Books on the topic 'Shared Data Environment'

Nomadic Pastoralism among the Mongol Herders: Multispecies and Spatial Ethnography in Mongolia and Transbaikalia is based on anthropological research carried out by the author between 2008 and 2016 and addresses the spatial features of nomadic pastoralism among the Mongol herders of Mongolia and Southern Siberia from a cross-comparative perspective. In addition to classical methods of survey, Charlotte Marchina innovatively used GPS recordings to analyze the ways in which pastoralists envision and concretely occupy the landscape, which they share with their animals and invisible entities. The data, represented in abundant and original cartography, provides a better understanding of the mutual adaptations of both herders and animals in the common use of unfenced pastures, not only between different herders but between different species. The author also highlights the herders' adaptive strategies at a time of rapid sociopolitical and environmental changes in this area of the world.

The city is a complex object. Some researchers look at its shape, others at its people, animals, ecology, policy, infrastructures, buildings, history, art, or technical networks. Some researchers analyse processes of in- or exclusion, gentrification, or social mobility; others biological evolution, traffic flows, or spatial development. Many combine these topics or add still more topics beyond this list. Some projects cross the boundaries of research and practice and engage in action research, while others pursue knowledge for the sake of curiosity. This volume embraces this variety of perspectives and provides an essential collection of methodologies for studying the city from multiple, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary perspectives. We start by recognizing that the complexity of the urban environment cannot be understood from a single vantage point. We therefore offer multiple methodologies in order to gather and analyse data about the city, and provide ways to connect and integrate these approaches. The contributors form a talented network of urban scholars and practitioners at the forefront of their fields. They offer hands-on methodological techniques and skills for data collection and analysis. Furthermore, they reveal honest and insightful reflections from behind the scenes. All methodologies are illustrated with examples drawn from the authors own research applying them in the city of Amsterdam. In this way, the volume also offers a rich collection of Amsterdam-based research and outcomes that may inform local urban practitioners and policy makers. Altogether, the volume offers indispensable tools for and aims to educate a new generation of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary-minded urban scholars and practitioners.

The book is aimed at people who learn programming on their own; it considers a wide range of issues, including introductory information, basic concepts and techniques of programming, the capabilities of the operating system kernel and the principles of its functioning, programming paradigms. It is supposed to use operating systems of the Unix family (including Linux) as an end-to-end working and training environment; a number of programming languages are considered: Pascal, assembly language (NASM), C, C++, Lisp, Scheme, Prolog, Hope and Tcl. The book includes information about the most important Unix system calls, including those for communication over computer networks; an introducton to the ncurses, FLTK and Tcl/Tk libraries is also given. The second volume ("Systems and Networks") starts with the fourth part, devoted to the C programming language; it also includes parts about basic Unix programming (input/output, process manipulation etc.); computer networking; parallel programming and dealing with shared data; basics of kernel internals.

Healthy waterways and oceans are essential for our increasingly urbanised world. Yet monitoring water quality in aquatic environments is a challenge, as it varies from hour to hour due to stormwater and currents. Being at the base of the aquatic food web and present in huge numbers, plankton are strongly influenced by changes in environment and provide an indication of water quality integrated over days and weeks. Plankton are the aquatic version of a canary in a coal mine. They are also vital for our existence, providing not only food for fish, seabirds, seals and sharks, but producing oxygen, cycling nutrients, processing pollutants, and removing carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. This Second Edition of Plankton is a fully updated introduction to the biology, ecology and identification of plankton and their use in monitoring water quality. It includes expanded, illustrated descriptions of all major groups of freshwater, coastal and marine phytoplankton and zooplankton and a new chapter on teaching science using plankton. Best practice methods for plankton sampling and monitoring programs are presented using case studies, along with explanations of how to analyse and interpret sampling data. Plankton is an invaluable reference for teachers and students, environmental managers, ecologists, estuary and catchment management committees, and coastal engineers.

The exchanges between sex workers and their clients are often hidden from view, making it difficult to understand how the prices paid to sex workers vary depending on city, time of the year, where they solicit, and the demographics and attitudes of the sex worker. The Internet and computer-mediated communications, however, enable an investigation of prostitution as the customers of various sex workers discuss their sexual exploits and share tips and information with others online. This research uses data collected from 10 city-specific Web forums to examine the price structures of prostitution and the attitudinal, behavioral, and demographic factors affecting the prices paid to sex workers. The implications of this study for our understanding of the various environmental, individual, and situational factors that affect the supply and demand of the sex trade from the client’s perspective will be explored in detail.

The Brussels Effect challenges the prevalent view that the European Union (EU) is a declining world power. It argues that notwithstanding its many obvious challenges, the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image through a phenomenon called the “Brussels Effect.” The Brussels Effect refers to the EU’s unilateral power to regulate global markets. Without the need to resort to international institutions or seek other nations’ cooperation, the EU has the unique ability among nations today to promulgate regulations that shape the global business environment, elevating standards worldwide and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce. Different from many other forms of global influence, the Brussels Effect entails that the EU does not need to impose its standards coercively on anyone—market forces alone are often sufficient to convert the EU standard into the global standard as multinational companies voluntarily extend the EU rule to govern their global operations. In this way, the EU wields significant, unique, and highly penetrating power to unilaterally transform global markets, including through its ability to set the standards in diverse areas such as competition regulation, data protection, online hate speech, consumer health and safety, or environmental protection.

This chapter, “Environmental Activism in Emerging Adulthood” reviews what is known about the personality and lives of environmental activists, paying particular attention to the emerging adulthood years. The chapter adopts a developmental framework by positioning the paper within Erikson’s psychosocial theory. Hence, the focus is on the important stages of identity and generativity, which, it is argued, shape the life trajectory of environmental activists. The chapter also draws on the authors’ own longitudinal data, highlighting the importance of identity, political ideology, and generativity variables in predicting later environmental behaviors, and provides narrative excerpts to illustrate the influence of these variables. Finally, the chapter ends by making a plea for the scientific community to draw greater attention to understanding people’s environmental actions and inactions given the current state of the planet.

Since the mid-2000s, entertainment celebrities have played increasingly prominent roles in the cultural politics of climate change, ranging from high-profile speeches at UN climate conferences, and social media interactions with their fans, to producing and appearing in documentaries about climate change that help give meaning to and communicate this issue to a wider audience. The role afforded to celebrities as climate change communicators is an outcome of a political environment increasingly influenced by public relations and attuned toward the media’s representation of political ideas, policies, and sentiments. Celebrities act as representatives of mass publics, operating within centers of elite political power. At the same time, celebrities represent the environmental concerns of their audiences; that is, they embody the sentiments of their audiences on the political stage. It is in this context that celebrities have gained their authority as political, social, and environmental “experts,” and the political performances of celebrities provide important ways to engage electorates and audiences with climate change action.More recently, celebrities offer novel engagements with climate change that move beyond scientific data and facilitate more emotional and visceral connections with climate change in the public’s everyday lives. Contemporary celebrities, thus, work to shape how audiences and publics ought to feel about climate change in efforts to get them to act or change their behaviors. These “after data” moments are seen very clearly in Leonardo DiCaprio’s documentary Before the Flood. Yet, with celebrities acting as our emotional witnesses, they not only might bring climate change to greater public attention, but they expand their brand through neoliberalism’s penchant for the commoditization of everything including, as here, care and concern for the environment. As celebrities build up their own personal capital as eco-warriors, they create very real value for the “celebrity industrial complex” that lies behind their climate media interventions. Climate change activism is, through climate celebrities, rendered as spectacle, with celebrities acting as environmental and climate pedagogues framing for audiences the emotionalized problems and solutions to global environmental change. Consequently, celebrities politicize emotions in ways that that remain circumscribed by neoliberal solutions and actions that responsibilize audiences and the public.

Our world is increasingly marked by climate change, environmental degradation, and conflict over precious resources such as oil, water, and land. In each case, access to valuable resources is at stake. We require a normative account of how to share the benefits and burdens natural resources provide. But to date we have no comprehensive account of the demands of justice when it comes to natural resources. This book fills that gap. It provides a systematic account of how to think about natural resources, and the conflicting claims people have over them. It also sets out the concrete implications of that account. It criticizes the status quo in world politics, according to which resources themselves, and decisions about how to use them, are the preserve of individual states. Instead it shows that justice requires a more equal sharing of the benefits and burdens that flow from the world’s resources, and shared management of many of the world’s resources. Along the way it addresses important real-world questions such as: how should access to the resources of the oceans be shared? How good are national claims to the enormous resource wealth found in Sovereign Wealth Funds? Should we stop buying natural resources from dictators? And who should pay for conservation of valuable resources such as the world’s rainforests?

