SMART social science? Examining the nature and role of social scientific expertise in institutional design

Daniel Bromley argues against Oran Young’s FIT model as a basis for environmental governance, on the grounds that humans cannot manage nature and that attempts to do so are based on a scientistic, modernist conceit. At issue is the role of natural and social scientists in adjudicating questions about what we ought to do to close governance gaps and address unsustainable behaviors. If Bromley is right, then the lessons of the American pragmatist tradition recommend against attempts to “fit” social institutions to the natural world. The first objective of this paper is to argue that Bromley’s view is not in keeping with the pragmatism of C. S. Peirce and John Dewey, which actually places a high value on natural and social scientific modes of inquiry in the service of social ends. I argue that Young’s proposal is in fact a development of the pragmatist idea that social institutions must be fit in the sense of fitness, i.e., resilient and able to navigate uncertainty. Social institutions must also evolve to accommodate the emerging values of the agents who operate within them. The second objective of this paper is to examine the role of social science expertise in the design of social policies. Governance institutions typically rely on the testimony of natural scientists, at least in part, to understand the natural systems they operate within. However, natural systems are also social systems, so it seems pertinent to ask whether there is a role for social systems experts to play in helping to design environmental governance institutions. I argue that social scientists can make a unique contribution as experts on social institutions, and as such, are necessary to bring about a transformation of the unsustainable institutions that are preventing us from achieving stated sustainable development goals.

The evolution and performance of river basin management in the Murray-Darling Basin

We explore bioregional management in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) in Australia through the institutional design characteristics of the MDB River Basin Organization (RBO), the actors and organizations who supported and resisted the establishment of the RBO, and the effectiveness of the RBO. During the last 25 years, there has been a major structural reform in the MDB RBO, which has changed from an interstate coordinating body to an Australian government agency. Responsibility for basin management has been centralized under the leadership of the Australian government, and a comprehensive integrated Basin plan has been adopted. The driving forces for this centralization include national policy to restore river basins to sustainable levels of extraction, state government difficulties in reversing overallocation of water entitlements, the millennium drought and its effects, political expediency on the part of the Australian government and state governments, and a major injection of Australian government funding. The increasing hierarchy and centralization of the MDB RBO does not follow a general trend toward multilevel participative governance of RBOs, but decentralization should not be overstated because of the special circumstances at the time of the centralization and the continuing existence of some decentralized elements, such as catchment water plans, land use planning, and water quality. Further swings in the centralization–decentralization pendulum could occur. The MDB reform has succeeded in rebalancing Basin water allocations, including an allocation for the environment and reduced diversion limits. There are some longer term risks to the implementation of reform, including lack of cooperation by state governments, vertical coordination difficulties, and perceived reductions in the accountability and legitimacy of reform at the local level. If implementation of the Basin plan is diverted or delayed, a new institution, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, can play a major role in securing and coordinating environmental water supplies.

The storage and dissipation of magnetic energy in the quiet sun corona determined from SDO/HMI magnetograms

In recent years, higher cadence, higher resolution observations have revealed the quiet-Sun photosphere to be complex and rapidly evolving. Since magnetic fields anchored in the photosphere extend up into the solar corona, it is expected that the small-scale coronal magnetic field exhibits similar complexity. For the first time, the quiet-Sun coronal magnetic field is continuously evolved through a series of non-potential, quasi-static equilibria, deduced from magnetograms observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory, where the photospheric boundary condition which drives the coronal evolution exactly reproduces the observed magnetograms. The build-up, storage, and dissipation of magnetic energy within the simulations is studied. We find that the free magnetic energy built up and stored within the field is sufficient to explain small-scale, impulsive events such as nanoflares. On comparing with coronal images of the same region, the energy storage and dissipation visually reproduces many of the observed features. The results indicate that the complex small-scale magnetic evolution of a large number of magnetic features is a key element in explaining the nature of the solar corona.

Modelling the melting and solidification of solder material

Abstract not available

The contribution and status of physical removal in sustainable management of water hyacinth

Physical control of water hyacinth consists of removing the plants from the water by hand or machines. It is considered over effetive because it involves removing the whole plants from water. The first attempt on physical control was in 1992 when weed infestation was causing serious problems to the fishing communities in Lake Kyoga. The fishermen had problems of accessing the lake as huge masses of mobile weed blocked landing sites. Furthermore, the fishers lost their nets, which were swept away by mobile water hyacinth. As a result, an integrated control strategy involving physical control (manual and mechanical removal) was put in place. Through this method, the fishers were able to open up access routes to fishing grounds even though weed mats often reblocked the access routes. In the infested lakes, manual removal offered remedial relief to fish Iandings and other access sites. Sites of strategic importance such as hydro-electric power generation dam, water intake points and docking points which had large masses of water hyacinth required heavy machinery and mechanical harvesters were used at these sites.

