland farmland. These impacts depend on the change in land use which in turn is governed by a wide range of social, economic and environmental factors. European scale scenarios have been used to model these factors and estimate future land uses. Divergent scenarios provide narratives that explore the outcome of different policy assumptions and can be used to explore an uncertain future and its potential impacts on biodiversity. Here we focus on SRC willow and Miscanthus as examples of woody and non wood bioenergy crops. The area of land modelled by the European scenarios is downscaled to the land parcel level. To achieve this, a methodology is developed that uses simple allocation rules based on the assumptions of the core scenarios. The results of the downscaling are then used to investigate the impact on biodiversity of different scenario assumptions at 2020 and 2050. The results show that only a small amount of agricultural land may be available in the strictest environmental scenarios. Downscaling reveals different spatial patterns of biodiversity networks arising from divergent policy assumption. Therefore the methodology provides a link between European land use change and landscape scale changes to biodiversity
CICES Going Local: Ecosystem Services Classification Adapted for a Highly Populated Country
No full textMultiple classification systems for ecosystem services (ES) make comparison and integration between studies and assessments very difficult. With the fast-growing number of ecosystem services assessment and valuation studies, there is a need to identify generally agreed definitions and to design a common base that will enable comparisons between ecosystem services assessments at different places. The recently developed Common International Classification for Ecosystem Services (CICES) is aiming to fill this gap. One advantage of the CICES approach is that it allows adjustment to local conditions. Through an iterative consultation round with Belgian experts from administrations, policy support units, and research centers CICES has been adapted to the needs of a highly populated country, where multifunctional land use is very common. The goal of CICES-Be is to introduce a common reference base for ecosystem services in Belgium, which is locally adapted and compatible with an international standard. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p
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
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