This volume presents theoretical discussions, methodological outlines, and case-studies describing the discursive overlap of the theoretical and methodological framework of historical ecology, and the emerging sub-discipline of applied archaeology. Historical ecology is based on the recognition that humans are not only capable of modifying their environments, but that all environments on earth have already been directly or indirectly modified. This includes anthropogenic climate change, widespread deforestations, and species extinctions, but also very local alterations, the effects of which may last a few years, or may have legacies lasting centuries or more. The volume presents a range of case-studies that highlight how modern environments and landscapes have been shaped by humans, and includes outlines of the methods we can use to better understand these changes. Authors include anthropologists, archaeologists, human geographers, and historians, all of whom are focussed not just on defining human impacts in the past, but on the ways that understanding these changes can help inform contemporary practices and development policies. Some present examples of how ancient or current societies have modified their environments in sustainable ways, while others highlight practices that had unintended long-term consequences. The possibility of learning from these practices are discussed, as is the potential of using the long history of human resource exploitation as a method for building or testing models of future change. Rather than merely acting as advocates for historical data, the chapters collected here also warn of the limitations of drawing simple lessons from the history of interactions between humans and their environments, and note that doing so is potentially just as damaging as ignoring these rich sources of data.

Alaska’s central gulf coast encompasses four environmentally diverse regions stretching from Prince William Sound to the Pacific coast of the Alaska Peninsula. Despite their unique geographic and biological settings, these regions have a distinct and cohesive cultural history. Here, the historic distribution of Alutiiq or Sugpiaq peoples reflects the distribution of prehistoric cultures, illustrating a broadly unified evolutionary trajectory. Archaeological data from the past 4,000 years suggest the development of prosperous, permanent villages from smaller, more fluid foraging communities through human ingenuity—the ability to harvest resources with increasing efficiency and to manage inevitable fluctuations in the availability of foods and raw materials in a productive but dynamic environment. Together, changes in climate, population growth, technological innovation, and interaction with other peoples shaped the central gulf’s ancient societies into the powerful corporate groups recorded historically.

In this book, the author shows how employees, organizations, and even friends and family are struggling to understand how the expected norms for mobile-communication connectedness function when people are working. Until the early 2000s workplaces provided most of the computers and portable devices that employees used to do their jobs and communicate with others. Now, people bring their own mobile devices to work, use them to circumvent official organizational channels, and create new norms for how communication occurs. Managers and organizations set policies, enforce rules, and create their own workarounds to navigate the ever-changing mobile-communication environment. This book draws on over two decades of research studies and fieldwork, consisting of 150 distinct interviews and focus groups, representing people in over 35 different types of jobs, to claim that people assume mobile communication is a uniform practice. Instead, the book reveals underlying—often hidden—issues of control and power that shape how people are permitted and expected to use mobiles to communicate while working. The stories and extended examples reveal a wide-ranging account of how these portable tools are used across work environments today. The book develops a grounded theory describing the ongoing negotiation for control when people use their personally owned devices while working. These lifelines integrate information, communication, and data, and they connect people in unexpected and often conflicting ways.

This bookanalyzes diverse representations of environmental moral engagement in contemporary mediated popular culture. It identifies and explores intertwining, co-constitutive, yet contrary stories of what the author terms “ecopiety” and “consumopiety” as they flow across multiple media platforms. The way these stories compete and conflict, vying for space as contested narratives in the public imagination, constitutes a central inquiry of the book. Drawing together theoretical insights from cultural studies, media studies, environmental humanities, and religious studies, the book offers a critical reading of primary source data drawn from such areas as the marketing of green consumer products, “greenwashed” corporate advertising, environmental mobile device applications, eco-themed reality television, the marketing of eco-funerals, Internet sharing of environmental tattoos, “green” fashion guides, and the media strategies of green hiphop activism. Taylor makes the case that a detailed, multichannel, cross-platform approach to cultural analysis is critical to understanding the kind of important “work” taking place as mediated popular culture plays an integral role in the “greening” of American moral sensibilities. Ecopiety delves into the complex and contested processes of remaking our world and rescripting the future in the digital age—a time when storytelling processes themselves are shaping and being shaped by new media outlets and digital sharing technologies.

Volume 7 of the Advances in Culture and Psychology series showcases cutting-edge contributions from internationally renowned culture scholars who span the discipline of culture and psychology and represent diversity in the theory and study of culture within psychology. In the first chapter, Ronald F. Inglehart presents data from countries containing over 90% of the world’s population, demonstrating that in recent decades, rising levels of economic and physical security have been reshaping human values and motivations and thereby transforming societies. In the next chapter, Zoltán Kövecses illustrates how conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) functions as a link between culture and cognition. In her chapter on cultural-developmental approaches to moral psychology, Lene Arnett Jenssen lays out life course “templates” for the three Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity. Thomas S. Weisner next illustrates how ecological theory links structural and environmental conditions to the cultural learning environments of children and the everyday routines and activities that shape the behavior and minds of children. Miriam Erez then describes research on cross-cultural similarities and differences in the area of work motivation and multicultural teams. Finally, Pawel Boski advances the concept of the cultural experiment and how it can illuminate how individuals react with resistance or tolerance when faced with cultural change.

GIS for Science: Maps for Saving the Planet, Volume 3, highlights real-world examples of scientists creating maps about saving life on Earth and preserving biodiversity. With Earth and the natural world at risk from various forces, geographic information system (GIS) mapping is essential for driving scientifically conscious decision-making about how to protect life on Earth. In volume 3 of GIS for Science, explore a collection of maps from scientists working to save the planet through documenting and protecting its biodiversity. In this volume, learn how GIS and data mapping are used in tandem with: global satellite observation forestry marine policy artificial intelligence conservation biology, and environmental education to help preserve and chronicle life on Earth. This volume also spotlights important global action initiatives incorporating conservation, including Half-Earth, 30 x 30, AI for Earth, the Blue Nature Alliance, and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The stories presented in this third volume are ideal for the professional scientist and conservationist and anyone interested in the intersection of technology and the conservation of nature. The book’s contributors include scientists who are applying geographic data gathered from the full spectrum of remote sensing and on-site technologies. The maps and data are brought to life using ArcGIS® software and other spatial data science tools that support research, collaboration, spatial analysis, and science communication across many locations and within diverse communities. The stories shared in this book and its companion website present inspirational ideas so that GIS users and scientists can work toward preserving biodiversity and saving planet Earth before time runs out.

Researchers have theories about how the interventions they are evaluating achieve effectiveness (mechanisms of action) and how best to implement them in complex environments. It is recommended that these theories are made explicit, either by drawing on existing theories from organizational, psychological, improvement science, or sociological research, or displaying programme theories specific to the intervention that show the proposed causal pathways from content of intervention to long term outcomes. These theories can shape the research questions, sampling, data collection, analysis, interpretation and reporting of any qualitative research undertaken with RCTs. Some relevant theories are introduced, with examples of how researchers have used them with qualitative research and RCTs.

This chapter brings ||Khao-a Dama perspectives from present-day Namibia into dialogue with ancient Confucianism. These two extremely different approaches find common ground in that both refract the sharp distinction often posited between anthropocentric and ecocentric approaches to environmental ethics. In each case, anthropology and history are both key to building a more nuanced perspective, drawing on the many traditions that have conceptualized humans as part of the world rather than apart from and transcendent over it. The commonalities that emerge foreground an ecological conception of human flourishing—in all its relational interconnection with the rest of nature—as the central concern of environmental ethics.

Archaeology of Domestic Landscapes of the Enslaved in the Caribbean examines the diversity of living environments that the enslaved inhabitants of the colonial Caribbean by analyzing archaeological evidence collected from a wide variety of sites across the region. Archaeological investigations of domestic architecture and artifacts illuminate the nature of household organization; fundamental changes in settlement patterns; and the manner in which power was invariably linked with the material arrangements of space among the enslaved living and working in a variety of contexts throughout the region, including plantations, fortifications, and urban centers. While research in the region has provided a considerable amount of data at the household-level, much of this work is biased towards artifact analysis, resulting in unfamiliarity with the considerations that went into constructing and inhabiting households. The chapters in this book provide detailed reconstructions of the built environments associated with slavery and account for the cultural behaviors and social arrangements that shaped these spaces. It brings together case studies of Caribbean slave settlements through historical archaeology as a means of exposing the diversity of people and practices in these various landscapes, across the British, French, Dutch, and Danish colonies in both the Greater and Lesser Antilles as well as the Bahamian archipelago.

We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary cooperation, and whether this relationship is influenced by the quality of local institutions, as proxied by corruption. We use representative data from a large-scale lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with over 1,300 participants across rural Vietnam. Our results show that inequality adversely affects aggregate contributions, and this is on account of high endowment individuals contributing a significantly smaller share than those with low endowments. This negative effect of inequality on cooperation is exacerbated in high corruption environments. We find that corruption leads to more pessimistic beliefs about others’ contributions in heterogeneous groups, and this is an important mechanism explaining our results. In doing so, we highlight the indirect costs of corruption that are understudied in the literature. These findings have implications for public policies aimed at resolving local collective action problems.