The impact and compensation of offshore wind farm development: Analysing the institutional discourse from a french case study

In France, the public acceptability of marine renewable energies and their impacts on ecosystem services (ES) involves questions about compensation for stakeholders, who may perceive some of their activities and interests to be modified. This paper seeks to understand how impacts on ES are perceived by institutional stakeholders and what is expected in terms of compensation. It also seeks to identify the communities of practice affected. We focus our study on the planned offshore wind farm in the bay of Saint-Brieuc. Our results show that institutional discourse is heterogeneous, depending on sensitivities, interests, and who or what the stakeholders surveyed represent or defend. Stakeholders' discourse can be interpreted on various gradients of perception. Six distinct communities of practice have been identified, based on the impacts perceived by institutional stakeholders. Lastly, we show that the community of practice seems to be a proper level at which to study perceptions and assess the no-net-loss goal.

Sexology of the Bible; the fall and redemption of man, a matter of sex.

Mode of access: Internet.

Graphic satire and the rise and fall of the First British Empire: political prints from the Seven Years' War to the Treaty of Paris, c. 1756-1783

This thesis examines the early stages of the transformation of emblematic political prints into political caricature from the beginning of the Seven Years' War (1756) to the Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War (1783). Both contextual and iconographical issues are investigated in relation to the debates occasioned by Britain's imperial project, which marked a period of dramatic expansion during the Seven Years' War, and ended with the loss of the American colonies, consequently framing this thesis as a study of political prints during the rise and fall of the so-called 'First British Empire'. Previous studies of eighteenth-century political prints have largely ignored the complex and lengthy evolutionary process by which the emblematic mode amalgamated with caricatural representation, and have consequently concluded that political prints excluded emblems entirely by the end of the 1770s. However, this study emphasizes the significance of the Wilkite movement for the promotion and preservation of emblems, and investigates how pictorial political argument was perceived and received in eighteenth-century British society, arguing that wider tastes and opinions regarding the utilization of political prints gradually shifted to accept both modes of representation. Moreover, the marketplace, legal status, topicality, and manufacturing methods of political prints are analyzed in terms of understanding the precarious nature of their consumption and those that endeavoured to engage in political printmaking. The evolution, establishment, and subsequent appropriation of pictorial tropes is discussed from the early modern period to the beginning of the so-called Golden Age of caricature, while tracing the adaptation of representational models in American colonial prints that employed emblems already entrenched in British pictorial political debate. Political prints from the two largest print collections, the British Museum and the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale are consulted, along with a number of eighteenth-century newspapers and periodicals, to develop the earlier research by M. Dorothy George, Charles Press, Herbert Atherton, Diana Donald, Amelia Rauser, and Eirwen Nicholson.

The timing and interval of mate encounter affects investment during mating

The benefits obtained from mating are usually condition-dependent, favouring the evolution of flexible investment during copulation, for instance, in terms of invested time, energy, or sperm. Flexible investment strategies are predicted to depend on the likelihood of acquiring alternative mates and therefore they should depend on the timing of mate encounter. However, scarce experimental evidence for this hypothesis exists. Here we manipulated the time delay until first mating and the interval between first and second mating in the polygynandrous common lizard, Zootoca vivipara. We determined treatment effects on fertilisation success and copulation duration, the latter being a proxy for investment in mating and for quantity of transferred sperm. The duration of the second copulation decreased with increasing inter-mating interval and depended on the fertilisation success of first mates. The former provides evidence for time-dependent investment strategies, most likely resulting from the progression of the female's reproductive cycle. Fertilisation success of first mates increased with increasing inter-mating interval and was higher when females were closer to ovulation, showing that flexible investment strategies significantly affected male reproductive success. This points to fertilisation assurance, which may mitigate negative effects of low population density on reproductive success, e.g. Allee effects.

Espionage against Poland in the Documents and Analyses of the Polish Special Services (1944 - 1989) - as Illustrated by the Intelligence Activities of the USA

