81 research outputs found
The making of Gondwana: discovery of 650Ma HP granulites from the North Lhasa, Tibet
No full textAbstract not availableZeming Zhang, Xin Dong, Feng Liu, Yanhao Lin, Rong Yan, Zhenyu He, M. Santos
Strategies and tactics to stimulate Social enterprise business expansion-Swedish experience
No full textAbstract Title: Strategies and tactics to stimulate Social enterprise business expansion-Swedish experience Level: Final assignment for Master’s Degree in Business Administration Author: GU Yanhao Supervisor: Maria Fregidou-Malama Examiner: Lars Ekstrand Date: 2013-10-17 Aim: This study aims to identify elements which can affect social enterprise business expansion. Based on study, suggestions for social enterprises to achieve long term development are exhibited. Method: This research is a qualitative research based on case study. Relay on previous knowledge about social enterprises, I formulate questions which serve my study’s aim. There are three companies be selected in my case company list. Those three companies are divided in two categories: one type is social enterprise consultant company whose mission is to aid regional social enterprise to make health business operation; another type is social enterprise. There are four interview used in the research to ensure that the research result contains different perspectives and opinions. Result & Conclusions: This study depicts an overall view about social enterprise business expansion. Certain suggestions have been listed relay on the combination of previous literature result with case studies. In the study, various elements have been determined which have significant impacts on social enterprise business expansion operation. They are divided in two segments, internal and external. Internal aspects include human resource and social entrepreneur. External factors include third Part Company, non-profit charity groups and authority. Social enterprise who wants business expansion needs to integrate different resources from various social institutions. Meanwhile to enhance internal product capability as well as competitive advantage social enterprise needs to more emphasize on social entrepreneurs’ characteristics. Suggestion for further research: Further study should emphasize on various sizes of social enterprises in multi-stakeholders co-operation model. This study mainly focuses on SMEs type of SE, but with the time passing by, due to SE can offer solutions to social crisis and economic crisis, SE will be popular, and this idea will spread quickly. Therefore, more and more large size SE will emerge which needs guide and help with business maintaining and expansion plans. Contribution of the thesis: This study contributes to three aspects. First, this study analyses the present situation of social enterprise, exhibit internal and external factors which affect social enterprise to make business expansion. It offers social enterprise a path to implement business expansion, and help social enterprise to identify its potential capabilities which could help them achieve long term development. Secondly, during this work, author explains the ideology of social enterprise, what are its contributions to society as well as the reason why it exists. Since the results offer an explicitly structured conclusion, they are valuable information to society as well as local municipality to re-considerate the important role social enterprise can play. Last not the least, this research presents a new model of key elements for social enterprise business expansion. It is critical and crucial for further research in academic study.
The experiment of the elemental mercury was removed from natural gas by 4A molecular sieve
No full textStudy on the new technology of removing gangue and retaining roadway in complicated roof condition
No full textRegional- and Local-scale Drivers of Establishment and Invasion Success of Alien Plants
No full textDue to intensive human activities across the globe, a vast number of alien plants are introduced to new biogeographical areas. A major theme in ecology is to understand why only some of them manage to become established and further invasive in new ranges, where they threaten biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. This is a challenging theme because plant invasion is a complex process occurring across ecological scales at different invasion stages. In this thesis, I explored both regional- and local-scale drivers of alien plants establishment and invasion success using dataset analysis, and common-garden and greenhouse experiments.First, I explored how regional-scale establishment success and spread of 449 Chinese woody species in Europe were interactively associated with a broad range of factors. I found that the establishment success and spread significantly increased with residence time (only in spread), planting frequency and climatic suitability. Although none of species traits had significant main effects on the establishment, having a longer flowering period and compound leaves favored the spread of established species. The role of some traits (fruiting duration, leaf retention and leaf type) in the establishment and/or spread was dependent on other factors (residence time, planting frequency, climatic suitability and other species traits). These findings explicitly show how the role of