Introduction

A hundred years ago the Society often listened to papers about the ocean, but the rapid growth of science, especially the development of those aspects that can be carried through with the help of laboratory experiments, has led to some neglect of large-scale natural processes, in favour of those that can be more readily formulated and imitated in models. Although aiming at better understanding and use of the world we live in, we have concentrated on the most approachable and profitable aspects; in consequence, studies of the earth, oceans and atmosphere, have become ‘fringe subjects’. But they are staging a come-back. The application of modern theoretical and practical methods to these problems brings results as exciting as any that can be obtained in a laboratory, and just as suitable for Ph.D. courses, which is one of the things that seems to matter, if they were better known. We must be grateful to the Society for giving us this opportunity to talk about the oceans. I am sure the papers will show the wide range of interest and excitement as well as the difficulties.

Author(s):  
Roy Livermore

Despite the dumbing-down of education in recent years, it would be unusual to find a ten-year-old who could not name the major continents on a map of the world. Yet how many adults have the faintest idea of the structures that exist within the Earth? Understandably, knowledge is limited by the fact that the Earth’s interior is less accessible than the surface of Pluto, mapped in 2016 by the NASA New Horizons spacecraft. Indeed, Pluto, 7.5 billion kilometres from Earth, was discovered six years earlier than the similar-sized inner core of our planet. Fortunately, modern seismic techniques enable us to image the mantle right down to the core, while laboratory experiments simulating the pressures and temperatures at great depth, combined with computer modelling of mantle convection, help identify its mineral and chemical composition. The results are providing the most rapid advances in our understanding of how this planet works since the great revolution of the 1960s.


Author(s):  
Elena Stepanovna Ustinovich ◽  
Tatyana Petrovna Boldyreva

It is clear to everyone that investment in the agricultural sector in developing countries is one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty and hunger in the world. Agricultural investment can generate a wide range of development opportunities. However, these benefi ts cannot be expected to arise automatically. Some forms of large-scale investment pose significant risks to investor states. It should be noted, however, that, despite discussions about the potential benefits and risks of international investment, there is still no evidence of negative actual consequences for the countries receiving investments. This article examines the issues of investment activity in relation to developing countries using the example of US agribusiness entities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (15) ◽  
pp. 1448-1455
Author(s):  
Venelin Terziev ◽  
Teodora Petrova

The non-motorized air systems for intelligence, monitoring and control of the earth surface have gained currency and are used for various tactic flight’s tasks and missions. The non-motorized aircrafts (NMA) and the air-monitoring systems that include board and land part are key elements of these systems. The world experience in using NMA for these uses shows that they are most suitable where the exploitation conditions are very extreme and there is an unacceptable risk for operations of piloted aviation. Such are intelligence and observation of strictly guarded sites, zones, where military operations are conducted as well as regions with large scale fires and floods. The use of people in these conditions is connected with actual threat for their lives and practically, NMA as a tool for collecting and processing of information is irreplaceable. Keywords: registration of images, methods, information systems, non-motorized aircrafts.


Author(s):  
William Lowrie

Geophysics is a field of earth sciences that uses the methods of physics to investigate the complex physical properties of the Earth and the natural processes that have determined and continue to govern its evolution. ‘What is geophysics?’ explains how geophysical investigations cover a wide range of research fields—including planetary gravitational and magnetic fields and seismology—extending from surface changes that can be observed from Earth-orbiting satellites to complex behaviour in the Earth’s deep interior. The timescale of processes occurring in the Earth also has a very broad range, from earthquakes lasting a few seconds to the motions of tectonic plates that take place over tens of millions of years.


Zootaxa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1968 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZHI-QIANG ZHANG

One of the fundamental quests of biology is discovering how many species inhabit the Earth. Yet the vast majority of the world’s animal species are waiting to be discovered, named and described—estimates of the total number vary from 5 to 30 million.  Most biologists would agree that taxonomy is important and fundamental to credible biology, and descriptive taxonomy is the most important task of taxonomy (Wheeler 2007). Unfortunately, the reality is that descriptive taxonomy has been marginalized since the mid-1950s and has sustained serious losses in funding and academic positions in universities and museums around the world, especially since phylogenetic and molecular studies became popular in the last twenty years.  During this period, there has also been an important historical trend in taxonomic publishing—many journal publishers/editors have been making increasing demands on authors to provide phylogenetic analysis, molecular systematics, and other modern types of information in taxonomic papers. In addition, there are long publication delays and/or increasing page charges for many journals that do publish descriptive taxonomic papers. Zootaxa was founded in 2001 to provide a much-needed outlet for descriptive taxonomic papers and monographs that are difficult to publish elsewhere, and as a result has received tremendous support from taxonomists worldwide, despite the fact that it is a grass-roots project without support from government and institutions (Zhang 2006a).  Zootaxa satisfied the publishing need of many zoological taxonomists, and sustained a period of rapid growth during 2001 to 2006 (Zhang 2006b). During the last two years, it has continued to grow in size, and especially in its impact, and has become a major force in reviving descriptive taxonomy on a global scale.  Here I summarize some encouraging data on the growth of Zootaxa and its impact.  I also comment on its contribution to the progress of  descriptive taxonomy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Jim F. Raborar

