Synthesis in Estuarine and Coastal Ecological Research: What Is It,Why Is It Important,and How Do We Teach It?

During the last two decades, there has been growing interest in the integration of existing ideas and data to produce new synthetic models and hypotheses leading to discovery and advancement in estuarine and coastal science. This essay offers an integrated definition of what is meant by synthesis research and discusses its importance for exploiting the rapid expansion of information availability and for addressing increasingly complex environmental problems. Approaches and methods that have been used in published synthetic coastal research are explored and a list of essential steps is developed to provide a foundation for conducting synthetic research. Five categories of methods used widely in coastal synthesis studies are identified: (1) comparative cross-system analysis, (2) analysis of time series data, (3) balance of cross-boundary fluxes, (4) system-specific simulation modeling, and (5) general systems simulation modeling. In addition, diverse examples are used to illustrate how these methods have been applied in previous studies. We discuss the urgent need for developing curricula for classroom and experiential teaching of synthesis in coastal science to undergraduate and graduate students, and we consider the societal importance of synthetic research to support coastal resource management and policy development. Finally, we briefly discuss the crucial challenges for future growth and development of synthetic approaches to estuarine and coastal research.     

It’s not what you eat but how and that you eat: Social media,counter-discourses and disciplined ingestion among amateur competitive eaters

This article interrogates how social media can provide a platform for contesting dominant discourses. It does so through the lens of competitive eating, demonstrating that amateur competitive eaters use social media sites to challenge and subvert mass media representations of their sport while concomitantly upholding normative notions of healthy eating and bodies. Competitors consider themselves to be skilful athletes that discipline and train their bodies to eat. They regard their eating practices, which are often depicted in the mass media as uncontrolled and gluttonous, as controlled ingestion, and present an alternative perspective of their ‘sport’ – a perspective that stresses health, physical expertise and a fit, trained body over voracity and insatiability. Social media acts as a ‘precipitating agency’ for the creation of these alternative definitions of disciplined eating, as well as the construction of new digital eating identities. Instead of focusing on the food being ingested and the ‘Carnivalesque’ practice of competitive eating, we draw attention to the performers’ voices and the ways they attend to the mechanics of gurgitation, including methods of chewing, swallowing and stomach stretching, and their ability to manage, regulate and operate ingestivity. As hegemonic discourses align the notion of ‘good eating’ to discipline, order and restraint, competitive eating is thus revealed to be a practice that mirrors and appropriates, yet also ultimately reproduces, conventional narratives. Social media is, in turn, shown to be a political tool for counter-discursive practices that are produced in dialogue with, and concomitantly uphold and contest, normative discourses of mass media.     

Preparation of Cristobalite and It’s Thermal Characteristics

The thermal characteristic of cristobalite plays an important role in the application of casting industry. Because the phase transition of silica glass and cristobalite has low volume change, the block cristobalite had been manufactured by calcining fused silica ceramic, the XRD, SEM and thermal characteristics of the cristobalite had been tested. The result shows the formation of porous structure in the block cristobalite, and thermal expansion rate of the phase transition of β/αcristobalite reaches 1.5% at the temperature range of 250-290 ℃.     

Is there Link between the Type of the Volumetric Strain Curve and Elastic Constants, Porosity, Stress and Strain Characteristics ?

