Natural heritage: Provision of cultural ecosystem services from the Malyovitsa Range of the Rila National Park

Nature-based tourism and recreation are attracting attention today as the most favourable form of direct connection between people and nature, and as a very successful tool to motivate people to protect their natural heritage. This study aims to develop and test a methodology to assess the potential of an acknowledged natural heritage site in Bulgaria - Malyovitsa Range and Urdini Cirque in ‘Rila’ National Park to provide cultural ecosystem services. A holistic approach is applied, using landscapes as the main territorial unit, and source of information. For the purpose of practicing representative types of mountain tourism: ‘mountain hiking’, ‘nature education’ tourism, ‘ski touring’ and ‘mountaineering’ a total of 15 ecosystem services were assessed based on 25 biophysical and social indicators. ‘Primary forest landscapes on moraine materials’ and ‘Primary landscapes with mugo pine on igneous rocks’ receive the highest score. Based on the results obtained, an assessment of the mainstream activity - access to mountain hiking provided by the landscapes was carried out and two touristic routes with very high potential to deliver this service were identified. The results of the study are directed towards the responsible parties in support of the natural heritage conservation in Rila National Park through sustainable management the potential to provide cultural (recreational) ecosystem services. The research was conducted within the scientific programme of the project “Conceptualization, Flexible Methodology, and a Pilot Geospatial Platform for Access of the Bulgarian Natural Heritage to the European Digital Single Market of Knowledge and Information Services” within the project BG05M2OP001-1.001-0001 Establishment and Development of “Heritage BG” Centre of Excellence (Operational Program “Science and Education for Intelligent Growth”, priority Axis 1 “Research and technological development”).

Predictability of variable solar–terrestrial coupling

In October 2017, the Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP) Bureau established a committee for the design of SCOSTEP's Next Scientific Programme (NSP). The NSP committee members and authors of this paper decided from the very beginning of their deliberations that the predictability of the Sun–Earth System from a few hours to centuries is a timely scientific topic, combining the interests of different topical communities in a relevant way. Accordingly, the NSP was christened PRESTO – PREdictability of the variable Solar–Terrestrial cOupling. This paper presents a detailed account of PRESTO; we show the key milestones of the PRESTO roadmap for the next 5 years, review the current state of the art and discuss future studies required for the most effective development of solar–terrestrial physics.

Preface

The title of the Conference XXI Conference of PhD Students and Young Scientists “Interdisciplinary topics in mining and geology” The location and the date of the conference virtual event - online conference, Poland, June 23-25, 2021 XXIth Conference of PhD Students and Young Scientists “Interdisciplinary topics in mining and geology” continues a series of events that started in 2000 at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. Scientific programme of the Conference focuses on four thematic panels: 1. Mining Engineering: sustainable development, digitalisation in mining, problems of securing, protecting and using remnants of old mining works, underground mining, opencast mining, mineral processing, waste management, mining machinery, mine transport, economics in mining, mining aeronautics, ventilation and air conditioning in mines 2. Earth and Space Science: geology, hydrogeology, extraterrestrial resources, groundwater and medicinal waters, geotourism 3. Geoengineering: environmental protection, applied geotechnics, rock and soil mechanics, geohazards 4. Geoinformation: mining geodesy, GIS, photogrammetry and remote sensing, geodata modeling and analysis. List of Scientific Committee, Organizing Committee, Editorial Team are available in this pdf.

Digital transformation of major scientific meetings induced by the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from the ESC 2020 annual congress

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) was forced to pivot the scientific programme of the ESC Congress 2021 into a totally new format for online consumption, The Digital Experience. A variety of new suppliers were involved, including experts in TV studio, cloud infrastructure, online platforms, video management, and online analytics. An information technology platform able to support hundreds of thousands simultaneous connections was built and cloud computing technologies were put in place to help scale up and down the resources needed for the high number of users at peak times. The video management system was characterized by multiple layers of security and redundancy and offered the same fluidity, albeit at a different resolution, to all user independently of the performance of their internet connection. The event, free for all users, was an undisputed success, both from a scientific/educational as well as from a digital technology perspective. The number of registrations increased by almost four-fold when compared with the 2019 record-breaking edition in Paris, with a greater proportion of younger and female participants as well as of participants from low- and middle-income countries. No major technical failures were encountered. For the first time in history, attendees from all around the globe had the same real-time access to the world’s most popular cardiovascular conference.

Speaking Up and Speaking Out: Gender Diversity in the Scientific Programme of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Annual Scientific Congress

Background Disparities in gender representation at medical meetings have been documented despite women representing half of medical school graduating classes. Lack of role models is touted as one of a myriad of factors that perpetuate gender imbalance, particularly in the field of surgery. We evaluated the trend in gender distribution of participants at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) Annual Scientific Congress (ASC) and whether there was a correlation between the gender distribution of the organising committee and speakers and chairpersons invited to attend. Methods RACS ASC programmes from 2013 to 2018 were retrospectively analysed, examining the gender distribution of speakers, chairpersons and conveners. Trend analysis of distribution was performed, and a generalized linear mixed model was used to investigate the effect of the gender of the conveners on gender of session chairpersons and speakers. Results Between 2013 and 2018, there were non-significant increases in female speakers invited to speak from 14.9 to 21.7% (p = 0.064) and female conveners appointed from 11 to 19% (p = 0.115), but there was a significant increase in female chairs from 9.6 to 21.6% p < 0.001). Female conveners were 3 times more likely to invite female speakers than male conveners (p < 0.001) and were 20 times more likely to invite female chairs than male conveners (p < 0.001). Conclusion Visible role models are important in the pursuit of gender equity in surgery in order to break down stereotypes and the hidden curriculum. Intentional effort is required to achieve parity, and such efforts could include appointing more women to organising committees of scientific meetings.

The concept and the name of Isolating Gender Violence

In December 2020, the Catalan Parliament approved by unanimity the world’s first legislation of the concept of Isolating Gender Violence (IGV); in 2021, several parliaments are developing their own legislations. The elaboration of this concept and later this name has been a long and dialogic process among diverse scientists, policymakers, governments, parliaments, victims, survivors, social organizations and citizens. Since 2016, CREA (Community of Research on Excellence for All) has developed a process of elaborating the concept of IGV oriented to obtain the scientific, policy and social impact required to make a key contribution to overcoming gender violence. This process was simultaneous to the elaboration by the same researchers of the criteria of policy and societal impact of the EU’s scientific programme of research (Horizon Europe). This paper presents this dialogic research conducted to get the concept and the name IGV and the consequences of this concept along scientific, policy and social impact. The results show that the key for getting the name and the impacts of this scientific robust concept has been three of the main characteristics of the present EU research program Horizon Europe: the priority of social impact, the co-creation of knowledge between scientists and citizens and sustainability.