scholarly journals Exceptional and rapid accumulation of anthropogenic debris on one of the world’s most remote and pristine islands

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (23) ◽  
pp. 6052-6055 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Lavers ◽  
Alexander L. Bond

In just over half a century plastic products have revolutionized human society and have infiltrated terrestrial and marine environments in every corner of the globe. The hazard plastic debris poses to biodiversity is well established, but mitigation and planning are often hampered by a lack of quantitative data on accumulation patterns. Here we document the amount of debris and rate of accumulation on Henderson Island, a remote, uninhabited island in the South Pacific. The density of debris was the highest reported anywhere in the world, up to 671.6 items/m2(mean ± SD: 239.4 ± 347.3 items/m2) on the surface of the beaches. Approximately 68% of debris (up to 4,496.9 pieces/m2) on the beach was buried <10 cm in the sediment. An estimated 37.7 million debris items weighing a total of 17.6 tons are currently present on Henderson, with up to 26.8 new items/m accumulating daily. Rarely visited by humans, Henderson Island and other remote islands may be sinks for some of the world’s increasing volume of waste.

Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle

The conclusion looks at the teaching of Pope Francis, considering the possibility that it represents the emergence of a new framework for Catholic social teaching. Pope Francis has emphasized that the encounter with Jesus Christ brings about an experience of newness and openness. He has also proposed a cosmic theological vision. His concept of “integral ecology,” introduced in his encyclical Laudato Si’, illustrates how human society is interconnected with the natural ecology of the planet earth and the entire cosmos. He proposes that the economy, society, culture, and daily life are all interconnected “ecologies.” In a speech to the World Meeting of Popular Movements in 2015, Pope Francis also explains how social movements devoted to local issues can nevertheless have a profound effect on the structures of the global economy. In his teachings, Pope Francis presents an organicist and communitarian vision of economic life.


1985 ◽  
Vol 1985 (25) ◽  
pp. 6-10
Author(s):  
Milton Lalas ◽  
Lindsay D. Armstrong

Author(s):  
M Sreekanth ◽  
R Sivakumar ◽  
M Sai Santosh Pavan Kumar ◽  
K Karunamurthy ◽  
MB Shyam Kumar ◽  
...  

This paper presents a detailed and objective review of regenerative flow turbomachines, namely pumps, blowers and compressors. Several aspects of turbomachines like design and operating parameters, working principle, flow behaviour, performance parameters and analytical and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) related details have been reviewed and summarized. Experimental work has been put in perspective and the most useful results for optimized performance have been presented. Consolidated plots of specific speed-specific diameter have been plotted which can be helpful in the early stages of design. Industrial outlook involving details of suppliers from various parts of the world, their product description and applications too are included. Finally, future research work to be carried out to make these machines widespread is suggested. This review is targeted at designer engineers who would need quantitative data to work with.


2021 ◽  
pp. 72-77
Author(s):  
A.V. Verkhoturov ◽  
◽  
A.A. Obukhov

Analyzed is one of the most comprehensive modern approaches to the problem of the existence of evolution of human society as such and of specific human communities, i.e. “General Theory of Historical Development” by American historian and sociologist Stephen Sanderson. While agreeing, in general, with its main ideas, we believe that it is important to note that the issue of existence of individual communities demonstrating devolution (regression to an earlier historical state), stagnation or degeneration at certain historical stages is practically ignored in the framework of the theory under consideration. This creates its vulnerability in the face of specific empirical data, indicating a deviation from the evolutionary trend. We believe that overcoming this theoretical difficulty is possible in the process of comprehending the theory of S. Sanderson in the context of ideas of the world-system approach of Immanuel Wallerstein. We want to show that examples of devolution, stagnation and degeneration of societies do not deny general progressive evolutionary tendencies, characteristic for the world-system as a whole, but only indicate the transition of a particular society to a lower level within the world-system (from the core to the semi-periphery, or from the semi-periphery to the periphery).


2021 ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
PU JINGXIN

Abstract: The danger of the novel coronavirus has not yet come to an end, and new variants have begun to attack the world. What philosophy should humankind’s strategy be based on when human society as a group is fighting against Covid-19, as the pandemic ravages the world? Unfortunately, political leaders of various countries have failed to achieve the overall awareness of attacking the pandemic for a shared future for mankind so far. In the face of the pandemic, mankind as a whole urgently needs to break through the narrow nation-oriented ideology of seeking only self-protection. The International Community should establish a new type of international cooperation featuring the concept of harmony of "all things under heaven as a unity". The international relations system dominated by the power ofwestern discourse is now in a bottleneck. The main aim of this article is to study the ancient Chinese wisdom of "the Unity of Man and Heaven" philosophy and build a global harmonious community. The author argues that the “export” of the aforementioned wisdom must be a priority for Chinese scholars. Keywords: Tao; Unity of Man and Heaven; Novel Coronavirus; Anthropocentrism; Harmony.