The stress [crack damage stress (σ _cd) and uniaxial compressive strength (σ _c)] and strain characteristics [maximum total volumetric strain (ε _cd), axial failure strain (ε _af)], porosity (n) and elastic constants [elastic modulus (E) and Poisson’s ratio (ν)] and their ratios were coordinated with the existence of two different types (type 1 and type 2) of volumetric strain curve. Type 1 volumetric strain curve has a reversal point and, therefore, σ _cd is less than the uniaxial compressive strength (σ _c). Type 2 has no reversal point, and the bulk volume of rock decreases until its failure occurs (i.e., σ _cd = σ _c). It is confirmed that the ratio between the elastic modulus (E) and the parameter λ = n/ε _cd strongly affects the crack damage stress (σ _cd) for both type 1 and type 2 volumetric strain curves. It is revealed that heterogeneous carbonate rock samples exhibit different types of the volumetric strain curve even within the same rock formation, and the range of σ _cd/σ _c = 0.54–1 for carbonate rocks is wider than the range (0.71 < σ _cd/σ _c < 0.84) obtained by other researchers for granites, sandstones and quartzite. It is established that there is no connection between the type of the volumetric strain curve and values of n, E, σ _cd, ν, E/(1 ? 2ν), M _R = E/σ _c and E/λ. On the other hand, the type of volumetric strain curve is connected with the values of λ and the ratio between the axial failure strain (ε _af) and the maximum total volumetric strain (ε _cd). It is argued that in case of small ε _af/ε _cd–small λ, volumetric strain curve follows the type 2.     

Place,identity and stigma: blocks and the ‘blockies’ of Tara,Queensland, Australia

This article explores the role of geographical context in generating a stigmatised identity among residents of Tara rural subdivisions in the coal seam gas fields in Queensland’s Western Downs. The research was based on qualitative interviews with Tara ‘Blockies’, as these residents are commonly referred to, that revealed how their existence in the middle of an agrarian region resulted in the assignation of a stigma that has marked them as different, and subsequently devalued their status. We explain that this distinction and category division of the normals, referring to Tara’s Agrarian residents, from the ‘stigmatised’ led to an antagonistic relationship that prevented successful socio-cultural assimilation. We demonstrate how an immoral place becomes disadvantaged, resulting in poor well-being, and how imposed labels threaten the self-esteem of its occupants.     

Land–sea carbon and nutrient fluxes and coastal ocean CO2 exchange and acidification: Past,present, and future

Epochs of changing atmospheric CO₂ and seawater CO₂–carbonic acid system chemistry and acidification have occurred during the Phanerozoic at various time scales. On the longer geologic time scale, as sea level rose and fell and continental free board decreased and increased, respectively, the riverine fluxes of Ca, Mg, DIC, and total alkalinity to the coastal ocean varied and helped regulate the C chemistry of seawater, but nevertheless there were major epochs of ocean acidification (OA). On the shorter glacial–interglacial time scale from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to late preindustrial time, riverine fluxes of DIC, total alkalinity, and N and P nutrients increased and along with rising sea level, atmospheric PCO₂ and temperature led, among other changes, to a slightly deceasing pH of coastal and open ocean waters, and to increasing net ecosystem calcification and decreasing net heterotrophy in coastal ocean waters. From late preindustrial time to the present and projected into the 21st century, human activities, such as fossil fuel and land-use emissions of CO₂ to the atmosphere, increasing application of N and P nutrient subsidies and combustion N to the landscape, and sewage discharges of C, N, P have led, and will continue to lead, to significant modifications of coastal ocean waters. The changes include a rapid decline in pH and carbonate saturation state (modern problem of ocean acidification), a shift toward dissolution of carbonate substrates exceeding production, potentially leading to the “demise” of the coral reefs, reversal of the direction of the sea-to-air flux of CO₂ and enhanced biological production and burial of organic C, a small sink of anthropogenic CO₂, accompanied by a continuous trend toward increasing autotrophy in coastal waters.     

Community resilience,latent resources and resource scarcity after an earthquake: Is society really three meals away from anarchy?

Immediately after an earthquake event, how long people survive in place using their limited resources is relatively unknown, as is the behavioural response to resource scarcity. Computer-aided personal interviews were conducted with 172 householders to examine how many days people believed they were able to shelter in place without official aid in a simulated earthquake event, taking into account not only the water, food and medicine they had stockpiled, but also the availability of less obvious sources (such as water in the hot water cylinder or food from gardens). Based on recommended daily resource allowances, after a 3-day period without aid, 46 % of people had run out of at least one of these necessary resources and this increased to 90 % of people after 7 days. After a 7-day period without official aid, there is an increase in people’s perceived willingness to (1) ask for assistance from neighbours (but a reduction in people’s willingness to offer aid to others), (2) commit less socially acceptable acts (such as breaking into an empty house to take food and water) and (3) commit unsafe acts (such as drinking unpurified water). The results are discussed with regard to particular post-disaster social behaviours and how social norms shift as people adapt to survive.     

