scholarly journals Radionuclides as tracers of coastal processes in Brazil: review, synthesis, and perspectives

2008 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac R. Santos ◽  
William C. Burnett ◽  
José M. Godoy
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Lagoons ◽  
Phosphate Fertilizer ◽  
Depositional Environments ◽  
Brazilian Coast ◽  
Petroleum Processing ◽  
Artificial Radionuclide ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Radium Isotopes ◽  
Erosion Processes ◽  
The One

We review the usefulness, limitations, significance, and coastal management implications of radionuclide measurements in Brazilian coastal environments. We focus on the use of radionuclides as tracers of sedimentary processes and submarine groundwater discharge (SGD). We also discuss artificial radionuclide contamination and high natural radioactivity areas. The interpretation of 14C-, 137Cs-, and 210Pb-derived sedimentation rates has provided evidence that inappropriate soil use by urban and agricultural activities has intensified erosion processes on land, which is reflected in depositional environments, such as coastal lagoons, estuaries and mangroves. Of the processes discussed in this paper, SGD is the one that requires the most scientific effort in the short-term. There have been only two case studies using 222Rn and radium isotopes as groundwater tracers in Brazil. These investigations showed that SGD can be a major source of nutrients and other dissolved species to the coastal ocean. Baseline 137Cs, 90Sr, 239+240Pu, and 238Pu concentrations in seawater from the whole Brazilian coastal zone are very low. Therefore, in spite of contamination problems in many ecosystems in the northern hemisphere, artificial radionuclide pollution appears to be negligible along the Brazilian coast. Phosphate fertilizer industries and petroleum processing facilities are the main economic activities producing Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (TENORM). Even though a few attempts have been made to assess the radiological effects of these activities, their potential threats indicate a need for the radiological control of their wastes. This review showed that the number of studies within the field of environmental radioactivity is still small in Brazil and much more research is needed to understand processes of high interest for environmental managers. In the near future, it is likely that such studies in Brazil will move from descriptive, environmental quality-based assessments to approaches that attempt to quantify chemical, physical, and biological processes in the environment.

The Other Entrepreneurs - Migrant Economies as Spaces for Social Innovation?

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-271
Author(s):  
Claudia Lintner
Keyword(s):  
Social Innovation ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Structural Level ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Migrant Entrepreneurship ◽  
False Dichotomy ◽  
Migrant Entrepreneurs ◽  
The One

This article analyses the relationship between migrant entrepreneurship, marginalisation and social innovation. It does so, by looking how their ‘otherness’ is used on the one hand to reproduce their marginalised situation in society and on the other to develop new living and working arrangements promoting social innovation in society. The paper is based on a qualitative study, which was carried out from March 2014- 2016. In this period, twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with migrant entrepreneurs and experts. As the results show, migrant entrepreneurs are characterised by a false dichotomy of “native weakness” in economic self-organisation against the “classical strength” of majority entrepreneurs. It is shown that new possibilities of acting in the context of migrant entrepreneurship are mostly organised in close relation to the lifeworlds and specific needs deriving from this sphere. Social innovation processes initiated by migrant entrepreneurs through their economic activities thus develop on a micro level and are hence less apparent. Supportive networks are missing on a structural level, so it becomes difficult for single innovative initiatives to be long-lasting.

Owners, creditors and traders: Women in late colonial Calcutta

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-456
Author(s):  
Ishita Chakravarty
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Domestic Servants ◽  
The Social ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Poor Women ◽  
Banking Business ◽  
The One

This article tries to reconstruct the world of the property-owning, mortgage-holding and money-lending women in late colonial Bengal and especially in Calcutta, the commercial capital of British India until the First World War. It argues that as all poor women occupying the urban space were not either sex workers or domestic servants, similarly all middle-class women in colonial Calcutta were not dependent housewives, teachers and doctors. At least a section of them engaged in other gainful economic activities. However, existing scholarship sheds very little light on those women who chose other means of survival than the bhadramahila: those who bought and sold houses, lent money for interest, acquired mortgages, speculated in jute trade and even managed indigenous banking business. Evidence of court records suggests that they, along with the lady teacher, the lady doctor, the midwife and the social worker or later members of political organisations, could be found in considerable numbers in late colonial Calcutta. Due to the enactment of stringent laws to control moneylending, on the one hand, and the commercial decline of Calcutta, on the other hand, these women were possibly driven out of the shrinking market of the 1940s and 1950s.