This book argues that states, rather than separatists, determine whether a secessionist struggle will be peaceful, violent, or genocidal. The book investigates the strategies, ranging from negotiated concessions to large-scale repression, adopted by states in response to separatist movements. Variations in the external security environment, the book argues, influenced the leaders of the Ottoman Empire to use peaceful concessions against Armenians in 1908 but escalated to genocide against the same community in 1915; caused Israel to reject a Palestinian state in the 1990s; and shaped peaceful splits in Czechoslovakia in 1993 and the Norway–Sweden union in 1905. Using more than one hundred interviews and extensive archival data, the book focuses on two main cases — Pakistani reactions to Bengali and Baloch demands for independence in the 1970s and India's responses to secessionist movements in Kashmir, Punjab, and Assam in the 1980s and 1990s. The book's deep historical approach to the subject will appeal to policymakers and observers interested in the last five decades of geopolitics in South Asia, the contemporary Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and ethno-national conflict, separatism, and nationalism more generally.

Trust in international actors, from nations in general to specific international governmental organizations and nationalities, can shape how citizens form judgments about international relations. This chapter examines the nature, levels, foundations, and consequences of such trust among mass publics, particularly the US public. Survey data from the past three decades reveal low levels of generalized trust in other nations. This form of trust reflects changes in the international environment along with individual-level demographics, social trust, political trust, partisanship, ideology, and media use. Trust in other nations is linked to an array of foreign policy opinions as well as evaluations of individual nations and trust in international organizations. Citizens’ beliefs about how much they can trust international actors provide them with information shortcuts for forming views about world affairs but may create obstacles to international cooperation.

Alexander Roßnagel celebrated his 70th birthday on September 13, 2020. The jubilee has shaped innovative research approaches in many areas of environmental and technology law. His interdisciplinary studies often include methodological advancements and combine specific design problems with important questions of fundamental rights and social cooperation – always aiming at responsible decisions for a socially acceptable future. The articles of the festschrift concern many facets of his work and bring together legal and interdisciplinary perspectives on essential challenges regarding the design of legal norms and innovative technologies, privacy and data protection, the conception and regulation of digitization, environmental regulation and organizational development. With contributions by Christiane Borchard, Benedikt Buchner, Alfred Büllesbach, Ernestine Dickhaut, Alexander Dix, Peter Dräxler, Christoph Ewen, Lothar Fischer, Martin Führ, Shizuo Fujiwara, Kurt Geihs, Christian Ludwig Geminn, Rüdiger Grimm, Volker Hammer, Anja Hentschel, Eric Hilgendorf, Michel-A. Horelt, Gerrit Hornung, Silke Jandt, Andreas Janson, Paul C. Johannes, Dieter Klumpp, Nicole Krämer, Michael Kreutzer, Herbert Kubicek, Robert Kuhn, Christel Kumbruck, Jörn Lamla, Philip Laue, Jan Marco Leimeister, Natalie Maier, Fabiano Menke, Hans-Jürgen Müggenborg, Günter Müller, Bernhard Nagel, Maxi Nebel, Uwe Neuser, Tadashi Otsuka, Ulrich Pordesch, Niklas Radenbach, Philipp Richter, Gerhard Roller, Peter Rott, Christoph Schnabel, Roland Steidle, Martin Steinebach, Gerd Stumme, Ali Sunyaev, Mayu Terada, Wolfgang Thaenert, Michael Waidner, Thilo Weichert, Tsuneharu Yonemaru

This book addresses the impact of EU law beyond its own borders, the use of law as a powerful instrument of EU external action, and some of the normative challenges this poses. The phenomenon of EU law operating beyond its borders, which may be termed its ‘global reach’, includes the extraterritorial application of EU law, territorial extension, and the so-called ‘Brussels Effect’ resulting from unilateral legislative and regulatory action. It also includes the impact of the EU’s bilateral relationships, and its engagement with multilateral fora and the negotiation of international legal instruments. The book maps this phenomenon across a range of policy fields, including the environment, the internet and data protection, banking and financial markets, competition policy and migration. It argues that in looking beyond the undoubtedly important instrumental function of law we can start to identify the ways in which law shapes the EU’s external identity and its relations with other legal regimes, both enabling and constraining the EU’s external action.

Self-inflicted injury (SII) is defined as a deliberate act in which a person seeks to cause bodily harm or death. The etiology and developmental course of SII are unclear. Converging evidence suggests coercive family processes may heighten risk for SII and related clinical problems among vulnerable youth. This chapter outlines a developmental theory of SII with particular attention to contextual risk factors. It proposes that risk for SII is highest when vulnerable youth are exposed repeatedly to coercive and invalidating family environments. Evidence in support of this theory is drawn from longitudinal studies of SII and borderline personality traits. The chapter also reviews data involving conflict discussion tasks with self-injuring and depressed adolescents and their mothers. Accumulating evidence suggests that coercive processes are a leading contextual mechanism that shapes behavioral and physiological dysregulation, ultimately heightening risk for self-injury and borderline personality disorder.

The book provides a novel explanation of rising Euroscepticism and right-wing populism in Western Europe. The changing political and cultural environment of recent decades is generating an ongoing realignment of voters structured by authoritarianism, which is a psychological disposition towards the maintenance of social cohesion and order at the expense of individual autonomy and diversity. High authoritarians find the values and demographic changes of the past several decades a threat to social cohesion, which has created an opportunity for populist radical right (PRR) parties to gain their support by campaigning against these perceived threats to national community posed by immigration, values change, and European integration. The result is a worldview evolution in which party conflict is shaped by the rival preferences of high and low authoritarians. Drawing on national and cross-national survey data as well as an original survey experiment, this book demonstrates how the relationship between authoritarianism and (1) attitudes towards the EU and (2) voting behaviour has evolved since the 1990s. In doing so, this book advances these literatures by providing an explanation for why certain voters are shifting towards PRR parties as electoral politics realigns.

Foreword Start-up future It has felt like Covid-19 had a stranglehold on us. But we haven‘t allowed ourselves to be defeated. On the contrary, we are taking advantage of the opportunities that arise as a result. Not only the long-overdue push towards digitalization, for example, but also the time gained by making fewer journeys. Those who show strength now and position themselves for the future will win. And that is exactly the reason why we have been preparing ELIV 2021 with such a lot of enthusiasm. As usual, we have prepared an up-to-date program with the familiar mixture of technically demanding and strategic papers and are sure that the ELIV platform will once again be a trendsetter for the automotive industry. The CASE megatrends (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, Electric) continue to disrupt the industry. In the Connect environment, there is still a struggle for user-friendly services and competition amongst digital ecosystems is in full swing. The entry of powerful central computers into electronic architectures poses major challenges for all parties involved. On the way from Level 2 to Levels 3, 4 and 5 all manufacturers are cur...

This chapter discusses the link between citizens’ positions on specific political issues and broader political cleavages that structure political competition. Issue opinions are primarily structured by two issue cleavages: economic and cultural. I argue that these broader issue cleavages are more likely to shape enduring political alignments and the party preferences of voters. The economic cleavage includes issues such as the role of the state, social services, and income inequality. The cultural cleavage has evolved from issues such as environmental protection, gender equality and European unification in the 1970s, to a wider set of issues involving immigration, LGBTQ rights, and social equality—and conservative reactions to these issues. Data from the European Election Studies (EES) in 1979, 2009, and 2014 track the evolution of both issue cleavages. The chapter conclusion considers the implications of this evolutionary process for political alignments in Europe.

American democracy is in a period of striking tumult. The clash of a rapidly changing socio-technological environment and the traditional presidency has led to an upheaval in the scope and standards of executive leadership. Research on the presidency, although abundant, has been slow to adjust to changing realities associated with digital technologies, diverse audiences, and new political practices. Meanwhile, journalists and the public continue to encounter and shape emerging presidential efforts in deeply consequential ways. This book offers a comprehensive framework for understanding contemporary presidential communication: the ubiquitous presidency. Presidents harness new opportunities in the media environment to create a nearly constant and highly visible presence in political and nonpolitical arenas. They do this by trying to achieve longstanding presidential goals, namely visibility, adaptation, and control. However, in an environment where accessibility, personalization, and pluralism are omnipresent considerations, the strategies presidents use to achieve their goals are very different from what we once knew. Using this novel framework, the book undertakes one of the most expansive analyses of presidential communication to date. A wide variety of approaches—ranging from surveys and survey-experiments, to large-scale automated content and network analyses, to qualitative textual analysis—uncover new aspects of the intricate relationship between the president, news media, and the public. Focusing on the presidency since Ronald Reagan, and devoting particular attention to the cases of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the book uncovers remarkable shifts in communication that test the institution of the presidency and, consequently, democratic governance itself.

