ABSTRACT: In this study, we constructed an integrated framework of a farming–breeding–bioenergy system to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories of various farming and breeding processes in the northeast region of China from 2000 to 2021 based on life cycle assessment. Then, we compared the emission differences between the farming–breeding–bioenergy integrated system and the traditional farming–breeding system in different production segments. Finally, we assessed the environmental impact of the integrated system on agricultural GHG emissions. Results showed that the main sources of GHG emissions in Northeast China include enteric fermentation, fertilizer application, crop energy reduction, crop cultivation, and manure management. Emission hotspots also showed a trend of shifting from south to north and from east to west. In terms of environmental impact intensity, the largest increase in environmental impact intensity values among the farming and breeding systems was recorded in Heilongjiang Province (0.36) and Inner Mongolia (0.13), respectively. In terms of mitigation effects, the farming and breeding systems showed a considerable amount of residual straw and manure that can be fed into bioenergy systems, at 1 801.47 and 394.12 Mt, respectively. The farming–breeding–bioenergy integrated system demonstrated mitigating effects on agricultural GHG emissions.
Benaissa Chaimae, Rossi Abdelhamid, Bouhmadi Belkacem
et al.
This study aims to investigate the physical, chemical, and bacteriological quality of water derived from both a well and a spring across three distinct periods (2008, 2012, and 2021) in both summer and winter. These sampling points are situated within the urbanized area of Al Hoceima and serve as crucial sources of drinking water for a substantial portion of the city's population due to their proximity to the city center. The water hardness values observed at these natural points ranged from 5.9 to 82 (°F), categorizing the water from these sources as very hard. Furthermore, the Piper diagram revealed chemical facies characterized by chlorinated sodium and calcium magnesium sulfate. The elevated concentrations of sodium and chloride were attributed to the proximity of the Mediterranean Sea shoreline. Analysis of bacteriological parameters in these waters uncovered notable contamination by fecal germs. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the water samples identified two primary groups, elucidated by two factors that collectively account for 79.37% of the variance. The first factor (50.11%) is linked to gypsum dissolution and marine intrusion, while the second factor (29.26%) is associated with external contributions such as anthropogenic pollution.
Background and aim. Despite the use of drinking hydrogen rich water both in clinical and sports medicine, further research into the mechanisms of its beneficial effect remains relevant. We found that both Naftussya bioactive water per se and combined balneotherapy have an ambiguous effect on physical performance. It was also found that the preventive use of “Truskavetska” bottled water, the chemical composition of which is somewhat similar to that of Naftussya bioactive water, has both similar and different effects on the post-stress parameters of rats. We set ourselves the goal of finding out the possibility of correcting the effect of "Truskavetska" bottled water on the post-stressor state of the neuro-endocrine-immune complex, as well as the endurance of rats by enriching it with hydrogen.
Material and methods. The experiment is at 26 female Wistar rats purposefully divided into three homogeneous (according to the swimming test and HRV parameters) groups. 5 animals remained intact with free access to regular daily water. Rats of the control group (n=4) for 7 days loaded through a tube with “Truskavetska” bottled table water (2 mL once), while the animals of main group (n=17) received the same water, but enriched with Hydrogen. After completing the preconditioning course, a repeated swimming stress test was performed. The next day after stressing, a number of parameters of the neuro-endocrine-immune complex and metabolism were recorded.
Results. Hydrogen rich water (HRW) minimizes the post-stressor increase in sympathetic tone and adrenal mass, and prevents the increase in catecholamines and corticosterone as well as plasma cells in the blood and rod-shaped neutrophils in the spleen. On the other hand, HRW prevents a post-stressor decrease in the intensity of macrophage phagocytosis and the bactericidal capacity of blood microphages, the content of lymphoblasts in the thymus, the activity of both antioxidant enzymes and vagal tone, and also minimizes the decrease in the content of eosinophils in the blood, non-alpha-lipoprotein cholesterol in the serum, and the mass of the spleen, in addition, the reduced content of plasma cells in the spleen reverses to an excess. Finally, the non-stress-responsive parameters of the control animals: the activity of AlT, CPhK, AsT and diene conjugates of the serum, the content of reticulocytes and Hassal’s bodies in the thymus - under the influence of HRW increase to one degree or another. Importantly, this also applies to the duration of swimming until exhaustion. A strong canonical correlation was found between the activity of antioxidant enzymes, on the one hand, and metabolic-endocrine (R=0.959) and immune (R=0.959) sets, on the other hand.
Conclusion. Enrichment of "Truskavetska" bottled table water with hydrogen generally has a favorable effect on its stress-limiting and actotropic capacity, associated with antioxidant activity.
Zilberova Inna, Novoselova Irina, Petrov Konstantin
et al.