Contests and struggle: Cotton farmers and COTTCO in Rushinga district,Zimbabwe, 1999–2006

The paper examines the relations between farmers and The Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (COTTCO) in Rushinga district of Zimbabwe. Based on interviews with farmers and secondary data, it examines the practice of side marketing of contracted seed cotton. While a large body of literature has discussed the social and economic effects of contract farming on farmers, there are less critical studies on side marketing of crops by farmers in unstable economic and political environment such as Zimbabwe. The paper demonstrates that farmers taking advantage of the macroeconomic environment in Zimbabwe violated contracts by selling seed cotton to other buyers. In the process, farmers renegotiated the meaning of the contract and appealed to market rationality embedded in the neo-liberal ideology. For these farmers, side marketing was part of a survival strategy, albeit in imperfect markets and a difficult economic environment. Nonetheless, side marketing of seed cotton strained relations between farmers and COTTCO. The paper shows the tensions in contracts that require regulation by the state and the neo-liberal ideology that promote free markets and argue against strong regulation.     

The Hissar–Alay and the Pamirs: Deep-Seated Structure,Geodynamic Model,and Experimental Evidence

The structural and geodynamic features of the Pamirs and the Hissar–Alay have been revealed based on geological and geophysical evidence supplemented by experimental data. It has been shown that both the Pamirs and the Hissar–Alay are geodynamic systems, the formation of which is related to interference of two geodynamic regimes: (i) global orogeny covering extensive territories of Eurasia and determining their similarity and (ii) regional regimes differing for the Pamirs and the Alay, which act independently within Central Asian and Apline–Himalayan mobile belts, respectively. The Pamirs do not act as an indentor during the formation of structure of the Hissar–Alay and areas to the north. It is stated that the Pamir–Alay segment of Asia is a reflection of the geodynamic countermotion setting (3D flow of mountain masses) of several distinct segments of the continental lithosphere, while the Pamirs are an intracontinental subduction domain at the surface, which represents a special tectonic–geodynamic type of structures.     

Power,perception, and adaptation: Exploring gender and social–environmental risk perception in northern Guanajuato,Mexico

This paper examines how gender relations within rural communities in north-central Mexico affect women’s perceptions of and responses to environmental and social risks. Several studies currently exist which suggest various reasons as to how people especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change perceive their risks, and how this influences their responses. In this paper, I take a feminist approach to questions of social–environmental risks and adaptation to argue that risk perception is tightly linked to knowledge production, and knowledge production is a power-laden process involving the constant negotiation of resources, responsibilities and knowledge. I base this argument on the results of fieldwork conducted from September 2009 to May 2010 with women residents of two ejidos in northern Guanajuato, Mexico. In drawing from feminist political ecology studies, I intend to show how gender, environmental knowledge, risk perception and thus, adaptation are constituted by and embedded in social relations of power.     

Is REDD+ effective,efficient, and equitable? Learning from a REDD+ project in Northern Cambodia

REDD+ is a global scale climate change mitigation program aiming at creating financial values for carbon stored in forests. According to the proponents, REDD+ is an effective, efficient, and equitable mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Some scholars question this assumption, and some call for further analysis to understand how REDD+ can contribute to economic, environmental, and social goals, and what are the synergies and trade-offs between them. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate about whether REDD+ projects can be brought to accommodate economic (efficiency), environmental (effectiveness), and social (equity) concerns at the same time by drawing on own field results from a REDD+ project in Cambodia. The paper follows three tracks. The first is to develop and explain the conceptual and analytical framework for our empirical investigations. The second is to explain the field results. The third track is to discuss what general lessons can be learnt. Our case illustrates some of the mechanisms that are likely to work against the willingness and ability of REDD+ projects to ensure local people’s net-gains, and the risk that effectiveness and equity will suffer if REDD+ projects rely solely on the private market. Our case thus indicates a tension between the objectives of creating financial value from carbon stored in trees through the private market, and environmental and social equity concerns. However, we call for more comparative studies of REDD+ projects, and hope our conceptual framework can assist such studies.     