Falls of the Ohio River presents current archaeological research on an important landscape feature: a series of low, cascading rapids along the Ohio River on the border of Kentucky and Indiana. Using the perspective of historical ecology and synthesizing data from recent excavations, contributors to this volume demonstrate how humans and the environment mutually affected each other in the area for the past 12,000 years. These essays show how the Falls region was an attractive place to live due to its diverse ecological zones and its abundance of high-quality chert. In chronological studies ranging from the Early Archaic to the Late Mississippian periods, contributors portray the rapids as at times a boundary between Native American groups living upstream and downstream and at other times a hub where cultures converged and blended into a distinct local identity. The essays analyze and track changes in stone tool styles, mortuary traditions, settlement patterns, plant consumption, and ceramic production. Together, the chapters in this volume illustrate that the Falls of the Ohio was a focal point on the human landscape throughout the Holocene era. Providing a foundation for future work in this location, they show how the region’s geography and ecology shaped the ways humans organized themselves within it and how in turn these groups impacted the area through their changing social, economic, and political circumstances.

Australians are famous for our love of the coast, although in many places this 'love' has caused serious and often irreversible impacts. The sustainable management of our society's many uses of the coast is complex and challenging. While a wealth of knowledge exists about the coast, this is not always brought to bear on decision-making. Coastal management to date has had limited success, and in some cases interventions have made problems worse. Australia's coast has been shaped by severe events such as cyclones and floods, with climate change now increasing the number and intensity of these hazards. In addition, our coastal populations are growing, and with them our social, environmental and economic vulnerability to such hazards. This book explores the evolution of coastal management, and provides critical insights into contemporary experience and understanding of coastal management in Australia. It draws on contemporary theory and lessons from case examples to highlight the roles of research and community engagement in coastal management. The book concludes with a chapter of recommendations which can help guide coastal management and research around the world.

As a speechwriter, orator, and politician, Demosthenes captured, embodied, and shaped his time. He was a key player in Athens in the twilight of the city’s independence, and today he is a primary source for her history and society in that period. The Oxford Handbook of Demosthenes sets out to explore the many facets of the man’s life, work, and time. It gives particular weight to elucidating the setting and the contexts of his activity and some key themes that the speeches deal with. It thereby illustrates the interplay and mutual influence between the rhetoric and the environment from which it emerged. In this way the handbook is an up-to-date reference to issues and problems one encounters when approaching the speeches: it showcases the role that Demosthenes’ presentation of his world has had for our view of it and how Athenian reality in turn influenced the speeches, as it formed the backdrop to which the rhetoric had to adapt. Thirty-five experts contribute to explore and enrich our knowledge of one of the most prominent figures of ancient Greece and the masterpieces he left. Their wide range of expertise and the different scholarly traditions they represent make this book a demonstration of the richness and diversity of current Demosthenic studies.

These Guidelines are one of the results of the four-year research project “Open Online Learning for Digital and Networked Society” (2017-2021). The project objective was to enable university teachers to design open and online learning through open and online learning curriculum and environment applying learning analytics as a metacognitive tool and creating open and online learning assessment and recognition practices, responding to the needs of digital and networked society. The research of the project resulted in 10 scientific publications and 2 studies prepared by Vytautas Magnus university Institute of Innovative Studies research team in collaboration with their international research partners from Germany, Spain and Portugal. The final stage of the research attempted creating open and online learning assessment and recognition practices, responding to the learner needs in contemporary digital and networked society. The need for open learning recognition has been increasing during the recent decade while the developments of open learning related to the Covid 19 pandemics have dramatically increased the need for systematic and high-quality assessment and recognition of learning acquired online. The given time also relates to the increased need to offer micro-credentials to learners, as well as a rising need for universities to prepare for micro-credentialization and issue new digital credentials to learners who are regular students, as well as adult learners joining for single courses. The increased need of all labour - market participants for frequent and fast renewal of competences requires a well working and easy to use system of open learning assessment and recognition. For learners, it is critical that the micro-credentials are well linked to national and European qualification frameworks, as well as European digital credential infrastructures (e.g., Europass and similar). For employers, it is important to receive requested quality information that is encrypted in the metadata of the credential. While for universities, there is the need to properly prepare institutional digital infrastructure, organizational procedures, descriptions of open learning opportunities and virtual learning environments to share, import and export the meta-data easily and seamlessly through European Digital Hub service infrastructures, as well as ensure that academic and administrative staff has digital competencies to design, issue and recognise open learning through digital and micro-credentials. The first chapter of the Guidelines provides a background view of the European Qualification Framework and National Qualification frameworks for the further system of gaining, stacking and modelling further qualifications through open online learning. The second chapter suggests the review of current European policy papers and consultations on the establishment of micro-credentials in European higher education. The findings of the report of micro-credentials higher education consultation group “European Approach to Micro-credentials” is shortly introduced, as well as important policy discussions taking place. Responding to the Rome Bologna Comunique 2020, where the ministers responsible for higher education agreed to support lifelong learning through issuing micro-credentials, a joint endeavour of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion and DG Research and Innovation resulted in one of the most important political documents highlighting the potential of micro-credentials towards economic, social and education innovations. The consultation group of experts from the Member States defined the approach to micro-credentials to facilitate their validation, recognition and portability, as well as to foster a larger uptake to support individual learning in any subject area and at any stage of life or career. The Consultation Group also suggested further urgent topics to be discussed, including the storage, data exchange, portability, and data standards of micro-credentials and proposed EU Standard of constitutive elements of micro-credentials. The third chapter is devoted to the institutional readiness to issue and to recognize digital and micro-credentials. Universities need strategic decisions and procedures ready to be enacted for assessment of open learning and issuing micro-credentials. The administrative and academic staff needs to be aware and confident to follow these procedures while keeping the quality assurance procedures in place, as well. The process needs to include increasing teacher awareness in the processes of open learning assessment and the role of micro-credentials for the competitiveness of lifelong learners in general. When the strategic documents and procedures to assess open learning are in place and the staff is ready and well aware of the processes, the description of the courses and the virtual learning environment needs to be prepared to provide the necessary metadata for the assessment of open learning and issuing of micro-credentials. Different innovation-driven projects offer solutions: OEPass developed a pilot Learning Passport, based on European Diploma Supplement, MicroHE developed a portal Credentify for displaying, verifying and sharing micro-credential data. Credentify platform is using Blockchain technology and is developed to comply with European Qualifications Framework. Institutions, willing to join Credentify platform, should make strategic discussions to apply micro-credential metadata standards. The ECCOE project building on outcomes of OEPass and MicroHE offers an all-encompassing set of quality descriptors for credentials and the descriptions of learning opportunities in higher education. The third chapter also describes the requirements for university structures to interact with the Europass digital credentials infrastructure. In 2020, European Commission launched a new Europass platform with Digital Credential Infrastructure in place. Higher education institutions issuing micro-credentials linked to Europass digital credentials infrastructure may offer added value for the learners and can increase reliability and fraud-resistant information for the employers. However, before using Europass Digital Credentials, universities should fulfil the necessary preconditions that include obtaining a qualified electronic seal, installing additional software and preparing the necessary data templates. Moreover, the virtual learning environment needs to be prepared to export learning outcomes to a digital credential, maintaining and securing learner authentication. Open learning opportunity descriptions also need to be adjusted to transfer and match information for the credential meta-data. The Fourth chapter illustrates how digital badges as a type of micro-credentials in open online learning assessment may be used in higher education to create added value for the learners and employers. An adequately provided metadata allows using digital badges as a valuable tool for recognition in all learning settings, including formal, non-formal and informal.

Public health is fundamentally concerned with promoting the health of populations through the prevention of disease and injury. It is, at its core, a moral endeavor, because the end it seeks is the advancement of human well-being. Vexing ethics issues are inherent in all aspects of public health practice and policy. They exist in top-of-the-news stories like infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine hesitancy, health disparities, and in more routine assessments of population health needs, data collection, program evaluation, and policy development. They may be distinctive or shared across diverse fields, such as environmental health, nutrition programs and policy, injury prevention, communicable and noncommunicable diseases, and reproductive health. This volume represents the first comprehensive examination of public health ethics in the United States and globally. The volume editors recruited top public health professionals, policy experts, and scholars in public health and ethics fields to offer varied perspectives on the diversity of the issues that define public health ethics. The volume begins with two sections examining the crosscutting conceptual foundations, ethical tensions, and ethical frameworks of and for public health and how public health does its work. It then proceeds topically, with thirteen sections analyzing the application of public health ethics considerations and approaches across the broad range of subject areas. While the fifteen sections can serve to orient the reader within a specific field, each of the more than seventy chapters is designed to serve as a stand-alone contribution. The approach makes the book, its sections, and individual chapters useful as part of course materials, as well as a seminal reference for students, scholars, and public health professionals.

As Hollywood shifts towards the digital era, the role of the media franchise has become more prominent. Over a series of essays by a range of international scholars, this edited collection argues that the franchise is now an integral element of American media culture. As such, the collection explores the production, distribution, and marketing of franchises as a historical form of media-making. In particular, the essays analyze the complex industrial practice of managing franchises across interconnected online platforms with a global scope, presenting a network of scholarly texts that critically look at the collision of new and old industrial logics against an ever more fragmented and consolidated mediascape. The authors address how traditional incumbents like film studios and television networks have responded to the rise of big data, Silicon Valley companies like Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google; the ways in which legacy franchises are adapting to new media platforms and technologies; the significant historical continuities and deviations in franchise-making and how they shape the representation of on-screen texts across digital displays; and, finally, how emerging media formats are expanding the possibility for transmedia experiences. In this regard, The Franchise Era: Managing Media in the Digital Economy offers an in-depth analysis of the tectonic shifts that have disrupted entertainment companies in the twenty-first century, demonstrating that the media franchise stands front and center in this high-stakes environment.

