Managing sustainable farmed landscape through 'alternative' food networks: a case study from Italy

This paper focuses on a case study of an 'alternative' food network based in the Abruzzo National Park, Italy, to explore how ideas of sustainable farmland management can be expressed through broader understandings of developing networks of care concerned with local economies and societies, high-quality specialist food products, particular 'traditional' farming practices and livestock breeds, as well as the ecology of a farmed landscape. The scheme allows customers, internationally as well as in Italy, to 'adopt' a milking sheep on a large mountain farm. In return, adopters are sent food products from the farm. The adoption scheme is inter-twined with an agri-tourism project which provides accommodation, runs a restaurant and engages in educational activities. The scheme is the result of the individual initiative of its founder, and is associated with a strongly expressed ethical position concerning the value of sustaining valued local rural landscapes and lifestyles, and the importance of 'reconnecting' urban dwellers with rural areas, farming and 'quality' food production. Yet the localness of the scheme is sustained through wider national and international networks: volunteer and paid workers are drawn from several European countries, funding has been acquired from the EU LEADER programme, and internet and transport technologies are essential in connecting with and supplying an international customer base. The broader economy of care instanced in this case study draws attention to a need to develop strategies for sustainable farmland management constructed around wider programmes of social, economic and cultural, as well as environmental, concern.     

推进煤矸石资源化利用的对策建议

煤矸石是我国排放量和堆存量最大的工业固体废弃物之一，但又是可以利用的资源，只要加以资源化利用，就能会变废为宝。在研究我国煤矸石综合利用现状的基础上，指出了煤矸石综合利用中存在的主要问题，从制定规划、完善经济政策、加强法制建设等方面提出了加快推进煤矸石资源化利用的建议。     

ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK CORRECTION OF ROUGH ERRORS OF OBSERVATIONS

In the context of tower measured radiation datasets.following the correction principle meetinga diagnostic equation in data quality control and in terms of a technique for model construction ondata and ANN(artificial neural network)retrieval for BP correction of radiation measurementswith rough errors available,a BP model is presented.Evidence suggests that the developed modelworks well and is superior to a convenient multivariate linear regression model,indicating its wideapplications.     

Impact of Southern Oscillation on the Frequency of Monsoon Depressions in the Bay of Bengal

The impact of Southern Oscillation on thecyclogenesis over the Bay of Bengal duringthe summer monsoon has been investigated.The analysis of correlation coefficients(CCs) between the frequency of monsoondepressions and the Southern OscillationIndex (SOI) reveals that more depressionsform during July and August of El Niñoyears. Due to this, the seasonal frequencyof monsoon depressions remains little higherduring El Niño epochs even though thecorrelations for June and September are notsignificant. The CCs for July and August aresignificant at the 99% level.The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)is known to affect Indian MonsoonRainfall (IMR) adversely. The enhancedcyclogenesis over the Bay of Bengal duringJuly and August is an impact of ENSO whichneeds to be examined closely. Increasedcyclogenesis over the Bay of Bengal may bereducing the deficiency in IMR duringEl Niño years by producing more rainfallover the eastern parts of India duringJuly and August. Thus there is a considerablespatial variation in the impact of ENSOon the monsoon rainfall over India and El Niñoneed not necessarily imply a monsoonfailure everywhere in India.The area of formation of monsoon depressionsshifts eastward during El Niño years.Warmer sea surface temperature (SST) anomaliesprevail over northwest and adjoiningwestcentral Bay of Bengal during premonsoon andmonsoon seasons of El Niño years.May minus March SOI can provide useful predictionsof monsoon depression frequencyduring July and August.     

Application of genetic BP network to discriminating earthquakes and explosions

Introduction Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is an important branch of artificial intelligence. It is proposed on the foundation of the study on modern neural science, is a man-made network that can implement some functions based on the mans comprehensive understanding for cerebral neural network (HAN, WANG, 1997). ANN is a mathematical model of simplified human brain neural network and is used to simulate the structures and functions of human brain neural network. ANN is a complex netw…     

ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK CORRECTION OF ROUGH ERRORS OF OBSERVATIONS*

In the context of tower measured radiation datasets.following the correction principle meeting a diagnostic equation in data quality control and in terms of a technique for model construction on data and ANN (artificial neural network) retrieval for BP correction of radiation measurements with rough errors available,a BP model is presented.Evidence suggests that the developed model works well and is superior to a convenient multivariate linear regression model,indicating its wide applications.     

