The Importance of Place Names in the Search for Ecosystem-Like Concepts in Indigenous Societies: An Example from the Bolivian Andes

This paper aims to deepen the search for ecosystem-like concepts in indigenous societies by highlighting the importance of place names used by Quechua indigenous farmers from the central Bolivian Andes. Villagers from two communities in the Tunari Mountain Range were asked to list, describe, map and categorize the places they knew on their community’s territory. Results show that place names capture spatially explicit units which integrate biotic and abiotic nature and humans, and that there is an emphasis on topographic terms, highlighting the importance of geodiversity. Farmers’ perspectives differ from the classical view of ecosystems because they ‘humanize’ places, considering them as living beings with agency. Consequently, they do not make a distinction between natural and cultural heritage. Their perspective of the environment is that of a personalized, dynamic relationship with the elements of the natural world that are perceived as living entities. A practical implication of the findings for sustainable development is that since places names make the links between people and the elements of the landscape, toponymy is a tool for ecosystem management rooted in indigenous knowledge. Because place names refer to holistic units linked with people’s experience and spatially explicit, they can be used as an entry point to implement an intercultural dialogue for more sustainable land management.

Gender differences in methods of suicide attempts and prevalence of previous suicide attempts

Objective: Suicide attempts are important predictors of completed suicide. Adolescents admitted to the emergency room of a large university hospital in Bern after a suicide attempt during the years 2004-2010 were prospectively assessed for methods of suicide attempt. Method: Adolescents (N = 257; 66.5% female; age 14-21 years), presenting after a suicide attempt, were assessed with the WHO/EURO Multicentre Study on Parasuicide assessment tool. Results: Males more often used jumping from a high place (14% vs. 4.6% in females, p < .05) and less often intoxication (36% vs. 71.3%, p < .01). At least one previous suicide attempt was reported in 100 patients (44.4%; more females than males: Cramer-V = 0.21; p = .002). Of these, 35 adolescents did not present to this hospital or not at all for a previous suicide attempt. Conclusions: The present study is the first to examine methods of suicide attempts according to the ICD-10 X codes in this age group. Gender differences were observed. Because a relevant number of patients did not present to the same hospital or not at all for a previous suicide attempt, studies on pathways to care of adolescents after their first suicide attempt are important for early detection and intervention strategies.

An Optical Survey for Space Debris on Highly Eccentric MEO Orbits

Optical surveys for space debris in high-altitude orbits have been conducted since more than ten years. Originally these efforts concentrated mainly on the geostationary ring (GEO). Corresponding observation strategies, processing techniques and cataloguing approaches have been developed and successfully applied. The ESA GEO surveys, e.g., resulted in the detection of a significant population of small-size debris and later in the discovery of high area-to-mass ratio objects in GEO-like orbits. The observation scenarios were successively adapted to survey the geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) region; and recently surveys to search for debris in the medium Earth orbit (MEO) region of the global navigation satellite constellations were successfully conducted. Comparably less experience (both, in terms of practical observation and strategy definition) is available for eccentric orbits that (at least partly) are in the MEO region, in particular for the Molniya-type orbits. Several breakup events and deliberate fragmentations are known to have taken place in such orbits. Different survey and follow-up strategies for searching space debris objects in highly-eccentric MEO orbits, and to acquire orbits which are sufficiently accurate to catalogue such objects and to maintain their orbits over longer time spans were developed. Simulations were performed to compare the performance of different survey and cataloguing strategies. Eventually, optical observations were conducted in the framework of an ESA study using ESA’s Space Debris Telescope (ESASDT) the 1-m Zeiss telescope located at the Optical Ground Station (OGS) at the Teide Observatory at Tenerife, Spain. A first series of surveys of Molnjya-type orbits was performed between January and April 2013. During these four months survey observations were performed during nine nights. A basic survey consisted of observing a single geocentric field for 10 minutes. If a faint object was found, follow-up observations were performed during the same night to ensure a save rediscovery of the object during the next nights. Additional follow-up observations to maintain the orbits of these newly discovered faint objects were also acquired with AIUB ́s 1m ZIMLAT telescope in Zimmerwald, Switzerland. Eventually 195 basic surveys were performed during these nine nights corresponding to about 32.5 hours of observations. In total 24 uncorrelated faint objects were discovered and all known catalogue objects in the survey fields were detected. On average one uncorrelated object was found every 80 minutes. Some of these objects show a considerable brightness variation and have a high area-to-mass ratio as determined in the orbit estimation process.