With its origin dating back to as early as the 500 BC, the ukkil forms part of a centuries-old woodcarving art and tradition of the Suluk, one of the many indigenous ethnic groups of Nusantara (Southeast Asia). Suluk ukkil bears striking resemblance to the Malay ukir, both featuring similar patterns and motifs. The ukkil is often used to decorate jewellery, boats, houses, grave markers, and mosques. It is also used to decorate the hilts and sheaths of bladed weapons such as the barung. The barung refers to the thick, leaf-shaped sword of the Suluk. A barung with beautifully carved hilt and sheath, especially those using expensive wood, is considered high value and usually reserved for Suluk aristocrats. This book narrates the expressions, motifs and meanings behind ukkil carved on the barung. It is based on the results of a two-year field research conducted in different districts of Sabah. It presents data gathered through various interviews with owners, elders, and subject-matter experts. It also presents data from direct observations of heirloom barung that are still found in the hands of a few Suluk and individuals from other indigenous ethnic groups. It presents new insights from analysis made using the Theory of Iconology, a framework of analyzing art popularized by German art historian Erwin Panofsky. The predominant themes of ukkil found on ancient barung in Sabah are Islamic; zoomorphic such as birds, lizards, snakes, and squids; plantomorphic such as vines, flowers, and leaves; and cultural such as those depicting local myths, culture, values and traditions of the Suluk. Each of these images and themes represent realities that shaped the daily lives of the Suluk from the past until today, including the wind, the ocean waves and sea currents, all of which are essential for travel and navigation. They also depict concepts, beliefs and practices important to the Suluk such as freedom, livelihood, aristocracy, harmony within the community, leadership, spirituality, and Islamic principles. The Suluk are a sea-faring people who have a deep relationship with their immediate environment, especially the sea. Suluk carvers draw inspiration from nature, the environment around them, their local culture, their religious practices, and their own values and ideals in life. Both the ukkil and the barung are an embodiment of their rich past, their livelihood, creativity, their faith, their principles and their values in life. Sadly, the practice of ukkil-carving is fast declining nowadays, with only very few practitioners left and so few individuals interested in learning about it. The barung too, where the ukkil is often carved on, is no longer being produced in large numbers. As the ukkil, like all forms of art, constitute an integral part of a nation’s culture and identity, it is important for it to be understood, preserved, and protected. This book provides fresh knowledge and insights that will help the Suluk and other indigenous tribes of Malaysia and Nusantara in the understanding and preservation of the ukkil as an essential aspect of their country’s or their region’s culture and heritage. This book offers historical background that will help explain the identity of the Suluk as a culturally and artistically advanced people with deep interconnection with other indigenous ethnic groups in Malaysia and the rest of Nusantara as early as the pre-colonial period. Knowledge about the ukkil can help people connect and correct their thoughts about the Suluk while at the same time promote cultural awareness and diversity among Malaysians and other people in Southeast Asia. This book will hopefully pave the way for more research to be done on the arts and culture, not just of the Suluk but also of other indigenous ethnic groups in the region as well. That knowledge will serve as a medium for keeping harmony and cultural links among each and every Malaysian and Nusantaran.

From minor nomadic tribe to major world empire, the story of the Parthians’ success in the ancient world is nothing short of remarkable. In their early history, the Parthians benefited from strong leadership, a flexible and accommodating cultural identity, and innovative military characteristics that allowed them to compete against and indeed eventually overcome Greek, Persian, Central Asian, and eventually Roman rivals who were often more powerful. Reign of Arrows provides the first comprehensive study dedicated entirely to early Parthian history within the Hellenistic world prior to contact with Rome and the first comprehensive effort since 1938 to evaluate early Parthian political history. It is a major effort to synthesize a wide array of especially recent scholarship across numerous fields of study in order to present the reader with the most cogent, well-rounded, and up-to-date account of the intersections of Hellenistic and Parthian history possible. It draws on a wide variety of sources to explain the political and military encounters that shaped the international environment of the Hellenistic Middle East from the middle third to the early first centuries BCE. This study treats broader issues of international relations in the ancient world, state decision-making, royal identity and ideology, evolving spatial perspectives and power relations, and state security concerns. It combines traditional historical approaches, such as source criticism and the integration of material evidence, with the incorporation of modern international relations theory to better examine the rise of the Parthians to dominance over the ancient Middle East.

This book reviews the rapid rise of crime and violence in Latin America over the last few decades and offers an explanation to a striking paradox: In the midst of decreasing poverty, economic growth, and democratization crime has risen throughout the region. Drawing from large data sets, I argue that this is because crime has become a profitable industry in weak states with outdated criminal justice systems unable to withstand the challenge posed by new criminal enterprises. Prosperity has enhanced consumer demand for illicit goods, fueling the growth of secondary and illegal markets, including markets for stolen goods and narcotics that can provide an income for millions of youngsters willing to take the risk of arrest and loss of life. While some countries have experienced moderate increases in criminality others have experienced catastrophic rates of violence, resulting in two types of stable equilibria: Low- and high-crime countries. I explain why different equilibria, between the profit opportunities provided by criminality and a weak criminal justice system, have triggered a rapid upward spiral of crime and a sharp increase in the intensity of violence in some states but a moderate upward trend in others, and why certain countries have transitioned from low- to high-crime environments with vicious cycles of high criminality that are very difficult to reverse. The resulting severe, undesired outcomes are studied in this book: serious predatory crime diversification, consolidation of organized crime, ineffective justice reforms, weak policing, and overcrowded prisons.

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Planetary Science. Please check back later for the full article.Mars, which has a tenth of the mass of Earth, has cooled as a single lithospheric plate. Current topography gravity maps and magnetic maps do not show signs of the plate tectonics processes that have shaped the Earth’s surface. Instead, Mars has been shaped by the effects of meteorite bombardment, igneous activity, and sedimentary—including aqueous—processes. Mars also contains enormous igneous centers—Tharsis and Elysium, with other shield volcanoes in the ancient highlands. In fact, the planet has been volcanically active for nearly all of its 4.5 Gyr history, and crater counts in the Northern Lowlands suggest that may have extended to within the last tens of millions of years. Our knowledge of the composition of the igneous rocks on Mars is informed by over 100 Martian meteorites and the results from landers and orbiters. These show dominantly tholeiitic basaltic compositions derived by melting of a relatively K, Fe-rich mantle compared to that of the Earth. However, recent meteorite and lander results reveal considerable diversity, including more silica-rich and alkaline igneous activity. These show the importance of a range of processes including crystal fractionation, partial melting, and possibly mantle metasomatism and crustal contamination of magmas. The figures and plots of compositional data from meteorites and landers show the range of compositions with comparisons to other planetary basalts (Earth, Moon, Venus). A notable feature of Martian igneous rocks is the apparent absence of amphibole. This is one of the clues that the Martian mantle had a very low water content when compared to that of Earth.The Martian crust, however, has undergone hydrothermal alteration, with impact as an important heat source. This is shown by SNC analyses of secondary minerals and Near Infra-Red analyses from orbit. The associated water may be endogenous.Our view of the Martian crust has changed since Viking landers touched down on the planet in 1976: from one almost entirely dominated by basaltic flows to one where much of the ancient highlands, particularly in ancient craters, is covered by km deep sedimentary deposits that record changing environmental conditions from ancient to recent Mars. The composition of these sediments—including, notably, the MSL Curiosity Rover results—reveal an ancient Mars where physical weathering of basaltic and fractionated igneous source material has dominated over extensive chemical weathering.