scholarly journals Indigenous economies in the Arctic

Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Gladun ◽  
Soili Nysten-Haarala ◽  
Svetlana Tulaeva
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
The One

There is a growing global interest in Arctic natural resources that have a strong influence on the local economies. The Arctic economy is a rather unique phenomenon encompassing Indigenous practices, local economic activities, and industrial development. Indigenous economies vary across the Arctic states and exhibit divergent economic mixtures. In globalizing societies and full market economies, traditional Indigenous economies are changing and perceived especially by the non-Indigenous to be a tribute to old customs rather than a way of life that is being followed by the young generation. However, certain groups of the contemporary Indigenous populations in the Arctic continue to preserve their culture and ensure the continuation of Indigenous ways of life. The development of Indigenous communities is closely linked to their economic well-being, on the one hand, and to their culture and traditions, on the other. Our article contributes to the discussion on the significance of Indigenous economies in providing sustainability in terms of Indigenous communities, their culture, and traditions. The research objective is to identify strategies and tools that sustain Indigenous economies as well as the goals of various stakeholders in encouraging and supporting the traditional economic activities of Indigenous peoples. We contrast three countries—Russia, Finland, and the United States (Alaska)—and discuss some governmental strategies that can be employed for preserving unique Indigenous economies. The research methods consist of a content analysis of state and regional legislation and strategies, social studies of stakeholders’ opinions, case studies describing market infrastructure, and economic activities as well as features of traditional lifestyles and Indigenous knowledge typical of these regions.

scholarly journals Determining social capital by social accounting

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Welfare Economic ◽  
Financial Capital ◽  
Working Capital ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Social Accounting ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One ◽  
The University

Although social capital has been often debated in the last 20 years, there is a widely accepted definition missing and the approaches to measuring its size are not very well-developed. Therefore, the definitions of social capital are stated and analysed, whether they are appropriately designed also for measurement purposes. We end up with a division between capital consisting of real capital as fixed and working capital and financial capital on the one hand, and capitals, which are referring to human capital and social capital in a narrow sense on the other hand. The last two are named here as social capital. The stock of the first kind of capital can be expressed as net capital when the liabilities are deducted is booked to the final social balance, as well as the remainder of the stock accounts. The stock of the second one can be identified as social assets reduced by social liabilities. Non-commercial values of economic activities are gathered in social accounting. With social accounting there are several approaches, however most of them are not developed to such an extent that the social capital can be determined through an adequate ex-post analysis. A welfare economic oriented approach comprising a bookkeeping system helps to determine social capital. Based on the willingness to pay approach a commercial bookkeeping system and an additional social bookkeeping were designed where the respective “private” and additional social capital were verified. Both together show the total social capital related to an economic subject. The result is illustrated by such a social accounting for the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Tartu for 2006. The author discusses the limits and possibilities of this kind of social capital determination.

Creating Knowledge Society for Economic and Social Growth in Africa

2014 ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Nathaniel O. Agola
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Knowledge Society ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
High Wage ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Critical Determinant ◽  
Social Growth ◽  
High Productivity ◽  
The One

Knowledge use in socio-economic activities is a critical determinant of the divide between countries and regions into low-productivity-low-wage and labour intensive socio-economic activity countries on the one hand, and high-wage-high-productivity and technology abundant countries on the other hand. Therefore, it is indisputable that the creation of knowledge society is imperative for African countries. Economic transformation from low-productivity-low-wage and labour intensive socio-economic activity countries to high-wage-high-productivity and technology abundant countries predominantly define the socio-economic policy aspirations of most African countries. However, it has never been very clear what are the fundamental pillars that must be built and constantly reinforced by these countries to transition to knowledge society stage. This chapter first presents an empirical connection and contribution of knowledge to higher productivity in economic activities. The importance of infusion of knowledge into diverse economic activities to ensure higher levels of productivity both at micro and macro levels is therefore demonstrated through quantification attempts that include knowledge as one of the variables in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) equation. This empirical discussion serves to illuminate the place of knowledge in economic transformation. The second part of the chapter presents an incisive exposition of the critical ten pillars of knowledge creation, sharing, and usage that African countries can leverage to transition from economies defined by low productivity to higher levels of productivity. The chapter concludes that it is the improvement in the collective stock of knowledge of the African countries that would determine whether they could make a transition to a high productivity knowledge society.

