Accurate radiometry from space: an essential tool for climate studies

The Earth's climate is undoubtedly changing; however, the time scale, consequences and causal attribution remain the subject of significant debate and uncertainty. Detection of subtle indicators from a background of natural variability requires measurements over a time base of decades. This places severe demands on the instrumentation used, requiring measurements of sufficient accuracy and sensitivity that can allow reliable judgements to be made decades apart. The International System of Units (SI) and the network of National Metrology Institutes were developed to address such requirements. However, ensuring and maintaining SI traceability of sufficient accuracy in instruments orbiting the Earth presents a significant new challenge to the metrology community. This paper highlights some key measurands and applications driving the uncertainty demand of the climate community in the solar reflective domain, e.g. solar irradiances and reflectances/radiances of the Earth. It discusses how meeting these uncertainties facilitate significant improvement in the forecasting abilities of climate models. After discussing the current state of the art, it describes a new satellite mission, called TRUTHS, which enables, for the first time, high-accuracy SI traceability to be established in orbit. The direct use of a ‘primary standard’ and replication of the terrestrial traceability chain extends the SI into space, in effect realizing a ‘metrology laboratory in space’.

The UK Department of National Heritage: a model for the development and integration of leisure policy in the new Europe?

Leisure is in the vanguard of a social and cultural revolution which is replacing the former East/West political bipolarity with a globalised economic system in which the new Europe has a central rôle. Within this revolution, leisure, including recreation, culture and tourism, is constructed as the epitome of successful capitalist development; the very legitimisation of the global transmogrification from a production to a consumption orientation. While acting as a direct encouragement to the political transformation in many eastern European states, it is uncertain how the issue of leisure policy is being handled, given its centrality to the new economic order. This paper therefore examines the experience of western Europe, considering in particular the degree to which the newly-created Department of National Heritage in the UK provides a potential model for leisure development and policy integration in the new Europe. Despite an official rhetoric of support and promotion of leisure activities, reflecting the growing economic significance of tourism and the positive relationship between leisure provision and regional economic development, the paper establishes that in the place of the traditional rôle of the state in promoting leisure interests, the introduction of the Department has signified a shift to the use of leisure to promote the Government's interests, particularly in regenerating citizen rights claims towards the market. While an institution such as the Department of National Heritage may have relevance to emerging states as a element in the maintenance of political hegemony, therefore, it is questionable how far it can be viewed as a promoter or protector of leisure as a signifier of a newly-won political, economic and cultural freedom throughout Europe.

Expectation versus provision in the management and use of urban open space

This paper discusses the implications of the shifting cultural significance of public open space in urban areas. In particular, it focuses on the increasing dysfunction between people's expectations of that space and its actual provision and management. In doing so, the paper applies Lefebvre's ideas of spatiality to the evident paradigm shift from 'public' to 'private' culture, with its associated commodification of previously public space. While developing the construct of paradigm shift, the paper recognises that the former political notions inherent in the provision of public space remain in evidence. So whereas public parks were formerly seen as spaces of confrontation between the 'rationality' of public order as the 'irrationality' of individual leisure pursuits, they are now increasingly seen, particularly 'out of hours', as the domain of the dispossessed, to be defined and policed as 'dangerous'. Where once people were welcomed into public open spaces as a means of 'educating' them in good, acceptable, leisure practices, therefore, they are now increasingly excluded, but for the same ostensible reasons. Building on survey work undertaken in Reading, Berkshire, the paper illustrates how communities can become separated from 'their' space, leaving them with the overriding impression that they have been 'short-changed' in terms of both the provision and the management of urban open space. Rather than the intimacy of local space for local people, therefore, the paper argues that parks have become externalised places, increasingly responding to commercial definitions of culture and what is 'public'. Central urban open spaces are therefore increasingly becoming sites of stratification, signification of a consumer-constructed citizenship and valorisation of public life as a legitimate element of the market surface of town and city centres.