The aim of the study was to determine the influence of different disturbances (both natural and anthropogenic) on species composition and stand structure of old-growth mixed mountain forests in the Western Carpathians. These stands are usually dominated by beech, fir and spruce, mixed in different proportions. The tree main species represent different growth strategies, and they compete against each other. The longevity of trees makes the factors influencing the stand structure difficult to identify, even during longitudinal studies conducted on permanent research plots. That is why dendroecological techniques, based upon the annual variability of tree rings, are commonly used to analyze the disturbance histories of old-growth stands. Dendroecological methods make it possible to reconstruct the stand history over several centuries in the past by analyzing the frequency, intensity, duration and spatial scale of disturbances causing the death of trees. Combining the dendroecological techniques with the detailed measurements of stand structure, snag volume, CWD volume, and the analyses of regeneration species composition and structure allows us to identify the factors responsible for the changes in dynamics of mixed mountain forests. Various disturbance agents affect some species selectively, while some disturbances promote the establishment of tree seedlings of specific species by modifying environmental conditions. Describing the disturbance regime requires a broad scope of data on stand structure, on dead wood and tree regeneration, while various factors affecting all the stages of tree growth should be taken into consideration. On the basis of the already published data from permanent sample plots, combined with the available disturbance history analyses from the Western Carpathians, three research hypotheses were formulated. 1. The species composition of mixed mountain forests has been changing for at least several decades. These directional changes are the consequence of simultaneous conifer species decline and expansion of beech. 2. The observed changes in species composition of mixed mountain forests are the effect of indirect anthropogenic influences, significantly changing tree growth conditions also in the forests that are usually considered natural or near-natural. Cumulative impact of these indirect influences leads to the decrease of fir share in the tree layer (spruce decline has also been observed recently),and it limits the representation of this species among seedlings and saplings. The final effect is the decrease of fir and spruce share in the forest stands. 3. Small disturbances, killing single trees or small groups of trees, and infrequent disturbances of medium size and intensity dominate the disturbance regime in mixed mountain forests. The present structure of beech-fir-spruce forests is shaped both by complex disturbance regime and indirect anthropogenic influences. The data were gathered in permanent sample plots in strictly protected areas of Babia Góra, Gorce, and Tatra National Parks, situated in the Western Carpathians. All plots were located in the old-growth forest stands representing Carpathian beech forest community. The results of the measurements of trees, snags, coarse woody debris (CWD) and tree regeneration were used for detailed description of changes in the species composition and structure of tree stands. Tree ring widths derived from increment cores were used to reconstruct the historical changes in tree growth trends of all main tree species, as well as the stand disturbance history within the past two to three hundred years. The analyses revealed complex disturbance history in all of the three forest stands. Intermediate disturbances of variable intensity occurred, frequently separated by the periods of low tree mortality lasting from several decades up to over one hundred years. The intervals between the disturbances were significantly shorter than the expected length of forest developmental cycle, in commonly used theories describing the dynamics of old-growth stands. During intermediate disturbances up to several dozen percent of canopy trees were killed. There were no signs of stand-replacing disturbances, killing all or nearly all of canopy trees. The periods of intense tree mortality were followed by subsequent periods of increased sapling recruitment. Variability in disturbance intensity is one of the mechanisms promoting the coexistence of beech and conifer species in mixed forests. The recruitment of conifer saplings depended on the presence of larger gaps, resulting from intermediate disturbances, while beech was more successful in the periods of low mortality. However, in the last few decades, beech seems to benefit from the period of intense fir mortality. This change results from the influence of long-term anthropogenic disturbances, affecting natural mechanisms that maintain the coexistence of different tree species and change natural disturbance regimes. Indirect anthropogenic influence on tree growth was clearly visible in the gradual decrease of fir increments in the twentieth century, resulting from the high level of air pollution in Europe. Synchronous decreases of fir tree rings’ widths were observed in all three of the sample plots, but the final outcomes depended on the fir age. In most cases, the damage to the foliage limited the competitive abilities of fir, but it did not cause a widespread increase in tree mortality, except for the oldest firs in the BGNP (Babia Góra National Park) plot. BGNP is located in the proximity of industrial agglomeration of Upper Silesia, and it could be exposed to higher level of air pollution than the other two plots. High level of fir regeneration browsing due to the deer overabundance and insufficient number of predators is the second clear indication of the indirect anthropogenic influence on mixed mountain forests. Game impact on fir regeneration is the most pronounced in Babia Góra forests, where fir was almost completely eliminated from the saplings. Deer browsing seems to be the main factor responsible for limiting the number of fir saplings and young fir trees, while the representation of fir among seedlings is high. The experiments conducted in fenced plots located in the mixed forests in BGNP proved that fir and sycamore were the most preferred by deer species among seedlings and saplings. In GNP (Gorce National Park) and TNP (Tatra National Park), the changes in species composition of tree regeneration are similar, but single firs or even small groups of firs are present among saplings. It seems that all of the analysed mixed beech-fir-spruce forests undergo directional changes, causing a systematic decrease in fir representation, and the expansion of beech. This tendency results from the indirect anthropogenic impact, past and present. Fir regeneration decline, alongside with the high level of spruce trees’ mortality in recent years, may lead to a significant decrease in conifers representation in the near future, and to the expansion of beech forests at the cost of mixed ones.

An analysis of the existing literature on the issue of damage to regeneration caused by timber harvesting, revealed that a great majority of results reported in those publications was obtained through laborious and time-consuming field research conducted in two stages. Field research methods for gathering data, employed by various authors, differed in terms of the manner of establishing trial plots, the accuracy of counting and evaluating the number of saplings growing on the investigated sites, classification systems used for distinguishing particular groups of regeneration based on quantitative (diameter at breast height, tree height) and qualitative features (biosocial position within the certain layer and the entire stand), classification systems used for identifying types of damage caused by cutting and felling, as well as transporting operations, and finally the duration of observation intervals and time spent on gathering data on the response of damaged saplings from both, the individual and collective perspectives. Obviously, the most reliable manner of gathering such data would be to count all damaged elements of the environment being a subject of interest of particular investigators at the certain point of time. However, due to time and work consumption of this approach, which is besides very costly, any research should be designed in such a manner as to reduce the above-mentioned factors. This paper aimed to (1) analyse the probability of occurrence of damage to regeneration depending on the form of timber assortments dragged from the felling site to the skidding routes, and timber harvesting technology employed in logging works, and (2) identify a method ensuring that gathered data is sufficient for performing reliable evaluation of share of damage to regeneration at acceptable accuracy level, without necessity to establish trial plots before commencing harvesting works. The scope of these studies enclosed a comparison between two motor-manual methods of timber harvesting in thinned stands, with dragging of timber in the first stage of skidding from the stand to landings. According to one of these methods, a classical one, operations of felling and delimbing of trees were carried out by sawmen at the felling site. Timber obtained using different methods was skidded by carters and horses, and operators of a light-duty cable winch, driven by the chainsaw’s engine, as well as operators of cable winches combined with farm tractors. In the latter, alternative method, sawmen performed only cutting and felling of trees. Delimbing and cross-cutting of trunks, dragged from the felling sites, was carried out by operators of processors combined with farm tractors, worked on skidding routes. The research was conducted in the years 2002–2010 in stands within the age classes II–IV mostly, located in the territories of Regional Directorates of State Forests in Krakow and Katowice, and in the Forest Experimental Unit in Krynica-Zdrój. In the course of a preliminary stage of investigations 102 trial plots were established in stands within early and late tinning treatments. As a result of the field research carried out in two stages, more than 3.25 thsd. circular sites were established and marked, on the surface of which over 25 thsd. saplings constituting the regeneration layer were inventoried. Based on the results of investigations and analyses it was revealed that regardless of the category of thinning treatment, the highest probability of occurrence of destroying P(ZN) to regeneration (0.24–0.44) should be expected when the first stage of timber skidding is performed using cable winches. Slightly lower values of probability (0.17–0.33) should be expected in stands where timber is skidded by horses, while in respect to processor-based skidding technology the probability of destroying occurrence oscillates between 0.12 and 0.27, depending on the particular layer of regeneration. P(ZN) values, very close to those of skidding technology engaging processors, were recorded for skidding performed using the light-duty cable winch driven by the chainsaw’s engine (0.16–0.27). The highest probability of damage P(USZK) to regeneration (0.16–0.31) can be expected when processors are used in the first stage of timber skidding. Slightly lower values of probability (0.14–0.23) were obtained when skidding was performed with the use of cable winches, whereas engaging horses for hauling of trunks results in probability of damage occnrrence oscillating between 0.05–0.20, depending on the particular layer of regeneration. With regard to the probability of occurrence of both, destroying and damage P(ZNUSZK) to regeneration (0.33–0.54), the highest values can be expected when cable winches are engaged in the first stage of skidding. Little lower (0.30–0.43) was the probability of their occurrence if processor-based technology of skidding was employed, while in respect to horse skidding these values oscillated between 0.27–0.41, depending on the layer of regeneration. The lowest values of probability of occurrence of damage P(USZK), and destroying and damage treated collectively P(ZNUSZK), within all layers of regeneration, were recorded in stands where thinning treatments were performed using the light-duty cable winch driven by the chainsaw’s engine. The models evaluated and respective equations, developed based on those models, for evaluating the number of destroyed saplings ZNha (tab. 40, 42, 44, 46, 48) could be used for determining the share of damage expressed as a percentage, upon conducting only one field research at the investigated felling sites, once the timber harvesting and skidding would have been completed. As revealed by the results of analyses, evaluation of statistically significant regression models was possible for all layers of regeneration (tab. 39, 41, 43, 45, 47). Nevertheless, the smallest part of these models that could be considered positively verified, were those for the natural young regeneration, although almost a half of them revealed to be significant. Within the medium-sized regeneration over three-fourths of all models could be considered positively verified, four of which explained more than 50% of variability. Within the high-sized regeneration almost two-thirds of evaluated regression models were statistically significant, five of which were verified positively, moreover, one of them explained more than 50% of variability. The most promising results were those obtained for the advance growth. Nearly 90% of the evaluated models revealed to be statistically significant, ten of which could be considered positively verified. Furthermore, four statistically significant models explained over 50% of general variability. With regard to the entire regeneration more than 80% of evaluated models were statistically significant. However, due to insignificant coefficients of regression, eight of them could be considered positively verified. At this point it should be stressed that in respect to logging technology employing the light-duty cable winch FKS it was impossible to evaluate statistically significant models of regression. Whereas, in the case of processor-based logging technology, firstly regarding the advance growth, and then the entire regeneration, all of the evaluated statistically significant models could be considered positively verified, in terms of both, all of the stands, and particular categories of thinning treatments individually. This latter case also revealed the highest degree of matching of evaluated models (R2 popr 0.73–0.76 for advance growth and 0.78–0.94 for the entire regeneration). A significant impact of the kind of form of hauled timber on the probability of damage occurrence P(USZK), mainly in early thinning treatments, could have been reflected in the results obtained for all stands (early and late thinning treated collectively). Moreover, due to an insignificant impact of the form of hauled timber and logging technology employed, on the probability of occurrence of damage in late thinned stands, and a significant impact of the above-mentioned variables on early thinned stands, it should be assumed that for performing an evaluation of destroying and damage caused by timber harvesting the both thinning treatment categories should be analysed separately. Furthermore, when evaluating the probability of occurrence of destroying and damage caused by timber harvesting, the layers of natural young regeneration and advance growth should be analysed separately. As proved by the results presented in this paper, varying values of probability computed for each of the layers of regeneration seem to indicate that when investigating damage to regeneration caused by timber harvesting, it would be reasonable and recommended to perform a separate analysis of damage to the highest saplings as well, namely individuals with diameter at breast height close to 7 cm. In respect to studies on damage to regeneration caused by logging technologies mentioned above, the evaluation of number of destroyed saplings within the advance growth can be carried out using the proportions of damaged and undamaged saplings per 1 ha of the stand. The numbers evaluated in this manner can be used to calculate the damage share expressed in relative values (percentage of damaged saplings compared with the entire number of saplings before commencing the logging works). However, one should keep in mind that this is true only if the field research have been carried out based on the methodology described in this paper.