Economic Geography

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Harrington ◽  
Trevor J. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Economic Geography ◽  
Economies Of Scope ◽  
Industrial Change ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Social Sciences And Humanities ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Industrial Geography ◽  
Service Sectors ◽  
The One ◽  
Growth Coalitions

To read the comparable chapter on economic geography in Geography in America is to recall a world, and a way of viewing that world, that seems remote. For one thing, that chapter was called Industrial Geography. There were good reasons why industrial geography was so prominent in the last report. The 1970s and 1980s were a period of fundamental industrial change in Western economies involving deindustrialization and lay-offs, restructuring of methods of production, the emergence of new manufacturing and service sectors, and new forms of international economic organization supported by innovations in telecommunications, transportation, and corporate organization and management. All those substantive issues remain important, and in some cases central, to present economic geographical research. Changed, though, is the conceptualization of those issues. In particular, newer approaches tend to blur the boundary between the economic part of economic geography, and other social, cultural, and political geographical practices. Some have labeled this move “the cultural turn” (Crang 1997; Thrift and Olds 1996; Barnes 1996b), but this description is too narrow because more than just the cultural is at stake. Rather, the very idea of the economic is being reconceived. The economic is no longer conceptualized as sovereign, isolated, and an entity unto itself, but porous and dependent, bleeding into other spheres as they bleed into it. To use Karl Polyani’s (1944) term, which is often deployed in this literature, the economy is “embedded” within broader processes. There are at least two reasons for the reconceptualization of the economic by economic geographers. One is internal to the academy, and is bound up with a broader intellectual shift in the social sciences and humanities that is increasingly suspicious of essentialized entities such as “the economy” (Barnes 1996a; Gibson-Graham 1996; Lee and Wills 1997). A second source of change is the actual geography of economic activities. The economic geographical landscape of the 1990s seems quite different from the one written about in the last report, and thereby demands a new theoretical vocabulary in which to be represented. In the last report, for example, there was no mention of Fordism or post-Fordism, flexibility or economies of scope, localities or local modes of regulation, growth coalitions or territorial complexes, or glocalization or even globalization.

Digital International Governance

2011 ◽  
pp. 365-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Amoretti
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
World Bank ◽  
World Market ◽  
The State ◽  
International Governance ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

Up to 1980, development, which had been defined as nationally managed economic growth, was redefined as “successful participation in the world market” (World Bank, 1980, quoted in McMichael, 2004, p.116). On an economic scale, specialization in the world economy as opposed to replication of economic activities within a national framework emerged as a criterion of “development.” On a political level, redesigning the state on competence and quality of performance in the discharge of functions was upheld, while on an ideological plane, a neo-liberal and globalization project was to the fore. The quite evident failure of development policies in peripheral countries, on the one hand, has contributed to the debate on the need for reform of governing institutions in the world (de Senarcless, 2004); and, on the other, has pushed them, de-legitimized as they are, in the direction of finding new strategies and solutions. In the 1990s, considering their leading role in government reform, international organizations such as the United Nations Organization (UN), the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) classified e-government as a core issue on their agenda. Innovation through information and communication technologies (ICTs) (social and economic advancement among the peoples of the world has become increasingly tied to technology creation, dissemination and utilization) is at the core of the renewed focus on the role of the state and the institutions in this process. Redefining the state—functions, responsibility, powers—as regards world-market priorities and logics, has become a strategic ground for international organization intervention, and ICTs are a strategic tool to achieve these aims.