Power of the Mann–Whitney test for detecting a shift in median or mean of hydro-meteorological data

 The non-parametric Mann–Whitney (MW) statistic test has been popularly used to assess the significance of a shift in median or mean of hydro-meteorological time series. It has been considered that the test is more suitable for non-normally distributed data and it may be not sensitive to the distribution type of sample data. However, no evidence has been provided to demonstrate these. This study investigates the power of the test in various circumstances by means of Monte Carlo simulation. Simulation results demonstrate that the power of the test is very sensitive to various properties of sample data. The power depends on the pre-assigned significance level, magnitude of a shift, sample size, and its occurrence position within a time series; and it is also strongly affected by the variation, skewness, and distribution type of a time series. The bigger the magnitude of a shift, the more powerful the test is; the larger the sample size, the more powerful the test is; and the bigger the variation within a time series, the less power the test has. The test has the highest power if a shift occurs at the midpoint of a time series. For the samples with different distribution types, the power of the test is dramatically different. The test has the highest power for time series with the extreme value type III (EV3) distribution while it indicates the lowest power for time series with the lognormal distribution.     

Sedimentary cycles of trace elements in Salawusu River Valley since 150 ka BP

The paper makes some analyses on 11 trace elements in the Milanggouwan stratigraphical section in the Salawusu River valley, which is regarded as a prototype geology-palaeoclimate record since 150 ka BP. The results show that the content and variation of trace elements has experienced remarkably regular changes in the pace with coarse and fine sedimentary cycles of palaeo-aeolian sands to its overlying fluvio-lacustrine facies or/and palaeosols. The trace elements with chemical properties of relatively active (V, Sr, Cu, Ni, As) and relatively stable (P, Pb, Rb, Mn, Nb, Zr) are a manifestation of the corresponding 27 changeable cycles between peak and valley values, appearing a multi-fiuctuational process line of relative gathering and migration since then. The low numerical value distribution of these two types of trace elements in the aeolian sand facies represents erosion and accumulation under wind force during the cold-dry climate. Whereas their enrichments in both fluvio-lacustrine facies and palaeosols are related to the valley’s special low-lying physiognomic position between the Ordos Plateau and the Loess Plateau under the warm and humid climate conditions. The above relatively migrated and gathered change of the trace elements is the result of 27 climatic cycles of cold-dry and warm-humid, which is probably caused by repeated alternations of winter monsoon and summer monsoon in the Mu Us Sandy Land influenced by the climate vicissitudes in northern hemisphere during glacial and interglacial periods since 150 ka BP.     

Study of weathering processes developed on old piedmont surfaces in Western Spain: new contributions to the interpretation of the “Raña” profiles

The Hercynian basement of the Iberian Peninsula was uplifted by the Alpine orogeny during the Tertiary. It gave rise to a set of block mountains and tectonic grabens, one of which is the Ciudad Rodrigo Basin. It is located in Western Spain and forms a westward extension of the great Tertiary Duero Basin. The sediments filling this graben are of continental origin, their ages ranging from Palaeogene to Quaternary. Morphologically, the southern part of this basin forms a set of piedmont surfaces (the “Raña” surfaces) appearing above the terrace system of the present rivers. This paper examines the weathering processes developed over these old piedmont surfaces using micromorphological, XR diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and microporosity techniques.The Raña sediments are rich in quartzite pebbles and gravel within a clayey matrix. Once deposited, these materials underwent important in situ weathering processes under somewhat hydromorphic conditions, of which hydrolysis, ferrolysis and xerolysis were the most important. All these processes gave rise to: (1) transformation of most of the clasts of shists and slates into a matrix causing the destruction of the original sedimentary structures and a relative concentration of the resistant lithologies (quartzites and quartz); (2) important changes in the clay fraction, leading to a predominance of kaolinite in the upper levels of the profiles, (3) release of elements from primary minerals, Fe being one of the most important, and (4) redistribution of matter, mainly clay and Fe oxyhydroxides, within the profiles.The coexistence of seasonal periods with pF higher than 4.2 repeated over a long time, together with poor internal and external drainage conditions, are the cause of the special features displayed by Raña deposits.     

略论目标规划及交互方法在小康示范村规划中的实践--以西藏贡嘎县沃拉村为例

建设全面小康社会是我国本世纪头20年的核心内容,目前已经有越来越多的人加入到这一研究领域中,该领域的规划研究工作正在逐渐加强。本文以西藏贡嘎县沃拉村为例,介绍了目标规划及交互方法小康示范村规划中的实践,讨论了规划的过程、建模方法及模型的精度等问题,认为在研究人员的指导下,由村民学习并建模的方法是今后小康村规划的发展方向。