Horseradish roots, due to the content of many valuable nutrients and substances with healing and pro-health properties, are used more and more in medicine, food industry and cosmetics. In Poland, the cultivation of horseradish is considered minor crops. In addition, its limited size causes horseradish producers to encounter a number of unresolved agrotechnical problems. Infectious diseases developing on the leaves and roots during the long growing season reduce the size and quality of root crops. The small range of protection products intended for use in the cultivation of horseradish generates further serious environmental problems (immunization of pathogens, low effectiveness, deterioration of the quality of raw materials intended for industry, destruction of beneficial organisms and biodiversity). In order to meet the problems encountered by horseradish producers and taking into account the lack of data on: yielding, occurrence of infectious diseases and the possibility of combating them with methods alternative to chemical ones in the years 2012–2015, rigorous experiments have been carried out. The paper compares the impact of chemical protection and its reduced variants with biological protection on: total yield of horseradish roots and its structure. The intensification of infectious diseases on horseradish leaves and roots was analyzed extensively. Correlations were examined between individual disease entities and total yield and separated root fractions. A very important and innovative part of the work was to learn about the microbial communities involved in the epidemiology of Verticillium wilt of horseradish roots. The effect was examined of treatment of horseradish cuttings with a biological preparation (Pythium oligandrum), a chemical preparation (thiophanate-methyl), and the Kelpak SL biostimulator (auxins and cytokinins from the Ecklonia maxima algae) on the quantitative and qualitative changes occurring in the communities of these microorganisms. The affiliation of species to groups of frequencies was arranged hierarchically, and the biodiversity of these communities was expressed by the following indicators: Simpson index, Shannon–Wiener index, Shannon evenness index and species richness index. Correlations were assessed between the number of communities, indicators of their biodiversity and intensification of Verticillium wilt of horseradish roots. It was shown that the total yield of horseradish roots was on average 126 dt · ha–1. Within its structure, the main root was 56%, whereas the fraction of lateral roots (cuttings) with a length of more than 20 cm accounted for 26%, and those shorter than 20 cm for 12%, with unprofitable yield (waste) of 6%. In the years with higher humidity, the total root yield was higher than in the dry seasons by around 51 dt · ha–1 on average. On the other hand, the applied protection treatments significantly increased the total yield of horseradish roots from 4,6 to 45,3 dt · ha–1 and the share of fractions of more than 30 cm therein. Higher yielding effects were obtained in variants with a reduced amount of foliar application of fungicides at the expense of introducing biopreparations and biostimulators (R1, R2, R3) and in chemical protection (Ch) than in biological protection (B1, B2) and with the limitation of treatments only to the treatment of cuttings. The largest increments can be expected after treating the seedlings with Topsin M 500 SC and spraying the leaves: 1 × Amistar Opti 480 SC, 1 × Polyversum WP, 1 × Timorex Gold 24 EC and three times with biostimulators (2 × Kelpak SL + 1 × Tytanit). In the perspective of the increasing water deficit, among the biological protection methods, the (B2) variant with the treatment of seedlings with auxins and cytokinins contained in the E. maxima algae extract is more recommended than (B1) involving the use of P. oligandrum spores. White rust was the biggest threat on horseradish plantations, whereas the following occurred to a lesser extent: Phoma leaf spot, Cylindrosporium disease, Alternaria black spot and Verticillium wilt. In turn, on the surface of the roots it was dry root rot and inside – Verticillium wilt of horseradish roots. The best health of the leaves and roots was ensured by full chemical protection (cuttings treatment + 6 foliar applications). A similar effect of protection against Albugo candida and Pyrenopeziza brassicae was achieved in the case of reduced chemical protection to one foliar treatment with synthetic fungicide, two treatments with biological preparations (Polyversum WP and Timorex Gold 24 EC) and three treatments with biostimulators (2 × Kelpak SL, 1 × Tytanit). On the other hand, the level of limitation of root diseases comparable with chemical protection was ensured by its reduced variants R3 and R2, and in the case of dry root rot, also both variants of biological protection. In the dry years, over 60% of the roots showed symptoms of Verticillium wilt, and its main culprits are Verticillium dahliae (37.4%), Globisporangium irregulare (7.2%), Ilyonectria destructans (7.0%), Fusarium acuminatum (6.7%), Rhizoctonia solani (6.0%), Epicoccum nigrum (5.4%), Alternaria brassicae (5.17%). The Kelpak SL biostimulator and the Polyversum WP biological preparation contributed to the increased biodiversity of microbial communities associated with Verticillium wilt of horseradish roots. In turn, along with its increase, the intensification of the disease symptoms decreased. There was a significant correlation between the richness of species in the communities of microbial isolates and the intensification of Verticillium wilt of horseradish roots. Each additional species of microorganism contributed to the reduction of disease intensification by 1,19%.

