On the way to management of west Sumatra's coastal ecosystem

Various impacts on the coast of the Indonesian province of West Sumatra are presented together with activities and achievements to address them, e.g. public awareness, public relations and capacity building, including the establishment of a marine protected area.

O direito ao esquecimento na sociedade da informação

O estudo procuratraçar os contornos gerais do direito ao esquecimento no ordenamento jurídico brasileiro. O direito ao esquecimento consiste em um instrumento eficaz para impedir que a divulgação de fatos passados, destituídos de relevância informativa, venham a impedir o livre desenvolvimento da pessoa humana, na realização autônoma de seu projeto de vida. Apesar de poder ser exercido por qualquer indivíduo, independentemente de sua notoriedade, o direito ao esquecimento não é absoluto edeve ser ponderado com os direitos potencialmente conflitantes, como a liberdade de expressão e direito à informação.Para melhor compreensão dessa difícil ponderação são apresentados os critérios utilizados pela jurisprudência nacional e estrangeira na solução do árduo conflito entre a divulgação das informações e o direito ao esquecimento, em cujo contexto a atualidade da informação emerge como critério preponderante, embora não absoluto, já que fatos de relevância histórica também merecem proteção jurídica. A questão é igualmente examinada no ambiente virtual, a fim de que sejam identificadas as diversas formas de esquecimento na internet, as quais encontram outros meios de efetivação não se restringindo à possibilidade de apagar informações.

High-resolution natural recording systems: intercomparisons of the response to interannual climatic variability [abstract]

The goal of this work is to examine the properties of recording mechanisms which are common to continuously recording high-resolution natural systems in which climatic signals are imprinted and preserved as proxy records. These systems produce seasonal structures as an indirect response to climatic variability over the annual cycle. We compare the proxy records from four different high-resolution systems: the Quelccaya ice cap of the Peruvian Andes; composite tree ring growth from southern California and the southwestern United States; and the marine varve sedimentation systems in the Santa Barbara basin (off California, United States) and in the Gulf of California, Mexico. An important focus of this work is to indicate how the interannual climatic signal is recorded in a variety of different natural systems with vastly different recording mechanisms and widely separated in space. These high-resolution records are the products of natural processes which should be comparable, to some degree, to human-engineered systems developed to transmit and record physical quantities. We therefore present a simple analogy of a data recording system as a heuristic model to provide some unifying concepts with which we may better understand the formation of the records. This analogy assumes special significance when we consider that natural proxy records are the principal means to extend our knowledge of climatic variability into the past, beyond the limits of instrumentally recorded data.

Wind climate trends in the Pacific Northwest and the implications to renewable energy supply

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): This paper examines the influence of wind climate variations on new Pacific Northwest renewable energy sources. Wind represents a potentially valuable supplemental source of energy in the region. ... The recent period of weaker winds may be associated with a stronger North Pacific Low in the last decade. This would result in winter storms more often being deflected farther north, to Canada. Also, in the last dozen years, lower SOI values were common. Other investigators have found low SOI to be associated with drier conditions in the Pacific Northwest.