Housing and public utility services constitute one of the most important sectors of the national economy. Reforming and renewal of the housing and public utility services sector is unthinkable without technological modernization of the utility pipeline networks. At the same time, public utility infrastructure facilities in many cities and towns of Russia can be characterized by significant deterioration. Frequent accidents negatively affect the life support of populated areas, which urges the development of organizational and technological approaches to the reconstruction of municipal infrastructure facilities.
The urban planning process is complex, involving social, economic, environmental, and political systems. Knowledge of how these systems interact is the domain of professional planners. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) present planners with a ripe opportunity to critically assess their approaches and explore how new data collection, analysis, and methods can augment the understanding of places as they seek to anticipate futures with improved quality of life. AI can offer access to more and better information about travel patterns, energy consumption, land utilization, and environmental impacts, while also helping to better integrate these systems, which is what planners do. The adoption process will likely be gradual and involve significant time and resources. This article highlights several topics and issues that should be considered during this process. It is argued that planners will be well-served by approaching AI tools in a strategic manner that involves the topics discussed here.
Geography. Anthropology. Recreation, Social Sciences
E. Samadpour Shahrak, H. Sattari Sarbangholi, M. S. Moosavi
One of the crucial factors for the presence of more people outdoors is to create comfortable conditions. This issue is significant for the elderly due to the different physical conditions. The purpose of this study is to improve the micro-climatic condition around residential complexes considering the elderly in a linear type. For this purpose, two physical indicators, the ratio of the height of buildings to their distance from each other (H/D) and the orientation of them towards the street, were investigated. Regarding H/D, ratios of 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2, and about the orientation factor, angles of 135° to 200° were examined. This study was conducted outdoors around residential complexes in Iran, Tabriz, with a cold semi-arid climate. Envi-met software model 4.4.5 was used for the simulation. The days June 22 and December 22, 2020 were selected as one of the hottest and coldest day of the year. Two indexes of the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and the Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) were examined as essential thermal comfort indexes. Also, for validation, local and field data in six days (21, 22, 23 June in summer and 21, 22, 23 December in winter) were extracted and compared with the data of the software. The results display, the ratio of H/D=1.5 and the angles of 135° and 145° were the most suitable comfort conditions.
The key to determine the performance of fuzzy inference inversion is to select a reasonable domain. However, there is no universal method for selecting domain at present. According to the characteristics of heat flux of geothermal heat source and the research of fuzzy inference inversion process, this paper modified the fuzzy inference method from two aspects of domain setting and iteration termination condition. The recommended domain and selection scheme for solving the problem of geothermal heat flux are given, and the modified fuzzy inference inversion method is applied to Rucheng geothermal field to verify the method. The results showed that the modified fuzzy inference inversion method could overcome the problem that the solution of the traditional method fell into a cycle, and the relative error of the verification term was less than 5%. Compared with the traditional method, the modified method greatly improved the computational efficiency, and the number of iterations was reduced to only 7. This method has a good application prospect for geothermal heat source inversion and resource evaluation.
European museums (of ethnography) and the material culture under their custody — a large portion of which was collected by the soldiers, explorers, and professional looters of the colonial era — are increasingly confronted by formerly colonized countries and Indigenous communities demanding the repatriation of their cultural patrimony. In this context, more and more ancestral human remains become the protagonists of their descendants’ concerted efforts to bring them back home and offer them a reburial. Recognized as having been brought to Europe and its museums primarily as specimens for the racial theories that scientifically abetted the colonial agendas of power and control, these bones now find themselves at the center of the contemporary scenario of Europe’s — delayed — reckoning with its colonial past. From an anthropological point of view, the current potential for repatriation to their native lands (and their capacity to acquire a ‘repatriatable’ status) should not be pinned down to singular meanings. Indeed, from their long museum sojourns and their unfolding repatriation adventures to their troubling stories of colonial acquisition, the reclaimed remains seem to condense diverse temporalities. Analytically speaking, this paper suggests that the bones’ ‘repatriatable status’ does not entail their entrapment within a discursive system of binary oppositions, but their emergence as social persons that could be paralleled to other classical person-like ‘things’ in anthropology: the art objects of Alfred Gell, or the Maussian gift. Through such a theorization, the repatriatable remains are empowered to teach us that the social dramas around their potential return are not necessarily about the infliction of closure, but the activation of incessant cycles of reciprocity. Repatriation then, can be narrated otherwise: not as a story of resolution, but as one of irreducible ambiguity.