some factors in the invasion process is context-dependent.Second, I explored whether the ability of alien woody plants to cope with shading explained their regional-scale establishment success. Overall, the established and non-established species did not differ greatly in biomass production, morphological characteristics and CO2 assimilation, across five light intensities (from 100% to 7% of ambient light). However, the established species grew taller and reduced total leaf area more than the non-established ones in response to shading. Furthermore, the established species maintained a greater low-light CO2-assimilation capacity under shading. Overall, these differences were small, and therefore I conclude that the response to shading is not important for the successful establishment of alien woody plants.Last, I explored local-scale direct and indirect interactions among alien and native plant species. In particular, I tested whether a native species that is phylogenetically closely related rather than distantly related to an alien species can directly suppress the alien, and as a consequence can indirectly reduce competitive effects of the alien on other co-occurring native species. Overall, competition was more severe between more closely-related alien species and native species, although this pattern was partly dependent on the regional-scale commonness of the alien. However, the presence of distantly-related rather than closely-related native species indirectly offset strong competitive effects of alien species on target native species. These interactions were explained by functional traits (e.g. plant height, SLA, leaf area ratio, root length ratio and shoot weight ratio) rather than by phylogenetic/functional distances of the interacting species. This implies that functional traits could help to disentangle complex interactions among plants.To sum up, my thesis explored different mechanisms across ecological scales in the process of plant invasions. My findings may shed lights on the future studies to systematically integrate regional-scale processes (by considering complex interactions among various factors) with local-scale processes, such as adaptation to local environments and species interactions to ultimately explain and predict success of alien plants outside their native ranges.publishe
Towards mechanistic integration of the causes and consequences of biodiversity.
No full textThe global biodiversity crisis has stimulated decades of research on three themes: species coexistence, biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships (BEF), and biodiversity-ecosystem functional stability relationships (BEFS). However, studies on these themes are largely independent, creating barriers to an integrative understanding of the causes and consequences of biodiversity. Here we review recent progress towards mechanistic integration of coexistence, BEF, and BEFS. Mechanisms underlying the three themes can be linked in various ways, potentially creating either positive or negative relationships between them. That said, we generally expect positive associations between coexistence and BEF, and between BEF and BEFS. Our synthesis represents an initial step towards integrating causes and consequences of biodiversity; future developments should include more mechanistic approaches and broader ecological contexts
Phylogenetic and functional mechanisms of direct and indirect interactions among alien and native plants
No full textPhylogenetic and functional mechanisms of direct and indirect interactions among alien and native plant
Data from: Phylogenetic and functional mechanisms of direct and indirect interactions among alien and native plants
No full textDisentangling direct and indirect interactions among alien and native plants is essential to understanding the success of alien plants in multi-species communities, but studies have only focused on direct pairwise interactions. Moreover, it is also essential to explore phylogenetic and functional mechanisms driving these interactions. In a greenhouse experiment, we selected nine groups of alien and native plant species from the herbaceous flora of Germany to disentangle their direct and indirect interactions. Each group had an alien (A) that is common or rare in Germany (i.e. non-native range), two natives that are phylogenetically closely related (Nclose) and distantly related (Ndist) to A respectively, and a distantly related “target” native (T). We grew the four species of each group alone, and in two-species and three-species combinations. Specifically, we tested whether competition is greater between A and Nclose than between A and Ndist, whether presence of Nclose rather than Ndist indirectly alleviates competition of A on T, and whether these interaction patterns depend on commonness of A. Moreover, we tested how intensity of these interactions is explained by phylogenetic distance, functional traits (height, seed mass, SLA, leaf size, specific root length, leaf area ratio, root length ratio (root length/plant mass), shoot weight ratio) and traits-based functional distance. We found A had stronger competition on Nclose than on Ndist. In turn, A was more suppressed by Nclose than by Ndist, but this was only true for rare rather than common A. The presence of Ndist rather than Nclose indirectly reduced competition of A on T. The intensity of the interactions was not explained by phylogenetic or functional distance, but by some of the functional traits. Specifically, a plant experienced stronger competition when it was shorter and had smaller leaves and lower shoot weight ratio, and when its neighbors were taller, had greater SLA, leaf area ratio and shoot weight ratio, and had a lower root length ratio. Synthesis. Functional traits can help explain competitive interactions. While direct competition tended to be stronger between more closely related alien and native plants, this did not indirectly facilitate other co-occurring native plants