Theory and context in analyzing livelihoods,land use,and land cover: Lessons from Petén,Guatemala

Most studies on the causes of deforestation have sought to link the phenomenon to specific economic, political, or demographic factors, usually through statistical or spatial-statistical modeling. However, generalizations about the link between deforestation and specific variables or classes of variables are of questionable validity. Another approach, one that is receiving growing attention, seeks instead to identify particular contexts or situations, as created by an array of interacting factors, which encourage forms of land use or other economic activity that can generate deforestation pressure. Such an approach was used in this study to explore recent trends and dynamics in the Petén region of northern Guatemala. The research found a number of regional and national scale factors that in combination have led to a process of de-agrarianization and dispossession among smallholders, while large scale, commercial activities in agriculture, ranching and plantation forestry increasingly dominate. Rapid land concentration, in conjunction with limited employment generation through emergent activities, is intensifying pressure on remaining areas of forest. A focus on two distinct areas within Petén reveals how broader-scale trends and features can have differing outcomes at the local level, with contrasting socioeconomic and environmental effects. Finally, the paper explores the implications of recent dynamics in Petén for both policy and theory in relation to deforestation, agrarian change, and regional development. Key factors and questions are highlighted that should be considered when exploring influences on regional socioeconomic and environmental conditions.     

Fourier’s heat conduction equation: History, influence, and connections

The equation describing the conduction of heat in solids has, over the past two centuries, proved to be a powerful tool for analyzing the dynamic motion of heat as well as for solving an enormous array of diffusion-type problems in physical sciences, biological sciences, earth sciences, and social sciences. This equation was formulated at the beginning of the nineteenth century by one of the most gifted scholars of modern science, Joseph Fourier of France. A study of the historical context in which Fourier made his remarkable contribution and the subsequent impact his work has had on the development of modern science is as fascinating as it is educational. This paper is an attempt to present a picture of how certain ideas initially led to Fourier’s development of the heat equation and how, subsequently, Fourier’s work directly influenced and inspired others to use the heat diffusion model to describe other dynamic physical systems. Conversely, others concerned with the study of random processes found that the equations governing such random processes reduced, in the limit, to Fourier’s equation of heat diffusion. In the process of developing the flow of ideas, the paper also presents, to the extent possible, an account of the history and personalities involved. Reprinted by permission from theAmerican Geophysical Union, @ 1999. Originally published inReviews of Geophysics as “Fourier’s Heat Conduction Equation: History, Influence and Connections,” Vol. 37, issue 1, pages 151–172, February 1999. Appended here are eight figures of historical importance.     

Upper Cretaceous amber from Vendée,north-western France: Age dating and geological,chemical, and palaeontological characteristics

