From local perception to global perspective

Recent sociological studies show that over short time periods the large day-to-day, month-to-month or year-to-year variations in weather at a specific location can influence and potentially bias our perception of climate change, a more long-term and global phenomenon. By weighting local temperature anomalies with the number of people that experience them and considering longer time periods, we illustrate that the share of the world population exposed to warmer-than-normal temperatures has steadily increased during the past few decades. Therefore, warming is experienced by an increasing number of individuals, counter to what might be simply inferred from global mean temperature anomalies. This behaviour is well-captured by current climate models, offering an opportunity to increase confidence in future projections of climate change irrespective of the personal local perception of weather.

Global evidence in local debates: the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Swiss direct-democratic debates on school policy

This article analyses the use of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other evidence in educational policy discourse in the context of direct-democratic votes in Switzerland. The results of a quantitative content analysis show that PISA is used by all actors to support a wide range of policy measures and ideological positions. Other evidence, however, is only used to support single specific policy positions. These findings demonstrate the ubiquity of PISA. The article discusses these results in view of the question of whether the incorporation of evidence into policy debates contributes to informed discourse.

Contextualizing local-scale point sample data using global-scale spatial datasets: Lessons learnt from the analysis of large-scale land acquisitions

This paper examines how the geospatial accuracy of samples and sample size influence conclusions from geospatial analyses. It does so using the example of a study investigating the global phenomenon of large-scale land acquisitions and the socio-ecological characteristics of the areas they target. First, we analysed land deal datasets of varying geospatial accuracy and varying sizes and compared the results in terms of land cover, population density, and two indicators for agricultural potential: yield gap and availability of uncultivated land that is suitable for rainfed agriculture. We found that an increase in geospatial accuracy led to a substantial and greater change in conclusions about the land cover types targeted than an increase in sample size, suggesting that using a sample of higher geospatial accuracy does more to improve results than using a larger sample. The same finding emerged for population density, yield gap, and the availability of uncultivated land suitable for rainfed agriculture. Furthermore, the statistical median proved to be more consistent than the mean when comparing the descriptive statistics for datasets of different geospatial accuracy. Second, we analysed effects of geospatial accuracy on estimations regarding the potential for advancing agricultural development in target contexts. Our results show that the target contexts of the majority of land deals in our sample whose geolocation is known with a high level of accuracy contain smaller amounts of suitable, but uncultivated land than regional- and national-scale averages suggest. Consequently, the more target contexts vary within a country, the more detailed the spatial scale of analysis has to be in order to draw meaningful conclusions about the phenomena under investigation. We therefore advise against using national-scale statistics to approximate or characterize phenomena that have a local-scale impact, particularly if key indicators vary widely within a country.

Global Optimization with Sparse and Local Gaussian Process Models

We present a novel surrogate model-based global optimization framework allowing a large number of function evaluations. The method, called SpLEGO, is based on a multi-scale expected improvement (EI) framework relying on both sparse and local Gaussian process (GP) models. First, a bi-objective approach relying on a global sparse GP model is used to determine potential next sampling regions. Local GP models are then constructed within each selected region. The method subsequently employs the standard expected improvement criterion to deal with the exploration-exploitation trade-off within selected local models, leading to a decision on where to perform the next function evaluation(s). The potential of our approach is demonstrated using the so-called Sparse Pseudo-input GP as a global model. The algorithm is tested on four benchmark problems, whose number of starting points ranges from 102 to 104. Our results show that SpLEGO is effective and capable of solving problems with large number of starting points, and it even provides significant advantages when compared with state-of-the-art EI algorithms.