Trepostomate bryozoans from the upper Katian (Upper Ordovician) of Morocco: gigantism in high latitude Gondwana platforms

2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Jiménez-Sánchez ◽  
Enmanuelle Vennin ◽  
Enrique Villas
Keyword(s):  
Depositional Environments ◽  
Congeneric Species ◽  
Upper Ordovician ◽  
Supporting Surface ◽  
Great Stability ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Intermediate Unit ◽  
Alternative Proposal ◽  
The One ◽  
Giant Size

AbstractA study of the Upper Ordovician trepostomate bryozoans belonging to the families Amplexoporidae and Monticuliporidae, from the eastern Anti-Atlas of Morocco, is presented here. They occur in the marly to fine-grained limestone, intermediate unit of the Khabt-el-Hajar Formation, late Katian in age, representing outer-ramp depositional environments. They inhabited the highest paleolatitude known for a bryozoan fauna during the Ordovician, estimated at more than 65–70ºS. A total of 11 species of the generaAnaphragma,Atactoporella,Homotrypa,Monotrypa,Monticulipora, andPrasoporaare described. Three species are already known from the equatorial-tropical paleocontinents of Baltica, Laurentia, and Siberia:Anaphragma mirabile,Monotrypa jewensis, andPrasopora falesi. Four new taxa are described:Anaphragma undulata,Atactoporella moroccoensis,Monticulipora globulata, andMonticulipora irregularis.The two species ofAnaphragmaand the one ofAtactoporelladisplay significantly larger zoarial sizes than congeneric species, representing gigantism among bryozoans. Polar gigantism is rejected for the two species ofAnaphragmaas is gigantism related to photosynthetic endosymbionts. An alternative proposal for their giant size is their long zoarial life span due to their well-balanced, robust branching form, with a relatively wide basal supporting surface, adapted to unconsolidated substrates in environments below wave base. Their great stability in outer-ramp environments, with infrequent storms, would allow the zoaria to grow for an extended time and reach large sizes before being overturned and buried.Atactoporella moroccoensis, has both zoaria and zooecia gigantic, suggesting a hypothesis of polar gigantism.

Conditions and Prospects for Economic Growth in Communist China

1954 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Alexander Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Actual State ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
The West ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Treaty Ports ◽  
The One

THE Communist conquest of mainland China may be legitimately viewed as the culmination of a century-long interregnum during which the traditional equilibrium of Chinese society was profoundly disturbed by the Western impact, at a time of dynastic decline. The initial impact of the West was in the nature of a shock treatment administered by the Opium War, the subsequent military defeats, the unequal treaties, and the rise of the whole Treaty Ports system. Thus China's first massive contact with the West was associated with humiliation, bewilderment, frustration, and a sense of inequality. In these terms, then, a constant and continuing struggle for equality has been a hallmark of China's development since 1840.The military and diplomatic defeats suffered by the Chinese made them conscious of the West's technological and industrial superiority. In fact, one of the essential ingredients in China's striving toward equality was economic—expressedin a deep-seated aspiration to catch up, to narrow the gap, and to industrialize. In other words, the Western impact generated “tension between the actual state of economic activities in the country and the existing obstacles to industrial development, on the one hand, and the great promise inherent in such a development, on the other.”

scholarly journals Vertical distribution of 137Cs in cultivated and undisturbed areas

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Snezana Nenadovic ◽  
Milos Nenadovic ◽  
Ivana Vukanac ◽  
Aleksandar Djordjevic ◽  
Slavoljub Dragicevic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Erosion ◽  
Vertical Distribution ◽  
Chernobyl Accident ◽  
Specific Activity ◽  
Spectrometric Method ◽  
Artificial Radionuclide ◽  
Precipitation Depth ◽  
Sediment Samples ◽  
Erosion Processes ◽  
Globally Distributed

This paper introduces the distribution background and unique characteristics of 137Cs in cultivated and undisturbed areas. The samples were taken from three measuring points of the depth of 1 m. We examined all visible horizons and determined their classifications. There were four horizons in one profile. All four horizons had a different zone thickness. 137Cs is an artificial radionuclide that has been produced primarily as a result of atmospheric thermonuclear weapon tests since the 1950. Also, the great amount of 137Cs (~85 PBq) was released in the atmosphere during the Chernobyl accident. So, 137Cs has been globally distributed, with fallout rates generally related to latitude and precipitation depth. The movement of 137Cs in soil is primarily controlled by soil erosion processes, such as processes caused by water, wind, and tillage. Thus, 137Cs is a valuable tracer to study soil erosion. The specific activity of 137Cs in soil and sediment samples was determined by using the gamma-spectrometric method.

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