Local space for local people? Trends in the provision and management of urban outdoor recreation in the UK

This paper examines the growing trend in the UK towards the effective privatisation of formerly public open space and the relationship of this trend to the recent shifts in public sector management. A case study of Reading, England, illustrates the growing cultural and spatial dysfunction, particularly in terms of the declining knowledge and use of the town's urban gardens by the local population. Where once the gardens were a focus of social activity, therefore, they are now a largely irrelevant site of urban decline. In contrast to central urban space, it is clear that other types of open space in other areas can still assume a significance in peoples' lives. In many cases the use of these areas illustrates a counter cultural position in which the consumerism of the city management is actively being resisted. The paper concludes that while there appear to be ways in which local space could be reclaimed for local people, the power to achieve this lies predominantly in the same hands as those responsible for appropriating central space to the imperative of the market in the first instance

Changes in the distribution of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in urban areas in Great Britain: findings and limitations of a media-driven nationwide survey

Urbanization is one of the major forms of habitat alteration occurring at the present time. Although this is typically deleterious to biodiversity, some species flourish within these human-modified landscapes, potentially leading to negative and/or positive interactions between people and wildlife. Hence, up-to-date assessment of urban wildlife populations is important for developing appropriate management strategies. Surveying urban wildlife is limited by land partition and private ownership, rendering many common survey techniques difficult. Garnering public involvement is one solution, but this method is constrained by the inherent biases of non-standardised survey effort associated with voluntary participation. We used a television-led media approach to solicit national participation in an online sightings survey to investigate changes in the distribution of urban foxes in Great Britain and to explore relationships between urban features and fox occurrence and sightings density. Our results show that media-based approaches can generate a large national database on the current distribution of a recognisable species. Fox distribution in England and Wales has changed markedly within the last 25 years, with sightings submitted from 91% of urban areas previously predicted to support few or no foxes. Data were highly skewed with 90% of urban areas having <30 fox sightings per 1000 people km-2. The extent of total urban area was the only variable with a significant impact on both fox occurrence and sightings density in urban areas; longitude and percentage of public green urban space were respectively, significantly positively and negatively associated with sightings density only. Latitude, and distance to nearest neighbouring conurbation had no impact on either occurrence or sightings density. Given the limitations associated with this method, further investigations are needed to determine the association between sightings density and actual fox density, and variability of fox density within and between urban areas in Britain.

Breeding biology of the White-headed Vulture Trigonoceps occipitalis in Kruger National Park, South Africa

Information on the breeding biology of the White-headed Vulture Trigonoceps occipitalis is limited and published data are few. Within the Kruger National Park in north-east South Africa there is a regionally important population of about 60 White-headed Vulture pairs, of which 22 pairs were monitored for five years between 2008 and 2012 to determine key aspects of their breeding biology. Across 73 pair/years the mean productivity of 55 breeding attempts was 0.69 chicks per pair. Median egg-laying date across all of the Kruger National Park was 27 June, but northern nests were approximately 30 d later than southern nests. Mean (SD) nearest-neighbour distance was 9 976  7 965 m and inter-nest distances ranged from 1 400 m to more than 20 km, but this did not differ significantly between habitat types. Breeding productivity did not differ significantly between habitat types. The results presented here are the first for this species in Kruger National Park and provide details against which future comparisons can be made.

Risks, costs and labour markets: explaining cross-national patterns of far right party success in European Parliament elections

What is the impact of the economy on cross national variation in far right-wing party support? This paper tests several hypotheses from existing literature on the results of the last three EP elections in all EU member states. We conceptualise the economy affects support because unemployment heightens the risks and costs that the population faces, but this is crucially mediated by labour market institutions. Findings from multiple regression analyses indicate that unemployment, real GDP growth, debt and deficits have no statistically significant effect on far right-wing party support at the national level. By contrast, labour markets influence costs and risks: where unemployment benefits and dismissal regulations are high, unemployment has no effect, but where either one of them is low, unemployment leads to higher far right-wing party support. This explains why unemployment has not led to far right-wing party support in some European countries that experienced the 2008 Eurozone crisis.

Good practices in monitoring and reporting on the Millennium Development Goals: National lessons from Latin America

Includes bibliography

Macroeconomic challenges of fiscal decentralization in Latin America in the aftermath of the global financial crisis

Incluye Bibliografía

Directorio de organismos nacionales a cargo de las políticas y programas para las mujeres de América Latina y el Caribe = Directory of national organizations dealing with programmes and policies on women in Latin America and the Caribbean

Publicación bilingüe

Renewable energy sources in Latin America and the Caribbean: situation and policy proposals

Includes bibliography