1907 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simeon E. Baldwin

The pre-Tridentine œcumenical councils of the Roman Catholic church were, as Dr. Francis Wharton has well remarked, international congresses, working toward the establishment of a uniform law for the civilized world. It was a law confined to one set of subjects; but among them were those having to do with the family relation, and which were therefore of the first importance to human society. Each nation of Christendom was represented in these gatherings by its sovereign or political delegates, as well as by its bishops, and it was for each nation, acting through its political departments, to ratify or reject such rules or laws in these respects as the council might propose.The representation of political sovereignty in the Council of Trent was slight, and in the only œcumenical council since called by Eome — that of the Vatican — it was wholly wanting; Bavaria being the only power (though all European cabinets were consulted) which intimated a willingness to send an official delegate.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (167) ◽  
pp. 46-50
Author(s):  
S. Burlutska ◽  
O. Chabanenko

The world has not yet come up with a single recipe for fighting corruption. But thanks to constant progress, anti-corruption strategies are replenished with effective innovation mechanisms. The global experience of using blockchain opens up new prospects for eliminating corruption in the world. Blockchain is an opportunity not only to modernize outdated functional systems, but also to apply new, more effective means of combating corruption and cybercrime. One of the main advantages of the blockchain is that all network participants have a register of transaction data. Therefore, if someone decides to hide, delete or change their recalculations in the accounting book, then copies of these transactions still remain in tens of thousands of other users and the system immediately accesses them. Therefore, a few minutes will be enough to solve the issues of detecting a crime. Today, it is worth highlighting 3 types of widespread use of blockchain technology in the fight against corruption: identity verification, asset registration and tracking of monetary transactions. For example, you can check the purpose of money transfers in real time, see salary payments, and compare prices among suppliers. Like any type of crime, corruption in human society cannot be completely excluded. However, decentralized platforms functioning on blockchain technology, already today, firstly, can directly bring together the customer and the executor, and secondly, all the conditions agreed upon by the participants can then be easily verified (thus, it will be impossible to imperceptibly inflate the price when using blockchain). Blockchain technology is in demand because it creates an unprecedented degree of trust in information in relationships between individuals and public organizations, or between the state, people and private institutions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 60-66
Author(s):  
Ye Tuyte ◽  

Writing is very important for human society. This is the highest indicator of cultural development. Writing provides linguistic communication between people. For many centuries man has been using writing to communicate with each other. It helps to connect people who are from each other both at close and at a great distance. The article examines the problem of the origin of writing in the history of mankind, the history of the formation and development of the known types of writing, as well as its social role (functions). The article reveals the issues of the process of improving writing: its meaning in the development of society, the main stages of its formation. The letter has a long and complex history of its development, which covers a period of several thousand years. Therefore, the article determines the place of pictographic, ideographic, syllabic and letter psychology in meeting social needs. of its time. The writing of the peoples of the world has developed along different paths, the writing of each language of the world has its own characteristics that distinguish it from all other types of written speech. The article covers in detail such issues as the approximate time of the origin of writing, the causes and foundations of its occurrence, i.e. the factors that influenced its emergence, as well as the first users of writing, the form of the first writing, its evolutionary development over time, existing today types and signs of writing. The issues of the alphabet that caused the origin of writing (writing), the first sounds and types of Phoenician writing, its improvement, Greek and Aramaic writing, which caused the origin of the alphabet of the countries of the West and the East, problems of the science of descriptiveness — the problem of graphics, spelling, transcription and transliteration are considered.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 2691-2707 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Cornejo ◽  
L. Farías

Abstract. Oxygen deficient zones (OMZs), such as those found in the eastern South Pacific (ESP), are the most important N2O sources in the world ocean relative to their volume. N2O production is related to low O2 concentrations and high primary productivity. However, when O2 is sufficiently low, canonical denitrification takes place and N2O consumption can be expected. N2O distribution in the ESP was analyzed over a wide latitudinal range (from 5° to 30° S and 71°–76° to ~84° W) based on ~890 N2O measurements. The intense consumption of N2O appears to be related to secondary NO2− accumulation, the best indicator of very low O2 levels. Using relationships that depend on threshold levels of O2 (<8 μM) and nitrite (>0.75 μM), we reproduced the apparent N2O production (ΔN2O) with high reliability (r2=0.73 p=0.01). Our results contribute to quantify the ratio of N2O production/consumption that is being cycling in O2 deficient water of N2O and may improve the prediction of N2O behavior under future scenarios of the OMZ expansion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-64
Author(s):  
Casilda Saavedra ◽  
Khrista Baran

In recent times, plastic production has increased due to the convenience and multipurpose use. As plastic may make lifeeasier on humans, the amount of plastic debris has increased as well as the effect on marine life. Since it is a relatively new topic,the effects on marine species are trying to be modeled in laboratories and observed in the field. The effects of plastic marine debrisinclude but are not limited to entanglement, ingestion, possible bioaccumulation, chemical exposures, and even death. Larger plasticscan become smaller particles, microplastics, which are difficult to study the effects on marine life due to the small size. Microplasticsare a global issue that effect species. Some of the factors that are considered of why different organisms ingest plastics include:method of feeding, color, age, and accidental/secondary ingestion. The focus of this research article is the ingestion of averagepercentage of microplastics of seabird species compared to other marine species throughout the world.


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