Language and Literature, Social sciences (General)
This article investigates the contradictions that characterize Mobile, Alabama’s Joe Cain Day celebration. We look at the official narratives that established Mobile’s Mardi Gras origin myths and the event’s tradition invention in 1967 with a People’s Parade centered around Cain’s redface character, Chief Slacabamorinico. Then we discuss the complicated and ever-evolving symbolism surrounding the character by discussing more recent iterations of this public performance. In its inception, the Joe Cain celebration was a clear example of Lost Cause nostalgia, yet it has been adopted, adapted, and embraced by historically marginalized people who use it as a way to claim their space in the festivities. Employing both historical and ethnographic research, we show that carnival can simultaneously be a space for defiance and reaffirmation of social hierarchies and exclusionary discourses. We discuss here some of the concrete material elements that lend this public performance its white supremacist subtext, but we also want to complicate the definition of “materiality” by claiming a procession as a Confederate monument/memorial.
Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology, Communities. Classes. Races
Md. Nasif Ahsan, Amina Khatun, Md. Sariful Islam
et al.
Cyclone early warning systems are the primary sources of information that enable people to develop a preparedness strategy to mitigate the hazards of cyclones to lives and livelihoods. In Bangladesh, cyclone early warnings have significantly decreased the number of cyclone related fatalities over the last two decades. Nevertheless, several challenges remain for existing early warning services (EWS), urging for both technical and non-technical improvements in the said services. Given limited financial resources, the economic efficiency assessment of the improvement is highly important. Therefore, this study aims to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) for improved warning services by considering the at-risk households' trade-off between proposed improved EWS and existing EWS in coastal Bangladesh. Applying systematic random sampling, 490 respondent households were selected from Khulna, Satkhira, and Barguna districts, with whom a choice experiment (CE) was performed. The CE was designed by incorporating impact-based scenarios for improved EWS. As analytical tools, Conditional and Mixed-Logistic regression models were used that derived the WTP for improved EWS attributes. Empirical results show that the WTP of an at-risk household for improved EWS was estimated at Bangladeshi Taka BDT 468 (≈ US$ 5.57) per year, implying respondents were ready to pay for the improvement of the warning attributes, including precise information of the cyclones landfall time with possible impacts, more frequent radio forecasts, and voice messages in the local dialects over mobile phones. A revenue stream for improved EWS was developed, implying investments in EWS would be a no-regrets approach. This study concludes with four policy recommendations on mitigating the existing challenges for improving EWS in Bangladesh. Keywords: Cyclone, Bangladesh, Early warning, Disaster risk, Willingness-to-pay, Choice experiment
Artykuł jest analizą zmian pozycji studiów nad samorządami lokalnymi w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej w głównych nurtach nauki europejskiej. Autorzy odwołują się do teorii rozwoju zależnego (Wallerstein, Prebish) zastosowanej do nauki, traktując Europę Środkowo--Wschodnią jako region półperyferyjny. Analiza empiryczna składa się z dwóch części. Pierwsza, o charakterze jakościowym, to przegląd najważniejszych badań porównawczych samorządów europejskich w ostatnim ćwierćwieczu wraz z określeniem miejsca Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej i badaczy z tego regionu. Druga – ilościowa – oparta jest na analizie artykułów publikowanych w renomowanych międzynarodowych czasopismach oraz ich cytowań notowanych w bazie Scopus. Wśród autorów opracowań poświęconych samorządom w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej wyróżnieni zostali autorzy lokalni oraz „kolonizatorzy” – badacze pracujący w uniwersytetach krajów Europy Zachodniej i Ameryki. Analiza obejmuje 14 krajów Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej (wszystkie nowe kraje członkowskie UE oraz kraje bałkańskie – Albanię, Macedonię i Serbię).
Introduction and Background: The issue of identity in general and urban identity in particular has a great importance because of the role that play in recognizing individuals, objects, communities and places. In spite of the importance of this issue, urban identity crisis is alarming in recent times. Natural elements, physical and socio-cultural components are three main elements identifying that conditions and characteristics of each of them determining their role in the identity of the city.
Aims: The main purpose of this study is investigate and identify the urban identity component of Sabzevar with emphasis on identifying the mentioned factors by citizens.
Methodology: This research method was of descriptive-analytic type. The data were collected through a document (library) method and a survey (questionnaire) method. The statistical population has been people over 15 years old of Sabzevar, who had been residence in this city for at least 5 years. The research units is Individual and samples are obtained using by Cochran formula a sample of 384 people.
Conclusion: The results show that on the basis relative frequency of recognized elements by the respondents, according to the group of synthetic and physical components with 44.21 percent, natural components with 30.29 percent and the human factor (25.49 percent) to be accounted as the most significant components of identity of Sabzevar city. Also citizens place attachment as one of elements of identity which is more than average level. Another result of this study is that among the 30 physical element of streets, squares and parks named by respondents, with the exception of 2 cases that are located in the city new part, the rest have taken place in old and central mid regions. In addition, these results indicate that there is no significant difference between the knowledge of residences regarding identity elements of physical and built environment of the city