Bones are multifunctional passive organs of movement that supports soft tissue and directly attached muscles. They also protect internal organs and are a reserve of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium. Each bone is covered with periosteum, and the adjacent bone surfaces are covered by articular cartilage. Histologically, the bone is an organ composed of many different tissues. The main component is bone tissue (cortical and spongy) composed of a set of bone cells and intercellular substance (mineral and organic), it also contains fat, hematopoietic (bone marrow) and cartilaginous tissue. Bones are a tissue that even in adult life retains the ability to change shape and structure depending on changes in their mechanical and hormonal environment, as well as self-renewal and repair capabilities. This process is called bone turnover. The basic processes of bone turnover are: • bone modeling (incessantly changes in bone shape during individual growth) following resorption and tissue formation at various locations (e.g. bone marrow formation) to increase mass and skeletal morphology. This process occurs in the bones of growing individuals and stops after reaching puberty • bone remodeling (processes involve in maintaining bone tissue by resorbing and replacing old bone tissue with new tissue in the same place, e.g. repairing micro fractures). It is a process involving the removal and internal remodeling of existing bone and is responsible for maintaining tissue mass and architecture of mature bones. Bone turnover is regulated by two types of transformation: • osteoclastogenesis, i.e. formation of cells responsible for bone resorption • osteoblastogenesis, i.e. formation of cells responsible for bone formation (bone matrix synthesis and mineralization) Bone maturity can be defined as the completion of basic structural development and mineralization leading to maximum mass and optimal mechanical strength. The highest rate of increase in pig bone mass is observed in the first twelve weeks after birth. This period of growth is considered crucial for optimizing the growth of the skeleton of pigs, because the degree of bone mineralization in later life stages (adulthood) depends largely on the amount of bone minerals accumulated in the early stages of their growth. The development of the technique allows to determine the condition of the skeletal system (or individual bones) in living animals by methods used in human medicine, or after their slaughter. For in vivo determination of bone properties, Abstract 10 double energy X-ray absorptiometry or computed tomography scanning techniques are used. Both methods allow the quantification of mineral content and bone mineral density. The most important property from a practical point of view is the bone’s bending strength, which is directly determined by the maximum bending force. The most important factors affecting bone strength are: • age (growth period), • gender and the associated hormonal balance, • genotype and modification of genes responsible for bone growth • chemical composition of the body (protein and fat content, and the proportion between these components), • physical activity and related bone load, • nutritional factors: – protein intake influencing synthesis of organic matrix of bone, – content of minerals in the feed (CA, P, Zn, Ca/P, Mg, Mn, Na, Cl, K, Cu ratio) influencing synthesis of the inorganic matrix of bone, – mineral/protein ratio in the diet (Ca/protein, P/protein, Zn/protein) – feed energy concentration, – energy source (content of saturated fatty acids - SFA, content of polyun saturated fatty acids - PUFA, in particular ALA, EPA, DPA, DHA), – feed additives, in particular: enzymes (e.g. phytase releasing of minerals bounded in phytin complexes), probiotics and prebiotics (e.g. inulin improving the function of the digestive tract by increasing absorption of nutrients), – vitamin content that regulate metabolism and biochemical changes occurring in bone tissue (e.g. vitamin D3, B6, C and K). This study was based on the results of research experiments from available literature, and studies on growing pigs carried out at the Kielanowski Institute of Animal Physiology and Nutrition, Polish Academy of Sciences. The tests were performed in total on 300 pigs of Duroc, Pietrain, Puławska breeds, line 990 and hybrids (Great White × Duroc, Great White × Landrace), PIC pigs, slaughtered at different body weight during the growth period from 15 to 130 kg. Bones for biomechanical tests were collected after slaughter from each pig. Their length, mass and volume were determined. Based on these measurements, the specific weight (density, g/cm3) was calculated. Then each bone was cut in the middle of the shaft and the outer and inner diameters were measured both horizontally and vertically. Based on these measurements, the following indicators were calculated: • cortical thickness, • cortical surface, • cortical index. Abstract 11 Bone strength was tested by a three-point bending test. The obtained data enabled the determination of: • bending force (the magnitude of the maximum force at which disintegration and disruption of bone structure occurs), • strength (the amount of maximum force needed to break/crack of bone), • stiffness (quotient of the force acting on the bone and the amount of displacement occurring under the influence of this force). Investigation of changes in physical and biomechanical features of bones during growth was performed on pigs of the synthetic 990 line growing from 15 to 130 kg body weight. The animals were slaughtered successively at a body weight of 15, 30, 40, 50, 70, 90, 110 and 130 kg. After slaughter, the following bones were separated from the right half-carcass: humerus, 3rd and 4th metatarsal bone, femur, tibia and fibula as well as 3rd and 4th metatarsal bone. The features of bones were determined using methods described in the methodology. Describing bone growth with the Gompertz equation, it was found that the earliest slowdown of bone growth curve was observed for metacarpal and metatarsal bones. This means that these bones matured the most quickly. The established data also indicate that the rib is the slowest maturing bone. The femur, humerus, tibia and fibula were between the values of these features for the metatarsal, metacarpal and rib bones. The rate of increase in bone mass and length differed significantly between the examined bones, but in all cases it was lower (coefficient b <1) than the growth rate of the whole body of the animal. The fastest growth rate was estimated for the rib mass (coefficient b = 0.93). Among the long bones, the humerus (coefficient b = 0.81) was characterized by the fastest rate of weight gain, however femur the smallest (coefficient b = 0.71). The lowest rate of bone mass increase was observed in the foot bones, with the metacarpal bones having a slightly higher value of coefficient b than the metatarsal bones (0.67 vs 0.62). The third bone had a lower growth rate than the fourth bone, regardless of whether they were metatarsal or metacarpal. The value of the bending force increased as the animals grew. Regardless of the growth point tested, the highest values were observed for the humerus, tibia and femur, smaller for the metatarsal and metacarpal bone, and the lowest for the fibula and rib. The rate of change in the value of this indicator increased at a similar rate as the body weight changes of the animals in the case of the fibula and the fourth metacarpal bone (b value = 0.98), and more slowly in the case of the metatarsal bone, the third metacarpal bone, and the tibia bone (values of the b ratio 0.81–0.85), and the slowest femur, humerus and rib (value of b = 0.60–0.66). Bone stiffness increased as animals grew. Regardless of the growth point tested, the highest values were observed for the humerus, tibia and femur, smaller for the metatarsal and metacarpal bone, and the lowest for the fibula and rib. Abstract 12 The rate of change in the value of this indicator changed at a faster rate than the increase in weight of pigs in the case of metacarpal and metatarsal bones (coefficient b = 1.01–1.22), slightly slower in the case of fibula (coefficient b = 0.92), definitely slower in the case of the tibia (b = 0.73), ribs (b = 0.66), femur (b = 0.59) and humerus (b = 0.50). Bone strength increased as animals grew. Regardless of the growth point tested, bone strength was as follows femur > tibia > humerus > 4 metacarpal> 3 metacarpal> 3 metatarsal > 4 metatarsal > rib> fibula. The rate of increase in strength of all examined bones was greater than the rate of weight gain of pigs (value of the coefficient b = 2.04–3.26). As the animals grew, the bone density increased. However, the growth rate of this indicator for the majority of bones was slower than the rate of weight gain (the value of the coefficient b ranged from 0.37 – humerus to 0.84 – fibula). The exception was the rib, whose density increased at a similar pace increasing the body weight of animals (value of the coefficient b = 0.97). The study on the influence of the breed and the feeding intensity on bone characteristics (physical and biomechanical) was performed on pigs of the breeds Duroc, Pietrain, and synthetic 990 during a growth period of 15 to 70 kg body weight. Animals were fed ad libitum or dosed system. After slaughter at a body weight of 70 kg, three bones were taken from the right half-carcass: femur, three metatarsal, and three metacarpal and subjected to the determinations described in the methodology. The weight of bones of animals fed aa libitum was significantly lower than in pigs fed restrictively All bones of Duroc breed were significantly heavier and longer than Pietrain and 990 pig bones. The average values of bending force for the examined bones took the following order: III metatarsal bone (63.5 kg) <III metacarpal bone (77.9 kg) <femur (271.5 kg). The feeding system and breed of pigs had no significant effect on the value of this indicator. The average values of the bones strength took the following order: III metatarsal bone (92.6 kg) <III metacarpal (107.2 kg) <femur (353.1 kg). Feeding intensity and breed of animals had no significant effect on the value of this feature of the bones tested. The average bone density took the following order: femur (1.23 g/cm3) <III metatarsal bone (1.26 g/cm3) <III metacarpal bone (1.34 g / cm3). The density of bones of animals fed aa libitum was higher (P<0.01) than in animals fed with a dosing system. The density of examined bones within the breeds took the following order: Pietrain race> line 990> Duroc race. The differences between the “extreme” breeds were: 7.2% (III metatarsal bone), 8.3% (III metacarpal bone), 8.4% (femur). Abstract 13 The average bone stiffness took the following order: III metatarsal bone (35.1 kg/mm) <III metacarpus (41.5 kg/mm) <femur (60.5 kg/mm). This indicator did not differ between the groups of pigs fed at different intensity, except for the metacarpal bone, which was more stiffer in pigs fed aa libitum (P<0.05). The femur of animals fed ad libitum showed a tendency (P<0.09) to be more stiffer and a force of 4.5 kg required for its displacement by 1 mm. Breed differences in stiffness were found for the femur (P <0.05) and III metacarpal bone (P <0.05). For femur, the highest value of this indicator was found in Pietrain pigs (64.5 kg/mm), lower in pigs of 990 line (61.6 kg/mm) and the lowest in Duroc pigs (55.3 kg/mm). In turn, the 3rd metacarpal bone of Duroc and Pietrain pigs had similar stiffness (39.0 and 40.0 kg/mm respectively) and was smaller than that of line 990 pigs (45.4 kg/mm). The thickness of the cortical bone layer took the following order: III metatarsal bone (2.25 mm) <III metacarpal bone (2.41 mm) <femur (5.12 mm). The feeding system did not affect this indicator. Breed differences (P <0.05) for this trait were found only for the femur bone: Duroc (5.42 mm)> line 990 (5.13 mm)> Pietrain (4.81 mm). The cross sectional area of the examined bones was arranged in the following order: III metatarsal bone (84 mm2) <III metacarpal bone (90 mm2) <femur (286 mm2). The feeding system had no effect on the value of this bone trait, with the exception of the femur, which in animals fed the dosing system was 4.7% higher (P<0.05) than in pigs fed ad libitum. Breed differences (P<0.01) in the coross sectional area were found only in femur and III metatarsal bone. The value of this indicator was the highest in Duroc pigs, lower in 990 animals and the lowest in Pietrain pigs. The cortical index of individual bones was in the following order: III metatarsal bone (31.86) <III metacarpal bone (33.86) <femur (44.75). However, its value did not significantly depend on the intensity of feeding or the breed of pigs.