scholarly journals Exploring the impact of political regimes on biodiversity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Zizka ◽  
Oskar Rydén ◽  
Daniel Edler ◽  
Johannes Klein ◽  
Heléne Aronsson ◽  
...  

AbstractNational governments are the main actors responsible for mapping and protecting their biodiversity, but countries differ in their capacity, willingness, and effectiveness to do so. We quantify the global biodiversity managed by different regime types and developed a tool to explore the links between level of democracy and other key socio-economic variables with the number of natural history specimens registered within country boundaries. Using this tool, distinct and previously unknown patterns emerge around the world, that urge for increased collaboration between the natural and social sciences to further explore these patterns and their underlying processes.

Author(s):  
Elspeth Haston ◽  
Lorna Mitchell

The specimens held in natural history collections around the world are the direct result of the effort of thousands of people over hundreds of years. However, the way that the names of these people have been recorded within the collections has never been fully standardised, and this makes the process of correctly assigning the event relating to the specimen to an individual difficult at best, and impossible at worst. The events in which people are related to specimens include collecting, identifying, naming, loaning and owning. Whilst there are resources in the botanical community that hold information on many collectors and authors of plant names, the residual number of unknown people and the effort required to disambiguate them is daunting. Moreover, in many cases, the work carried out within the collection to disambiguate the names relating to the specimens is often not recorded and made available, generally due to the lack of a system to do so. This situation is making it extremely difficult to search for collections within the main aggregators, such as GBIF —the Global Biodiversity Information Facility— , and severely hampers our ability to link collections both within and between institutes and disciplines. When we look at benefits of linking collections and people, the need to agree and implement a system of managing people names becomes increasingly urgent.


Author(s):  
David K. Skelly

This chapter presents two examples to demonstrate that natural history is the necessary basis of any reliable understanding of the world. More than a half century ago, Rachel Carson revolutionized the public’s view of pesticides. The foundation of her success was the careful use of natural history data, collated from across North America. The examples she assembled left little doubt that DDT and other pesticides were causing a widespread decline in birds. More recently, the case for the impact of atrazine on wildlife was based on laboratory experiments, without the advantage of natural history observations. For atrazine, natural history observations now suggest that other chemical agents are more likely to be responsible for feminization of wildlife populations. Developing expectations for scientists to collect natural history information can help to avoid over-extrapolating lab results to wild populations, a tendency often seen when those lab results conform to preconceptions about chemicals in the environment.


Social Change ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 475-482
Author(s):  
Zoya Hasan

The recent spread of the delta variant of the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries, though uneven, has once again set alarm bells ringing throughout the world. Nearly two years have passed since the onset of this pandemic: vaccines have been developed and vaccination is underway, but the end of the campaign against the pandemic is nowhere in sight. This drive has merely attempted to adjust and readjust, with or without success, to the various fresh challenges that have kept emerging from time to time. The pandemic’s persistence and its handling by the governments both have had implications for citizens’/peoples’ rights as well as for the systems which were in place before the pandemic. In this symposium domain experts investigate, with a sharp focus on India, the interface between the COVID-19 pandemic and democracy, health, education and social sciences. These contributions are notable for their nuanced and insightful examination of the impact of the pandemic on crucial social development issues with special attention to the exacerbated plight of society’s marginalised sections. In India, as in several other countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected democracy. The health crisis came at a moment when India was already experiencing democratic backsliding. The pandemic came in handy in imposing greater restrictions on democratic rights, public discussion and political opposition. This note provides an analysis and commentary on how the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted governance, at times undermining human rights and democratic processes, and posing a range of new challenges to democracy.


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 44-55
Author(s):  
Enric Serradell-López ◽  
Pablo Lara-Navarra ◽  
Cristina Casado-Lumbreras

Higher education institutions are crucial in the present. Universities play a role that varies with time and evolves with society. Globalization is changing the world and affecting higher education institutions in all their intrinsic characteristics: personnel, programs, infrastructures and students. Analyzed is the relevant research on cultural dimensions and applies it to higher education institutions focusing the analysis of the impact on eLearning setups. To do so, variables related to organizational strategy, design of curricula and teaching tools are proposed and analyzed from a set of cultural dimensions. Results show that higher education institutions are facing big challenges in their adaptation to multi-cultural arrangements.


Daedalus ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 141 (3) ◽  
pp. 108-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tilman

Concern about the loss of Earth's biological diversity sparked two decades of research of unprecedented intensity, intellectual excitement, and societal relevance. This research shows that biodiversity is among the most important factors determining how ecosystems function. In particular, the loss of biodiversity decreases the productivity, stability, and efficiency of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. These research findings come at a time of rapidly increasing threats to global biodiversity resulting from agricultural land clearing, climate change, and pollution caused by globally accelerating demand for food and energy. The world faces the grand, multifaceted challenge of meeting global demand for food and energy while preserving Earth's biodiversity and the long-term sustainability of both global societies and the ecosystems upon which all life depends. The solutions to this challenge will require major advances in, and syntheses among, the environmental and social sciences.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaya Halil Dincer ◽  
Balas Ayse Nilgun