Responses to shading of naturalized and non-naturalized exotic woody species
No full textBackground and AimsRecent studies have suggested that responses to shading gradients may play an important role in establishment success of exotic plants, but hitherto few studies have tested this. Therefore, a common-garden experiment was conducted using multiple Asian woody plant species that were introduced to Europe >100 years ago in order to test whether naturalized and non-naturalized species differ in their responses to shading. Specifically, a test was carried out to determine whether naturalized exotic woody species maintained better growth under shaded conditions, and whether they expressed greater (morphological and physiological) adaptive plasticity in response to shading, relative to non-naturalized species.MethodsNineteen naturalized and 19 non-naturalized exotic woody species were grown under five light levels ranging from 100 to 7 % of ambient light. For all plants, growth performance (i.e. biomass), morphological and CO2 assimilation characteristics were measured. For the CO2 assimilation characteristics, CO2 assimilation rate was measured at 1200 μmol m–2 s–1 (i.e. saturated light intensity, A1200), 50 μmol m–2 s–1 (i.e. low light intensity, A50) and 0 μmol m–2 s–1 (A0, i.e. dark respiration).Key ResultsOverall, the naturalized and non-naturalized species did not differ greatly in biomass production and measured morphological and CO2 assimilation characteristics across the light gradient. However, it was found that naturalized species grew taller and reduced total leaf area more than non-naturalized species in response to shading. It was also found that naturalized species were more capable of maintaining a high CO2 assimilation rate at low light intensity (A50) when grown under shading.ConclusionsThe results indicate that there is no clear evidence that the naturalized species possess a superior response to shading over non-naturalized species, at least not at the early stage of their growth. However, the higher CO2 assimilation capacity of the naturalized species under low-light conditions might facilitate early growth and survival, and thereby ultimately favour their initial population establishment over the non-naturalized species.publishe
Introduction history, climatic suitability, native range size, species traits and their interactions explain establishment of Chinese woody species in Europe
No full textAimA major challenge in ecology is to understand how multiple causal factors, which may interact, drive success of non-native plants in new ranges. In this study we addressed the role of introduction history, climatic suitability, native range size, species traits and their interactions in the establishment of Chinese woody species in Europe. LocationChina (native range), Europe (new range). MethodsWe tested whether establishment of 449 Chinese woody species in Europe was associated with residence time (time since earliest planting), planting frequency, climatic suitability, native range size and species traits. We also considered possible nonlinear effects and interactions among these variables. For the 38 species that have established in Europe, we further tested whether these variables and interactions explained their establishment in multiple European countries. ResultsEstablishment of the 449 species in Europe was positively associated with residence time, planting frequency and climatic suitability. Except residence time, these factors were also positively associated with establishment of the 38 species in multiple countries. None of the traits tested had statistically significant main effects on establishment in Europe, but, for the established species, longer flowering period and having compound leaves were positively associated with establishment in multiple countries. The positive association between establishment in Europe and residence time was stronger for evergreen than for deciduous species. In addition, evergreens, unlike deciduous species, showed a positive association between establishment in Europe and fruiting duration. Moreover, establishment in multiple countries was positively associated with planting frequency for species with compound leaves but not for species with simple leaves, and the association between the establishment and fruiting duration changed from negative to moderately positive as climatic suitability increased. Main conclusionsIntroduction history and climatic suitability explain most of the variation in establishment, and modulate the role of species traits, such as leaf retention, leaf type and fruiting duration.China Scholarship Council (CSC); DFG [KL 1866/5-1]SCI(E)[email protected]
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