The Upper Cretaceous lignite deposits of La Garnache, Vendée (north-western France), consist of two lignitic clay series, Garnache 1 and Garnache 2, separated by a fault. The first series cropped out to the south of the fault during road works until 2002 but is now covered by an embankment. It has provided numerous pieces of amber containing arthropod and micro-organism inclusions. The second lignitic series, exposed to the north of the fault, is rich in fossil wood but devoid of amber. Palynological analysis of Garnache 1 revealed several Normapolles species belonging to the genera Atlantopollis, Complexiopollis, Osculapollis, Plicapollis and Trudopollis, but larger forms typical of Senonian deposits are absent. By contrast, Garnache 2 proved to be dominated taxonomically and numerically by spores (Appendicisporites, Camarozonosporites, Gleicheniidites, Patellasporites, Stereisporites), associated with a few gymnosperm (Cerebropollenites, Phyllocladidites, Classopollis) and angiosperm (Liliacidites, Retitricolpites and a single specimen of the Normapolles Complexiopollis) taxa. Garnache 1 is, therefore, younger than Garnache 2, the latter being clearly Cenomanian in age whereas Garnache 1 is more likely to be Turonian. Lignitic clay of Garnache 1 contains numerous translucent, orange to red, pieces of amber. Vendean amber is rich in aquatic arthropods, such as tanaids and epicarideans (Crustacea), as well as marine or brackish siliceous micro-organisms such as diatoms and sponge spicules. These aquatic inclusions indicate that resin-producing trees grew along and close to the seashore. The amber-bearing clay was deposited in a calm, estuarine or lagoonal, muddy environment.     

Scaling struggles over land and law: Autonomy,investment, and interlegality in Myanmar’s borderlands

This article explores the relevance of spatial global legal pluralism—an emerging field at the interstices of geography, anthropology, and socio-legal studies—for research on the global land rush, and the study of land law and investment in particular. I argue that a focus on the spatial dimensions of law—coupled with attention to the interlegality, scalar politics, and spatio-temporalities of semi-autonomous law—offers important insights into the dynamic forces, actors, and stakes in the global land rush. In Myanmar, the prospects for peace—however tenuous—have led to an acceleration of land law development including the creation of ‘semi-autonomous land law’ by ethnic armed groups and activists in its borderlands. I discuss the ways in which such policies not only anticipate peace but seek to shape its political-economy over multiple spatio-temporalities. By recognizing both international human rights law and customary law, such ‘non-state’ laws bring these two scales into an intermediary legal jurisdiction, contributing to the sedimentation of Kawthoolei and Kachinland as political scales in their own right.     

Impacts,volcanism and mass extinction: random coincidence or cause and effect?

Large impacts are credited with the most devastating mass extinctions in Earth's history and the Cretaceous?–?Tertiary (K/T) boundary impact is the strongest and sole direct support for this view. A review of the five largest Phanerozoic mass extinctions provides no support that impacts with craters up to 180 km in diameter caused significant species extinctions. This includes the 170 km-diameter Chicxulub impact crater regarded as 0.3 million years older than the K/T mass extinction. A second, larger impact event may have been the ultimate cause of this mass extinction, as suggested by a global iridium anomaly at the K/T boundary, but no crater has been found to date. The current crater database suggests that multiple impacts, for example comet showers, were the norm, rather than the exception, during the Late Eocene, K/T transition, latest Triassic and the Devonian?–?Carboniferous transition, but did not cause significant species extinctions. Whether multiple impacts substantially contributed to greenhouse warming and associated environmental stresses is yet to be demonstrated. From the current database, it must be concluded that no known Phanerozoic impacts, including the Chicxulub impact (but excluding the K/T impact) caused mass extinctions or even significant species extinctions. The K/T mass extinction may have been caused by the coincidence of a very large impact (>?250 km) upon a highly stressed biotic environment as a result of volcanism. The consistent association of large magmatic provinces (large igneous provinces and continental flood-basalt provinces) with all but one (end-Ordovician) of the five major Phanerozoic mass extinctions suggests that volcanism played a major role. Faunal and geochemical evidence from the end-Permian, end-Devonian, end-Cretaceous and Triassic/Jurassic transition suggests that the biotic stress was due to a lethal combination of tectonically induced hydrothermal and volcanic processes, leading to eutrophication in the oceans, global warming, sea-level transgression and ocean anoxia. It must be concluded that major magmatic events and their long-term environmental consequences are major contributors, though not the sole causes of mass extinctions. Sudden mass extinctions, such as at the K/T boundary, may require the coincidence of major volcanism and a very large Impact.