Abstract The 2008-2009 global crisis has severely affected the world economy. Most national governments utilized fiscal policy measures including subsidies to reinforce and sustain their economies. In this study we examine the impact of the 2008-2009 global crisis on subsidies paid to manufacturing firms either by their governments or the European Union (i.e. EU). Our results indicate that, overall, a significantly larger proportion of firms had received subsidies after the global crisis. When we look into different subgroups, we find that firm size, female ownership, female management, and quality certification did not matter (more firms in all of these subgroups had received subsidies). On the other hand, our results demonstrate that firm type and top manager’s experience level made a difference in terms of subsidies received after the crisis.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 298-305
Author(s):  
Ahmad Jafari Samimi

The purpose of the present paper is to compare the impact of implementing Value Added Tax on Export of goods and services in selected countries. In this paper, we used four different indices for export; export of goods and services, export of goods and services (BOP), export of goods and services (annual % growth), export of goods and services (% of GDP) to investigate the sensitivity to different definitions .To do so, study concentrated on a sample of 140 countries that have applied Value Added Tax in their tax system from 1990 to 2008. Findings of the study based on Mean Difference Statistical Test in a two threeyear periods before and after introduction of VAT. In general, the results show that, in different indices, the impact of VAT on export is positive. Therefore, it is suggested that other countries have not yet introduced the VAT to reform their tax system by introducing the VAT.


Author(s):  
Mikkel Rønnow Mouritzen ◽  
Shahamak Rezaei ◽  
Yipeng Liu

COVID-19 has caused countries around the world to close their doors and put strict measures on the mobility of people across geographical boundaries. What will be the impact on highly skilled talent? We address this important question by exploring the experiences of European researchers in China during COVID-19. We do so by utilising the newest unique data gathered in a survey by EURAXESS, which reports that 47% of the European researchers in China left due to the outbreak. We complement this with archive data, interviews, and COVID-19 regulations to discuss and forecast future scenarios for talent mobility to and from China.


Author(s):  
Khakim Gayurov ◽  
◽  
Munira Toshmatova ◽  

According to the World Health Organization, the new coronavirus, which first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year, infected more than 110,000 people in at least 110 countries and territories of the world. The virus outbreak has become one of the most serious threats to the global economy and financial markets. Large institutions and banks have reduced their forecasts for the global economy, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is one of the last countries to do so. Meanwhile, concerns about the impact of coronavirus on the global economy have stirred markets around the world: stock prices and bond yields have plummeted. The continued spread of the new coronavirus has become one of the biggest threats to the global economy and financial markets.


Author(s):  
Jolanta Zabarskaitė

Processes are taking place in the 21st century that are altering the role of language and society’s attitude towards language. The virtualisation of the world, the influence of the media, and the processes of globalisation are all driving a shift in the role of language. This has made linguistics, as well as other humanities and social sciences, turn back to neuroscience and a focus on cognitive processes.The interaction between linguistic processes and real-life evolution has two axes, with semantic structure analysis playing an important part on the linguistic plane, and analysis of the impact of language on real-life processes. The economic linguistics approach makes it possible to tie the predominant sense elements of any concept to the linguistic worldview of the national language and the sociocultural consciousness of the actual language community.The objective of this article is to introduce several linguistic ideas by revealing: 1) the method of reconstruction of deep semantic structures – the ‘semantic dowry’ analysis; 2) the method of identifying the predominant sense elements of a concept in the sociocultural consciousness of an actual language community based on the approach of economic linguistics. In order to demonstrate how this method works, the article identifies the predominant sense elements of the concept estiškumas (‘Estonianness’) denominated by the lexemes estas/estė/estai (‘Estonian’, N, SG-M/SG-F/PL) and estiškas/estiška (‘Estonian’, ADJ, M/S).Kokkuvõte. Jolanta Zabarskaitė: Eestist leedu keeles. Lekseemist estiškumas (‘eestilik’) leedu keeles majanduslingvistika vaatepunktist. 21. sajandil käimasolevad protsessid muudavad nii keelte rolle kui ka ühiskonna suhtumist neisse. Maailma virtualiseerumine, meedia mõju ja globaliseerumisprotsessid põhjustavad keele rollide muutumise. See on sundinud keeleteadust nagu ka teisi humanitaar- ja sotsiaalteadusi pöörduma neuroteaduste juurde ja keskenduma kognitiivsetele protsessidele. Keeleliste protsesside ja reaalse maailma evolutsiooni vahelisel vastastikmõjul on kaks telge: tähendusstruktuuri analüüs, mis mängib olulist osa keelelisel tasandil, ning keele mõju analüüs reaalse maailma protsessidele. Majanduslingvistiline lähenemine võimaldab siduda ükskõik millise mõiste peamised tähenduselemendid riigikeele keelelise maailmapildi ja tegeliku keelekogukonna sotsiokultuurilise teadvusega. Käesolevas artiklis tutvustatakse 1) semantiliste süvastruktuuride rekonstrueerimise meetodit ning 2) majanduslingvistilisel lähenemisel põhinevat meetodit, mis võimaldab tuvastada mõiste peamisi tähenduselemente tegeliku keelekogukonna sotsiokultuurilises teadvuses. Kirjeldamaks valitud meetodi rakendumist, selgitatakse lekseemide estas/estė/estai (‘eesti’, N) ning estiškas/estiška (‘eesti’, ADJ) näitel mõiste estiškumas (‘eestilikkus’) peamisi tähenduselemente.Märksõnad: eestilikkus; majanduslingvistika; semantika; tähendus; alltähendus; diskursus


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