Chemical analysis with regard to global and local climatic forcing measured on sediment core GeoB3711-1, GeoB3711-3 and GeoB4917-8

Global and local climatic forcing, e.g. concentration of atmospheric CO2 or insolation, influence the distribution of C3 and C4 plants in southwest Africa. C4 plants dominate in more arid and warmer areas and are favoured by lower pCO2 levels. Several studies have assessed past and present continental vegetation by the analysis of terrestrial n-alkanes in near-coastal deep sea sediments using single samples or a small number of samples from a given climatic stage. The objectives of this study were to evaluate vegetation changes in southwest Africa with regard to climatic changes during the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene and to elucidate the potential of single sample simplifications. We analysed two sediment cores at high resolution, altogether ca. 240 samples, from the Southeast Atlantic Ocean (20°S and 12°S) covering the time spans of 18 to 1 ka and 56 to 2 ka, respectively. Our results for 20°S showed marginally decreasing C4 plant domination (of ca. 5%) during deglaciation based on average chain length (ACL27-33 values) and carbon isotopic composition of the C31 and C33 n-alkanes. Values for single samples from 18 ka and the Holocene overlap and, thus, are not significantly representative of the climatic stages they derive from. In contrast, at 12°S the n-alkane parameters show a clear difference of plant type for the Late Pleistocene (C4 plant domination, 66% C4 on average) and the Holocene (C3 plant domination, 40% C4 on average). During deglaciation vegetation change highly correlates with the increase in pCO2 (r² = 0.91). Short-term climatic events such as Heinrich Stadials or Antarctic warming periods are not reflected by vegetation changes in the catchment area. Instead, smaller vegetation fluctuations during the Late Pleistocene occur in accordance with local variations of insolation.

Entre lo global y lo local : La investigación educativa en dos Universidades no metropolitanas

En un contexto de heterogeneidad entre las universidades nacionales argentinas, en relación a la capacidad y las condiciones de producción de conocimiento en educación, y de una fuerte concentración de la producción y los recursos humanos en las zonas metropolitanas, este trabajo se propuso indagar las características de la actividad de investigación en educación en Universidades Nacionales de zonas no metropolitanas. Se han analizado las prácticas, modalidades y condiciones de producción de dos universidades con dichas características; como también la formación de sus académicos, la cultura institucional y las redes sociales en las que participan. Se realizó un estudio cualitativo, que indagó las percepciones y opiniones de los actores involucrados. Como resultado de la investigación se han identificado ciertos factores clave que redundan en la calidad de la producción de conocimiento realizada

Entre lo global y lo local : La investigación educativa en dos Universidades no metropolitanas

En un contexto de heterogeneidad entre las universidades nacionales argentinas, en relación a la capacidad y las condiciones de producción de conocimiento en educación, y de una fuerte concentración de la producción y los recursos humanos en las zonas metropolitanas, este trabajo se propuso indagar las características de la actividad de investigación en educación en Universidades Nacionales de zonas no metropolitanas. Se han analizado las prácticas, modalidades y condiciones de producción de dos universidades con dichas características; como también la formación de sus académicos, la cultura institucional y las redes sociales en las que participan. Se realizó un estudio cualitativo, que indagó las percepciones y opiniones de los actores involucrados. Como resultado de la investigación se han identificado ciertos factores clave que redundan en la calidad de la producción de conocimiento realizada

Entre lo global y lo local : La investigación educativa en dos Universidades no metropolitanas

En un contexto de heterogeneidad entre las universidades nacionales argentinas, en relación a la capacidad y las condiciones de producción de conocimiento en educación, y de una fuerte concentración de la producción y los recursos humanos en las zonas metropolitanas, este trabajo se propuso indagar las características de la actividad de investigación en educación en Universidades Nacionales de zonas no metropolitanas. Se han analizado las prácticas, modalidades y condiciones de producción de dos universidades con dichas características; como también la formación de sus académicos, la cultura institucional y las redes sociales en las que participan. Se realizó un estudio cualitativo, que indagó las percepciones y opiniones de los actores involucrados. Como resultado de la investigación se han identificado ciertos factores clave que redundan en la calidad de la producción de conocimiento realizada

International Regulation of Emerging Technologies: Global Ideologies and Local Headaches

This paper begins to address the international regulation of emerging technologies taking an approach that includes the co-production of technologies and the nature of wicked problems. Both the development of technologies over time, the role of science in regulation, and results from case studies in the regulation of biotechnologies are discusses. Biotechnology, nanotechnology and synthetic biology receive the most attention.