The text analyses the intelligence activity against Poland in the period 1944-1989. The paper also contains a case study, i.e. an analysis of the American intelligence service activity held against Poland. While examining the research thesis, the author used the documents and analyses prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In order to best illustrate the point, the author presented a number of cases of persons who spied for the USA, which was possible thanks to the analysis of the training materials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs directed to the officers of the Security Service and the Citizens’ Militia. The text tackles the following issues: (1) to what extent did the character of the socio-political system influence the number of persons convicted for espionage against Poland in the period under examination?, (2) what was the level of interest of the foreign intelligence services in Poland before the year 1990?, (3) is it possible to indicate the specificity of the U.S. intelligence activity against Poland? 1) The analysis of data indicates that the period 1946-1956 witnessed a great number of convictions for espionage, which is often associated with the peculiar political situation in Poland of that time. Up to 1953, the countries of the Eastern bloc had reproduced the Stalin’s system, which only ceased due to the death of Stalin himself. Since then, the communist systems gradually transformed into the system of nomenklatura. Irrespective of these changes, Poland still witnessed a wave of repressions, which resulted from the threats continuously looming over the communist authorities – combating the anti-communist underground movement, fighting with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the Polish government-in-exile, possible revisionism of borders, social discontent related to the socio-political reforms. Hence, a great number of convictions for espionage at that time could be ascribed to purely political sentences. Moreover, equally significant was the fact that the then judicial practice was preoccupied assessing negatively any contacts and relations with foreigners. This excessive number of convictions could ensue from other criminal-law provisions, which applied with respect to the crimes against the State, including espionage. What is also important is the fact that in the Stalin’s period the judiciary personnel acquired their skills and qualifications through intensive courses in law with the predominant spirit of the theory of evidence and law by Andrey Vyshinsky. Additionally, by the decree of 1944 the Penal Code of the Polish Armed Forces was introduced; the code envisaged the increase in the number of offences classified as penalised with death penalty, whereas the high treason was subject to the military jurisdiction (the civilians were prosecuted in military courts till 1955; the espionage, however, still stood under the military jurisdiction). In 1946, there was introduced the Decree on particularly dangerous crimes in the period of the State’s recovery, which was later called a Small Penal Code. 2) The interest that foreign intelligence services expressed in relation to Poland was similar to the one they had in all countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In the case of Poland, it should be noted that foreign intelligence services recruited Polish citizens who had previously stayed abroad and after WWII returned to their home country. The services also gathered information from Poles staying in immigrant camps (e.g. in FRG). The activity of the American intelligence service on the territory of FRG and West Berlin played a key role. The documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs pointed to the global range of this activity, e.g. through the recruitment of Polish sailors in the ports of the Netherlands, Japan, etc. In line with the development in the 1970s, espionage, which had so far concentrated on the defence and strategic sectors, became focused on science and technology of the People’s Republic of Poland. The acquisition of collaborators in academic circles was much easier, as PRL opened to academic exchange. Due to the system of visas, the process of candidate selection for intelligence services (e.g. the American) began in embassies. In the 1980s, the activity of the foreign intelligence services concentrated on the specific political situation in Poland, i.e. the growing significance of the “Solidarity” social movement. 3) The specificity of the American intelligence activity against Poland was related to the composition of the residency staff, which was the largest in comparison to other Western countries. The wide range of these activities can be proved by the quantitative data of convictions for espionage in the years 1944-1984 (however, one has to bear in mind the factors mentioned earlier in the text, which led to the misinterpretation of these data). Analysing the data and the documents prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, one should treat them with caution, as, frequently, the Polish counter-intelligence service used to classify the ordinary diplomatic practice and any contacts with foreigners as espionage threats. It is clearly visible in the language of the training materials concerned with “secret service methods of the intelligence activity” as well as in the documents on operational activities of the Security Service in relation to foreigners. The level of interest the USA had in Poland was mirrored in the classification of diplomatic posts, according to which Warsaw occupied the second place (the so-called Group “B”) on the three-point scale. The CIA experienced spectacular defeats during their activity in Poland: supporting the Polish underground anti-communist organisation Freedom and Independence and the so-called Munich-Berg episode (both cases took place in the 1950s). The text focuses only on selected issues related to the espionage activities against Poland. Similarly, the analysis of the problem has been based on selected sources, which has limited the research scope - however, it was not the aim of the author to present the espionage activity against Poland in a comprehensive way. In order to assess the real threat posed by the espionage activity, one should analyse the case of persons convicted for espionage in the period 1944-1989, as the available quantitative data, mentioned in the text, cannot constitute an explicit benchmark for the scale of espionage activity. The inaccuracies in the interpretation of data and variables, which can affect the evaluation of this phenomenon, have been pointed out in the text.

Influence of a Brazilian sewage outfall on the toxicity and contamination of adjacent sediments

The submarine sewage outfall of Santos (SSOS) is situated in the Santos Bay (São Paulo, Brazil) and is potentially a significant source of contaminants to the adjacent marine ecosystem. The present study aimed to assess the influence of SSOS on the sediment toxicity and contamination at Santos Bay. At the disposal site, sediments tended to be finer, organically richer and exhibited higher levels of surfactants and metals, sometimes exceeding the Threshold Effect Level values. The SSOS influence was more evident toward the East, where the sediments exhibited higher levels of TOC, total S and metals during the summer 2000 sampling campaign. Sediment toxicity to amphipods was consistently detected in four of the five stations studied. Amphipod survival tended to correlate negatively to Hg, total N and % mud. This work provides evidence that the SSOS discharge affects the quality of sediments from Santos Bay, and that control procedures are warranted. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The movements and habits of climbing plants.

"This essay first appeared in the ninth volume of the 'Journal of the Linnean Society' 1865."--Pref.