Abstract Development is an innate manifestation on earth. It is not even surprising that the world has developed tremendously over the past decade considering the development in the previous decades. That is, development precipitates development. Therefore, even though everybody can see what risks it brings to the earth, we cannot simply restrain it. Of course, we cannot restrain it. The bottomline is that we have no choice but to be part of the development and be one of those who assist in the ever spontaneous development by trying to minimize its unwanted effects to the planet and its inhabitantants, the humans. Even looking at the ‘development’ from one’s own microcosm, we can perceive that as we go through life and gain some of what this world can offer, we produce tons and tons of wastes. These wastes, which are naturally not part of the earth, pollute and disrupt the natural processes of the planet. It is also simple to notice that the fundamental cause of the depletion of the earth’s natural resources was definitely proportional to the increase in population and to the development itself. Here lies one of the underlying global problems at hand aside from poverty, hunger, low access to education, and other socio-anthropological issues we have, this is the issue on natural resources depletion. Even to worldleaders from well-developed countries can recognize that they will also be the ones at the receiving end of this problem. It is basic that living organisms rely on their environment or the abiotic factors, to live sustainably. Considering these problems, the United Nations, with the worldleaders as its composition, has come up with strategies that advocate development while keeping the earth’s natural resources from depletion or the earth’s natural processes from disruption. This advocacy is called Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development is the development that meets the need of the present generation without compromising the ability of the next generation to meet their own needs. It is, at its core, an advocacy for futurism and the next generation. Sustainable Development is primarily anchored with the case of the “carrying capacity” of the planet Earth. It was already implied by several natural scientists as well as social scientists that indeed the Planet Earth increasingly finds it hard to sustain the needs of the human races because of overpopulation. These things result to poverty and hunger around the world. On the otherhand, it is increasing implied that most of the Natural Resources of the planet goes to the well-developed countries, leaving the developing and underdeveloped countries with meager resources. This further increases cases of hunger and poverty. Although it is deceptive that the call for a sustainable development should take its toll on the countries with bigger economy since they consume the most and pollute the most, it is very definite that there should be a much more intensive application in developing countries since we are just about to experience what the rest of the developed countries have already experienced. More importantly, developing countries should advocate Sustainable Development since it is a common knowledge that even if they contribute least to the causes of natural resource depletion and disruption of natural processes, they are the ones who suffer most from the devastating effects of unsustainable development. As citizens of the Republic of the Philippines, we are one of those who suffer most.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yosof M Khalifa ◽  
Salah M Mady

The vast increase of energy consumption, global warming and the harm they cause to the environment, emerge to be a major obstruction that distresses the world today. The current work views one of the methods that the world focused on as means of reducing the environmental harms and that is, through green building, or in more common words sustainable buildings. Those means, covers the exercising of a wide range of applications including merging of new and specific technologies in which through fulfilling its basis, the process of evaluation of the building takes place in terms of its harmony with the environment, reduction of energy consumption, and the reduction of the environmental problems caused by the building life cycle starting from defining of location, design of the building, operation, maintenance, repairing and up to the renewal of the building.  Despite the significance of green building, no profit nor implementations has yet been made in Libya. The latter is due to the lack of awareness by many Libyan social groups. From here, the idea behind this paper crystalized. It aims to spread and enhance the knowledge and techniques of green building. It also penetrates into the green building features and advantages that are considered to be a preliminary step to start its application in a wide range coinciding with the grand progress that the country has witnessed in the field of construction and housing. This paper concludes that it is possible to reduce energy consumption and the harm it causes to the environment after the implementation and merging of green building techniques and should be applied on a large scale covering the whole country. 


1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (12) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Maynard M. Nichols

Photographs taken from space provide a new source of data concerning coastal processes By utilizing the high vantage point and broad view orbiting space cameras can record little known large-scale processes at short time intervals Major outflow plumes, fresh-salt water "fronts", turbidity maxima and massive effluents are among the wide range of features displayed It is shown from selected examples how coastal processes can be evaluated from space photography and how the information may be of use for solving certain problems as a supplement to field and other remote sensing data By 1972 satellite photography will be available on a routine basis for many coasts of the world Engineers are urged to consider the potential for improving their information which space photography has to offer.


Author(s):  
Mary Kay Gugerty ◽  
Dean Karlan

Deworm the World serves millions of school children every year. Monitoring on such a large scale can amplify the difficulty of developing a right-fit system: How can an organization ensure credible data collection across a wide range of sites and prioritize actionable information that informs implementation? How can such a large-scale system rapidly respond to issues once identified? This case illustrates the challenge of finding credible and actionable activity tracking measures. How does Deworm the World apply the credible, actionable, and responsible principles to determine the right amount of data to collect and the right time and place at which to collect it?


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Parker

Abstract S. verticillata is listed by Holm et al. (1979) as a 'serious' or 'principal' weed in 11 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and the Pacific. From its origins in Europe and perhaps Africa, it has been accidentally introduced to many other countries across the world. It is often listed as one of the two or three most important weeds in a wide range of crops, within and outside its native range, and it can also become dominant in grassland. The combination of ready dispersal by its 'sticky' seed and seed-heads, and its C4 physiology and rapid growth make it an extremely successful invader. It adapts to local conditions rapidly and has developed resistance to atrazine and other herbicides.


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